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Welcome emotional beings,

To be honest, it’s getting very emotional here. Been rolling deep in the COVID feels — the isolation, the SADs : it went so deep, to the edges of the heart. Turmoiled in and out of emotional chaos. It feels almost impossible to feel warmth, aka care and love. It feels difficult to share at these times. Like feeling frozen. 😔

Alas : Time unthaws. Seasons are cycles. Sometimes, it’s about surviving, not thriving — as my sister lovingly shared with me. 

The winter season demonstrates that vividly; when observing nature mammals are hibernating, reserving bodily energy. We are not meant to grow exponentially, thrive and produce fruits of labour all year around like capitalism demands of us. 

I’ve noticed how difficult it is to draw lines between reflection and grief. The waves of existence and contrast of hard and soft feelings have provoked a different version of aliveness. One that has marked all of us. 

this memory is braided into youthis feeling is sunken in and forever you shall walk different

hallowing out space for love, compassion empathy to plant their seeds

Maybe you too feel the windchills of social isolation? If we all shared pieces of our love perhaps we would be cozier? I don’t doubt the power of the collective. 

:: walking different :: It’s been about a year since the world went into pandemic mode.

And this pandemic anniversary marks a new year of a new, not normal, version of life. I can hardly make sense of the year. The longest feeling year with the least amount of moments to punctuate the time, brings forward a weird feeling. A weird relationship to time. Therefore a weird relationship to self when so much of our capitalistic existence is centred around time (more on a later letter). 

It seems that we are closer to the end of social separation than we are to the beginning of it. The end marked by a vaccinated populations. If you are so lucky to live in a rich, developed country that could be true. 

Does the supposed end mark a beginning to a new wave of social anxiety?

I’m feeling it tbh.

:: lines between reflection and grief :: Making space to reflect can allow a person to recollect their relationship to time and memories. Offering windows of gratitude for movements through despair, joy and sadness. 

Back in March 2020, myself and other artists of UKAI, created an emotional geo-map. A sandbox for our feelings to live. A place where people from around the world can share how they are feeling about our collective experience of the pandemic. The spectrum of our emotions is real. The spectrum is broad. As we too are diverse. We can speak different languages, but as humans we share the ability to feel.

Through the emotional flaying and physical isolation that COVID ensued upon us, we have been forced to submit to it, to retreat into the depths of our existence. Reminder / note to self : you are not alone. 

you’re never alone with the sun and the moonas they’ve watched you growbeen by your sidein dark and in lightnourishing you with vitality : vitamin Dand reminding you of all you can be humbling you with their vastnessbut knowing your brightnessis never too small for their light finds you whispering to youyou are worthy in all your darkness and in your light

:: power of the collective ::Damn, we have seen what happens when individuals come together as a collective: #Gamestop #BLM #FarmersProtest 

Individuals coalescing into collectives. Standing strong for democracy, equity and access. Uprooting the destructiveness of neoliberalism and white supremacy that tbh we have internalized for far long time. To the point where so many of us have been gaslight to believe something is wrong with us, rather than something is wrong with society. Grateful that we are awakening to this false truth.

There is a lot that we have collectively internalized, including hierarchy of  relationships and their structures. In order of relational priority:

Romantic (monogamous, hetro) partnership Blood related familyFriends Co-workers 

Relational hierarchy does not stop at the story we tell ourselves. It is institutionalized. There is substantial weight and benefit to being married, which in itself is an institution. It is reflected in governmental structures such as citizenship, in financial structures such as mortgages, taxes and that’s just scratching the surface. 

It’s fucked. 

The social constructs given to us are not supportive. Here are some reasons why:

* One person to live happily ever after / be our ultimate life support

* A shrinking group of close friends as age progresses 

* A deep longing for community, but no f*****g clue how to navigate that thought because we were given zero tools in being a human aka being part of a community or even modelling healthy relationships

I wonder why we have such a (large) radii of deviation between our partner and close friends. Perhaps it is sometimes not intentional, rather practical? Either way it generally exists. 

A thought experiment : If you lived in a house with your closest friends, and your partner lived in a separate household. What would relational hierarchy look like? 

Due to spatial closeness there may be lower barriers of communication, energy exchange, etc. with your housemates. Perhaps this allows you to foster a family like connection with more persons than just your partner? 

Would this not be the ideal format? To have multiple people in your life that you can hold close like family, irrespective of bloodline, kinship. Is it geographical, scheduling, permission that prevents this idealized version of closeness? Or maybe the ideologies of western culture? Where we have tangled individualism to success. Where our focus is to slowly remit the needs for community to partake in a need-filled way in your life. 

There is sense of groundedness that is achieved through the human connection. The pandemic has highlighted this a million times over. Highlighting that connectedness and community is a deep desire for so many of us. 

I think a lot about co-housing, co-habitation, co-ownership, co-everything in the realm of housing. I feel grateful to work in the housing sector building solutions that enable access to housing; and I am seeking out innovation that is democratizing access to housing. Home is belonging, and belonging feels like the core of so much poetry, of a poetic life, of living bliss.

Some of my favourite humans co-purchased a property with another couple and moved in last week! It was hours of effort, but each moment spent created a deeper bond between friends who are bridging the relational, social and economic gaps to create family. 

A lot of people are talking to me about this lately — drop a note in the comments if you’d like to chat more about this topic. <3

Real quick, let’s track switch. It is important.

All that love you pour outwards. All that care you give to people around you. Do you offer that same level of care to yourself?

In early days of the pandemic, self-organizing caregiving groups formed with a degree of robustness and thoughtfulness that dropped me to tears. However, lines between kindness and constructive forms of escapism were blurry. Escaping from our individual realities. Reincarnating our self care into care for others, others in need, others whom are vulnerable. Constructive till the point. 

Where is the line you must draw for yourself. Do you wait for your body, mind, spirit to break before you find it? To those who are deep givers, space holders, service centred the answer I hear most often is yes. 

Awaiting our breaking before we notice ourselves…

push away pull in closetoo much too close i am much more  than you’ll ever seewithin the wire framevisions paraphrasednot by your sightby the mind it plays trickscarrying weightin places that contradicts 

Facts: Your potency is real.

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