Lisa

I made some music and created an animated video to go with it. It’s a vision, a dream, something I blurted out that I felt was important to turn into something I could realize and forget at the same time. That’s what this blog is supposed to be about anyway.

A Wet Patch of Land

original artwork

I like seeing things disappear.

I like seeing the earth swallow.

I like opening its mouth and finding the stubborn bits in its gut.

I would love to discover myself every time I look in the mirror, slowly using a delicate brush to reveal my face under crusty patches of mud and stone.

I’d like to not tower over the tiles in my bathroom or crouch to smell the earth.

I’d love to only be interested in the wet patches of land: the gone, the done, the left, the did, the was.

A Journey Into The Forest [Song]

I wrote this song for fun back when I was doing my M.A. dissertation. It’s about the journey children make into the forest and how they find their way back home. It’s a journey that I’ve fantasized about as a child and a trope in literature that teaches us so much about the way children think.

When I look back at this now, I realize it doesn’t quite meet the standards I’ve started to work towards. But I put so much work into this and I really enjoyed myself at the time. So, I’m sharing it here.

Not Mine to Stop (Animation)

Not Mine to Stop (original artwork)

I’ve been making an effort to sit down and meditate at some point during the day, to focus on my heartbeat and my breath as everything else blurs into the background. I like it. I never thought I would.

In a weird way, turning my attention solely to what’s happening within me physically has very a different effect to when I let myself loose to the irregular but incessant waves of thought that keep me afloat but barely alive at any point in time.

My mind spiraling into the abyss of whatever burdens me feels a lot like walking without ceasing towards a wall in a desert. After a while, as I keep attempting to walk with my nose crushed against the wall and my eyeballs millimeters away from it, the desert fades away and the wall is all there is. My eyes give up focus and my knees turn red as they meet the cement. All I want is to see the wall, to “know” the wall. And I’m sure that the closer I get, the more I’ll know.

But that isn’t the case. Distance facilitates sight.

Big lesson, and a hard one.

Taking a step back often feels like giving up control. It can also feel like you’re walking away. It takes years of bruised knees and red eyes to realize that there are places in between, places where the wall isn’t too small or too big.

Meditation, like prayer and a good conversation, helps me see that sometimes.

Yes, focusing on the air go in and out of my lungs breathes a sort of intentionality into things that happen inside me without me ever having to schedule them on my calendar or make a to-do list. But these things don’t need my permission. I’m merely joining along for the ride – a hitchhiker inside my own body.

For someone who finds it hard to see life as meaningful, that’s a good feeling to have. It tricks me into thinking that what I’m experiencing is not my life.

My heart does not beat because I want it to, my heart does not beat because you want it to, my heart beats because it wants to.

That’s why it feels so sacred. Like it’s not mine to stop. Or yours to stop. It is its own beat to stop.

I made the animation to describe what it feels like to forget that. I drew some inspiration from one of my favorite TV show intros. Here’s the YT video if you’d like to check that out:

It was nice to write again. Forgive the grammatical errors and the usual lack of coherence and flow.

“i”

original artwork

For the past four years, I’ve been running so fast. I’m not the same long enough for me to turn myself into some character in a story. There is no sense of direction. Who am “i”? I feel like I’m on the verge of some major breakthrough/breakdown.

The Woodcutter and The Hammer

original artwork

There’s a problem with me. I don’t know how to fix it. To draw is to survive. When it serves any other purpose, I turn into an ear at the door, scared, my calves tense, ready to flee in case they open the door. And I know very well that’s no way to live.

But the thing is…today’s problems go away tomorrow. It burns through the night like firewood that turns to ash by daybreak. This means I should finish drawing before daybreak – before my reason to draw turns to ash and I’m drawing not to get through the day but for other reasons that fail to stand up against questions that don’t even matter. Questions such as: What will they think? Won’t they think I’m weird? Isn’t it a bit too disturbing?

It really doesn’t matter! You know why? Because you’re still reading. Ha! And that’s all that matters at the end of the day. That you recognize enough human in me to say whatever you say: “different”, “weird”, “nutcase”.

I’d have loved to wait another day before putting out the artwork. But I’m still a fucked up coward who needs to hide behind the alarm that jolts me to action when I feel like I’m going to die. It is only in the shadow of my doom that I can speak what I mean. How…pathetic….interesting.

So all you get is something I’m not proud of. But that doesn’t matter either. Because you’re still reading. And once again…that is enough. For today.

Oh, also, the artwork is about a woodcutter (father figure in children’s stories, rescuer of people in the forest, an amphibian like Mowgli the Frog who lives both in the forest and in houses). It is what I aspire to be – like the children of Narnia whose cupboard opens into a forest. What I intend to do is conquer and return home of my own accord – to be the prince of the forest and yet give it all up for what we call “society”. How do I live in the forest during the day and come back home at night? How do I learn to dig deep into myself, find hidden treasures, and return with resolve to a place like the world we all share? ( for it is a very greedy world where gold kills people)

What I need is an axe. But I feel like I’ve taken up the hammer instead. And that is getting me nowhere. I am stuck.