Another Lens To Peer Through

It’s a sign.

After Tyler hung up last night*, I lay there staring at my ceiling, not feeling the slightest bit of fatigue. Irritated at the wasted time, I plugged my cellphone in and hopped out of bed to grab a copy of the New Yorker. Thanks, Ivy.
EDITION: September 22nd, 2008
I’d waded through a couple pieces on the Babar book series, a childhood favorite, and the parallel between an author’s life experiences and his work before landing on an article about Spike Lee. It was twelve pages long, eleven without the title photo.
I was originally planning to skip over it in favor of a lighter read, but I was intrigued by the shot of Spike on the second page. He had on a serious expression that most would find intimidating- I found it endearing. His shirt was black, with white letters proclaiming “OBAMA IS THE NEW BLACK”. His stance was simultaneously very forward and laid back, with one foot propped up displaying an Air Jordan sneaker (there was a reference to this later on in the article).

Some would find his expression intimidating- I found it endearing.

He looked like the type of person I would genuinely want to be friends with.

By the end of the article, I was caught by a sudden desire to direct. This was nothing new- I’d considered the role of director before, an interest rather than an already-developed talent to add to my “jack-of-all-trades”. However, I’d very quickly dismissed it because, well, there were so many other trades and interests in this collection that I’d already honed to better degrees.
Last night, this obstacle struck me as very stupid.

So?

Spike didn’t know he wanted to direct until later on in life, and was most likely talented at quite a few other things, sports included. Look what he became.

—-

The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed, very much looking forward to an uneventful day of rest- the first in perhaps a week. I wound up in my dad’s room, going through his closet and replacing some ties that had somehow slithered off their designated hanger and onto the floor to mingle with the hairballs.
As I was checking his suit jackets for stains, something prompted me to look upward. There were boxes, piled one on top of the other, a couple depicting unopened childhood toys, another… a camcorder? My interest piqued, I grabbed my dad’s chair and promptly hopped on top of it, intending to bring down whatever I found.

Among my discoveries were a doorag (W-T-F?! My uber-asian father…?), a leather baseball cap with which I was very pleased, scarves, a neon pink scarf which I intend to style as a skirt, and not one but TWO camcorders.
Perhaps I’m just overanalyzing as usual. But discovering two camcorders the morning after I read Spike’s article and resolved to look into film?

I slid my hand behind the strap, wrapping my fingers around the camcorder and flicking the switches with my index. It felt good.

*”Last night”; 2/2/09

Poetry That Sings

Townsend Harris High School
Chamber Music – 0
Kari Wei
1/20/09

I have always been the bearer of a divided heart.
Music, of course, was my first love. How could it not be? Born to a mother who taught miracles on the piano and coaxed four-part harmony out of tone-deaf senior citizens, I was a part of music before I was even out of the womb. It filled my ears before they’d fully developed and dictated the rhythm of my tiny heart. I was a child of music, a daughter of sound, and- at least in the years of youth- I was never allowed to forget it.
When I was three and music held my undivided attention, my mother informed me I could no longer ruin all her blank notebooks with my inane scribbles. I threw a tantrum. Then I discovered literature, which quickly became on obsession. Soon after, I retrieved one of the old, now-forbidden notebooks. This time, words took the place of squiggly lines, and neither parent had anything to say about it. Just before 4th grade, I was awarded my first computer, an old but faithful Apple clamshell laptop. My pianist’s fingers adjusting quickly to the new keyboard, technology tripled my speed as a writer and, by the time I was ten,  I had typed up a whopping seventy-five half-completed novels.
Time dragged on. Though I did not seem to grow any taller, the evolution of my interests and mannerisms made it obvious that I had definitely grown older. The hours once spent poring over my stories were now occupied by other activities. I traded in my beloved clamshell for a trendier  Macbook. My mother passed away, uprooting life as I knew it- I moved back to Queens to live with my father. More often than not, I ignored the siren call of pen and keyboard.
But the voices in my head simply would not shut up. Desperate for a way to satisfy them with my very limited time, I turned to an outlet I’d discovered when in 2nd grade- poetry. Despite having consistently received large amounts of praise on my poems, prose was always my choice as a writer when left to my own devices. Pressed for time and with a mind too cluttered to form storylines that made sense, I revived the poet within in the years surrounding my mother’s death-  just in time to encounter a new conflict.
Having entered the stage where my future was constantly being discussed, I was presented with an eventual choice. Music? Or literature? A couple years have gone by since I was first asked this question. I still have not found the answer. However, somewhere along the line, someone mentioned songwriting. Of course, the role of a singer-songwriter; a marriage of both of my loves. My favorite musical outlet is song, and circumstance/necessity has turned me into a poet rather than a novelist. It was a flawless suggestion, but when I sat down and gave the idea a try, I came up with a blank slate. Which taught me yet another lesson; creativity cannot be forced.
With two months to go until my 15th birthday, I am still as indecisive as ever. But I do not forget that, amid my confusion, I still have a full collection of my own poetry- to which it will, hopefully, never be too late to find a tune.