9:58am
I recall the dreams I had last night. The first, I’m in a big warehouse, or so it feels because of the distanced proximity of me and another. We stand separated in a western face-off. I’m in complete darkness, the fringes of this world are too. But the person in front of me, tapping his cowboy shoe to the floor in a nice lil-rhythm, is covered in a red and purple hue. He, or I assume ~he~, has slicked jet black hair all Elvis style and wears a tight white singlet tucked into high waisted black leather pants.
I begin to walk closer, feeling like I’m in a Robyn music video, and much to my delight it’s Perfume Genius. The assumed ~swag~ is in fact less Elvis than I had originally thought and, on closer examination, is more Orville Peck. But also, PG has a swag of his own that is distinct:
He dances before me, doing his little:
~Jason, there’s no rush,
~I know a lot comes up, ooh
~Letting in some love
~Where there always should've been some
It’s been a bit of a loving type of week, or (truthfully) a lifetime thinking about love, and when PG tells Jason to let in a little love I think about the double entendre. I think about Jason’s body on fire with the gentleness of being held by a confident lover.
I feel the unremarked and undisclosed compassion, in this moment between breath and averting eye contact, of PG’s hand gliding down a thigh, unlocking a zipper, and holding the back of Jason’s neck to help guide a kiss into his throat. And within that kiss what is found in Jason is a tenderness so honest it creates an energised fragment of romance that will always burn insatiable.
A truthfulness, a recognition that this is the love he seeks, an excited playfulness, and a deep fear sets in. At this point, they will always be tethered to one another and in each moment there after Jason will fidget with discovering the core intelligence of his heart.
From this moment, I think about what we ~let go~ of rather than letting in. I think about ~letting go~ as so often related to expelling toxicity. But I make a plan to practice letting go in the sense of telling people I love them. I make a plan to practice letting go in the sense of making my pleasure heard. I make it known inside myself that intimacy is letting go and letting in, unfolding and unfurling, learning and unlearning.
Things of such tear apart at me just as they nourish me. I wonder if that is the double entendre slipping back into focus. I moan gently. I consider if this is how romance is formed. In the moments of complete exposure to your desire with an other who is able to hold you through exploring its possibility.
I think about that sensation of colliding into your chosen and messy particularities of desires and how good it feels to be allowed the space to experiment. I know, from this point, consensual conversation on my touch to someone else’s body will remain sentimental as it is essential.
In this way I find solidarity of my desire wanting to play.
I suppose this is all just a big ramble of just how much music affects me.
I hurt my stomach with a few slices of Nutella on toast. I feel guilty because this isn’t exactly the way I want to start the day, but I’m in a bit of a flurry to get a few things done this-morning. I’m mindful of having to move to a different room within the house today, for a few days, before moving to another location in Dalston to cat-sit for 5 weeks. My only option as I am yet to find a more permanent location to live, which is distressing but I enjoy my little Nutella treat to begin the day; potentially warding off stress with a sugar high.
***
1:24pm
I’m not afraid of grabbing for things that intrigue me. Especially when they are on the ground, discarded and yearning.
I grab a Pokemon card from the ground and instantly I feel sentimental. People still have these? I think ~eat your heart out Pokemon Go~ and then I download Pokemon Go.
I have no idea what’s an Applin is, but it has a weakness of ~x2~ for fire and it seems as if its main power is retreating. The card says:
~as soon as it’s born, it burrows into an apple. Not only does the apple serve as its god source, but the flavour of the fruit determines its evolution.
I wonder what flavour apple this Applin is. I think about being born to then burrow. I think about being able to create, from my own materiality, everything I need to sustain myself in my self-formed squabbling.
The Applin feels like a shy cutie. I giggle and hold it with me from Hackney to Battersea, the whole way, on the Overground, the Underground and a bus. For some reason I’ve become tethered to its magic.
I ask myself, what does it take to burrow? To furrow through the small spaces? To create a solitary way of living?
And then, what is conceived in those hollow passages you create within rich soil? I think about bell hooks, who gives us:
~Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of living. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.
The Applin is kindred with hooks.
I have leftover dahl, with rice and spinach. Mmmm!
***
8:13pm
I wander around the RCA Grad show, seeing many different experiments by artists, designers, engineers, and practitioners. I love the painting show, I love the CAP students’ energy, I admire the top level views of the fashion student showcase. There’s so much to see here and what jumps out most is a sensual product design by Jiang Fend of MA Design Products, called ‘Pebbles’.
They are squishy, breathing, fleshy stones for your hands, feet and toes. I’m asked to place my hand on one to feel it pulsing and as I do the video presentation before me shows lovers in bed draped over one another, tickling their toes, nestling into each other.
I have to force myself to not cry. Instead I respond with excitement, but in hindsight I think I was about to cry for fear of this being the answer to a disconnected world.
I think I want all of these pebbles in bed with me, but I also, more viciously now with the little creature motioning as it has been programmed to provide me comfort, scream for a lover.
We eat a melon and grape parcel outside, then drift off into the night for a nightcap.
Hi, I’m Pierce (they/them) a curator living in London. My practice is deeply rooted in an entangled existence with ecological systems and the knowledges they hold, produce, and share.
You can find me at: insta and how to furrow through small spaces.