Mundane Happenings 1 - 3.

I am remembering what it means to live an artists life after so much forgetting. Notes from my daily practice.

December 27th

At least 10 things from today. that appear ugly or troubling but upon closer inspection are beautiful (shout out to Sonora Jha for this prompt).

1. The person you become during, after, during cancer. The book you write. The way it leaves me. Others. Probably you. stunned full with tenderness. (see: Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted)

2. Today I told my mother that if she doesn’t get her affairs in order and clearly spell out her burial desires I will have her body composted and planted into a tree. I love trees; In my dreams I imagine a forest of my ancestors. A tiny shed in the middle full with pictures and stories of people both present and not present. 

3. When you die I will have your body composted and planted into a tree. I promise to plant you next to other trees so you will not be alone. To water you and sit with you, to hug your trunk. I love the thought of you still here and in a form that I can hug.

December 28th - 10 things. Ugly or troubling. But perhaps also beautiful. 

1. A dirty coffee mug, once warm and full, now emptied of its liquid. A brown and frothy marriage of chocolate and coffee sipped slowly. swallowed warm.

2. The sound of my farts in a Ballard coffee shop. Slipping through my unclenched ass. Rushing and easily missed like a babbling brook half a mile from a trail where wanderers walk.

3. The large spaces on the back of my head. Braids done haphazardly and without the usual creams. Braids zig zagged up and down. Gaps wider than pronged adapters. 

4. Blood gushing, unfelt into the disc expertly placed in my vagina. Black lululemon leggings gently hugging an inflated belly. 

5. 450 dollars missing from my bank account. A gorgeous three stalked bamboo, Inked fresh, four days old climbing up my inner forearm. Lines gentle as watercolor strokes. 

6. A missed yoga class. A didn't quite make it kind of morning eased by chamomile tea and a puzzle on the floor before. 

7. Less than inspiration. Learning to show up for my art as practice.  Sometimes brilliance comes and sometimes I have to keep working on it. 

8. All the grad school applications I didn't submit. All the MFA deadlines I will possibly miss. An unfocused mind. My own exhaustion. The chaos of a life. 

9. The quality of being utterly alone yet unsure of how to be with myself. A spiraling mind. Leaking eyes. A noisy stomach. A clenched ass holding back a barrage of flatulence. Me, here trying and succeeding at writing but not yet writing well. 

10. Ten days of exhaustion. Spiraling mind, on the run. Staying up late late late. A full night's sleep, an empty stomach.

December 29th - 10 things Ugly or Troubling but Perhaps Beautiful

1. I slump upon the throne for the second time this morning. Sweat sprouts in beads across my forehead as I sit in my distress. insides coloring toilet bowls like uncontrollable paint splatter ferociously spewed. Yesterday I ate to live. Broccoli, celery, spinach soup, butternut squash pasta, purple cabbage and maitake mushrooms. 

2. Insides zapping the toilet water like lightning striking a tree. The sound it makes is less a crack and more a gush. Like water rushing out of a faucet, droplets ricocheting into a sink. I die a bit each day but surely today I am even closer. 

3. Oh my god I wail and send my friend a giphy of a woman holding up a card that says “Help.” I think I'm dying but the toilet whispers “don’t worry I was made for this.” 

4. All my life I had to fight but today I am consciously unclenching my jaw through ragged breaths. I bump the speed to six and the treadmill beeps in response. A dribble of sweat runs down my arm. My face droops from exertion but today I am alive. 

5. The sound of rain to the backdrop of perhaps too noisy conversation. My shoulders anchor and drop as I sink deeper into couch cushions, head floating back ever so slightly, eyes closed to see/hear drizzle in my ears. Maybe a settled body sounds like rain. Maybe, I will let writing teach me/remind me how to live.

 “I love the rain” I say to friends with a grin. 

“Yeah Seattle people are delusional. They have to convince themselves.” they say with rolling eyes. 

6. The feeling of being attacked… Perhaps attacked is hyperbole. Rather I am referencing the slight angle at which I hold a graphic novel slightly away from my face, a little too high, arm tilted slightly to the right. I squint at the character as she unloads her intrusive thoughts and breathes through a panic attack. Apparently being depressed and anxious is a terribly unoriginal aspect of the human experience under capitalism (see: Everything Is OK, by Debbie Tung).

7. Curly strands of not quite black hair coil and splinter on the gym shower floor. I lather and finger comb a silver dollar sized dollop of conditioner into all the hair that has not left my head. There is plenty and it expands. 

8. The following are notes on surviving the first 2 seasons of the pandemic without buying an air fryer despite seeing them nonstop on my Tik Tok feed in 2020 ~

9. A writer who thinks she has forgotten sits down at her computer for the second day. Yesterday the “right” words looped and ran and jumped and she could not track them down. She tried. Arms outstretched, leaning, leaning, grasping. Falling in frustration. Catching a whiff but not quite close enough. 

10. A writer who thinks she has forgotten sits down for a third day and tries to write. She writes and she laughs and she listens to the rain. Mostly she remembers.