The menage a trois

There seem to be two kinds of people: those who want to spend less time by themselves and those who want to spend more time by themselves. Recently I've been of the latter persuasion, and have caught myself wishing to be alone more often, to be less accountable to others, to just be allowed to not talk - maybe for a long time.

Last night as I lay in bed thinking about all the people I had to contact, all the issues I had to somehow resolve and the best strategies for neutralising them I felt the coarse wool of anxiety getting slowly wound around my heart by a pair of hands that pokes through my ribs (all calloused and spindly from ceaselessly working) and I thought to myself "If only I could just be alone!" and the only person who heard it was myself, meaning that I was alone, but had surrounded myself with other problems so much that I felt and believed that I was being crowded. The only person I cannot be away from is myself. I'm always here, I just often forget to say hi to myself, which is rude.

Here is a story I was told when I was little: there was a rich guy named Yajnyawalkya ("yudge-nya-wolk-ya") who was married to two wives, Katyayanee ("cutya-yaa-ne") and Maitreyee ("my-tray-yee"). Yajnyawalkya decided to leave his wealth and all his material goods and go into the forest, but before he left he asked the permission of his wives and told them that they were to share his wealth equally between them. Katyayanee gave her blessings and agreed to accept half the fortune and remain in her husbands home. Maitreyee was more curious, and asked what wealth existed in the forest that was more valuable than the wealth Yajnyawalkya had acquired economically and socially in the city.

Her curiosity led her to follow her husband into the forest, leaving behind her former life.
This is a story about you. The two wives inside you are your alternating tendencies of clinging onto possessions, comfort and familiarity and the tendency to let go, to renounce, to follow the unknown. When you feel stuck and bound to situations it is Katyayanee giving you a big sad hug, because she likes your company and would miss you dearly if you left. When you realise (as I did last night) that you are actually free to follow and abide with that silent self who leads you onwards, Maitrayee is putting on her sandals. But you don't have to go into the forest to be with yourself.

Mess

I appreciate spaces that are intelligently organised and beautifully presented.

So why is it that I don't frame any of my work? Why do I keep pairs of shoes I was given when I was 13? Why do I let books and paper and artworks commingle in stacks? Why do I stick halfbaked drawings up and let them congeal in my conscience for months until they're as dull and disinteresting as the colour of the walls (my walls are cream)? 

When it comes to university I can organise my ideas, when it comes to teaching I can organise materials, relationships, knowledge, spaces, when it comes to work I can organise time - why don't I carry it through into my bedroom? This space is the vessel that houses my history of interaction with the material world, and I treat it like a shoreline: leaving jetsam strewn around.

Essentially, realising my apathy has forced me to realise the root of my apathy: in a way I have felt worthless, and so I let myself have things messy and unkempt and old and worn out. And I think I pushed a crowbar into my cranium and that feeling of deficiency breeding in my brain leaked out and became an insensibility towards possessions and a desire for poverty of beauty.

I think in a way my father might have had a similar experience of manifesting his self worth in the material world. His personal possessions amounted to clothes and a mattress and later in life paper, ink and a drawing table. 

Another point of interest is that when I was small the people I loved the most were dirty and messy, and it's true that places of mess are the ones more inducing of fun - because you can't help but feel frigid inside a museum-house. I like the organic evolution of mess... the trickling of objects across space. The hints of chronology, the pleasure in archaeological discovery, the mapping out of actions. My grandpa was an artist and his loft was always shifting. I liked going to look at all the things up there, the different palettes encrusted with a variety of hued nuggets organised according to his decisions whilst painting, brushes of different thickness's: some sitting in clay pots, some fanned on a desk, one wet with mineral turpentine resting and oozing into a rag. 

My father was close friends with a man whose home was essentially the unfolding of an elemental and instinctive creativity advancing into three dimensions. Atop a mountain coated in forest, girded by giant creaking black bamboo sat a low and long living space. I couldn't tell you what it was all made of, what parts came first and how it expanded, but the main space was a wide, deep raised verandah and perhaps the roof was made from fabric. He lived alongside pythons who came to nest in the sheltered environment. There was musical gear and recording equipment set up on the verandah where I can remember I spent a long time playing keyboards under a large spherical objects (perhaps it was a globe) and maybe there were other hanging sculptures too. Our other family friends were always messy, my mothers close friend had hands that were always cracked and coated in glue from her artwork, her home was spread out into three little cottages and one bus. My dads other close friend really had no home, but had many beds, many rooms, many vehicles of all different sizes built for land and sea (but all shipwrecked), many books, many newspapers, many artworks, many weeds, one horse and rust on everything. And all these things were compiled into junk yards which are now only frequented by an adult with fond memories of childhood, waist high grass and big red kangaroos. I miss these people because they're all dead, so maybe my mess is in communication with the past.

A sense of chaos underpins those spaces.

Peeling skin

I love girls who stand up for themselves. I think I might be one, and I might just love myself for it. A little bit.

Imagine an apple. Imagine it's shiny taut dappled pink and red skin. Imagine that the flesh isn't floury and isn't tart - but sweet, crunchy, juicy. I think you might be salivating. 

Stop.

Humans have an innate way of twisting the universe to fit a human world view, to the point where we think that apples are for eating. The function of apples is to make more apples. We throw away apple seeds. What else do we throw away?

In the dark heart of apples are tiny magic stones. I am a tiny stone with magic properties right at the core, so when others confuse me for food it can be upsetting, disappointing, confusing, aggravating. A lot of people when they look at you see apple skin. Some people look through you and see the silent weight of potential. 

The outer part of me is a bit queer, in the homosexual way. It's a disgusting feeling having your skin peeled and flayed and devoured and your core thrown away by your family. My partner is one of those girls I love because she stands up for herself. And that's really hard to do when other people have misjudged your preferences in this material world as being the most defining aspect of your being, because the opinions of others - regardless of how self determined we are - shape us and can convince us.

Here is an invitation to all the people who have, are currently, and will at some point dispose of the innermost part of me whilst using my outer self to feed your ideas; to acknowledge and disregard the phenomena that is my sexuality because when you get distracted by that, you call me a "human doing". You reduce me to my actions.

Instead, call me a "human being", a thing that exists on a plane higher than mere action and decision.