Identities and new beginnings

Ft. a couple of Disney references

Hello, and welcome to the first issue of my newsletter, La Boheme, in which I’ll attempt not to bore you too much with my thoughts, dreams and general musings on life and art and everything in between or remotely related.

According to the Cambridge dictionary, the definition of a bohemian person is “a person who is interested in artistic and unusual things, for example art, music, or literature, and lives in an informal way that ignores the usually accepted ways of behaving.”

Now, I’m not going to claim that I largely define myself as such. I am interested in artistic things and some of the things I enjoy - like drinking warm rose water tea- has been deemed unusual, but sadly I haven’t reached a stage of being where I ignore the “usually accepted ways of behaving.” My people-pleasing personality freezes in shock at the mere idea of that. However, I’m told that this trait will start waning a bit once I hit 30 (which I shall reach in less than a month now; and no, I’m not panicking at all, thank you very much!)

I couldn’t find a picture of my warm rose water tea so here’s a chai latte with rose petals instead

With all of that being said, let me explain to you my reasoning behind the choice of the name and through that I’ll also be going into some questions and thoughts I have about identity.

One of my favorite movie quotes is the infamous quote from Shrek: “Ogres are like onions.” Let me recount it for you here.

Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes. No.
Donkey: Oh, they make you cry.
Shrek: No.
Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs.
Shrek: No. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.
Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions.

And if you’d like a little visual refresher, here’s a clip of that scene.

So just like ogres have layers, I think humans have layers, too.

I was attending a yoga class a few weeks ago where the intention of the practice was to be our most inner and pure self, shedding everything we define ourselves as in the material world. This set me on a whirlwind of thought that spanned beyond the one-and-a-half hour class of how do I define myself in its purest form? setting aside all worldly definitions that we lay over ourselves: female, college graduate, communications consultant, daughter, rose-water enthusiast, etc. Who am I away from all these external factors?

Mind you, this questions goes much deeper than that. I have been grappling with my identity since my early college years, specifically my sophomore year. I even started defining myself as a person who is going through an identity crisis. This struggle with pinpointing my identity as something specific and labelling myself stayed with me through my college years and into the good part of my 20s after graduation, my first job post college, my first relationship, my first breakup and a pandemic which made us all question everything about our lives anyways.

You can say, in a way, that I'm a recovering identity (and existential) crisis-ist. Or am I, really?

At various points in my life, I would pause and ask myself: “Who am I really?”, “What is my truth?”, “Where do I belong?” All of these questions are still applicable and I’m still working through them, but the panic has subsided (most of the time!)

The thing here is: I was never someone to feel the need to necessarily belong to something, like a group or a club etc., which is weird because I constantly seek people's approval and I am fascinated by the idea of community. And just here comes an example of the different layers: I sometimes define myself as a lone wolf, yet a lot of times wolves travel in packs. Do you get what I did here? I went all deep and metaphorical just to tell you that sometimes I like being on my own but a lot of other time I like being part of something and being around people. But I believe that my comfort zone and what I’m used to being is alone.

Now back to the name: La Boheme. This name also has different layers to it, which are, but not limited to, the following:

1. I do revere the bohemian lifestyle. The feeling of being an entirely free soul is something that seems very refreshing, energizing and just downright brilliant.

2. My fashion style has often been labelled as “boho-chic.” Also: Following college, I did go through a phase where all I wore was colorfully printed harem pants and tons of silver and beaded jewelry.

The true trigger however was the following:

3. When thinking about my niche, I had absolutely no clue what my newsletter should talk about. I wish I had a niche and generally specialized in something so much that I was able to get really good at it but I'm not that kind of person. Instead, I'm  a person who loves a thousand and one different things which are often very different from each other, rendering decision making even more difficult than it already is for me (any fellow Libras out here?)

So.. The perfect solution was: La Boheme. A newsletter on anything and everything that crosses my path, mind, heart and soul. t’ll be a celebration and annotation of human beings having fun and having struggles and everything in between. The topics will range from, but will certainly not be limited to: art, fashion, lifestyle (however you want to define this.), wellness, food, pop-culture, entertainment, philosophy (however you want to define this as well.)

To lay it plainly: Anything the light touches, Simba, is our kingdom a.k.a. something that you might read about on La Boheme.

Also for further context: The idea of starting this newsletter started during the early days of the pandemic and because I had a lot of layers weighing me down at that point that I was working on and through and because I felt both physically and mentally stuck in where I was at, it took me two years to be able to muster the courage of put myself out there through launching La Boheme.

So here are some last thoughts I’ll leave you with on identity since I honestly still don’t have a clear answer (if there’s even one) as to what identity is other than every person puts “the rules” to their identity differently. Some may identify themselves their job or profession. Some may identify through their social status. Others may identify themselves through their ethnicity and sexuality. There’s not right or wrong in identity. What might be wrong is boxing yourself up in a chamber where this identity is what cripples you. There’s no handbook for how you live with a certain identity. It is something very personal and whereas different people might share the same or a similar identity, their approach to it and their experience with it might be very different.

I remember reading Michelle Obama's brilliant book Becoming - highly recommended btw if you haven’t already read it or better yet listened to it since it’s Michelle Obama herself who narrates it- and I found myself jotting down this sentence that really spoke to me:

“If you stuck to your principles, things would work out.”

And in a way it is true. Because whether we realize it or not, we all have values and principles that we live by. These might be different to our family’s, community’s and society’s but yours are there. If you start being aware of them, I think that might be one of the first steps to knowing and in turn living your truth.

I often think about whether my identity is something that is fixed or if it has shifted at different points in time? I think it really has to do with how much and in what direction I’ve grown and how rooted I have been in my principles, values and beliefs. I think it’s baring our growth and experiences in mind that helps us make sense of our truth at that point in time and with that our identity. So I guess this brings me to the conclusion that I'm still figuring out my truth because again, the bohemian and Libra in me are screaming: how can you be sure of this truth, what if your truth is not something you like and you want to change that truth? And how can you live just one truth? Humans are complex beings with different layers and multiple standards (not even just double standards) so how can you move with this intention?

Anyways, that’s my two cents for this newsletter issue.

And with that, I leave you with one of my favorite songs from the brilliant movie tick, tick… BOOM! which is right on theme: Boho Days.

On a related note

Disney-mania: So in case you haven’t noticed, I love everything Disney (groundbreaking!). In case you missed it and are interested to know what they have coming out next, here’s a rundown of all that’s in the works.

Warm rose water tea: If you like rose water or are remotely curious about how it tastes warm, I recommend you try it out for yourself. It’s super easy to make and is a nice change from going through the same list of teas and herbal teas especially in the winter where your life revolves around a boiling kettle to keep yourself warm. To make it, just add a dash -about a tsp.- of rose water to a mug of hot water and there you have it. Enjoy!

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Feel free to send me your thoughts and musings on anything identity or bohemian; I’d love to hear them.

Have a great couple of weeks until I pop up in your inbox next. xoxo