where am i

on orienting through unstable ground

here. left leg tucked under right, sitting on my yellow chair. One butt cheek makes contact, the other rests on a heel. Decaf coffee to my side. A picture of aunt mary makes eye contact with me. Something rattles on the altar as cars pass by. Hands are dry, thirsty for lotion. Eyes gaze at the screen, mostly white with black text. Peripheral vision takes in the cloudy afternoon light - turquoise, red, brown, bright orange.

shift. pause. shift.

now, here. one foot makes contact with the cool floor. The other leg is crossed. Both butt cheeks find the chair. In between writing, chin rests on left palm. The forearm serves as a kickstand for heavy head. I can smell my crotch, lingering with the scent of its shedding. Candles flicker in the corner of my vision. My neighbor is hammering something into the wall. Across the street, neighbors unload their minivan full of groceries.

I am settling in.

now, I am driving up Interstate 77, weaving between cars and trucks on the two lane highway. It’s dark and I am being hurled forward 70+mph by a metal box on wheels. My pants are stiff, cutting into my right hip crease. A friend and I talk on speaker phone - about our upcoming performance projects, about taking risks and changing our lives, about being queer in these times, about comfort and discomfort and the necessity of both. Their voice wafts from the speaker phone as I weave into the left lane. My head is jutted forward - simultaneously focusing eyes on the road and getting nearer to the speaker. I’m on hour seven of a trip back to Ohio.

I am still, I am moving. I am on my way. I am already there.

now, I am standing on two feet, eyes closed. Body is tall and loose. Knees soft. Weight shifts from right to left and back again. From heels to balls of feet and then somewhere in between. A voice cues me to extend the spine, to shift gaze up and beyond. I do, gently, slow. Back of the head drops ever so slightly down as chin lifts up. I am falling, I am falling, I am falling. Yet I remain on two feet. A lightness extends across the body, heel to crown.

I am falling. I am on two feet.

art installation seen in suburban Ohio

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It’s good to be here, in deep shift.

In another space-time continuum I am on the cusp of my last semester of this graduate program. I am headed towards my thesis performance, taking place in just a couple weeks. This has been a dense chapter, thicker than I can keep up with at times. So, I am shaping it into a portal that I can digest and draw from for years to come.

I have been swimming through disorientating waters during much of the program, intimidated by the amount of knowledge available at my fingertips (interlibrary loan and instagram scroll included), burdened by how much suffering is in the world (while trying to hold my own woes gently amidst them), and spooked by an eerie sense of being stuck in cycles (elections, personal, collective).

Finding ways to orient - physically, mentally, digitally, emotionally, spiritually - continues to be an important practice for me right now (maybe you two?).

I am grateful to have a body, to be cultivating a sense of home in my body. I am grateful for this fleshy, material form that grounds me amidst a shifting, dynamic, unstable world. The material realm helps to orient me through information overload and the shadowy detours of my psyche.

In dance and other movement space, folks will often talk about kinesthetic awareness — how we perceive the position and movement of our bodies in space. It sounds quite simple, but I find it is something that takes regular practice. Tuning into kinesthetic awareness not only helps land me back into my body and the present moment, but it also has been making life much more interesting, textured, and sensuous.

I invite you to tune into kinesthesia:

Is any part of your body touching the ground right now? where is your right ear? your elbows? your left butt cheek? what is moving? jaw, feet, eye balls, fingers?

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I leave you right here– right where you are, somewhere else altogether, or in two places at once. Regardless, I wish you moments of grounding in the present moment and the capacity to find some kind of delight in wherever you find yourself.

peace,

em