ephemeral writings
☼ 7° ♌︎ ☽ 7° ♒︎
i. CHICKEN FEET
Weekly, a large stainless steel pot sits on our stove, simmering.
Baby seemingly had every feeding issue in the book.
For someone who has diligently extricated my wellbeing from the system, is pretty obnoxiously healthy, and spent years preparing my body for a healthy pregnancy and feeding journey—this was a major blow to the ego.
(Which, let’s be honest, I secretly love.)
You can do everything right, and things can still go horribly wrong.
On the phone with a teacher. “Faith is learning more watching you engage this than she would have if everything worked out the way you wanted it to.”
Snorts.
I’ll research the beyond-society-at-large antidotes like nobody’s business. Immerse myself to the point of Jehovah’s Witness status. Have you heard the good news of our lord and savior, meat stock?
Reality has maybe 1% to do with the things, and 99% to do with the relationship to them. Things beneath things. Things perpendicular to them.
As I pay attention (albeit stubbornly), babies' perceived issues slowly wane
Yes, her body is getting stronger.
Yes, we’re sorting out what the confusing physical smorgasbord of issues were/are.
Yes, we’re feeding a psychotic, well-rounded diet of homemade meat-stock formula; PUFA-, dairy-, grain-, and sugar-free breast milk; and Europe's best hypoallergenic formula. (There’s a waitlist to incarnate as my child.)
Amidst all that—is my relationship to the perceived issue(s). The willingness to engage everything attached to them.
Inside the pot is chicken feet.
ii. INVISIBLE RULES
Winter. I begin a pre-birth digital fast. I’m not looking at anything, or anyone. Heavenly.
Spring. Chris says, “Why don’t you run an experiment where you pretend you’re not a part of the industries you think you are? Also, stop saying industry.”
I oblige. The fast continues.
Summer. My fingertips touch something familiar and foreign. A piece of me on the kairos ferris wheel.
Creativity runs through my veins like electricity.
This time, I stay in my body. I open to the pain that comes with it.
The two most likely to innovate are the beginner; the one who doesn’t know any rules. And the adept; the one who's learned the rules to such a point that they can see beyond them.
At the beginning of my work, I broke every rule. Some, on purpose. Most, unknowingly.
I was the fool. What I knew to be true needed to be tested. I needed to be tested.
Eight years. Experimented. Lost myself. Learned. Found myself. Repeat.
Now. A creative renaissance.
Questioning invisible rules. I know infinitely more of them. More landscape to see beyond.
They’re all made up. This is all made up.
I’m in a different room. There’s nothing in it.
iii. DIGITAL MONASTICISM