between2mysteries

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Christopher Culver, “Laura”, charcoal and pastel on paper (2023)

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Miles Davis

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i’m gonna be honest i’m kind of terrified in a way i never have been before. i was scared about getting involved with my previous ex who was abusive but before things turned i still had a lot of confidence that it would turn out okay. things have been good so far with the person i’m currently with, but i’m really scared about miscalculating safety where there isn’t any like i did last time.

historically i’ve never been able to trust my judgement because any decision i’ve attempted to make for myself big or small has been viciously and vehemently questioned specifically by my mother. when i was 15 or 16, i wanted front bangs and we typically went to the salon together and when we got there and i told the hairstylist what i wanted my mom flipped out, yelled at me in public, and kept doubling down over and over how much of a mistake this was, that i was ruining my hair, that it was going to look bad etc etc….same thing when i dyed the ends of my hair blonde or when i wanted to wear pajama bottoms to chilli’s (lollll).

just ???? who does that. not just a simple unsolicited opinion but screaming at their daughter in public at the hair salon that front bangs are going to essentially ruin her life. it’s hilarious and also deeply sad i think. and all of this not only was normalized but i was consistently bought and sold on the idea of my mom and i being close and having a good relationship because that was the narrative she clung to and believed despite never making an effort to actualize said closeness & never attempting to know or understand me at any age, not just when i was a teenager. i wasn’t even given space to change my hair or wear the kind of clothes i wanted to without beratement and judgement.

i always secretly worry everyone hates me. that some cruel joke is being played on me when someone compliments me or says kind things about me. and while i cut and dyed my hair regardless, and formulated my own style despite her shit opinions; those criticisms and attempts to negate my autonomy/ agency left so much room for self doubt + compounded by the emotional abuse from last ex, i feel like my instincts are fried. i feel like i can’t trust myself deep down to make the right choice for myself about anything.

so yeah. i’m scared. i’m scared i’ll screw this up, i’m scared he’s going to hurt me. i’m scared of how much i like him already. but i’m working on all that and i guess that’s all i can do.

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as of yesterday i have a boyfriend now????

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i remain forever changed and forever your kale

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The Lynchian seeker, as either artist or detective—or filmmaker—can always get us out of the labyrinth. We only have to let it happen. Coming in his own way to conclusions that have been formulated by a number of phenomenologists—Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the early Jean-François Lyotard, for example—Lynch acts upon a faith that the illusion of control that language and other cultural structures give us is not as rewarding as losing that illusion and gaining larger, less contingent truths. These truths are always present for us, unless we insist on the fantasy of control and thereby doom ourselves to the sense of disconnectedness we feel if we fool ourselves into believing only in the control that we exert over our own creations.

Martha Nochimson, The Passion of David Lynch

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The Face, July 1999.

Ph. Luis Sanchis

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People might bring up Vincent van Gogh as an example of a painter who did great work in spite of, or because of, his suffering. I like to think that van Gogh would have been even more prolific and even greater if he wasn't so restricted by the things tormenting him. I don't think it was pain that made him so great, I think painting brought him whatever happiness he had.

—David Lynch

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wanting to die is just confirmation bias. rilke said it first, no feeling is final. surviving through things proves that theory and disproves the narrative of my worthlessness. i've been obsessed lately with constructed narratives, the ones i keep following. there's endless variables that have contributed to its reinforcement but the center of it is me pointing in one direction. like everyone else, i want control of what happens to me, how i feel, i want to exit before i can get hurt. yes, perception is everything. how annoying but also sort of a relief. i can look elsewhere and find what's been abandonded or never tended to, i can advance toward and from the center of all things and still be okay. everything i thought i wouldn't make it through, i did. so weird how easily that's forgotten

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melissa broder, milk fed

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Giantess Sascha Braunig 2018

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Mohammed Sami (Iraqi, b. 1984), Infection II, 2021. Mixed media on linen, 210 x 180.5 cm

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"Dalmatian dogs owned by Miss Bonham, of York, Pa. The one on the left gives one an idea how dark some get, and it seems impossible that when born, he was white." Published 1907

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pamela anderson, for highsnobiety (2024)