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