holding and tangents
I have this clear memory of my Dad telling me stories and memories of being on honeymoon in Singapore with my mom. He described how tropical it was, that he was sweating into his both temperature-hot and spicy-hot soup and loving that sensation. Having never expressed to him that I too enjoyed being uncomfortably hot from the inside out and outside in, I felt held, like I was in a cocoon, as we related to one another about this specific sensation.
It felt important this was not an experience we shared and that we were just relating about something adult to adult.
And it made me feel like we both had this written in our codes.
cocoon, November 18, 2020 Strathcona, BC
I am soft and shy, I have been my whole life. Although I have worked at understanding myself better and can be who I need to be… when I need to be, my squishy orange berry form really doesn’t allow me to hide my softness. Lucky for me, my chrysalis is there. It’s cyclical though.
The following exchange happens pre / post / non / beyond - verbally:
You: Although we are not the same, we can share this between us.
Me: Thank you, I don’t feel so alone.
You: But you feel what I feel sometimes?
Me: Yes I think so.
You: It’s like you didn’t know you knew, isn’t it?
Me: Yes.
Image description: Close up image of three Japanese lantern blossoms on branches with green leaves, coming out of dark brown dirt. Blossoms are orange and one is light brown and dried so that the bright orange berry inside can be seen.
Neighbours garden beyond the fence, November 18, 2020 Strathcona, BC
you hold me without knowing
Image description: Blurry foreground with chain-link fence. In mid ground, Japanese lantern blossoms and whole plant from previous image can been coming out of brown dirt. Background has a portion of a tree trunk, edge of garden and red side panels of a house.
berries on Cordova Street, November 18, 2020 Strathcona, BC
This is a picture of the cherries right below my apartment window. When i open them in the summer, I can literally touch the top branches, though I never do.
Image description: Foreground to mid ground cherry tree with sparse red cherries on branches with green and yellow leaves. Background is the exterior of an apartment building with black beams and windows.
tangent 1:
The word flourishing
Remembering my friend use it in a workshop description
Remembering D. Haraway use it
Remembering delighting in plant and foliage life, being at home and seeing a plant leaf unfurl over the course of a day and literal dew forming at this site of new growth
Remembering Justine use the word unfurl
Images of blossoms and my 6 year old niece speaking to me like a miniature adult
tangent 2:
I wonder if I can feel the way I feel about the word flourishing towards my moving body?
Taking a walk and noticing these tiny red cherries in the tree right below my window
The potential and the actual flourishing of this tree happening just beyond the frame I placed between myself and something, in this instance the outside world / my perception of myself / old ideas of a dancing body having to always be dancing
berries up close, November 18, 2020 Cordova Street, BC
Image description: Close up image of red cherries on branches with yellow and green leaves in foreground. Background is the exterior of an apartment building with black beams and windows.
This is picture of the cherries close up.
I stand outside of my apartment looking up at these for what feels like a long time. I stare at them, unabashed about my gaze. I think about if someone was looking at me the way I was looking at the cherries. I try to let myself be seen by the cherries, if they want to look. Non-verbally I tell them, “no pressure”. I take 6-8 pictures on my phone and walk inside.
my window, November 18, 2020 Vancouver, BC
Image description: Interior of my apartment with low light in the interior but bright overcast daylight coming in through windows. Mid ground focus on almost floor to ceiling windows with white beams intersecting to create rectangular shapes. There is a rolled up white rug just below the windows and a variety of things can be partially seen on the right and left edges of the frame (watering can, orange spray bottle, cat climbing tower, plant pot, small picture frame). There are a variety of different shaped hanging plants and pots in the centre of the windows. Through windows, the background is the exterior of a beige apartment building across a street. The bottom third of the windows are frosted, semi-opaque and blurry green branches are just slightly visible through them.
This is a picture of my window when I came home from said walk
back to heat:
dew, October 20, 2020 East Van alley, BC
Image description: Close up image of water droplets on thin green branches with white and pink flowers that are soaked with rainwater in foreground. Background of green foliages.
Both sweat and tears are salty
Sensuality of sweating and missing it with a whole body ache
Not the nervous kind that seeps out of my armpits into my white t-shirts
Not the kind that my demons induce
The kind that beads, lubricates, releases
The kind that comes from taking class
The kind that comes from running a thing over and over
From dancing at a party to heal yourself
Or a warm up, preparing my body for the next thing
Dancing in a humid place in summer, when you are the same temperature as the thick air around you
—
I do like being warm.
Robert often describes me as being like a lizard and I can’t deny that I like being warm in that animal kind of way.
It reminds me of a quote from a movie or something where a woman said she “likes having something warm under me”. I remember it was a sexual reference but I remove that part and continue to resonate with the bones of the phrase.
I wonder if anyone else feels that way? I also wonder if it's gauche to make a reference to a movie that I can’t remember, to a line that is probably incorrect be a phrase that bounces around in my head more than I’d like to admit… why does it feel so slimy?
I wonder if repeating it a bunch will transform the meaning further?
dewy feeling, October 20, 2020 East Van alley, BC
Image description: Close up image of water droplets on thin green branches with white and pink flowers that are soaked with rainwater in foreground. Background of green foliages. White text overlaid “I like having something warm under me” repeated seventeen times.
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
“I like having something warm under me”
I don’t know, what do you think?
In my first attempt at transforming the meaning by repetition, I landed on the number 17, which is a lucky number is Japanese culture. I went again and I felt the transformation start on the 4th repetition, an unlucky number with it’s associations with death. I stopped and tried 4 repetitions, with the intent of the death of the original phrase.
I went again and landed on 7, a number I don’t have any particular feelings about other than, it’s not 8.
conclusory tangent:
I miss being held by the structures (I use this word loosely, the word for me is interchangeable with scaffolding, community, gathering, people) I sought out in my life to be with my body / sensations in time and space. So I have been putting my imagination to use. I have been trying to think of how to be held on a macro level. This has been helping me be with sensation at any moment / anywhere. I recommend taking a little lie down on a flat surface but this can be done sitting, waiting in line at the grocery store, in the bath, waiting for the bus… etc.
Here goes…
Imagine you are laying on hot sand that is almost too hot for comfort. Try to track the sensation of all of the surfaces of the back of your body coming into contact with the warm sand. Maybe there is an itch or stretch at the skin layer, perhaps some subtle movement as you release on a muscular level, mysterious fluids settling, bones suspended and resting, nerves moving towards rest, as you notice the heat move through each of your systems. Can you notice your whole body melting into the imprint that you are creating? Just by gravity and your presence — by the the earth trying to pull you to its core. Let your fascial shadow support you with total ease, you are suspended within yourself. All of you is suspended within yourself.
If that feels like too much or too serious, sometimes I just try to imagining a tender giant emanating the heat of the sun holding me like a baby and letting my body dangle while having my neck, head and spine supported — that can really do the trick haha!
Eternally yours,
Erika, in plain site
I’d like to acknowledge that this digital performance takes place in the digital sphere and on the land where I am. I am located on the traditional, ancestral and unceeded territories of the of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. I am grateful to the these nations who have cared for this land since time immemorial.