05: a month of living in my mom's basement πΈοΈ
patience with the process (august 2020)
Iteration #5 of this monthly letter full of feelings.Β
This issue's theme is:Β ββΎΒ βΒ patience with the processΒ βΌΒ βγ»
This one is going to be wordy.
You know when life feels like a movie? Maybe you have a soundtrack in your head? Or imagining a movie makes it easier to process whatever you're going through? Maybe that's it. I started writing this email closer to the first of this month. It was raining and it was still warm outside. I walked around in my bare feet and felt the late summer warmth and wetness on my body. Like... who do I think I am? The protagonistΒ in an indie drama about a late-20 something NYC woman who has had to return to her hometown to rediscover herself... or something?
If you haven't been keeping up with my personal life, I'm living in my mom's basement in the house I lived in during my teen years. There's a lot to witness here, as my therapist would say. I feel like it's the first time I ever really have witnessed everything here. As a kid and even throughout my early adult years, I was always one foot out the door, not ready to be present or afraid of taking it in.Β It was raining again the second time I tried to write this email, but it was more like that "end of summer" rain where everything is cooling down for good. The rain where you stay inside all day and "finally finish that thing you've been putting off" or whatever. It's not raining today β it's a really beautiful autumn day and I'm feeling hopeful or at least temporarily at peace with the idea of not being in control of anything.
My brother came home for a few days because it might be the last opportunity he gets before his enlistment ends next year, and who knows what'll happen with my stepdad before then. Tommy and I made a huge bonfire in the backyard with him and Anna. There had been this giant pile of garbage left out back for years. There was this whole ecosystem growing around it with wildflowers all around it. But it was still just a pile of garbage sitting in the backyard. So we finally set it on fire. My mom came outside and said something like "who would have thought that we'd all be here right now."
If this were an indie drama, it would be too obvious.Β
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
What's with the topless dad pics? My biological father is on the left, and my stepdad is on the right with my stepsister, brother, and myself. My dad died from lung cancer that was probably caused by working in unsafe conditions in a factory in Syracuse. It was caught super late and by that time it had already traveled to his brain. I was three and I don't remember, but I'm very sensitive to the fact that my mom is reliving a lot of that trauma now. My stepdad was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year. He's been a smoker and drinker forever. Since we've known him, there's been this tension around the way he treats his lungs; like: are you really going to force us to live through another father dying this way? Like... you have a choice. You had a choice. You know?Β
So it feels like there's this huge mirror being held up to my stepdad's experience. I just keep thinking about how my dad would have been. I keep hitting this big sad wall: It was never supposed to be this way. It feels like my life is a mistake and he wasn't *supposed* to die. Like it's some weird blip in the universe and nothing I can do will ever make it right anyway. I just keep getting angry on the inside and wanting to cry. I thought I would be able to write this out perfectly and gain some sort of understanding of whatever I've been processing over the last month, but it's just not happening, and that's okay. I can just be patient with whatever time it takes to process.Β I can't expect myself to just know before it feels clear. It just feels like it should be clear. I feel angry at myself for not being able to articulate my feelings. It's not helpful; it's like picking at a scar. I'm just making it worse; I'm not healing it.
The screenshot is my friend Connie replying to an instagram story where I say that I miss dressing up in Brooklyn. Her dad died when she was the same age that I was when my dad died. Knowing her has allowed me to name feelings and experiences and parts of myself that I didn't see or understand before knowing someone else that felt it. Her friendship is magic.Β Her dad was 32 when he died, and she's about to turn 32 next month. The perimeter of Manhattan is 32 miles, so she's walking it on her birthday and and sent an email out to friends and family inviting them to walk with her in some way (BRAVE AND COOL). I want to share a piece of her email that might be out of context but I think is good in any context: "It's all kind of a weird, stretchy magic. Or a sick, twisted joke. I'm going to go with magic for now."
βΒ ON LIVING & DYING & PUSHING THROUGH ANYWAYΒ β
Arti's Free Library was Destroyed
The beautiful magical wonderful community-based project that Arti created has been removed from Grand Army Plaza. We were on the phone last night when she found out. It's fucking shitty. It almost lasted a full month, which is amazing. Arti is already working on another mutual aid library project, and if you want to be involved there's more info here. (Photo by Arin Sang-urai @photojouice)
On the phone, Arti and I cried a little bit about how it just sucks to feel powerless, especially, for Arti, in the context of something that felt so empowering. It's impossible to have control over anything, and that's like... the whole thing with life, right? We just keep trying to make lovely things even though we know they might be destroyed, or we might be disappointed. To put yourself into something is incredibly vulnerable and it's fucking scary. There's a reason it's scary, and it's the same reason it's worth doing. There's a lot to lose but there's so much to gain in finding yourself and your community in doing what makes you feel seen. I talk in therapy a lot about how everything feels useless because we all just die anyway β everything feels so futile and beyond my control and everything I try so hard to hold on to so tightly just slips away eventually, all the time, anyway. We have to try to fill the space in between, anyway.
The library helped a lot of people and brought a lot of people together to create it, and that wasn't destroyed. Lovely things will always find life beyond their physical space in the world β that's also like... the whole thing with life, right?Β
THINGS TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD or HOPEFUL or SOMETHING:
βοΈΒ βοΈΒ βοΈ I know most of y'all subscribed to this email to see like what ~cool~ things I'm working on and photos I'm making and all that stuff and maybe you're like "whoa is this her journal or something now?" But I do think that all of this is still creative work. It's all processing (and the 60 rolls of film I have shot over the last 2 months will hopefully be processed soon too... haha). βοΈΒ βοΈΒ βοΈ
β° If you'd like to read previous newsletters, they are archived here.Β
This newsletter is now being written fromΒ Onundagaonoga (Onondaga) & Haudenosaunee territory.Β To learn more about the stolen land you're occupying, visit native-land.caΒ β°
