paying attention

listening to the music of ur body

Hey — I hit my head on the corner of one of my kitchen cupboards, which I do about once a week because I leave the doors open but this time was the worst yet, this time it broke skin, and I was pushing at the bump after icing it to assess the damage, thinking that it had been a long time since I had hit my head hard enough to leave a bump, like I did all the time falling off a play structure as a kid, or playing organized sports, both things I have let go of as a 22 year old (now 23, as of editing this!!!). And it made me think that this was a whole lot of work to just hit my head on the cupboard, and then the weird tenuous thread of adulthood I'd been worrying at fell away, first in strings, and then abruptly, like a nervous high school concert band, despite the hawk-eyed focus on the conductor's baton, in the beams of light burning out the audience's faces: forgetting, suddenly, how to read time.

i wanted to share some process pics for part of the art i did for kernel magazine last year. i was going to make a process post last summer but never got around to it so i figured now was as good a time as any

wiggly wobbly fall arrangement

I have taken to putting a movie on and baking on Sunday nights when I'm feeling the fear and dread of the workweek. Unless you like to rewind or pause, movies are set; you press play and they take you for a hundred-and-twenty-minute drive. Baking, too, cannot really be rushed; unless I want to clean up flour from the floor or choke down chunks of banana in my bread, I need to be thorough. The physicality of making it soothes me, pushing through the batter, cradling a good, steaming bread in my hands afterwards.

I know it's not a new thing to dread the workweek, nor is it to write about dreading the workweek, but still I find it comforting when my friends tell me they dread it, too. Connection in commiserating, I guess, which seems to be a thing about adult friendships, like brunch, the comfort of a preferred cubicle, the easy trust of a well-made grocery bag.

The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. This arrangement makes us naturally more inclined to spend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because our free time is so scarce.
David Cain, Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed

i was having a lot of fun with rabbits in this cover but ultimately decided against having little steam bunnies

But also in the last few weeks I learned to do the crow pose for the first time, which took weeks of stretching and mobility and exercise. This reminded me of the summer, where I had the chance to lounge and stretch and breathe and think about lounging and stretching and breathing for a couple of months. Out of curiosity and embarrassingly motivated by some white dudes vlogging their transformative experiences training in Shaolin temples, I stood in my basement and followed a Qigong video, which made me feel a little silly, but not for long. The instructor had written these captions about feeling joy at being able to move and breathe and be in your body. Moving around and feeling your limbs quiver in the air, that stuff's joy, I think, the feeling that being in your body is getting easier. I didn't quite get it at first, but like upon learning the name of a tree, you start to see it all over: in sliding into a car in one smooth motion, in carrying my groceries back to the apartment, feeling that pleasant weight dig into my shoulder, in reaching up to pull sesame oil off the shelf, my sleeves rolled up, in joining my new friend, when he says, drunk off good music, that we should skip down the street, and I agree, so I follow him, skipping, that stuff, I'm starting to get it. Wobbling there, my knees digging into my arms, I felt heavy, and warm, and there, and strong.

the final piece, which makes up the back cover of the magazine

...the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.” — Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

the gallery

i feel like this whole letter is a reason for staying, so instead of the usual, here are some songs that are shaking up my whole world !!!