I am currently in a hardcore avoidance mode. When this mood sets in, I get the sudden urge to clean house when most other times I can’t be bothered in the slightest; I get in at least 20K steps a day due to the sudden desire to keep fit; I uncovered a scattered ambivalence of WordPress drafts that I started two years ago and I center all of my focus on them because clearly, that’s a priority right now! The bottom of the barrel items which are so insignificant that they don’t even register for the to-do list suddenly become of vital importance when I am avoiding certain work or projects. I made jam this past weekend, for god’s sake! Which…to be fair…making jam is totally a thing that I would do, so that’s not a great example. But I should absolutely not be making jam right now! I have things to do! Which is also why I rearranged all of the art on my walls.
…and since I am still not doing the things I should be doing, I thought it might be a good time for a small update.
I have been going to a new therapist since January of this year. I say “new” like I’m trying to distinguish her from all the other therapists I’ve seen, but really, that list is not terribly long. I tried one out back in 2015, right around the time my grandfather died, but it wasn’t quite a fit. I don’t know how to say this without sounding like an asshole, but I just didn’t love the feeling that I might be smarter (maybe a lot smarter) than the person who is counseling me. I mean, how can that be? They went to school and got degrees and all that sort of thing, so I can’t be all that much smarter, right? AND YET. Also, I don’t want this person to be too chipper. Or too “normal”. I don’t even know what I mean by that, but basically, I just don’t want to get therapied by someone who reminds me of the most average person in my high school class. The sort who was probably raised in a nuclear family with a nice mom and dad and was in a sorority and grew up to have three kids and who gets regular blowouts and does Zumba classes (and I KNOW these are all ridiculous qualifiers but I can’t help it!) I can’t talk to that person about my problems and I can’t take advice from them.
Right now I am seeing a therapist, twice a month, who reminds me of a grown-up Pippi Longstocking, which I find somehow really comforting. She drives a jeep with a “Chewie is my co-pilot” sticker on it. She wears skirts but doesn’t bother to wear stockings with them. I like that. Not that she needs me to like it, I just mean I dig the carefree aesthetic. She doesn’t seem to say a lot. I don’t know if therapists are supposed to? I find myself talking until I’m hoarse, and during this time I have observed that she barely even guides the conversation. Is that normal? Is this how it works? Oftentimes there are silences and I jump to quickly fill those in. I don’t want to be thought of as a bad conversationalist, but is what’s happening even considered a conversation? It’s a one-woman show, really.
…and yet. I have of late found that in these hour-long sessions I seem to shepherd myself along a circuitous route to some fairly impressive epiphanies and revelations. This is unexpected. What does it all mean? It’s hard to know. It’s maybe to soon to tell. I have been holding space for my wounds and trauma and broken bits for so long, I am not sure who I would be without their strange and dreadful companionship. It might be interesting to meet who that person is, though. I’m open to it.
One of the things that came up is how sometimes–most times, really–the only way I can get myself to actually go somewhere and do something, is because I know that afterward, I shall have a memory of having done it. It’s the pursuit of the perfect memory that finally compels me to do the thing, whatever that thing might be. But funny enough… the things I have the most wonderful memories of, are those unprompted moments– the things I did on a lark, decided on a whim, without having time to hem or haw about it or to have worked up a fine amount of dread.
On the way home that particular day after non-talking with Pippi, we grabbed some coffees at a cramped but charming donut shop, and as we were readying to leave, we realized that an accident had just occurred on the street just outside the building. A damaged truck was lodged on the curb right behind where we were parked, and we couldn’t back our car out of the parking lot to leave. As we waited for the police to take statements, we stood holding hands under a flimsy awning in a downpour, its meager shelter barely keeping us dry…and in the space of that moment, I was so inexplicably joyful. I have no idea why. But I knew I would stash this afternoon away in my mental drawer of mind-nibbles as one of those wholly unexpected morsels of happiness.
Another instance of this spontaneous joy happened while I was visiting BGF in Philly last month. I had been fiercely looking forward to the trip–to seeing her, to decompressing after a few months peppered with more stressful kinds of travel–and though we had a few things planned for my time there, it was a late afternoon hour or so spent walking through the city as the sun was setting, glaring directly in our eyes and blinding our vision, that remains a memory to cherish. I was practically trotting, attempting to keep up with her long-legged stride as we hoofed it through a more worrisome part of town, and either right before or right after that, we walked by the park where the Chinese Lantern Festival was being held. Nothing was lit up yet, so I didn’t really get a sense of what it was all about or how beautiful it would be after dark, but I did snap a photo of this lovely sidewalk Chinese zodiac along the way. I was overheated and overstimulated and my feet were bruised and blistered and bone-sore, but that time spent with my beloved friend on that particular afternoon left a vividly buoyant feeling in my heart that I can still summon when I conjure the imagery of those moments.
During my most recent visit with my therapist, I began what I believe will be several sessions of EMDR, which is a treatment designed to diminish the distress associated with traumatic events. I don’t think I am quite ready to talk about it yet, but I will share that I was a walking wound afterward. My eyes were raw from all of the savage, furious crying until well into the next afternoon. That was a week ago. Now, when I attempt to call forth the feelings I’ve associated with that particular experience, I feel a little differently about it than I have for the past 25+ years. It’s still very tender when I probe at it, but I think I may be looking at it from a different perspective now, through different eyes. I was stuck at that point in time, and it’s a little easier now to see it through the eyes of someone older, someone not standing so close.
Is this progress?
I sought guidance from the cards, above. Which is somewhat absurd, since I am not really all that knowledgable about the tarot. I just like the art, much like my mother did when she was alive …which is funny, because she is a major source of the angst and trauma I am currently working through. Oh, universe! You’re such a hoot. I am sure that someone much more well-versed in this divinatory art than I could give me a more thorough analysis and interpretation, but from what little I understand, I was encouraged.
The Maison Francesco Scognamiglio Fall 2019 Couture collection, with its contrasting play between excess and restraint-the undulating satin, that see-through tulle, those rivulets of crystals and embellishments!–call to mind languid lady vampires swanning around an abandoned moonlit chateau, or perhaps flickering amongst the bleached bones scattered throughout the sandy stones of a coastal cliff-side ruin at twilight.
If there is a sigh between salacious and celestial, I think it is in that whispered instant that this collection leaves you gasping.
The olde depop shoppe has been updated! Have a peek! But please don’t ask me lots of questions/ask me to hold an item/ask me to lower the price on an item… and then end up not buying anything at all! That’s annoying as hell, and actually kinda rude, and you will fall quite a bit in my estimation.
Wow, I am such an engaging and enrolling shopkeeper, huh?
A gathering of death related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about in or related to the Death Industry recently.
This month’s installment of Ten Things is brought to us by my friend Ekho, whom I originally met over on instagram and while now I don’t recall the exact circumstances, you can bet your booty there were lots of books involved.
I am consistently awestruck and wonderglobbed by all of the unique, diverse, and interesting titles and beautiful cover art they share– and my to-read list has grown exponentially in the time I have known them. But more important than the book envy they inspire are the super fun chats that we have on topics ranging far and wide; humorous, heartfelt, and well, just very human things: dreams, therapy, the dumb idea of “glowups”, the vagaries of our physical meat suits (and the skeevy rando turdmuffins who offer unsolicited comments about same) and ever so much more. Ekho is such a phenomenal companion for conversation … I was actually going through our DM history just now, and to be perfectly honest, I think we would be so fascinating to eavesdrop on!
Ekho is a nonbinary trans person living on Wurundjeri land, writing, daydreaming, doing social anthropology, dyeing their hair colours in the blue/green spectrum and looking for shortcuts to mushrooms. Find them on Instagram or check out their blog they promise to update soon. In the meantime, however, I am so happy that they have generously contributed to Unquiet Things this month with 10 Things to Stop You Burning it All Down (the World, the Universe, and Everything), featuring Tolkien tenderness, why comic books have no gender, and how they fill their broken heart.
Acknowledgment of Country Before I begin, and you begin to read; I wish to acknowledge the Wurundjeri and Wathaurong peoples of the Kulin Nations, the traditional and original landowners where this article was mentally gestated and developed as a digital taskscape, whose sovereignty was never ceded. I pay my respects to the Elders, past, present, future, and, emerging.
Introduction
These 10 Things might not be for you, they might not inspire you to keep fighting the good fight. This might in fact just be a wee snapshot of the insides of my mind and how I reason with myself to get out of bed, put on my clothes in that very specific order I need to keep myself going, make that coffee, take my dogs out to the loo, switch on the laptop and do what needs to be done. Generally what needs to be done is University work (for some strange reason, that began with a hole in my heart, and sorrow I couldn’t fix; I have been enrolled in various Uni courses since 2010), or attending to life stuff like waged-labour and making sure my world doesn’t fall apart. I recognise that I have manifested a portion of self-harm into the research and uni work I do. I tackle the hardest, most painful topics, I refuse the easy way out, I go above and beyond with research and I write out my pain in complex, analytical anthropological essays. I am not fully ready to work on this and make it something more positive. We develop in stages and it is enough that I am willing to think about it and evolve these behaviours in the future, however; sometimes I need to remind myself that I cannot fight if I am dead. The why of the fighting will emerge throughout this article, and the reasons I stay sane might be inane, cute, childish, simplistic and definitely not cool but here we are… I don’t have time for cool anymore, it’s 2019. As 2 parts Anarchist and 1 part Nihilist I will tell you cool is pointless and the pursuit of it is just subscribing to social approval but that might also be the 90s kid or the Gemini in me.
Radical Vulnerability (Making time to heal, and acknowledging that healing looks, smells, and feels like a dumpster fire.)
Let’s start with something really easy, like the concept of Radical Vulnerability. I hate being vulnerable, ew (have I mentioned I am a Gemini) and vulnerability generally = feels, and weakness. For the past decade, I strove to make myself indestructible. As someone with a shopping list of medical and mental health diagnosis, we can see that panned out really well. Radical Vulnerability is something I saw trans nonbinary icon Alok Vaid Menon start mentioning on their IG. They would discuss when they were hurting, they would acknowledge their abusers were likely hurting too and told others what they needed (a hug, love, friendship, safety, an escort to a cab or home, etc). Through being vulnerable, and expressing it, we normalise the very human need for help and kinship and love (of all forms) and we invite others to experience it too. We allow those around us to let down their walls//their golden hair//and allow others in.
I do believe now that Radical Vulnerability has changed my life this year. At the end of 2018 I had yet-another-health-scare and ended up having to see bunches and oodles of specialists, changing my diet and supplements yet again, and do tri-weekly body conditioning. I do not believe in Cartesian Duality so I anticipated the physical struggle would be accompanied by an emotional/mental struggle and that perhaps if I got through it, I could change some of the unhealthy mental landscapes I was existing in. Radical Vulnerability had a big part to play, communicating to myself and my friends the changes I wanted to make, what I wanted to introduce into my life, communicating (EW) feelings, communicating when boundaries had been crossed, allowing others to be vulnerable, admitting I wanted to heal/myself/things… this list goes on. And it’s not easy. I have spent a really long time not being vulnerable, burying feelings, being stoic or angry but defs-not-vulnerable. This has taken practice and active brain rewiring. It has been exhausting. I am also happier this year than I have been in forever because I feel as authentic as I can be.
Please follow Alok on IG see their shows, buy their poetry etc.
Pokémon (Something I can always rely on and turn to when my brain is noisy and my heart hurts.)
Something totally different… As a kid who grew up in the 90s I was left salivating after Pokémon cards, Red and Blue, OG Gameboys, yet I was not allowed to participate in that world. I don’t think my Mum liked it. I don’t think she got it. I think she thought that the cards were a waste of money and we were too middle class (aspiring) for that. Who knows? Then my sibling and I got Gold and Silver. My life was forever changed. I remember the moment my egg hatched into an Eevee and the love of my Pokémon life appeared. I was dedicated to Pokémon, I had books that I filled with my analysis of patterns in the game, when specific Pokémon appeared, when items went on sale in the underground Poke-Marketplaces, how to make Pokémon like you more (haircuts). I was 10. I was obsessed. It was the best summer of my life.
Since then I have had my fluctuations with the games, times where I was less inclined to game. But the reinventions and changes have brought wholesome additions to the Pokémon experience. Pokémon Go has introduced a level of accessibility that bypasses the privilege emphasised by being able to afford games. As a free app, it is pretty easy to avoid in-game purchases. This level of accessibility is so important because gaming is expensive. There are so many testimonies to the benefits of the gaming experience as well, with folks playing it to de-stress, increase exercise, socialise, deal with anxiety in its many forms and also network. I used to play it a lot more when it was first released but then went back to the DS games. I have recently started Let’s Go Eevee and am reminded why these games help me alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression. The new gaming format has a bigger emphasis on compassion and empathy, and the games have always had a big respect for nature, animal life, nonhumans, and compassion. Introducing these ideas to kids, and adult-kids, is no bad thing. A world where we are compassionate to one another, to animals, to ourselves isn’t a bad place. If you have not checked out the Detective Pikachu film yet then please do, it was for me, what the War Craft film was for my Dad (family of #gamers). If it wasn’t for the fact that a cute person had started holding my hand (see- Ew gross- Radical Vulnerability), and felt the need to talk to me throughout the entire film I probably would have been in tears coz that is the world I want to live in. It was beautifully depicted and so wonderful.
Terry Pratchett (His writing can be relied upon to remind me others empathise with the world and the situations we are in and anger is a valid tool to get shit done; he didn’t have his days of rage for nothing.)
One day Terry Pratchett became my favourite author, the end, good bye. I never imagined that would happen to me. Me, an outrageous gothic queer, a nonbinary dreamer, an activist academic (aspiring)… perhaps that is why he became my favourite author. You cannot read a book of his without realising he was/is pro-equality, a dreamer, and a realist; able to dismantle social justice issues then reboot them into heartbreaking sci-fi fantasy narrative.
At first, I didn’t exactly click with his writing. Discworld has no chapters and that was a bit of a head fuck, plus his older writing is short and satirical; which took time and probably maturity to adjust to. Pick up a Discworld book towards the middle of the series and they are different books and he is a different writer. He turns literary clichés on their head while still weaving an amazing gothic narrative. He gives us ghetto gang warfare but between trolls and dwarves and still breaks your heart. DEATH is a kind, curious anthropomorphic manifestation that I hope will usher me on to the land of black sand. I still weep that Terry Pratchett is gone (sort of, I mean he lives on in his books and creations and our imaginations) yet he politically resonates more than ever.
Good Omens the TV show was a perfect culmination and evolution of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimans’ book brain baby. It was a pleasure to watch with a lot of discourse that is gender affirming in a sense of nonbinary gender and the lack of gendered behaviour. The main characters which had always appeared campy and gender nonconforming in the original text are beautiful soft marshmallow babies who deeply love each other (whether you interpret that as platonic or romantic) and fumble around and don’t really save the world (a very practical witch does, and a young ordinary boy who happens to be the antichrist) but maybe they save each other. Read it. Watch it.
A Short Cut to Mushrooms (Rewilding is a gross buzzword I won’t mention here or again because it’s ridiculous but also go out to a forest or a stream or a sand dune or some tundra or a bonfire and get out of your own messy head once in a while.)
It’s no lie that when I am stressed out, the stressed get going – to the forest – to look at mushrooms. I adore fungi. I am not a mycologist so I do not know everything about them but I know enough to look and not touch coz somehow the edible ones in Australia also look like the ones that give you the runs and also look like the ones that make you cough blood and also look like the ones that will kill you. The most distinguishable, in fact, are the ones that will get you high, which I think the local parks council has realised much to my dismay when I went to my favourite wet bush walking spot and half the place had been dug up. Now, I get where they are coming from. They think ‘fellas some class A drugs are growing IN THE GROUND’ and probably ‘we Australians need to make this forest Australian again so we will dig up the introduced holly, psylocibin fungi, non-native trees and let’s just hope the ecosystem bounces back and looks like the hardwood forest pre-invasion’; (hot tip that forest was decimated by logging by colonisers to make happy homesteads and farms, it will never ever look pre-invasion, not a single one of those trees exist anymore). The land there seems sad. The land there seems like it is waiting. I deeply love the Macedon Ranges, it welcomed its self to me in its damp mossy ways and I plan to live in this area as long as is feasibly (fiscally) possible. I spent a lot of time in this forest looking after my mental health (by walking and taking photos of fungi), many a friendship has been forged as I forced a pal to walk one of my dogs here, and I have spent freezing afternoons with the heater in my car pumping while starting (gasp) the prelude to a romantic relationship. Spending time in a spot that I feel deeply enriches and soothes me is one of my favourite parts of living in the Australian state of Victoria, and living on Wurundjeri land. The land is diverse, exquisite, and bursting with narratives. You only need to step out your front door to encounter stories, old, new, and emerging to help you fall in love with the land.
Realm of the Elderlings (This book series reminds me that having everything crap happen to you makes for a hell of a narrative, forgive me Beloved Fitzchivalry Farseer.)
As a series of books I passionately love. it is a little bizarre that I haven’t reread these novels yet. The Realm of the Elderlings is a recent turn of phrase for the sprawling universe Robin Hobb developed with her multiple fantasy series. It begins with a coming of age story, a boy and his dog, except this child is nameless and then given the lovely term of endearment Fitz (yikes) and begins many an adventure as an emotionally underdeveloped and unreliable narrator. You may wonder why I adore these books as Fitz is pigheaded at the best of times and downright problematic when the occasion arises. Hobb is a brilliant writer (is why) with a beautifully constructed gender diverse character who weaves their way throughout the entire series (sort of) also SPOILER. Hobb gives us a crash course on how fantasy can be hugely gender inclusive and gender diverse without mirroring transgender narratives in the Western world. I refer to her writings when discussing great ways to be gender inclusive to author friends who want tips and do not want to rinse-repeat the male-to-female, female-to-male coming out trope. It’s trope even in our world; something frequently expected of trans people to experience. What if that person was always nonbinary but had a doctor assign a different gender at birth because we equate genitalia with gender. What if that person was always male regardless of what stage they are in with their physical transition; they’re not trying to achieve masculinity because masculinity is a social construct, they are just on their gender journey to their gender destination. Fantasy and sci-fi books can be fantastic ways to think about these things and apply these concepts without people breathing down your neck telling you what trans is/isn’t or spewing transphobic rhetoric. Oh, wait they do that anyway to the author?
Damn. I guess this circles back to Radical Vulnerability, writing about this stuff makes me vulnerable, and as soon as a transphobe opens their mouth (or Twitter account) they are vulnerable too and fear leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side, and dark side leads to goth, and goth leads to emo, and emo leads to scene kids, and now we have Instagram Influencers with big eyebrows and snatched things and I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S SNATCHED I AM TOOOOOO OOOOOOLD I am one sprained ankle away from Baba Yaga and a cauldron full of semen and smeg (neither of which are gendered either, they are simply bodily emissions and some folx can do both).
Star Wars (This cash cow brings me a lot of binge watching down-time pleasure. Also social justice in space, Finn and Poe are my princes, maybe Rey will bring balance to the Force?)
A Long Time Ago, in a cinema… far far away; I was 7 years old, it was 1996 and I was watching The Empire Strikes Back because the films were in cinemas again and my little sibling was being babysat and my parents wanted to take me. No, I wasn’t scared. Yes I ADORED HAN SOLO he basically is the same person as my (Grand)Pa and OMG DARTH VADERS’ VOICE is exquisite thank you James Earl Jones (I am sorry they stuffed an old bald white guy into your sexy rubber suit for Return of the Jedi). I watched the full trilogy on VHS and yep dug it, medieval space battles, magic swords, and celibate wizards. Got it.
Then oh boy, then… The Phantom Menace came out. I have zero interest in debating whether this is a good film, I literally don’t care if you don’t like it. It was a bloody masterpiece with a martial artist actually getting to play the character whom he is doing the judo chop for, and Yodas’ furry green ball sack; Darth Maul changed my life. Gothic af, his aesthetic is still drool-worthy, his stunts and choreography are breathtaking and John Williams’ “Duel of the Fates” is still my favourite cinematic score and basically the soundtrack to my internal dialogue. Whenever I am frustrated, I build Star Wars Legos, I jump into a generally trashy Star Wars novel, I chuckle about all the forced celibacy and sexual yearnings of the Padawans and Sith apprentices, and I let myself emotionally uncurl and unspiral while watching podracing … and try to not write mental essays on the colonisation of Naboo and reoccurring, always-there-NOT-A-NEW-THING-social-justice politics embedded in the narratives.
Buddy Reading (If I burnt everything down, who would read with me?)
A few years ago I relocated from the place I grew up to the place I am now. I did in fact make a handful of IRL friends, however, our calendars often clash and I often have not enough spoons to physically go out (and they, for the most part, don’t have cars). Creating a Bookstagram on IG became a wonderful healing process where I connected with all kinds of bookworms and discussed my love of literature, comics, novels, and all-round geekery. I have had my Booksta account for around 3 years now and due to this, I have made some incredible lifelong friends. I love finding odd nooks of the internet where all of a sudden your nerd herd emerges and you are no longer alone.
The chaos that the TV adaptation of Good Omens has brought to the internet has kept me going all June. It is a gender non-conforming queer life force. Buddy reading, this was about that. It really got me communicating with likeminded people and sharing my bookish love. It is this wonderful feeling to curl up on your couch, in your time zone and send a voice message to a friend overseas about where you are up to in the book you are reading. Or send photo reactions for your heartache. Or grieve together for the death of a fictional character. It has really helped fill that sense of lacking within me due to loss of community and has brought me back to myself. There are less intense ways of participating in Buddy reads of course; like, you do not actually have to record how much you have cried over The Faithful and the Fallen(by John Gwynne) but if you are so inclined, you can. You can be as extra or as introverted as you wish. Did I mention this has somehow formed kindred spirit type friendships and also made friends for me, with folx in my own new-to-me city?
Comics (Beautifully illustrated and written capsules of narrative, I would miss you the most if I burnt everything down.)
I was lucky to have access to comics from a really young age. A few years back when a lot of femme readers came forward to me saying they felt gate-kept by the comic community and like it was something just for cis-boys I felt really confused. My Mum would take me to the corner store to buy Archies, Jugheads, and Sabrina Double Digests in the 90s. My Dad would take me for my Birthday, and then again for Yule, to the expensive comic book store in Brisbane city to buy me 2 trade paperback comic books (that was basically all I got for those events and I literally do not care, priceless) in the early 00s. No one around me read comics so not only did I NOT FEEL LIKE THEY WERE A GENDERED ACTIVITY, as an Australian I was seeing very little evidence that it was a masculine thing.
Growing up in Brissy, the cis-boys were skateboarding or surfing or playing AFL. The cis-chicks were playing netball or softball or getting orange fake tans coz it was Brisbane in the early 00s. Geekery has no gender (none of the above-mentioned activities have genders either FYI), so for me, I never felt like I was reading something for boys. The rebirth of the comics industry ESPECIALLY WHERE IMAGE COMICS ARE CONCERNED works to cater not only to being gender inclusive but simply put; inclusive AF.
You want POC driven feudal fantasy? I got ya, fam. You want empathy robot children in space with sexy cyborgs? I got ya, fam. You want alt-world Batman where the Joker is a woman and Barbara Gordon is in charge? I got ya fam. You want a queer urban fantasy with pop-icon deities in stunning fashion? I got ya, fam. You want a femme murder mystery with drama galore? I got ya, fam. You want comics written and illustrated by Indigenous creators? You want comics written and illustrated by women? You want comics written and illustrated by queer folx? I GOT YA, FAM. All of a sudden, I realised the stuff I loved about comics, was beloved by more than me, and these people weren’t sitting on their hands (like me) wishing they could create, they were creating, and I was reading and buying their work. Not only are comics for everyone, (ok unless you are blind, I mean there is word-to-audio conversion programs but unless it describes what has been illustrated this is not as accessible as I imagined 2 seconds ago), ahem if you are willing to pay, they are being made by… everyone.
Look around and women are taking over DC, Latinx creators are getting their voices out there, DC has an Aboriginal superhero (WHO DESERVES HIS OWN COMIC), Marvel is writing trans characters and Image is covering every base there is. If a new identity emerges I know Image will feature a creator or include a character by next comic book day (so Thursday).
Reading (Because it builds empathy, slows you down, gives you access to more voices than the ones in your head, and ideas can change this world.)
Reading has saved me, and many a friend, many times over. It’s what I turn to when life gets too much (so, daily) and it has been a companion from a young age. One of my earliest not-quite-memories is of walking over to my Mums’ tabby cat Cosmo and throwing a pile of board books on her head screaming “READ TO ME” like the demon child I was. I think my Mum had to surgically remove the cat from my arm. My childhood was full of bizarre health issues which impacts my behaviour and moods and often made doctors send me off for CT scans. When things got too much, my Mum would read to me. Read absolutely whatever, but as a bookworm. the children’s lit library she developed for me, and then for my sibling was, and is, phenomenal.
One of my fondest summer holiday memories is after swimming for hours we’d sit outside drying off (in the Brisbane humidity, yep it took a while) and she would read one chapter of The Hobbit, acting out sections and doing scary voices where necessary. I was petrified of Flies and Spiders, and my sister wept when Thorin lay dying. My Mum was bemused, “didn’t you say every afternoon you hate this book?” I remember my sister replying, hands crushed in fists against her eyes, golden curls refracting blistering sun “bu-bu-but I loved [Thorin] him”. That dried my tears up quickly. I knew as the loud, annoying older sibling that this was teasing dynamite. I was ready to explode. My Mum saw this immediately and made it clear I was not allowed to tease other people about their feelings. I still maintain that feelings are gross.
The Lord of the Rings (Middle Earth is debatably where I belong, I am definitely an Orc, an eloquent Orc however.)
My family took me to Middle Earth at a young age, (no not New Zealand, still not visited yet) and introduced to me to a wonderful universe. As an adult, I have had my fair share of qualms with Tolkien, pastoralism not the least of them, but on average they are wholesome books with wholesome characters and wholesome adaptations and SO MUCH QUEER CODING SWEET BABY GANDALF. Something I really adore about the film adaptations is the tender masculinity present in the characters. Aragorn kissing his friends’ foreheads and singing poetic verses. Sam weeping over salt or rope or potatoes or Frodo or Rosie or pints. The sweet sexual tension between Gimli and Legolas. Legolas’s facial expressions. Pippin and Merry–the bffs or friends-with-benefits?
These characters fought the good fight, for others, not themselves. And some are lucky enough to live, but never to live unchanged. They give me hope in dark places when I need courage, and when I need to remember that the smallest of folx can make big ripples in this universe. Plus the LOTR community make pretty sweet memes. And fanart. And fanfic. When I am stressed out I put on Howard Shore’s An Unexpected Journey (perfect for reading any kind of fantasy book or just having on low volume for naps). When I am weary I binge well, the LOTRs film trilogy, not the Hobbit so much; this is an article about things keeping me in the world or keeping me from destroying the world so SKIPPING OVER THE HOBBIT FILMS (the first is not so bad, and Thranduil is glam af) is a good idea or I may just need to write a follow up rant article on 10 Things that Make Me Want to Take Back My Word and Burn Everything.
Whether you think Bilbo and Thorin are perfect soul mates or just platonic enemies to frenemies, there is a lot of comfort in these tales. I think that’s what Tolkien set out to achieve, to talk about awful traumatic things that change the shape of your world and how you then relate to that changed world and your changed self. There is a sense of comfort whether it’s imagining Bilbo’s larder and pantry (drool), listening to Thorins’ singing voice (drool), pushing yourself to go on an adventure without your damn pocket handkerchief, crossing over to the Grey Lands as some kind of … assisted dying with emotional support group; there is a lot of beauty in Middle Earth. Which means that it is a beauty that can still be found in our world; Tolkien based his creations on Saxon, Norse, and Anglo myths to bring new meaning to the history of the land he lived on and fought for. This resonates with us; we live now seeing the outcomes of these wars and like a Nazgul on the horizon, we know too that another war is coming. We don’t know how it will be fought, I cannot anticipate this stuff despite my study, despite my heart, despite my paranoia. But we have the stories of our ancestors, our transcestors, our Elders, and we still have time to learn. Maybe that’s what Tolkien set out to do, not build a great faerie tale or a mythic cycle for Britain, but caution us against ourselves and our shared history of violence. To be gentle, to be tender, to kiss those we love (ew), and to find a peaceful mode of living.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (mmm…rose quartz!), then I probably do not need to inform you that Pam Grossman –writer, podcaster, practicing witch, and all-around mistress of magic, myth, and moxie–has conjured forth an incredible book to share with the world: Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power.
I recently had the ideal opportunity to devour its wonderments whilst whizzing through the skies on a mammoth metal broomstick, dizzying views of watercolor clouds in the early dawn’s cauldron bubbling and churning below. Free from obligations, phone calls, and miraculously (!) even a seatmate, it was the perfect setting to dive into this powerful collection of meditations and celebrations focused on the evocative, influential archetype of the witch.
I have since arrived back home and I am so pleased to share with you today my thoughts on Waking The Witch, and, in celebration of the summer solstice, Haute Macabre and Pam have an exciting giveaway announcement for you below, as well!
As with anything Pam creates, and which I know I may eventually write about, I’m initially intimidated at the prospect of reviewing Waking the Witch, which debuted on June 4th and is already a best selling new release on Amazon. But, as in the past, once I have cracked the cover and peeked inside, I am inexplicably drawn in with a whoosh as through a magic portal, and having begun to read the material, I’m immediately awestruck. And then! It’s off to the races and I’m scribbling notes and observations faster than I can read the material or even properly parse what I’ve written about it, and I tell you what: no one–no one!– has the ability to grab my attention and my imagination quite that way that Pam does.
[And if you don’t believe me, check out the bundles of blurbs brimming with words of praise in the book’s opening pages, penned by a veritable who’s who of contemporary neopaganism and witchcraft– the likes of Kristin Solee, Gabriela Herstik, Neko Case, etc. If your Sarah E. doesn’t know what she’s talking about (and let’s face it, sometimes she doesn’t), then, by goddess, these writers, artists, and magic-makers do.)
If that doesn’t grab you, I will steal the lines right out of art critic Morf Vandewalt’s mouth (played with campy panache by Jake Gyllenhal in the Netflix film Velvet Buzzsaw.) “Mesmeric… I’m ensorcelled,” he sighs with embellished, unbridled enthusiasm at the sight of …something or other. It doesn’t matter. That movie has nothing to do with this book. All you need to know is that I too, was ensorcelled during my airborne afternoons with Waking The Witch, and I don’t mean that with any amount of smarmy irony or the puffed up, self-importance of a critic who thinks their words are going to make or break someone’s career. From the book’s electrifying introduction right through the emotional acknowledgments at the end, I was, for a time lost to this world, utterly immersed in its resplendent thrall. If that’s not ensorcelled, then I just don’t know what is.
Visually, texturally, Waking The Witch is an eye-pleasing, tactile delight. Bound in material cool to the touch and satiny-not-quite-slippery to grip, the matte cover glimmers with gold foil motifs that glow gratifyingly when the light hits them just so and is boldly punctuated with flashes of flaming scarlet. The mystical patterns and symbols–hands conjuring bolts of lightning, fingertips twinkling with tiny stars, crescent moons, curving arrows, and circling paths– are nestled against a deep celestial blue echoing the velvet vault of heaven at midnight. As to these observations, Pam shared a few magical, behind-the-scenes insights: “[The cover] reminds me of the sky and sea, and also looks like lapis lazuli, a gemstone associated with elevating the spirit and having clear communication – which is certainly what I hope the book will do! The triangle is associated with the triple goddess, and I love the way the fiery red pops against the background like some sort of amulet or jewel…”
Though at first glance this appears no slim tome, balanced on the palm, the book possesses a peculiar weightlessness that belies the scholarly and spiritual heft of the wisdom, wit, and warmth contained within. A beautiful, brilliant, biblio-treat, I found this is not so much a casual book for the nightstand so much as a magical grimoire/memoir for my altar. But whether your interest lies in witches and witchcraft or feminism, culture, and gender, I believe you’ll find yourself too ensnared in its spell to leave it lay long in either place.
If you’re already familiar with Pam’s evocative writing through her essays and articles, her illuminated manifesto What Is A Witch, or perhaps even from her artful blog posts, then you are no stranger to the beat and the pulse of her words, and how they sing with a wonderful rhythm in your blood. The lyrical language with which she crafts her assorted observations and myriad musings have a profoundly poetic, incantatory quality that you can’t just passively read without also, in a heady, personal way, simultaneously experiencing. They’re a song, a chant, a spell; you feel them, and they move you. ” There is a line between witchcraft and wordsmithery,” she notes, and later references the poem “Spelling”, by Margaret Atwood: “A word after a word after a word is power–” and I believe there is no more powerful word on contemporary witchcraft that those that Pam shares within Waking The Witch.
Early in I’m struck by her words of inclusivity. It makes me a little sad to note that sometimes (it seems to me, at least) our various alt-communities can seem anything but inclusive. Do you ever notice that the weirdos, the strangelings, the outcasts, and outsiders–those friends and familiars on the fringe–can sometimes be the most vicious gatekeepers? (But listen, I’m not here to judge; the meme “who hurt you?” comes to mind, which can be so funny/unfunny, because it’s so painfully true. I’m sorry that someone, somewhere gave you a hard time, spooky friends.) I love how Pam makes her opinion clear that whether your interest is heartfelt or cheeky, budding or established, your beliefs and practices public or private—the witch is an elastic archetype accessible to all, and we might call ourselves witch for manifold reasons.
The word “witch”, she further elucidates, represents “a means of identifying how I carry myself through the world and the kind of energetic current that I wish to be a conduit for.”
“At any given time I am a feminist; someone who celebrates freedom and will fight against injustice using every tool at her disposal; a person who values intuition and self-expression; a kindred spirit with those who favor the unconventional, the uncanny, the underground. I am a woman who dares speak her mind and display the full gamut of human emotion–behavior that is still met by society with judgement or disdain.”
From the current state of my copy of Waking The Witch, you’d think it had undergone the fabled test of the 7 Wonders and come out the other side scrappier, scarred, and deeply changed for the experience. Never have I underlined with such feverish intensity, dog-eared with so much unreserved enthusiasm, and highlighted with cackling, demented glee. Contained within these pages was a fascinating exploration brimming with nuanced insights of witches in history, politics, cinema, literature, and the arts–and which will surely remain a perpetual font of inspiration and sagacity that I will no doubt revisit again and again. I didn’t want to forget a single word. (And trust me, this book has been forever marked in such a way to ensure that I will not!)
From chapters encompassing the awkward, rebellious magic of the Teen Witch, to the old-timey Girls Gone Wild idea that witches were thought to be horned-up, power-hungry consorts of Satan, all kissing his butthole and eating dead baby parts and whatnot; the cruel brutality of witch hunts which arose from that foolishness, to how those collective perceptions and experiences shaped the notion of witches and witchcraft over time–when I initially remarked that I devoured this book, that was no exaggeration. Waking The Witch serves up a boundless buffet of brilliance and I greedily consumed every course.
Highlights included:
Chapter 4: “Body Monsters” which struck a deep, dark chord within me; amongst other items of relevance, Pam discusses childlessness and the right to that reality, bodily autonomy, and growing older in a society punitive of repulsive, repugnant wrinkles and sags.
In Chapter 6: “The Dark Arts: Magic Makers And Craft Women,” we are introduced to a handful of women who wield their wands creatively, and in particular: surrealist artists and friends, Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. “Steeped in kitchens and cauldrons and laboratories and labyrinths,” these artists speak to my particular flavor of witchery and spell-craft–that which involves puttering and muttering around boiling pots, cursing and curing, chopping and chanting–all of the toil and trouble and cauldron bubble, without, you know, the eye of newt and toe of frog. And then when you’re through, you’ve got a nice meal! (Or a not so nice meal, as the case may be. Not that I’m endorsing this.)
Finally, with Chapter 7: “Power In Numbers: Covens And Collectives”, Pam presents us with the idea of joining forces with like-minded practitioners. Ooof! This is an unnerving thought, as Pam, like me, was concerned that the individuals involved might be “…too flaky or too corny or too serious or not serious enough.” But this resistance, she reveals, really might be more about us:
To practice in a group requires both a loosening of self-consciousness and a tightening grip on the rudder of sincerity. You have to care and you have to let others see you caring. And you have to bear witness to their caring in turn. You will most likely grow to care about them. And heaven forfend, you may even allow them to care about you too.
When we decided to be part of any community, we are making a commitment to literally be there for ourselves and for each other. Once you’ve identified a group that you may want to be part of–and that group has signaled that you are indeed invited to join them–the next step you take is to simply show up.
For in that moment, you are choosing to say, “Here I am,” and for many of us that may be a scary prospect.
Before I sign off (TLDR; Waking The Witch is a rare treasure! Go out and buy this book!) I thought I might share a few words from the author. As someone who continually struggles with starting creative projects, sustaining forward momentum throughout the process, and who stresses with the oftentimes depressing aftermath of putting a thing out into the world and wondering, “what now?”… and also realizing that I am not the only one among us to work through these challenges, I thought it might be illuminating and valuable to find out how this witchy writer handles these concerns for herself. See below, wherein Pam shares a few insights for us egarding the processes, practices, and rituals that she utilized while writing Waking The Witch…
“I had so many different rituals and magic workings I was doing throughout the process of this book. It was a constant process of burning candles and lighting incense, and surrounding myself with helpful talismans. My friend Peter had me do a magic square and sigil for Jupiter, which is a planet associated with power and authority. This was to help me step into my confidence because I must say, at times it felt rather daunting to try to write about such a big subject, especially when so many brilliant people have already done so. The magic square is on my desk – right near my RuPaul candle in fact, which I also light when I need to feel extra fierce!
But it was also important to me that I marked each step of the process, as well as giving thanks to my various spirits along the way for their guidance. When I handed in the final first draft, for example, my husband and I went for a walk in our neighborhood late that night to get a celebratory candy bar. We ended up in this pharmacy that happened to be open late and there I saw that this gorgeous, iridescent candle I had my eye on for months was on sale for 50% off! And this may sound strange, but my late Grandma Trudy was the queen of bargains, and I write about her in the book as well, so I knew it was her way of sending me a little congratulatory sign! So I bought the candle and lit it that night to thank her, and I still light it when I need an extra boost of support from her.
When I got the galley for the book, I put it on my altar and also brought it to my coven whenever we met, for extra good vibes, too. And now that the actual book is out, I replaced the galley on my altar with the final product. My wish for it is not only that it is successful – whatever that may mean – but more so that it will be of service to Spirit and will reach those who need it. I hope it brings more compassion, love, fun, and freedom into people’s lives, and that it helps wake the witch within them. We’re going to need a lot of wide-open hearts and transformational power to change this world for the better, so I hope in some small way this book contributes to that. I truly believe that witches are the future.”
“Am I fawning?” “Do I look too desperate? Am I trying too hard?” “Am I being weird and needy or clingy?”
These are thoughts that constantly plague me, and have, ever since that day in first grade when Natalie W. told me to leave her alone and stop trying to be her friend. (I had thought that maybe the two least popular girls in Mrs. Holbrook’s class should be friends, but apparently, I was a moron for thinking so.) I remember feeling a little bit hurt by the exchange, but somehow it also felt inevitable. I had come to believe that, at six years old, I was hopelessly unfriendable–and to my young mind at the time, this humiliating exchange proved my theory beyond the shadow of a doubt. I gave up all attempts at making friends after that, and it would be a very long time before I gave it another shot.
That is not to say I never had any friends, but the companions I had were usually girls that decided, for whatever reason, to make friendly overtures to me. On my first day of fourth grade, it was already several weeks into the school year; I was new to the class, and the school, and the state of Florida as we had just moved to the southeast from Ohio. A frizzy-headed blonde girl with watery blue eyes took it upon herself to immediately become my friend. M. was a rather large girl; she was, in fact, the largest human I had ever seen. But I didn’t care what she looked like. I didn’t care that her family lived in a crowded mobile home that smelled weird and they drank bitter yellow grapefruit juice for every meal (they were constantly dieting, as they were an entire family of rather large people) and that they took me to stupid boring church every Sunday, and that all my new friend M. ever talked about was Kirk Cameron, who I quite frankly thought was a curly-headed goon. Nope, I went along with all of it–I finally had a friend and, dammit, I wasn’t going to do anything to screw it up!
M. and I stayed friends for my remaining years of elementary school, and we had big plans for middle school– but they were soon to be derailed. During my first week of seventh grade as I was shuttling between classes, trying to figure out how my locker worked, how not to get noticed by the wrong people, and myriad other details that I still dream about once a week, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and a note was thrust between my fingers. Intrigued, I skimmed its contents. In a bold, looping hand was a frenzied note of introduction and flattery. The writer commented on how much they loved my hair and clothes (huh? I hardly ever washed my hair and I was going through a ratty jeans and tee-shirt phase), and by the way, was that me they saw at the heavy metal concert the other night, hanging out with the band? (Uhh? No? I wasn’t allowed to go to concerts, let alone hang out with skeezy dudes twice my age) I didn’t even catch a glimpse of this person, and I didn’t know what to think, and thus began a friendship that throughout its development often felt just as confusing and fraught with as many such moments of “how is this even happening?” as it did at its inception.
V., I was to learn, was a bit of a trouble-maker. A mediocre student with a big mouth, who was always talking trash to the popular girls who looked down on her, she was a sassy whirlwind, and I often thought, much too wild to continue being friends with boring, quiet me–yet she adored and idolized me in a way that I have never encountered since. At the time I thought it was maybe because she coveted the way I lived; my family was in a lower-middle-class sort of situation, but in many ways, we may have been better off than they were. Her family lived, literally, on the other side of the tracks, the wrong side. They were what I thought of at the time as, “poor people”…which had a thrilling, sort of illicit ring to it and looking back now I wish someone had given me a talking to about how incredibly insensitive and irresponsible it was to romanticize such a thing. Wow, all of this is so uncomfortable to confront and write about now. But back then all I knew was that when I’d visit her home, no way were they going to make me eat a Weight Watchers burrito and a sadly dressed salad for dinner– it was deep-fried fish and french fries and buckets of iced tea so sweet we’d be buzzing around and off the walls until way past midnight.
V. took me to parties where there were boys and beer (gross and grosser; I was a late developer); she convinced me to skip school and see big hair heavy metal bands down on the boardwalk during the era when Daytona was a big destination for crazy college spring breaks; she began an affair with her aunt’s boyfriend when she was 13 (he was 28). At 16 she met a construction worker at a bus stop while she was skipping school, and shortly thereafter she was pregnant. After that there was no more school for V. And no more V. for me.
In both instances, these friends were strangers who approached me, and, not having any better options at the moment, my instinct was, “well, why not?” As such, I suppose I wasn’t as invested in the relationships as I could have been, and when we drifted apart, my response was most likely a shrug and an “oh well.” I never pushed for strengthening our bonds or for making things work, or for another chance. I just let it go.
I’m afraid I do this still in many areas of my life, but I will get back to my thoughts on that after this brief but related next tidbit. I did manage to snag one more best friend in my early 20s. We met through a mutual friend who had organized an evening for us all to meet up and make sushi together, which sounds like a fun, nice way to get to know someone new, right? Facilitated through the buffer of someone you already know? Sounded like a fine idea to me. Well, the mutual friend never showed up. Instead, I spent the evening in a stranger’s kitchen, just the two of us awkwardly warming up to each other while shaping rice and fish into sushi rolls and trying to figure out why our other friend flaked. Nearly twenty years later we still don’t know the answer to that, but I am profoundly grateful to her for she introduced me to the most fascinating, fabulous, complex, and complicated human I have ever met, whom I love with all my heart, and who became my dearest friend in the world. I know it’s a cliché to say so, but in the course of our friendship, although we have had our ups and downs, we have always managed to work them through and emerge from them stronger and more devoted to each other than before. And that’s what’s so wonderful with this particular friendship: when things get weird, or wrong, or challenging, I didn’t just say, “oh well” and walk away. I actually cared about it. About her. About us! And it big-time breaks my heart to think of a life without my dear BGF, so I will always fight to keep her in it.
My M.O. for a long time was to let go, to walk away, to “oh well”. At this point in my life, although I’ve gotten better at the initial legwork of making friends, it’s the part that comes after the befriending that stumps me. And really, that’s the whole reason I started writing this. A friend on facebook requested some feedback from their friends about something or other…and I was too shy to chime in with a public comment, so I sent her a DM instead. But that got me to thinking…I notice that I don’t comment on a lot of my friends’ stuff– whether it’s on Facebook, or twitter, or Instagram…I oftentimes feel that my commentary or feedback or hell, even my vaguely applied emoji might be taken as too clingy, or needy, and then someone thinks I’m a fawning, bootlicking toady.
As it relates to blossoming friendships, that’s where this fear of neediness and desperation trips me up. How soon to reach out again once we’ve discovered that “hey! we’ve got some things in common and want to be friends!” How much is too much? What sort of continued overtures does one make? How do you build that into something more meaningful? I still haven’t figured that out, really.
I don’t want to be seen as trying too hard or come off as desperate, and I don’t want to think I should back off because maybe I’m innately supposed to know who is worth making the effort for, and who is not. I am not sure that I always do! As I’ve gotten older, though, it has become more important to me to make an effort; I’ve actually got more fucks to give than ever before! I just want to make sure that I’m not throwing them all at new acquaintances who might be made uncomfortable or freaked out or maybe just uninterested in all of my fucks and my genuine attempts at forging a bond and making a friend.
All this is to say, I guess, is that if you wonder why I lurk about and I don’t ever comment on your stuff online, aside from the alleged algorithms that hide your stuff from me in the first place–it’s probably because I don’t want to come on too strong or I’m afraid my earnestness is off-putting, or all the different ways I could phrase it really, just boil down to one thing: I’m scared. I’m scared you won’t like me. That maybe I am as unlikeable or unworthy as first grade me felt so many years ago. I’m just…scared you don’t want to be my friend.
If this reads like a long-winded secret diary entry that was written with the hopes someone will stumble across and read it, I guess that’s because that’s more or less exactly what it is. It feels a little mid-life crisis-y, too. I mean, maybe I should have this figured out, already, you know? Anyway, I use my blog here for a lot of things; an art gallery, a recipe book, a dream journal, a catalogue of covetations, and more recently, and for things like this, I guess it’s just a big ol’ brain dump
Mixed media artist Rebecca Reeves’ work is intricate and enthralling, delicately wrought with thin black thread and fraught with powerful, piercing themes of family and loss. Some pieces work to contain and preserve their contents–poignant heirlooms or other meaningful objects– while others encapsulate their interior in a suffocating struggle of sorrow and grief.
More recently, these pieces instead of items obsessively enveloped, incorporates the idea of mirrors and portals, a connection with another world, and–unlike her cocooned works of familial preservation and protection–embraces the notion that we must not allow the spirits of the deceased to become trapped within.
I own one of Rebecca Reeves works, it sits on a shelf in my office and quietly watches me work every day. A sweet, eerie-eyed porcelain doll head atop an antique milk glass jar, to resemble a flower festooned with softly glimmering petals and leaves, each one painstakingly hand-beaded. It is a rare treasure.
And what treasure, too, the opportunity to delve deeper into these works of grace and grief and better get to know the sensitive soul who created them! See below for an interview with artist Rebecca Reeves.
Unquiet Things: In repeated viewings of your work, I am struck by how you have taken a thing as vast and fathomless and amorphous as grief and fashioned it into a tiny, tangible keepsake to treasure. You have bound it snugly in thread, embellished it with glass beads, pinned it in place like a rare specimen, and protected it under glass. Here, you seem to say. This is the enormity of your staggering grief made small, manageable, secure. It is fragile and delicate. Your grief is not only a thing you can face, but it is a thing to be cherished and preserved.
Now…this is just what I see when I gaze upon your work, of course, I am bringing the weight of my own grief and experiences with loss to the table. But you didn’t make your work for me. Your pieces are intensely personal works inspired by overwhelming emotions experienced when you attempt to live around your grief. And to an extent, we all grieve alone, and our experiences reflect that. What did I get right, in my initial assessment (if anything)? Where do I lose the thread? How are your personal experiences with grief manifested in your creations?
Rebecca Reeves: Thank you for interpreting my work perfectly and for connecting with it on a personal level. When my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, we were also caring for my grandmother who had vascular dementia and my grandfather’s debilitating, nerve damage from shingles. We all had our roles and worked as a team. As my dad’s cancer metastasized to his brain, tough decisions had to be made for the safety and care of everyone. Within one year and four months, we lost three of our dearest loved ones. There wasn’t a moment to grieve, as one died, another person needed our full attention. After nearly three years, those life-ending decisions both haunt me and bring comfort. It’s a never-ending personal battle of emotional highs and lows, reassurance and self-doubt. Grief surrounds my every day life. I’m now finding that I struggle to live in the moment and see the bright side of things. My art is my outlet.
Working small is the ultimate way to gain control over something that is uncontrollable. Incorporating fiber-related materials into my work reminds me of my family and all of the good memories. Ever since the beginning of my college education, I have channeled loss and grief into my art. My loved ones are my entire world. They gave everything to me and in return, I give everything to them. So it was only a natural progression to create work about the love I have for them. My work comes straight from my heart and more times than not, my emotions get the best of me while working on pieces.
Your art incorporates “fiber-related processes” and your “obsessive qualities”; can you expand upon those ideas and how they are embodied in your work? And perhaps how they may have evolved over time, as your grief may ebb or flow, as your different inspirations shift or unfold?
For as long as I can remember, I have been an obsessive person. When I was little, I found comfort in pouring my wooden puzzles together and completing them all at once. I had a Tupperware container with compartments that I would organize and reorganize beads according to size, color, or favorites. When I was 8 or 9 years old, I hung shelves up in my closet in order to organize my toys/games. They didn’t last long since I had no knowledge about drywall anchors. But, it was when I was 10 years old that my life forever changed. My paternal grandfather passed away. It was a life-changing experience because I wished him away. My fascination with death and the need to control the uncontrollable has altered my life and given me comfort.
My grandfather was one of many painters in my family and I once considered this as my medium, but it was the women in my life that influenced my fiber-related processes. From crocheting, knitting, darning, beadwork, and sewing – it was inevitable that fiber took its hold on me.
One of my favorite pieces is Gathering My Ghosts, which was, I believe, created with the idea of connecting to your ancestors on the other side–” mini portals for time traveling.” Can you share how this idea came about and how it all came together?
I can’t remember exactly when the piece began and how far along cancer had its grips on my dad. When I was creating the piece, loss was already setting in and I was thinking about how I could communicate with my ancestors – the ones I love and the ones I’ve never met. I was thinking about the occult during this time. Not practicing, but mulling over the idea of the black mirror; thinking about how my family would cover the mirrors in black cloth during funerary visitations as a superstition. The use of black-colored threads in my obsessive wrapping process is directly attributed to those darkened mirrors.
I do remember finishing the piece and gathering up the details for a large show that I was curating titled, “More Beyond”. My dad was on steroids and looking great on the outside. My parents attended the show and we had the best time. They were so proud. The piece stood in a glorious spot as you walked through the gallery entrance. The piece was also exhibited in a chance-of-a-lifetime show alongside 150 Victorian hairwork pieces at the Kemerer Museum a few months later. “Gathering My Ghosts” now resides in a loving home with a dear friend who also suffered the loss of a parent.
In a previous interview, about both you and your husband’s interest in collection Post Mortem photography, you stated, “We respect the artistic expression of death”; I am curious as to what other mediums or forms of artistic expression extends with regard to your collection (or perhaps things you might be interested in collecting.)
Over the 30 years together, we have the typical collections: Victorian mourning jewelry and hairworks, religious items, funerary pieces, post-mortem photography, and human bones. Within my personal collection, I have antique silver and beaded purses, porcelain doll legs, and fire king ware. We have always been avid antique collectors, doing the circuit of shops and markets. I’ve learned all I know about antiques from generations of my family. Our home is filled with our loved ones’ items. I refer to it as a living museum of my family’s heirlooms. There’s something about touching an object that was once loved by a family member. I like to believe there’s an energy that continues on within.
I’ve inherited an extensive collection of antique glass bottles, tins, books dating back to my great-grandparents, vintage postcards and honeycomb Valentine’s Day cards as well as my great-grandfather’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows memorabilia, just to name a few. We’ve come to the point in our collecting where something really has to strike hard for us to buy more. We question, “How will this piece inspire our art and music?” rather than just expanding a collection.
In 2018, your Garden of Grief collection was exhibited and sold through the Creeping Museum (whom I love dearly, I think they do such good work!) How was your experience with that? Can you share anything about that particular collection and how that collaboration was born?
The moment I met Alyssa, she found a special place in my heart. When I was introduced to her tiny museum, I knew right then that I had to be a part of what she created. The night of the opening was so memorable and she made me feel special. The series came from a memory of my great-grandmother’s art. When I was little, I remember a beaded bouquet of flowers that she made on her kitchen windowsill. She was an incredibly talented potter, painter, bead artisan and everything in between. From this memory, I began researching and creating beaded flowers with a lot of trial and error. The title to the series came naturally from my heart. As difficult as it was to part with them, I wanted to incorporate some of my dad’s milk glass collection into the series. They then became the foundation for the sculptures.
To give your poor hands a break from all the obsessive stitching, intricate beading and tiny wire wrapping that you do for your art, what sort of things do you get up to in your spare time when you are not creating?
Well, you would think I would try and relax my hands and elbows, but no. There just isn’t enough time to get it all done. My brain never stops and our house to-do list posted on the refrigerator just gets longer and longer. I have the most patient husband and he goes with the flow on all of my crazy ideas. He has banned me, though, from renting any more heavy equipment due to my obsession with moving boulders.
One of my favorite things equivalent to creating art is home design/décor and organizing. I love to rearrange the furniture placement and I specifically designed our home with limited interior walls just for this reason. I adore structure magazines and thank my grandmother for this appreciation. She and I shared subscriptions for decades, earmarking our favorite pages and then discussing how we would incorporate them into our homes. My heart grows heavy when I look at them today without her. My family is everything and taking care of them is first priority. Enjoying a night out to dinner with my love at our favorite haunt or just sitting next to each other in our chairs, watching comedies over and over brings me joy. Spending time with my mom, either working on going through our loved ones’ possessions, having lunch at our favorite teahouse or just simply talking about the daily happenings. Time spent together no matter what we do is precious.
Are there any gallery shows or exhibits where we may see your work right now, or perhaps further into 2019?
Currently, I am working on a few new pieces that will be exhibiting in two different shows at Gristle Gallery in Brooklyn this year. At the same time, I’m in the beginning stages of a new piece for an upcoming show at Arch Enemy Arts Gallery in August. I’m thrilled to announce that “Slipping Below,” the two-woman exhibition with Danielle Schlunegger-Warner, is now traveling to the West Coast to Ghost Gallery in September. Also, I’ll be vending at a few different venues this year including the upcoming Oddities Market in Chicago, where I received my graduate degree. I’m excited to see the city again.
Can you share any projects that are percolating, or ideas that are coalescing for the upcoming year?
I’m working on the gathering stages for a ghosted sea captain series. It is a continuation of the work that is dedicated to my dad and his service in the Navy. There isn’t a planned venue as of yet, but I have been mind-sketching this series since the close of the “Slipping Below” exhibition at the end of last year. New wearable pieces and tiny originals, incorporating beaded flowers and porcelain hands are brewing for a couple of the upcoming markets this year. When grief and anxieties get the best of me, I find that my greatest distraction is collecting materials and working out ideas in my mind. It helps me justify that I’m still being productive during emotionally hard times.
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When I was a senior in high school, I was enrolled in an advanced physics class that I had absolutely no business taking. I just wasn’t physics-minded, I guess you could say. It could also be said that I wasn’t very academic-minded, but somehow I’d made it through school with decent grades and part of me suspects it is because I was nice and good and never gave anyone any trouble. I also suspect there was a whole bunch of middle-class white privilege tied up in my circumstances as well.
(Which is gross to say but it would be irresponsible and even grosser not to acknowledge. Although I maybe wouldn’t have called us “middle class”; more like one of the bottom rungs of “lower middle class” and the only reason the cops were not at our house once a week is because we had a buffer in the way of one other family on the block that was trashier and even more dysfunctional than we were.)
At any rate, I showed up to class and took notes. I mostly did the homework. I mostly took the tests. And I mostly got middling grades. On one morning, I showed up to physics class and discovered there was a test that I did not study for (see! it happens outside of dreams, too!)
I took my seat, daydreamed my way through the 45 minutes of class, and, not having turned in the test sheet, exited class with the rest of the students when the bell rang. The next Monday, Mr. — pulled me aside and fretted. “Sarah, I know you were in class on Friday morning. But your test doesn’t seem to be in the stack with the rest of them?” I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s strange,” I offered. “Hm,” he mused. “I’m sorry, it must have fallen out of the stack and gotten lost. I’ll just give you whatever the class average is.”
Was this a lazy teacher? Maybe. He was getting close to retirement. Or perhaps an educator who was merely kind to a struggling student? I had observed him as a thoughtful man, generous with praise, and quick to assist my classmates who were having a hard time. But it’s doubtful he believed me. Or…was it? I was a polite, quiet kid. I showed up. I went through the motions. Maybe that was enough to get by. That’s how I’d gotten by for the past 17 years, after all.
My childhood and young adulthood were rife with instances such as this. Either squeaking by on my reputation of not having a reputation, or being overlooked altogether and being moved ahead with everyone else because that was easier than realizing they hadn’t realized I was there in the first place. “Slipping through the cracks,” I think is how it’s referred to, sometimes.
I have always felt a bit invisible. From a young age, I would often unplug from what was happening around me and retreat inside myself, to my own inner world with its intrigues and machinations and daily dramas. Oftentimes a whole class period would go by and, not really having been there, I’d miss the lesson, or the homework, or the fact that a teacher needed a field trip form filled out for an out-of-class excursion the next day. I can’t count the times I’d show up for school not having some form or another filled out–not even actually realizing that we were going anywhere–and have to sit out a class trip, because I hadn’t been paying attention.
When you’re so withdrawn as to do absent yourself from what’s happening around you, you do start to feel that because you miss what’s going on and you don’t see it—it doesn’t see you. An invisibility cloak made mostly of self-delusion. And when you’re not present for the memorable things, the class trips, year book photos, graduation ceremonies, you begin to slip from people’s memories. If you were ever in them, to begin with. All of this validates the feeling that you’re beginning to recognize as invisibility.
But, I always assured myself, “you want to be left alone.” And, “it’s okay if no one includes you, or invites you, or even sits next to you in an empty seat!” I always seem to have a sea of empty seats around me, which is odd because I am certain that I smell really nice, so I guess I must have a really off-putting aura. But anyway, yes, for the most part this is all true. I am perfectly happy to miss out on the parties and the girl’s nights out and the celebrations and the brunches and all the other whatevers. Just let me do my thing, on my own! (As an adult sometimes I do decide to join in, though, so please don’t stop inviting me!)
This “invisibility” has unfortunately affected my life in more insidious ways. As part of it, I don’t quite feel like I exist, and therefore, I put off doing, or don’t do at all, the typical things that normal people do in this world as part of the whole business of existing. I don’t go to the doctor. I often let my car insurance lapse, neglect to renew my automobile registration. Up until this past January, I hadn’t seen a dentist in over 20 years.
This manifests in lesser ways, as well. Ways that have to do with everyday comforts and just…well, regular useful stuff that I don’t seem to think about. For example: it never even occurred to me to take snacks or something to drink when I have an hour-plus car ride ahead of me. I forever thought I just had to be uncomfortably hungry or thirsty en route. I never carry aspirin or bandaids in my handbag; if I have a headache or a bloody finger, I just always think, “well, I’ll suffer through it for a while.” It’s taken me several years to write things down in a planner or calendar because I’d convinced myself, “oh, you’re not doing anything worth noting, anyway”, or “you don’t have to write it down, you’re supposed to just remember it!” Spoiler alert: I don’t. I probably wasn’t even paying attention to know what to remember in the first place!
This idea of suffering through life is very much tied up for me in this perpetual feeling of invisibility…I can’t work out how one leads to the other, exactly, other than if one does not quite exist, then one’s relative comfort really isn’t all that important.
…and yet. I am terribly guilty, as everyone knows, of frittering away extravagant amounts of money on perfumes and works of art–neither of which are things I need for survival or tending to my day-to-day needs. However…these are the things that make me feel keenly, fiercely, and wholly alive. The one sentiment, one then supposes, really has not much at all to do with the other.
(If you scroll further in a desperate attempt to figure what all of this has been for, and why am I wasting your time, you’ll see it boils down to just this: “Hey! Here’s a list of some stuff I like!”)
Classic Sarah, am I right?
No, but seriously–I have been thinking about this for a long time, and attempting to write this blog post for over a year now. I visited my best good friend last year, and at one point we took a car trip to a somewhat local botanical garden and she packed us a few snacks and some icy drinks for the road. I was flabbergasted. It just…never even occurred to me that my stomach didn’t have to rumble and there was no need for me to be parched when I reached my destination. As I thought about it more, I wondered, “what are some other useful utilities and creature comforts that I am missing out on?” I’ve polled a few friends and perhaps even unconsciously peeked at their habits, I’ve started focusing more on my own needs and the issues which arise that I’m never prepared to address, and heck, I’ve even been closely watching the media that I consume to see what I can learn about this. I think I may have picked up a thing or two.
What follows below is a list of things gleaned from finally paying attention. They’re not all material things, though some of them are. They may be things that are so glaringly obvious, you’re going to smack your head and exclaim, “Sarah, what is WRONG with you? Everyone knows this!.” Well, everyone, it would seem, but Sarah. Who was too busy reading Ghosts I Have Been by Richard Peck in a fourth grade lesson, when she should have been paying attention to “its” vs. “its”; instead, because she clearly wasn’t paying attention, she didn’t realize until she was 40 that she’d been getting them wrong this whole time. That’s not a good example, though, because this list has nothing to do with grammar. She probably missed the lesson on proper literary segues and transitions, as well.
And, I am pleased to report, I finally saw a dentist this year. Three times since this past January. I’m even going to get my crooked teeth fixed! At no small cost, of course, but as I’m slowly shedding my invisibility, I’d like to get rid of that snaggletoothed situation as well. I also got my first mammogram this year. My mams exist and are real and they need to be grammed! I have begun seeing a counselor again as well, and now that I have written about these feelings, I think I am finally able to put them into words and share them with another person, as well.
Without further ado, then, a List Of Conveniences For The Invisible Girl.
Car snacks are a thing! Who knew? My best good friend introduced me to the wonders of the individual serving iced tea press which doubles as a portable drinking vessel, and wow. Maybe I’m easily impressed, but this thing is brilliant. The one I use is from David’s Tea, and I usually go for a blend with some tartness, like maybe lemon, or hibiscus. My current favorite car snacks are the original butter & soy sauce flavored potato sticks that BGF brought along on our trip, as well as these spicy seaweed tempura things that are similarly crunchy and addicting.
During that same visit, we got to talking about all of the things that long-time best friends talk about: gossip surrounding the horrible people we hate and the various afflictions and offenses visited upon us by the ravages of time. When I mentioned how disgustingly sweaty I am all the time (boob sweat, argh! and more, I think, a symptom of summertime in southern climes than age, perhaps) she suggested some dusting powder to sprinkle about my assorted bits and keep moisture absorbed and limbs unchafed. To quote one reviewer, “This product changrc [sic] my life.” No regerts!
Also, do you have a tiny bladder that has a tough time holding in all your pee, even on a good day? But then you’ve got a cold, and you’re unwell you are coughing and sneezing and maybe leaking a tiny bit? Yeah, you don’t have to spend the day in pee-damp undies. You could wear a panty liner when you’re sick. Just worth a mention. Something I only realized, oh, in the past year or so.
I honestly thought working from home would help to alleviate some of the work-related anxieties that I live with. But no. Now I just work at a desk in my house, with the added worry that I could get fired at any moment because I am not present to resolve on-site problems. I either sit rigid with dread or slumped in resignation in my chair and stare at a screen for 10 hours in utter silence, save for the incessant ringing of a phone, which has become an inanimate item that I would gleefully murder without remorse. It’s taken me six years to reach the conclusion that hey…you work alone…there’s no one here to complain about the smell or the smoke if you burn a candle (or use a diffuser.) You can listen to an eerie, psychedelic soundtrack of pan flutes and ghost wails and no one will be bothered by the sounds. Here’s a novel idea: you even can buy a phone dock charger thingy so your cell phone is not always low on battery or charging up in your bedroom because you only own one freaking charging cord.
Don’t get me wrong. Working–from home or otherwise–is baloney. To quote my sister, “work is for jerks!” But until some wealthy benefactor decides to fund my moderately luxurious lifestyle, I guess I gotta be a jerk, too. I have found though, that with a few adjustments, I can be a working jerk suffering in a slightly nicer atmosphere.
I have written before about my more diligent use of planners. As a matter of fact, I attribute 100% of my 2019 dentist visits to the fact that I wrote it down to make tooth health a priority, and so I had to follow through with it. My main planner is an undated book from Passion Planner, just plain black. I added a sticker to cover up whatever was embossed there, and I just keep replacing them as they peel off or break down; currently, it’s some sticker art from Poison Apple PrintShop.
I also use the Open Sea Design Co. Sigil planner, sold at Haute Macabre, for keeping lists of things: books I want to read, movies I want to watch, perfumes I want to try, etc. And lastly, I have gotten into the habit of jotting down my nightly adventures again, in this beautiful dream journal from Cocorrina. Speaking of sweet dreams, I’ve decided to stop waiting for thunderstorms to visit and lull me to sleep; instead, we tune into an 8-10 hour long thunderstorm playlist before bed, and it works almost even better than the real thing, especially considering it doesn’t flood the back parlor like actual rain usually does!
My hands always feel awful after I spend time washing dishes. Why did I think that housewives on television were the only ones allowed to wear gloves when scrubbing dinner plates? Good lord. It took me a while, but I eventually realized, that I too could avoid drying out my skin while taking care of harsh, soapy chores. In addition to gloves, I have started keeping a small tube of hand cream above the sink (if you’ve got any sample sizes, or travel-sized versions received as gifts, they are perfect for this!) Even if I’m using gloves, my hands still feel gross when I’m done, so treating them to something moisturizing afterward is a nice thing to do.
Additionally, I have had to fish a lot of rings out of the dish disposal while washing dishes because I either knocked them off the countertop or else they got wet and fell off my finger. Do you know how terrifying it is to stick your hand down in that thing? Have you read Firestarter? Yeesh. I probably never would have thought to buy this for myself but I received a small silver swan ring holder last year from the Tijuanan contingent of my partner’s family, and I think it’s just lovely and perfect. No more having to rescue rings from the finger mangler!
Despite the fact that on occasion I saw my grandmother and my mother switching out purses, I’ve always stubbornly clung to a “one handbag at a time” rule. Which usually meant carrying something clunky when situations called for something small and discreet or toting around a fiddly, fancy purse, ill-suited to travel, etc. It’s only in recent years that I’ve acquired a small shoulder bag for travel in addition to my everyday bag, which is currently this one from MZ WALLACE. Well, I decided I needed a third one, specifically for meeting/visiting other people’s families. Is this weird? I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a cheap tote bag with a William Morris print.
Two items I have added to my handbag for reasons of humiliation and mortification are a small pill case and a phone battery charger thing. I grew so tired of being that one friend who is always asking to borrow a phone charger, or an aspirin; no doubt the friends I were pressing for these items probably thought I was a bit dim for never remembering to bring them, or else a cheapskate for not having them. I’m not dim or cheap! I just thought…well, I just thought that I should be a person who doesn’t get headaches in public and who always leaves the house with a sufficiently charged phone.
Whether it was grumbling stomachs or soggy boobs, uncomfortable home office environments, dead cell phones, or dishpan hands, with so many of these scenarios, I tended to think, “well, that’s how you’re supposed to do it!” and that preparing for an event in which that was not how you did it, was somehow…cheating? At life? I can’t properly explain it. Maybe because I am actually a bit dim and I don’t want to admit it.
As I’m sloooo-ooowly realizing that life doesn’t have to be nearly as hard as I make it on myself, I’d really love to hear about the things you do to “cheat at life”* or make things easier? What are the things you do or use for comfort or convenience? Obvious or esoteric, I wanna hear your secrets to existence!
*I guess some people might call such things “life hacks” but I really hate that term.
When I was a senior in high school, I was enrolled in an advanced physics class that I had absolutely no business taking. I just wasn’t physics-minded, I guess you could say. It could also be said that I wasn’t very academic-minded, but somehow I’d made it through school with decent grades and part of me suspects it is because I was nice and good and never gave anyone any trouble. I also suspect there was a whole bunch of middle-class white privilege tied up in my circumstances as well.
