somewhere to synthesise
What if, we are not meant to focus on the pain or the suffering, but the possibility? The vastness. What if, the headset is meant to be small? What if the fleetingness of the flashing lights are part of the distraction? That diseases were not punishment but signals of wrong turns taken? Somewhere along the way, we kept disconnecting. We kept disassembling. We pulled apart from the ebb and flow. The cycles. The breath. The quiet. The darkness.
Pulling cards feels natural again. It’s been a while, but today, I pulled for myself “Temperance” from my She Wolfe deck and the mantra from this card is “I make my scars into art”. As February approaches, I feel it. The lightness and the rightness of this direction. With all that’s happening (the other things I am preoccupied with), I also feel very strongly about taking it one day at a time. All of it. Reminders from The Universe. Echoes from the abyss. This is the right path, but that it’s okay to take my time. One step at a time.
Then, I did a reading for a dear friend and she felt goosebumps. That’s the best, when it’s not just me feeling the flow, but that they do too.
I’ve been remembering my dreams too. This one, involved a room, some kind of basement like space, where a group of people (musicians, mostly male) were hanging around and keeping to themselves. There were rows of seats, similar to pews. All of us were strangers to each other. Or maybe, it’s better to say that none of them looked like anyone I know in my waking life. Then there was an elevator in the corner of the room, that would go up and down bringing a person or two into the space for a performance. Everyone in this “room” seemed to have a day job. They made a thing about being there. “You didn’t know, that I had this?” one of the musicians said to me pointing to whatever weird musical instrument they had brought with them.
There was another one before this, but clearly my brain’s RAM is being used up by all the other work things at the moment. It’s coming, though. More time to dream.
I stayed in this weekend. The “schlumpy” heavy feeling has returned to my body. Here I am feeling it right now: from the base of my neck and along down my spine towards my lower back. I don’t know if it’s simply exhaustion or the lack of proper exercise and movement this past week. I thought I’ve stretched some, but not as actively and as consciously as the previous weeks. I also missed out on eating mostly vegetarian this past week. And I didn’t take my daily vitamins and supplements.
I wonder if any of that has anything to do with it. I’m no scientist or doctor, so I won’t ever know that for sure. I’m trying my best to feel and intuit my way through this. If we go down the checklist of basic nutrients… I do not feel like I’ve had enough sun, water or movement this week.
Admittedly, I have been staying up really late watching a lot of YouTube videos on consciousness (i.e. I’m not sleeping very much either). It’s a mix of “revenge procrastination”, actual curiosity and some anxiety that the coming week is my last official week of working at the office.
It’s back to remote work and more idle time for this human.
I notice in my body that I’m not scared… but it recognizes up ahead, is this feeling of uncertainty. It’s a situation or moment that I can’t predict and have no previous information to fall back on. So since I’ve gotten used to the rhythms and demands of working a regular shift, I notice that my body is clearly a little unsure about what it means to having more idle time again. Sleep, is always delicious. I’m trying to remind my body that it doesn’t want to be on “productivity” mode. That this is meant to be a reset.
I’m also writing this on my trusty old Linux. It still works! It’s great for distraction free writing. I needed this. I haven’t been writing regularly, and as I’m sure it is for those of you still here, it’s one of those helpful and medicinal things we’ve consciously added to our hierarchy of needs.
Yesterday, I grieved my beloved emerald raw silk dress from Hanoi and a newly acquired 100% cotton t-shirt from a somewhat bougie store that had become a fast favourite. I have been trying to wear less synthetic fabrics and those were meant to be part of my main wardrobe. They are gone now. They, along with some underwear (RIP) and a bolster cover I had planned to give to a friend. All gone. How blissfully poetic that I cannot remember all items of clothing in that particular load, when I had just been writing about having a lot and how I need to re-look at my relationship to the material.
I was struck down with an illness again last Friday (at this point, it feels like a curse). I honestly can’t remember if it was Thursday night or Friday when I put the load of laundry in, but I was knocked out and next thing I know, I wake up and it was Sunday. The thought about the load of laundry just sitting there was in the back of my mind as I lay in bed exhausted and in a fuzzy state. And here is one of the main disadvantages of being a singular household, apart from having to change the bedsheets on your own, you have to do all of it on your own. Laundry. Folding Laundry. Cleaning house. Changing lightbulbs. Plumbing. General upkeep of your dwelling. Sometimes, searching for missing laundry. And it adds up to feel very burdensome. Especially, when you’re sick.
There was a little knot in my stomach when I finally got out of bed, but I still hoped for the best.
It was my first day feeling human, but I still moved with a weighted head. The migraine and aches hadn’t fully disappeared. Quietly, I walked towards the machines—then I noticed that the dryer was empty. Empty. Any item I expected to find, was not where I though I left them before the world faded for two days from my consciousness. They were not not even put in a re-usable bag on top of the machines, which is how some of the former neighbors would set aside forgotten laundry whenever someone needed to use them. Nada. The whole lot of it was just gone.
There was however, a load in the wash whirring and sloshing around as if to taunt me. I am not yours. These aren’t yours, Lady! For a second, I thought perhaps someone kindly put my load in the wash again. I was knocked out for two days after all. But that seemed highly unlikely. My neighbors are mostly straight patriarchal men and they have not been as neighborly as I have been. They fail to clean the lint filters after they use the machines, so why the sudden thoughtfulness?
As it happens with any precious attachments, when it finally sunk in that my favourite items and assorted possessions were likely thrown away, I let out a little panicked sound. A gasp. A muffled cry.
But, feeling too weak to express anything beyond the shock, I quickly composed myself. The moral of the story and TL;DR was loud and clear: Time to let go of these material lovely things.
Let go of these, and anything else you are still clutching on to. With every breath. Let go. And within the same breath, I also allow there to be sadness for these small, ultimately insignificant losses.
I keep forgetting that no one knows this writing space exists. I can write whatever I want. I can be as woo and as wild as I want, without the usual fears. Just like how it was for WT, which allowed me to do some work and deep reflection.
I am, like most people who still listen to some news, am gravely disappointed that at a time when we have so many billionaires and material wealth, we still have many people in the known world—because we know where everything is now, or rather we seem to know all the things—experiencing genocide, famine, and hardship.
I speak and move from a position of material wealth. I have all that I need and I know that me buying another thing (even another subscription) won’t change the suffering. The materialism will only keep going if I allow that chain to keep dragging me back in.
As I witness my ego, I am aware that this is the illusion that will continue to keep me in suffering: The endless loop of consumption. The seemingly endless loop of identity making.
Because that is what it is, still, isn’t it? This item, these objects, how they feed my ego and make “me” feel more like “me”. The attachments to things that preserve “me”. I may not be so attached to my opinions, but I am attached to my past habits and trauma and stories still. I am conscious of the loop.
I have started to make moves, but I am not ending the cycles of closing the loop. There is a bag in my home, full of t-shirts from lovers. I had planned to write something about them, but there they are. Taking up space and taking up space in my mind.
It was really refreshing (and sobering) to hear Danjo-san, our guest during our group meditations, share last week about how he too has a problem with letting go of even gift wrapping. Even he, a Zen Buddhist monk, who recognises that everything is made from the Earth using the planet’s resources has trouble with letting go. Both things can be true: how we can appreciate the preciousness of the material, but also that we may be holding too tightly to the material.
It sparked and nudged my consciousness to look at my attachments again.
I am still seeking solace in the material.
Does it? Everything I have here, I imagined having. This studio. This cave. This sacred space that I get to call home. These objects all around me. These books. Even these odds-and-ends in my computer. All of these things were once only imagined.
An image in my mind’s eye. Or a thought in someone’s else’s consciousness. We are all made up of so much wonder. Desire. Creativity. This is true.
All of the things that happened, happened to get me to this current moment.
This space where I am conscious of everything around me. Floating. Existing. Occupying space. Being.
I imagined a life with T but I did not want that strong enough. I imagined a life with J, traveling somewhere I’ve never been before. This one-way/far-away wanting, as I tried to explain to Sim when he shared something about imaginations and visions, seems to call upon a magic veiled with heaviness and darkness.
So instead of quietly imagining all these lives with others. Here’s my focus: here and now, and with myself. I don’t mean that in any selfish or disconnected and isolated way. I mean that in an all encompassing, all-consuming loving way that I have not ever granted or given or desired for myself.
The imagination is: My solid, goddess self, sitting peacefully and all these threads of connections to others, to people, places and beings—energized with and by love, propelling me forward. Slowly, unfolding with care.
Whenever I sit and meditate with the sangha, I feel this. The need for more quiet. For more quiet sitting together.
My brain and body has been bursting with too much energy/emotion.
I have felt I have absorbed too much of it in the last few days. People’s fears. People’s emotions. People’s projections. Everyone feeling everything.
That hammering and pulsating on the right side of the brain? Ever feel that? That’s me all day.
Granted, I also haven’t been hydrating but I know what I feel and I feel so much.
I like the idea of blogging ‘anonymously’. I miss the old Internet, when the visuals and details were less important.
I am a woman in her 37th year around the sun. I had considered myself a writer or a general creative, but never really thought about being/identifying as an artist until recently. In some ways, I am.
But, as I like to sing-along: We contain multitudes.
I hope to use this space for longer pieces of writing and note-taking. I intend to write daily. I have already missed a few days last week, but I am giving myself a break and officially declare that the “daily” writing is expected only from 23 February 2025 onward.
I am consciousness. I continue growing in awareness. I ground my practice. I am the artist and the canvas.
I let the “Une Femme Un Style” videos play as I continued to tidy my apartment over the weekend. The video series feature beautiful (obviously stylish) women of privilege from the creative industries, who are living in the most well-known cities: Paris, Copenhagen, etc. It inspired me to write my own mock-episode in my head.
What would be my “objects of affection”? What would I showcase and highlight about my studio? Would I have a nickname or name for it? Most importantly, what would I wear and how would I describe my style?
Off the top of my head, my objects of affection: a rock my friend gave from Antarctica. A picture of our now deceased lovely dog, Jesse. My rose quartz. My meditation cushion. I would highlight my kitchenette, which I’m very proud of. I installed the sticker black splash (made up of two separate stickers—one pink and a faux one-inch black tile) myself from a dollar store. I think it’s one of the most fun things I’ve done ever.
I also enjoy finally living with the artwork I’ve managed to collect from everywhere. From Barcelona. North Carolina. Ikea. Lol. That one is a Hilma Af Klimt Print on canvas. My home has become such a safe haven. I can’t imagine living anywhere else right now.
While the YouTube videos played, I managed to at least figure out where a lot of my stationery/notebooks/pens are. They have been consolidated in boxes and one particular shelf. I had such randomly grouped notebooks, of different sizes and paper types. This is an obsession. A sickness. And I wouldn’t consider any one of them an object of affection necessarily…
And how would I describe my style? It’s free.
I have been tidying my studio in little sections. Today, I found myself rummaging through my woo-woo drawer. Many things had piled up on my little dining table and while I was crouched in the hallway, and putting my tarot cards away, I noticed a book on my shelf by Deborah Levy called “Real Estate” and started reading. It has chosen itself as my next book.
It’s in moments like this, when I notice how quickly my attention gets captured by something and the letters “ADHD” also flash across my brain with some judgment. I might like to investigate what’s up with that. Sometimes, I let it be and attribute it to paying close attention.
My media consumption theme, which seems to spillover from last year, is “Women-Identifying Artists and Writers”. I devoured Miranda July’s latest book ‘All Fours’ in less than a week. Miranda July is a kindred. I have not felt such a closeness to an artist. I think I was in high shcool when I first discovered her works. She was as weird as I felt I was and aspired to be. She didn’t have to explain herself. I didn’t want her to. No one asked her to. She just was.
Her works have followed and kind of haunted me in magical ways. I happened to be working for a contemporary art non-profit when I read First Bad Man. Now, in my late thirties I picked up her novel about women in their pre-perimenopausal stage. It feels like a warning: Remember to be as non-conforming and weird as you want to be. Be formless. Or you’ll find yourself in a marriage-turned-friendship and kind of resentful.
I am looking forward to enjoying more of my borrowed real estate. I wouldn’t be staying put in this country if it weren’t for my apartment. I would likely be fleeing.