The flurry of late summer workshops is over, and so is another season of work and play. Days back-to-back of activity, followed by trying to keep the body together and working so as to leap into new back-to-back days.
Here is a cycle, and the certainty of this cycle is, on occasion, devastating. I have been frenetic and inspired. I have been molten and heavy. Something beyond fatigue, besides satisfaction, not quite despair.
I don’t always know the names of these feelings and so, I cannot exorcise them. They possess and take hold, rooting deep into parts of me I haven’t yet arrived at either.
So how could I possibly heal or balance or address? Do I have to?
“I think to care for the self
is a kind of prayer. It is a gesture
of devotion toward what is not always beloved
or believed. I do not always believe
in myself, or love myself, I am sure
there are times I am bad or gone
or lying.”- “Tea”, Leila Chat
Every turn of season, I find myself learning again the labour of being alone. As in, what it means to be human. As in, what it means to make things. As in, what it means to feel.
In this way, I am learning how to be patient; how to let go; how to let my feelings be feelings; how to differentiate them from the truth; how to accept them as a truth, and be kind to myself anyway.
I am not moving toward inner peace, only, how to not be consumed by the intensity of myself; how to not live inside of myself and be always afraid that it will be too much or that I will be broken by my own density.
親愛的你想念我嗎 Dearest, do you miss me?
親愛的你想念自己嗎 Dearest, do you miss yourself?
最好的時光 哪兒還有啊 The best times, where might they be
後來你在天涯 我珍藏起我曾描繪過的遠方 Eventually you went to the horizon, and I hoarded my drafts of far-away
好的還會有嗎 我能再見你嗎 Okay, will there be more, will I see you again
說出後來才懂要說的話 After I said it, I came to know what I wanted to say
聊起後來才知道想說的話 After we talked then I knew what I wanted to say
My indie queen, anpu is back in the music scene after a 10-year hiatus with a new upcoming album. Her words have been following me for that whole decade even as she disappeared back into her own life.
In a recent interview, she talked about how people have sometimes described her music as soulful, by which they also mean, there isn’t that much technique. She said this felt frustrating to her at times, but also, she recognized her own limit clearly.
What does it mean to see your own limit?
Lately, I have been surprised by tenderness and the recognition of cruelty.
Lately, I have been hyper-aware of the small hairs on my skin — their nonchalance. Lately, so much more poetry has been rejected.
I’m not sure why there are so many feelings. I know I am propelled by something like a defiant itch: a small and petty need to press my body up against the wall of my own limit, and then, to claw my way through.
So I am trying to be devoted to myself. There is a largeness here that intimidates me, but I am hungry for it.
I wish to be big to embrace the world.
I wish to be big to embrace myself.
“My feet are cold and the radio plays its little sounds.
I do the small thing I know how to do
to care for myself. I am trying to notice joy,
which means survive. I do this all day, and then the next.”- “Tea”, Leila Chatti