6:46am
I had a dream I was buried in a great big pile of sand along a rising shoreline. When the tide started to come in I was worried it would drown me. I wreathed and wriggled, trying to free myself from the cellular granules; but instead, as water took me over, I produced gills. The sand, at first compacted, began to seperate and in the position I once laid trapped I now floated. Swimming in my new body, feeling my new sensibility to ocean breathe.
The colour is blue, the day is blue, I wear my blue jeans, and the song is ~shades of cool~ by Lana Del Rey. Do you ever listen to a song just for that one phrase? Mine, within this early on, is:
~and when he calls, he calls for me and not for you
~he lives for love, he loves his drugs, he loves his baby too
There’s no escaping the complex character she builds of a ‘neglectful lover’ who fiercely desires her when he needs and in other times leaves her for his other lustful sins.
I feel her own desire split between loving the man that calls to her and feeling the frustration of fixing a boy ‘unfixable’; all expelled through her willingness to ride between the two.
For a moment I think on lust and love, how entangled both are, how ~movement~ between the two generates perspective. How ~movement~ between lust and love and love and lust creates new arrangements and configurations of the heart.
I think of how far I want to extend myself into both.
I think of drawing closer relations between my lust and love.
I think of delicately illuminating my desire to be lusted and loved.
I place lust at my throat, and love in my chest. Both are cavernous.
I’m going to walk to the local Costcutters to grab some eggs, a few rashers of bacon, and maybe some beans.
***
7:26am
I made a mess of a messy breakfast, the egg splattering on the pan before I had the chance to take it to my plate. But it still tastes like an egg.
I sit outside, the temperature 15 degrees and I’m warm and happy. Didi, the house cat, comes to say ~hello~ emerging as she always does from behind a bush.
I take in the morning, breathing again with ~depth~ as my lung capacity returns. I only cough a few times. I feel I’m getting better yet still.
I daydream. I think of a poem I read last night entitled ~imperfect~. I swoon at the optimistic trepidation it exudes. A line reads:
~my appetite to devour you is tempered by your dental examination of my closing jaws–if you want to eat you, leave me alone.
I think about what it might mean to eat myself. How it might be possible, in another body or lifetime to let my ego be so consuming. But I think, in this current rotation around the sun, I’m doing my best to eat those around me.
Nom-nom.
Today I will do some work, catching up on a few competing exhibition deadlines. I’ll go see a friend for an afternoon coffee and cake, and from there I will return home to continue work into the evening.
***
2:09pm
I ride my bike to Millfields park and there I meet with artist, and incredible human being, and-and most beautifully ~friend~ Youngsook Choi. Last week she sent a thoughtful message asking if we could spend some time in a patch of grass together. The image of the two of us, sharing as we always do with our open hearts, helped get me through my sickness.
Today we meet on a red blanket, she brings with her an assortment of snacks. A delicious made sweet rice and pea nourishment, a few pakoras, little potato pastries, a salted caramel brownie and a blueberry, raspberry, grain slice. Time really slows down with this selection in front of us, designed to be nibbled, picked, and shared slowly.
We speak about our recent project together at Camden Art Centre. We feel, now in our intimate relation, a sense of accomplishment whilst recounting the desire to continue working together. I’m inspired by her focus on community healing in opposition to the narratives of individualistic mending.
She says, ‘this is not to be confused with just people as participants. When I say community, I also mean to include the more-than-human elements and species. Trees, grass, bugs, bess, wind, leaves, the ocean.’
I swoon in a puddle of excitement and admiration.
She emphasises the intention of my heart to navigate toward people such as her.
I feel lucky to orbit her researcher mind, and we giggle through our conversations with a common emphasis to tend to one another with care. As I extend my golden bubble to include her in this safe space, I feel her own extending to mine. In this way our hearts connect, just as simply as our words here on this blanket.
And that’s what it is. simple. thankful. reciprocal.
Oh, and delicious.
We make plans to have a drink together in the coming weeks, she pleads I don’t leave London and says, very generously, ‘you are bold and gentle.’
She makes me think I’m coral, and I sporulate.
Before we leave one another she hands me a gift: ‘a deck of questions for building collectivity’. I shuffle through a few, saying thank you repeatedly, and land on this provocation:
~Stretch out your arms and fingers, make space around you and then hug and pat yourself.
***
5:28pm
I continue to work on a few emails, sitting in a very untidy room as I begin to pack to move to a new home on Saturday. I open a can of coconut water because it’s 100% delicious and I have a scratchy throat.
I stand up, I stretch out my arms, I make space around me, then I give myself a big hug and a pat.
Mmm.
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: