Lately;
things i've absorbed this week(ish) #8 + notes on sharing our stories
To be molded by another—to allow the whims, wishes, and desires of someone else to shape me in any way—is something I have avoided with gritted teeth for as long as I can remember. The clicks in my jaw— remnants of a protest I am completely my own.
Existing this way served me well for a while. A seemingly necessary counterbalance to years of following everyone else’s word as gospel. Decisions made on my behalf by family, by the need to be loved, by the permeating narratives of womanhood.
Taking back the reigns of your own story is intoxicating. There is a sense of reclamation over one’s life; an unfamiliar autonomy that, once within reach, seems foolish to ever lose grasp of. You want to see how far you can take it. How deep into the cave you can hide to ensure that no outside life ever finds or taints you again. You want to cover the walls in your own imagery; decipher your own tongue; create and live and breathe in a world that is wholly your own. Or maybe that’s just me.
But there are limits within one’s own mind. Soon enough you run out of things to paint. The air runs thin. You realize the edges of yourself are far less expansive than you thought they were. At least on your own.
You have nothing left to do but tune into the music coaxing you from the mouth of the cave. [If you’re lucky, you still have an ear for it]. You want to move towards it. It takes you a while to remember how; you crawl. The sun burns your skin and the world has moved on without you— but it is as beautiful as ever. Your lungs have never been so full. Colors never as vibrant. Suddenly there are a million new stories to tell; questions to ask—with or without answers.
The world you built is still yours, but it is yours to share if you can stomach it. Others reward your courage by sharing theirs with you. The ink they used for their cave paintings; in which way their new language mirrors their mother tongue. You laugh over shared difficulties learning how to build a fire. You trade recipes and survival tactics and rituals.
This week I had many moments spent in awe of all the ways I’ve been molded by those around me. Shaped so beautifully by the habits of friends, the passions of lovers, the inspiration of strangers.
While speaking about my work with someone, I noticed a distant friend in the way I was communicating. I felt her in the pauses for breath between thoughts; in my ability to stop and consider the words I chose before I uttered them. The conviction in my voice.
I caught myself moving my body in a way that resembled someone new in my life. How he leans into the sensation of pleasure through movement regardless of how it looks. I noticed him in the relief felt in each muscle while I stretched and twirled about.
I look to my words— how they are undeniably a collection of all who came before me. All of those I look up to, whether literary greats or fellow young writers I admire. I feel them in my courage to keep writing; in my gratitude for their ability to convey the things I do not yet have the words for.
I could continue to state the ways in which I am nothing but a happy little mosaic of everyone I’ve ever known filtered through my inner lens. But instead, I give you this week’s Lately; which is dedicated to the stories we tell and are told about us.
Joan Didion: What She Means at the Hammer Museum
Printed on the wall to your left as you open the fifteen-foot, tinted glass doors to the gallery, you’ll find a brief retelling of the life and work of the incredible Joan Didion. The mother of New Journalism, Didion left this world in 2021 with a legacy celebrated by millions. This is apparent in the thousands of attendees crammed into the Hammer Museum exhibit hall on a rather dreary, rain-filled day in Los Angeles.
Moving into the gallery, you’ll find that this curation provides a holistic frame in which to view Didion’s work; from paintings depicting the Sacramento Valley— her birthplace and a common subject of her writings, clips from popular films of the time, and relics from her life such as clothing, photos of her Malibu home, and written drafts of her acclaimed novels. Scattered throughout the whitespace are excerpts from some of her most famous works.
Each featured piece is masterfully chosen and creates a sense of immersion into the life and mind of Didion herself. Her words alone paint vast and personalized images of American culture in the ’60s and ’70s, but to have them accompanied by other mediums like photography, oil, ceramics, film, audio, etc. in one room was a remarkable experience. It mimics the collage-like nature of her journalism which often pulls from vignettes, scattered notes, and personal anecdotes to round out each story. The curation team did a miraculous job of creating a proximal experience of Didion’s magic, though nothing will likely come close to reaching it. Definitely recommend seeing it for yourself before the exhibit closes in February.
Sonya Renee Taylor: What If You Loved Your Body? [We Can Do Hard Things]
Sonya Renee Taylor, activist and author of The Body Is Not An Apology, joins a personal longtime favorite podcast crew in conversation about radical self-acceptance and shifting the narratives we adopt about ourselves and our place in society. Moving beyond the individual, corporal body, Sonya recognizes the emotional, spiritual, and systemic bodies impacted by the stories we hold and choose to accept.
This conversation is refreshingly intersectional; touching on topics of sexuality, ability, race, class, and gender identity. It transcends the bounds of “body-positivity” into the realm of entire systemic liberation founded in self-compassion and new, imaginative spaces. Sonya encourages us to relieve ourselves from the shame of realizing how we may act as disciples for the messaging we wish to deconstruct; recognizing that it is coded into the messages themselves that we continue to proliferate them. Parasitic, but not invulnerable.
Salomé Dancing before Herod (Gustave Moreau, c.1876)
I stood before this painting for upwards of twenty minutes. It is one of those pieces that entirely engulf you in its world. The depth, the light, the color theory— everything. There is not much words can say [or at least none accessible to me] that this painting does not already, so I invite you to spend some time with it here.
This is my first experience with the work of Gustave Moreau. I was intrigued [to say the least] and dove into some research on this piece when I got home.
This scene depicts a New Testament story, a familiar subject to Moreau who often explored the relationship between spirit and matter. Even more familiar is the character of Salomé. In most versions of her story, Salomé was known to be the “devious and conniving” stepdaughter to King Herod. This image depicts the scene in which, after performing the Dance of the Seven Veils for the king, he offers to grant her any of her desires. Per the vengeful request of her mother, Salomé wishes for the head of John the Baptist for speaking out against the marriage between her mother and the king.
Most of the commentary on Moreau’s piece centers around Salomé as a floating, mystical figure most reminiscent of the embodied femme fatale.
This brings me back to the “devious, conniving” portion of her story. Two words when spoken, in relation to a woman, I am always skeptical of. And this time [most times], rightfully so! As it turns out, historians believe that the king’s court historian, Nicolaus, had a personal vendetta against Salomé and used her as a scapegoat to many of his own and her brother’s failings. They believe that she was, in fact, a heroic woman responsible for saving the lives of many Jewish nobles ordered to execution by her stepfather.
Regardless, Moreau, as well as countless other artists across literature, painting, and performance, have driven the theme of Salomé as a temptress alllll the way home. Moreau himself sketched her figure hundreds of times, as well as made her the subject of many of his larger works. His studies seen below:
a long one today, so no collection of things to conclude. only wishing you a beautiful week full of trading bits of yourself with those you love<3.
Really loved reading this one. Needed it right now <3