Saturday, May 2, 2020

Quarantine Diaries: Solitude & Solidarity

("Bedroom in Arles" #3 - Vincent Van Gogh, 1889)

CW/TW: mentions of rape, PTSD flashbacks/memories, bullying, suicidal-grey

          Glorious nights like these: where you start falling in love with solitude, when you honour the unheard in solidarity by listening, by feeling, by holding yourself tighter - softer - holier, when you start to fill yourself with grace while surrendering to the light of uncertainty... How trees, are teaching ways of healing and patience, as kindness is a practice and love is too; all but a peaceful practice of breathing.

          Back at my mom's house in the rural suburbs, the home I survived throughout middle-school and high school, my room the same as this blog, so full of memories of my past and becoming. At least I'm no longer sleeping on a mattress where I was rap*d on in a cold, dark basement room somewhere outside the city, where I would also routinely place my tight twin-sized mattress in a corner to cuddle/hold myself at night.... Thus I woke up today realizing that maybe I've been having difficulty sleeping since I've been back because here in the center of my room, on a elevated, wooden bed frame: a queen-sized mattress with nowhere to hide. It's a heavy bed full of traumatic memories far too distant to be triggered by; I think I started crying myself to sleep and feeling as if rotting in bed at 12 years old... I wanted to cry when I found a suicidal-grey note I wrote at 13 about insecurities with friendships/belonging/fitting-in, experiences with bullying, and how maybe coming out as queer wasn't the best idea in school. Maybe a part of my reaction is to feel numb, but reflecting on how I've wanted to die since 12/13 years old even silences/awes my cynical/suicidal-grey self today. 20 surviving 2020: I take off award certificates off my walls and tape on photographs and artworks, recycling VOGUE magazines, Chinese self-help books and reorganizing with books by women and femmes before, of poetry and philosophy...  I am a woman (un/re)learning, practicing my worth, a flower trying to breathe/blossom, a femme softly surviving through grace despite it all.

          Solitude is not safe for a person feeling like me, and I understand that solidarity is key to the community that have helped me/us survived. "You are not alone/We are in this together" sayings serve nothing as statements of solidarity but everything as soft self-reminders to stay alive. If a flower doesn't bloom, do you blame the plant or better its soils ? Like my new resonance with my newer, more mobile and twin-sized mattress, with also how I feel like a potted houseplant: the lesson of light becomes the freedom of mobility/shape-shift, to adapt/control during change with the darkness being such constant uncertainty... The first challenge I find to loving myself in solitude is to admit that I'm scared, to surrender myself to the possibilities ahead while trusting my grace. I recall to my mother of how she would always scold me as a kid for saying that "I'm scared", I'm sure it must have connected with the queer/transphobia and how I was always told to "boy/man up, stop being a sissy about everything" while growing up, but I explain of how I find peace/power in reclaiming uncertainty and fear, that what has kept me going was to able to say: I am/was scared, but I do/did/will do it anyway.

"Feeling is Researching Feeling is integral to a Creative Practice..."

          Surviving and striving between the art of solitude and solidarity: I practice by reflecting and researching on my feelings, observing emotions as you would watch the waves meeting its shore, exploring notions of a creative/artful/meditative process without means of production but simply by being, feeling, and (re)learning/creating... I begin to realize of the love I still need to fill within, for the responsibilities of healing myself still falls on me, thus then unfolding/sharing/creating. The conflicts within seem to be often tied onto the politics of desirability, visibility, and lovability as I love/hate the complicity of my beauty/body to be desired/fetishized, the violence of my being to visible/spectacled, and the cynicism of my worth to be loved so desperately. Self-love will continue to be a rivering journey for my oceans within: Planting soft seeds and planning gardens of self-reclamation/liberation/revolution for an eternal blossom/spring.

"Wisdom is knowing I am nothing; 
Love is knowing I am everything... 
and between the two my life flows."
- Nisargadatta Maharaj

          As a sensitive/dramatic poet/lover, I find myself the need to glorify survival and healing, yet so often in reality, its peaceful, quiet/anxiety-inducing and a test of patience. Sometimes there aren't pretty words to contextualize pain, only the strive to cope and move on. And during this pandemic of uncertainty, we must remember to hold on harder/tighter/softer for those in need/at risk... Nothing but healthy/safe vibes/wishes/prayers to/for all, and let's work from our privileges to fill in the gaps of injustice while demanding/fighting/advocating/(un/re)learning in solidarity.

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