The Ones That Stuck

ugh

wow guys

i’m here to tell you that life

is throwing noodles at us also

i have my mask on

life’s throwing noodles at us

all the time sometimes they stick

sometimes they don’t

and you know i’m here to talk to you

about

why some noodles stick and why some

don’t

actually i’m not here to talk to you

about noodles at all it’s just a

metaphor because

i like pasta anyone else

like pasta everyone likes pasta actually

my talk is about that life is throwing

moments at us

all day every day right now

and that some of them stick and some of

them don’t

and what is the difference between the

ones that stick

and the ones that just bounce off

and really i mean the only difference

between a moment

and a memory is that it sticks

now why they stick

i believe is that you have some sort of

emotional encounter with

beauty now i don’t mean beauty in the

traditional sense of the term like

you had an emotional encounter with a

greek goddess

which seems very memorable to me

actually

but i don’t think beauty

like that can be fit into a box because

it’s different for everyone

but i do know that you’ll know what

beauty is to you

because it is what you remember

if you look back on something it’s it’s

the moments that stick

the most crystal clear in your mind

they’re the ones that impact you

i would actually even dare to say that

beauty

is in the memory of the beholder

and it doesn’t have to be these big

giant moments of our lives it can be the

little tiny

everyday moments and you don’t even know

why they stick they take you off guard

i remember this day i was walking

actually i think it was last summer i

was walking on a beach

in portugal pre-covered

and i was walking with my best friend

and

it wasn’t really even a big part of our

trip or anything but we were walking

along this beach that we had found and

it was like i’d walked

next to this person maybe i don’t know

100 million times in my life

and all of a sudden the sun catches her

face

the wind like catches her hair in this

wonderful way

her scarf matches the background of the

beautiful

turquoise water and she looks over at me

and she has this little grin

that i know and love so well and i swear

to you

it was like the world stood

still and it was throwing

a sticky noodle at me

and you know

i kind of think that if if we would be

more fully present and i’m talking to

myself too

that the world really is trying to throw

sticky noodles at us all the time we

just think that they come in these big

giant fancy packages but they don’t

and i also believe that

just how our minds they can’t hold every

single moment

every single memory that we have we also

we can’t hold every detail of every

memory

and this is where it starts to get

interesting because

it can only hold on to the parts that

are the most

dear to your heart the most

impactful ones or i dare say the most

beautiful so my

work as an artist i

i like to show this process of

abstraction in our minds

through my process so you can see that

the background of this painting is

totally blocked out just the color

was the background beautiful yes in

comparison to the way i

felt through

my best friend’s expression towards me

it was blocked out blurred so i’ve

abstracted the background

i also do remember she was wearing a

really nice scarf so

it’s probably mine i let her borrow it

and she was wearing some sort of ochre

skirt but i don’t remember all the

details

actually it looks like i’ve painted her

shirt white but it’s empty space

so there’s also parts of our minds that

we just completely let go of

because they weren’t important at all

let me tell you how important her shirt

was to me in this memory

zepola so it’s empty

i also if you don’t know anything about

paint that’s totally fine i’ll give you

a little lesson

painting 101 acrylic paint

is a water-based paint it kind of sits

back it doesn’t have

so much sheen and it does show really

really beautiful colors and texture but

when it’s next to

oil paint there’s nothing

like the depth of color and the vibrance

of color that’s in

oil paint so i reserve the most

detailed parts of my paintings the parts

that stuck in my memory the most clear

because they are the ones that

are the most beautiful and impactful to

me

i use oil paint and detail only on those

parts

so you can see that her face and the

freckles along her lips and

the her hair and her skin and the center

in her hair

that is the most detailed part so they

come forward they stand out

just like in our memories we hold on to

the most

important parts

my this friend amanda we also have a

podcast together and it’s called the

haley and amanda podcast

and we it’s about joy and inspiration

and we’ve recently

interviewed children kids because we

thought they’re closer to the source

they’re going to be wise they’re going

to have some wise stuff to teach us so

we ask them what is the happiest

you’ve ever felt in your entire life

of all the years you’ve been alive and

we’re thinking oh my god what are they

going to say what are they going to say

it’s going to be so impactful

and they’re like ah jumping on the

trampoline with my friends

i’m like wait what that’s the happiest

you’ve ever

felt they’re like yeah another kid’s

like i love

riding my bike because i like the wind

on my face

we’re like that’s the happiest you’ve

ever

felt they’re like yeah what’s up what’s

wrong with that

and i just think that we have something

to learn from them

because they allow themselves to feel

happiness all the way full

to the top in the everyday tiny little

moments and here these parents are

trying to you know throw the best

birthday party of the century

and they all they need to do is like go

for a walk

so you know maybe it’s not all the big

giant moments that make a huge huge

difference in our journeys maybe it’s

just a woman eating ice cream

i’ve blocked out the where she is

because

i i don’t remember the signs i don’t

know what they look like

but i do remember that

it seemed like she was enjoying that ice

cream and the sun

looked really nice on her skin maybe

it’s just the way that

texture is left from a chair on a

woman’s back

maybe this doesn’t impact you as

beautiful maybe you think i’m a creep

but it does to me and those are the

memories the tiny little moments of life

that i want to keep alive

here you can see that there actually is

nothing

except for the figure your mind tries to

trick you and fill in that

it is there but you’d it’s not there at

all

i i used to live in europe and i don’t

know what it is about old people

gathering in parks and sitting on

benches but boy do they love to do it

and they go there and they just sit and

i always used to just love their slouchy

like expressions the journey that that

people carry in their bodies i find

really fascinating and i think my gosh

do they come here every day

did these people go to kindergarten

together what do they even talk about do

they talk

do they share peanuts i don’t know and i

love the pattern of what these women are

wearing it’s stuck in my memory

but if you look it’s also again painted

with acrylic paint

there’s no there’s no detail to it

there’s no shading it’s just a flat

pattern but their skin

and their expressions and their

just their demeanors and how they’re

carrying themselves that was beauty to

me and it stuck with me

and you know i find that my life is just

full of all these tiny memories

what if our lives were just full of

three big giant memories i got married i

had a baby

and um well that’s about it

um it’s actually full chocked full of

these sticky sticky noodles

and this is one of my best friends alba

in the blue

and you know i’ve seen such beautiful

things with her i’ve seen

architecture and buildings and beaches

and oceans

and i haven’t painted them once

but you know what i have painted a lot

her looking at me

it’s like really because those are the

things that stick for me

is human interaction when people are

being themselves when they’re being

candid and they let someone see them

when someone really looks at you

and it turns out that our lives are just

full of all these tiny little moments

and they make our lives joyful they make

our lives beautiful and they are worth

remembering

even if it’s just your mom having late

night jammy chats

you know i i do think that there’s a

power and there’s a chain reaction that

happens when we decide to keep memories

alive because you take something that

happened in the past

you drag it into your present you have a

conversation

a moment with someone where you’re

sharing it even if it’s just with

yourself

reliving it it changes how you feel

and then you proceed into your future

differently

i was recently asked to paint the late

ruth bader ginsburg

it was such a huge honor because

obviously of all the things that she’s

accomplished

for our country our world and

it was really powerful painting her not

only just because

i was impacted that you know she had

passed

just right i mean this was only a few

weeks after

and i was kind of keeping her memory

alive not just me i’m not the only

person who’s painted or captured her but

the fact that her memory was

continuing and then

what really surprised me was all the

little all the people that would walk by

and they would have these conversations

with me telling me how she impacted them

telling me

it looks like she’s looking back at them

helping

wanting them to keep this conversation

going keep pushing the ball forward

and so i ended up naming this piece a

work in progress

because although this painting is

finished the work

and the conversation is not and

that’s what happens when we use our

power to keep memories alive

we keep the conversation going and we

potentially

change our futures this is just

another series of mine called the ladies

of lake worth

and i brought it up because it evokes so

much nostalgia

and these are just memories that a

friend of mine found in a box

and a thrift store and then i thought

that this everyday memory that they were

making together brought so much joy and

playfulness

that i wanted to bring it back to life

nostalgia

is beauty mixed i’m sorry

nostalgia is memory mixed

with feeling it’s usually

you think of a memory and the feeling

comes back

or it’s like a you’re longing for that

feeling again

maya angelou has this quote a lot of you

probably heard it

that says people will forget what you

said

people will even forget the way or what

you did

but people will never forget the way you

made them

feel and it’s so true

even those tiny little memories i was

talking about they have a feeling

attached to them

something that moved me something that

stuck

and honestly that was going to be the

end of my talk

but maya angelou came along and she

flips it all on its head for me

and i realize here i am talking about

what’s beauty to me and what’s

you know what sticks in my memory and

who has impacted me

and you know what sticks for me and the

truth is that

on the flip side i am

and we are the ones that

are inhabiting everyone else’s memories

we are the ones that are sticking in

people’s minds

that they look back on fondly

or not and it’s not because

of some traditional sense of beauty

it’s because probably

because of the way we made them feel

and so i’m filled with this

sense of like beautiful power but also

what a responsibility

that we have the power responsibility

and opportunity

to make beautiful memories

for everyone we encounter

we have the power to make

beautiful memories for everyone we

encounter

through the big giant things that happen

to us

but also through the little tiny

everyday sticky sticky

noodles so with that i would like to end

by saying that every moment presents a

chance

a chance for us to be aware and

encounter beauty

but also a chance for us to be aware

and impart beauty and may

we be the ones that

stuck just since i have a moment i would

like to say that

i want to say thank you to all of the

sticky sticky noodles

in my life thank you

you