31: no longer afraid of being haunted 👻
affirmations for when the veil is thin & strawberries in (october 2022)
Iteration #31 of this monthly letter full of feelings. This issue's theme is: ✶ october is a bridge (& so am I) ✶
A Time Traveling Feelings Letter (or, affirmations for when the veil is thin)
〰️ sent on March 31, 2023 〰️
⋆ ♡ I am unafraid of being haunted. This is an affirmation I have been telling myself for a while (especially around halloween, when the veil is thin). When the paranoia hits, or the creepy crawly suspicion of shadows in the dark sink into my mind, I whisper it into my own ears: I am no longer afraid. Haunt me. ♡⋆
The truth is, I am already haunted. I am learning to love this about myself. I used to find it unloveable––crazy or off putting, scary, intense maybe––but now I find it romantic, an integral part of my story. I am a haunted person; haunted by grief, anxiety, generational trauma, familiar archetypes, abusive cycles, ex lovers, and sometimes, perhaps, by actual ghosts.
I am welcoming in the connection to spirit, opening up a part of my imagination that I have shut off out of fear. I am lingering in this newfound appreciation of my ghosts & all their forms. Wandering toward the potential radiance of a life where I commune with what I've lost. Gentle whispers from my dad. ✿
It has taken a while for me to get here; it started in early 2022 when I wanted to try being open to receiving signs, an alternative to living with one foot in an alternate timeline. I’m simultaneously jealous and skeptical of anyone who has ever been given a sign. I want to roll my eyes at anything imbued with “too much” meaning. I grew up with a mother who found god in everything and by nature I wanted to rebel against it; that’s what generations do – rebel against the last.
Maybe I’ve given up by the time you’re reading this; I don’t know. I know the dead don’t knock on a door that doesn’t want to be opened. I’ve been pulling it shut so tight for so long, I don’t know what would happen if I released the tension. I say to myself over and over again that I’m not afraid, I want to be visited. But in reality, I’m having a hard time letting go of the door.
It seems impossible, like believing in magic. Signs from the dead are just coincidence. Even if they were real, how could I be open to them after all this time? I feel like the telephone line between my dad and me has been severed for too long. I’m calling out to him but he can’t hear me. Maybe he was calling me for the first 10 years, the first 20. But after a while, maybe he stopped waiting by the other side’s payphone. What if there’s a certain amount of time that we have before our loved ones officially move on? What if all of the space dust energy that made up my dad’s spirit has all dissolved into something else by now?
What fills that space between wanting and doing? How will I know when my fists are no longer clenched around the doorknob, when I haven’t known them to be in any other position?
I say all of that, but I have always felt
safer with the bedroom door open at night.
Maybe the thing that makes impossible things seem real is the willingness to believe in them. I have to believe that magic is for me. What would it feel like if I were already communing with my ghosts? Am I?
My dad was a connector. He kept people together, had parties, bridged relationships, had tough conversations to get closer and understand each other, kept his family close even when they were difficult. People showed up! He had so much FUN. It seems like he was tireless in keeping his relationships strong, like never got discouraged? Always found a way? I just want so badly to be that person and have that life but it doesn't come that easily to me and it's really hard without that role model or person in my corner encouraging me to keep trying or finding a way.
꩜ OCTOBER IS A BRIDGE ꩜
My downstairs neighbor has a beautiful name and beautiful hair. Sometimes I think she exists just to remind me that I'm not magical. She says being haunted is being alive. I think on it a while, wondering what she knows that I don't.
I fall down the hole of “what don’t I know?” for long enough to forget what I even thought I was on to. This mistrust of self comes naturally to me. My insides scream when someone advises to trust your gut. My intuition has been so scarred, it’s impossible to hear my own quiet voice over all of the louder ones still echoing in my body. What’s the difference between intuition and haunting? Part of being able to see things is being open to seeing them; the more you practice that kind of seeing, the more those things will show themselves to you. But first you need a safe practice space. We close doors in our lives for a reason; these doors have kept us safe. These patterns are behind me but the echoes are still lurking. I have worked so hard to build a life that feels in line with my inner world but I’m still constantly second guessing. When will enough practice give way to trust?
STRAWBERRIES IN OCTOBER 🍓
Predictably, I had Wedding Feelings in October. The date felt so far away when we chose it in 2019 and it feels like it should still be in the future somehow. It's been more than a year since the would-have-been-wedding date came and passed. We are always finding new ways to be heartbroken. I went to instagram to cry, as I often do; and shared something that went along the lines of this:
Grief is always finding new things to cry about! I had a big cry how it feels like we're never going to be able to get married the way we want to (a big celebration of our community and a symbolic start of the rest of our lives with the people we've chosen to be a part of it). How I just wish someone would help us figure out a way. How it feels like my dad might have been that person. How I can't seem to access him; why can't he just send me a sign.
The whole point of writing all of that text in the container of a story on instagram is because you secretly believe it shouldn't be read, right? It's a completely impractical way to share information, but it is the most reliable way I've found to express my scariest feelings and receive support back. People are almost definitely rolling their eyes at me but that's okay! Because of the finicky nature of sharing writing in an image-based app, I often screenshot whatever I’m writing 4 or 5 times before posting it. The very smart thing to do would be to write things in something like the notes app, or even a piece of paper (groundbreaking). But I guess I know myself well enough to realize that I won't make anything if there's not a risk it'll get lost.
Anyway, I wrote a whole thing, lingered over it, screenshot it, and then the app crashed. I was wavering about posting it anyway – it felt whiney and I felt ashamed. "What if this is a sign that I'm not supposed to post it? That something shameful will come from it?" As if signs from the universe waste their time with shame. I thought maybe it was trying to tell me to slow down... to re-read what I wrote and make sure I wasn't hurting anyone, offending anyone, making anyone second guess being my friend or inviting me to their wedding. After many re-reads, I posted it, with all of the context of the glitch and "is it a sign?" and …should I be second guessing sharing these sticky feelings? So many people picked up on the hints I wasn't getting; they saw sweetness where I was seeing shame. Maybe the universe wanted to emphasize how important these feelings are and wanted me to re-read it, maybe it's a push to release control or perfection, maybe it was an obstacle to make me more sure of using my voice. It was practice in connection itself. People told me that they already see me this way. These shares gave me the goosies (as Jordan would say).
OH MY GOD, SOMETIMES THE INTERNET IS MAGIC. Or the community you find on the internet is magic! Or the way you use the internet to engage with your community! Whatever it is, it's so sweet sometimes! I am the fucking bridge, it's literally my name (cheesy but who cares)! I just hear my dad saying "Hold on, Bridge," keep trying. Without any memories of my own, how am I supposed to prove his memory lives inside of me or whatever (as if memory should ever be used in the same sentence as proof). How could my dad be existing in any sort of way through me? I guess that's the magic. It's not easy or obvious (not to me at least) but I have to believe it's there. Reminders that you’ve done this before, somehow.
The first time I named out loud that I’m working toward being unafraid, it got stuck in my throat (as scary things often do). I told my friends in artist group, and they reminded me that I constantly create spaces where people can show up and be seen as whoever they already are, that the artist group itself is a place where we already are the artists we want to be. We all already see each other that way, even when we can’t see it in ourselves. Svetlana told me a story about strawberries growing on a friend’s balcony in October, magic in the every day. My dad used to grow strawberries in his garden and it’s one of the few things I *think* I have a memory of. At some point I had decided that if anything was going to be a sign, it would be wild strawberries. 🍓
🌜 HUNTER FULL MOON 🌛
Haunting the full moon / hunting the full moon
Wow, October was loaded, huh? What a month. What a beautiful haunted month. I read something by Kai Cheng Thom talking about the hunter moon, embodying the hunter archetype: “a fierce pursuit of connection, survival, and self-expression.” They talk about hunting down your wants, and how this energy is often shamed. “Even our wanting—wanting anything at all—is regarded with suspicion.” I never wanted to embody a hunter (I’m a vegetarian lol) but it felt important to remember that it is systematic and necessary in our society for us to feel our desires are unworthy, that the things we are searching for are inherently out of reach. I think about this in my work a lot, how I can see echoes of the life I’ve always wanted in everything I’ve ever made; peaking in, hinting, begging to be seen.
In recent years, my open studio practice has been a way to explore the desire to see and be seen. The practice was born out of a need to create a safe space to be vulnerable by taking my time photographing people I trust, be witnessed by people I trust, to imbue more play into my photographic process and create boundaries around what my work could look like outside of a capitalistic structure. Just a safe space; a practice in loving yourself and your community and your process. Eventually I will write even more about what this whole project is & has been, and I'll keep quietly building it. For now I am gently listening to what emerges for me and how I can keep finding spaces to explore it.
I haven't had space to hold an open studio day since February 2020, but Arti & Danialie graciously hosted in their backyard. 🌷 Arti has been a part of this project since the very first awkward studio day, and the space gets softer and more nourishing every single time. It feels so good to finally be able to revisit this work and find new ways to see each other and protect the gentle spaces we share. ♥︎
My sweet friend Rachel did makeup for folks and so many sweethearts held lights & reflectors for me (big shoutouts to Taylor & Nadia in that department). I don't know if any of the photographs I took this time will be the best or most perfect portraits, but I felt the most comfortable making them (and that is something to listen to). I noticed self judgment a few days later when I looked back at the polaroids – am I boring? Do I photograph everyone the same way? I could surround myself with people who trust my eyes all day long (which is precisely what this is) and still find something to pick on myself about. But that's not the point. I noticed these thoughts and I let them exist among the confidence of knowing I have people that I can feel safe to be boring around during times when my work isn't perfect. I'm being gentle with myself when I notice that I could be doing more or "better." Instead of pushing, I give myself even more room to try.
⋰ If you'd like to read previous newsletters, they are archived here.
This newsletter was written from the Munsee Lenape & Schaghticoke territory. To learn more about the stolen land you're occupying, visit native-land.ca ⋰
