Still Effin Here

A Museum of Contradictions Pt. 2

Hey,

This piece directly follows my last. Read part 1 before or after for more clarity.

Convincing anyone of anything is no longer my goal.

Including myself.

I have no use for persuasion.

The bend and push and pull is too much. Or I’m too fragile—either way.

I can only live to dig beyond the layers of sediment, all those muddy, shame-filled stories that bar me from experiencing peace.

It’s taken longer than I care to admit to realize how narrow my focus has been. Pinpointing the pain and fixating on everything I don’t understand.
How obsessed I’ve been with being understood.

There’s much more to do with my presence than use it to contemplate the past and the broken, to wage war with the present because there is something to prove.

It’s within my power to open portals to new worlds in which I am not a melancholic, damp-aired woman. It’s within your power to enter some new world, too.

How hypocritical it feels to be a writer. Laying claims down with my words, the very words you are reading now. The portal inches open as soon as I write, but how often do I step through? Getting started is the hardest step.

Ha.

I’m facing the dilemma of communicating something first sensed in my body. It's something more of an echo, shadow, or silhouette than any tangible form. The structure of language urges me to break its rules to forge a trustworthy expression.

When inviting a spectator to witness these silhouettes, a flashlight is shone on our once-condemned interior. It’s a vulnerable and courageous act. The clarity of the silhouettes may flicker in and out. But a gift it is to share that.

Being fully present is the most undomesticated act you can take in a world that constantly begs fragments of you.

We have the chance to create new languages for what we're all attempting to communicate... 'This is reality.'

Most settle for regurgitating hand-me-down stories, but living requires seeing with the eyes you have now, while considering the past and the future.

The things we love and hate combine bits and pieces of all that we know to be true. As the world constructs its own meaning before our eyes, we yield to interpreting it all for ourselves. We make meaning. That power is untapped.

We look at the void around us and fail to see all the unexpressed possibilities. What can you create that doesn’t currently exist in your world?

If sharing our reality is the only thing to do, then we must find as many ways as possible to express it. Joyfully, truthfully, mercifully.

Allow life to be a celebration that resilient, curious, embodied consciousness is alive and well.

What I first saw as the elephant in the room, I now recognize as the collection of all the truths I've been avoiding—including my own insecurity.

Because I am insecure.

Deficiency is showcased on full display.

Boo-hoo.

But this insecurity thrives on bridging the gap between the unknown and the truth. What’s known to be the truth evolves, and that can make one seem unsteady; stuck on an endless loop of forgetting and remembering, morphing and appearing the same.

But how I appear doesn't have to be my first concern.

This is a journey that requires you to come back to yourself, with no dam in the river.

I am resilient and focused.

I find clarity in the chaos without needing to change it

and

I am hopelessly insecure.

The inauthenticity, the forcing, and the deep-seated fear all clouded my memory. I forgot I didn’t have to morph into anyone else’s vision of me, especially if I loved them and they loved me. This gave me the inner permission to write again. I forgot that I didn’t have to feel guilty about being human.

The security and the stability I yearn for (and wail and bitch and moan for) only exist within the simple fact that I am. No more explaining, or justifying, or sheepishly taking up space. I am here. And I have been here.

No one can gift the right to belong, no matter how loud the voices are that claim it's a privilege. Some people strengthen your sense of worth, protect your peace, and support your vision, while others either seek to sneakily undermine it or remain indifferent if someone else does.

But it’s a fact that you were wonderfully made (somehow) because it is already done. My existential safety and yours existed before anyone ever wrote a single sentence.
A place reserved at the river’s edge just for us.

The goal is to observe, organize, and share all without disrupting the flow.
Without feeling guilty for taking time off and not feeling guilty for putting time in.
To be of service in all the regenerative ways the vessel will allow.

Here’s your invitation,

What do you hold the key to that someone else is stumbling to find?

That thing that seems to be your Achilles’ heel or your kryptonite but you keep coming back.

I’ve found it to be true that teachers most need to teach what they themselves most need to learn. We’re all teachers of sorts. To one, or some, or many.

A pathway to someone’s first steps.
Their music career with a guitar in hand.
The reason they could survive out in the woods.

Is there some dormant idea lurking in your shadows or stuck in your throat? Something you feel wholly unqualified to do? Do exactly that. Do it despite everything. Bring it into the light and liberate us all, for God’s sake.

Moving forward, I will tend to the wounds resisting the creative flow has caused. (It’s kind of a mess!) Rather than dwelling on the destruction, I'll remind myself what a beautiful chance it is do something different.

In this desperate search for the perfect words, the perfect essay, the perfect plan, I’ve overlooked so much of myself in the process. I’ve found escapes and backdoors to evade the elephant in the room. The cringy fragments that would be easier to ignore and judge in others. The good, juicy stuff we've all been dreaming and praying and scrolling for lies in those uncomfortable spaces where feelings remain unnamed and untamed.

When I finally let go of the urge to immediately turn my experience into something presentable, I gain a breath to discover that the chaos that seemed so scary holds the clarity and reassurance I’ve been seeking all along.

So, what dormant idea is lurking in my shadows?

A deep yearning to reconnect with the land in ways that require a modern sacrifice. To slow down and tend to the whims of the creative body. To foster and maintain working relationships with real humans, I’m grateful to know against all odds. To enact a simple rebellion against the narrative constantly being shoved down our throats.
To build a humble empire where me and mine prosper.

I want the work I do daily to contribute to a bigger picture, the one that’s been in my head since I was a little girl.

Constantin Brancusi (1867-1956) “ De kus. “ with Mac OS Finder icon as a face.