passing back through in november

okay, i went back to school (twice, maybe three times) and i missed you! and i remembered what i forgot, forgot what i remembered, and came back to visit.
i wanted to tell you about how i spit recently, in a rehearsal room;
i wanted to tell you about the deep feelings of failure i wrestle with;
and about how i went into the woods and then came out to think about the woods.
there's so much i want to tell you!
i took a class last year on art as political change, like this: http://artaspoliticalchange.blogspot.ca/
i have seen a thousand thousand things since i have seen your faces
i have gotten lost a hundred times.
maybe getting lost is my artistic practice.
maybe i'm not lost at all.

i wanted to tell you about how my mom is getting older, and my grandmother has dementia,
and i made a solo performance piece about how i asked my grandmother about slavery in our family history because i am trying to think and fight my way through whiteness and my own personal history, how whiteness happened to us and to whom i owe reparations yet somehow also acknowledging an inherent worth...anyway, i made a piece about it.
i wanted to tell you that i am living in toronto! in a second-floor apartment that isn't a commune, but it's nice, and it's above a vacuum cleaner store.

i wanted to tell you about my dreams and how i'm scared of getting older and i'm a kid forever and i have like these waves of nostalgia and i also try to thank my way to falling in love with the world just about every day, or every week
i'm taking a break from falling in love with a person; i have fallen so hard so many times and for now i am flying solo and it is strange and different;
i'm reading papers on queer ecology and books with titles like "why we dance" (ha) and "research theatre: the ecocide casebook." i'm studying performance ethnography--like how to know people by making performance with/about them. i'm reminded heuristically of my obsession with communalism and my love for making things with friends.
i notice being older! like, seeing people in their early 20's and i'm not there!
that is another post.
i made a zine about being 28; but i think i lost it. now i'm 29!

things i still love: cooking, love, patches, edges, exploring, laughing, sitting on the kitchen floor
things i'm trying out: graduate school, institutional affiliation, living closer to my parents, menu plans, making soup stock and freezing it, having a smart phone, not going to therapy, being 'single', cycling back to posting on this blog.

mary oliver reminds me

When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before, 

like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket
whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb. 

Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,
shaking the water-sparks from its wings. 

Let grief be your sister, she will whether or not.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves. 

A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life. 

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance. 

In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling. 

Live with the beetle, and the wind.