the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.
three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.
two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.
their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.
one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.
i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.
i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.
and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?
you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.
a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.
someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.
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CYOA
You know what screw it, I wanted to finish chapter 59 today but I feel horrible and it's just not going to happen so for now you can have this completed scene under the cut with my great affection love love peace peace feel free to react as it'll make me happy etc. etc.
Private WhatsApp Chat
Resumed: Friday 18th March, 2022, 07:57
Members: Lily Evans, James Potter
================================
James Potter: i think it's pretty amazing that you and beatrice know the exact date that you first met when you were two
Lily Evans: Lollllll
Hello to you too
James Potter: although idk how sirius would react if we knew and i suggested celebrating that
hello, also
beautiful
hello beautiful
is what i meant to say
Lily Evans: Suave of you.
James Potter: i'm only just having my first coffee of the day, alright?
give me five minutes and i'll be on my game
Lily Evans: I suppose I can allow you five minutes.
We didn't always know, but my mum's been journaling every day for most of her life, so a few years back we did a little detective work and it turns out she'd written about my first day at Little Tots.
We've done something for our anniversary every year since, but she's blown my gift out of the water this time around.
James Potter: why, what was your gift?
Lily Evans: I bought her a ladyship.
She's Lady Beatrice Booth now. Officially.
Incredibly it only costs £30 and you get a tiny plot of land in Cumbria with it.
I gave the pack to her housemate to leave out today so she'll get a huge kick out of it when she gets home later.
James Potter: how ironic is it that you got her a ladyship and i was looking into getting her canonised earlier
Lily Evans: Lol why?
James Potter: because i really really really liked that video, evans
Lily Evans: I see. I see. I see. Not embarrassed about you having seen that AT ALL.
Although I suppose I don't have a right to be embarrassed when I've seen all of your childhood photos, do I?
It was probably about time that you saw some of mine.
James Potter: what would you have to be embarrassed about?
you were an adorable child
i loved watching you grow up on an instagram reel with, inexplicably, flo rida's musical accompaniment
Lily Evans: Lollllllllll
I know that probably seems like a weird choice, but it was our go-to dance song when we were eighteen.
And on that note, I was a very awkward teenager, as you've now seen.
James Potter: almost everyone on earth was an awkward teenager
and the ones who weren't awkward peaked in their teens, so think of how they've suffered since then
although i guess sirius is the exception
anyway
you say you were awkward, but fifteen year old me would have been DESPERATE for fifteen year old you's attention
Lily Evans: Oh, you say that now.
James Potter: no i would have been
and i wouldn't have gotten it because
as we've previously established
i was a prick when i was fifteen
so if i'd gone to school with you i still would have been a prick, but a prick who wanted your attention and did all manner of stupid things to get it
i would have driven you mad
Lily Evans: Twenty-seven year old you wants my attention and I've not been driven mad over it once, to be fair.
James Potter: twenty-seven year old me has much improved with age and is more deserving of it
you however have been a delight your whole life
which i now have visual proof of
hence i'll be calling your best mate saint lady beatrice from now on
Lily Evans: I wasn't a delight my whole life, I promise you.
As a child I was a precocious little shit who thought she knew everything and couldn't be told otherwise. That's why I got into so many scrapes, doing stupid, dangerous things because I couldn't just listen to my mother when she told me "no, Lily, that's dangerous."
I was like a working class Peppa Pig, honestly, no wonder my sister couldn't hack being around me half the time.
So you're not the only one who has much improved with age.
And fifteen year old me would have had a massive crush on fifteen year old you, BELIEVE me.
James Potter: oh really?
Lily Evans: Would I have let you know about it? Absolutely not.
But it still would have been there.
James Potter: you mean like the crush you've had on me this whole time?
Lily Evans: I already have to get you back for some nonsense you pulled yesterday, Potter, so I'd advise you not to pile on and add this to the list.
James Potter: lollllllll
Lily Evans: I'm serious!
James Potter: oh i'm sure you are
to which i say
go on then
do it
Lily Evans: I will do it.
James Potter: you go right ahead
i can handle it
Lily Evans: You're being very cocky right now and while I can't pretend I don't like it, it'll also prove to be your downfall later.
James Potter: we'll see, we'll see
Lily Evans: We will see.
James Potter: whatever you need to tell yourself, sweetheart
Lily Evans: I think the fifteen year old you has taken over the controls in your head, mate.
James Potter: he probably has, yeah
but what can i say
he's really chuffed about your crush on me
Lily Evans: You mean the crush you've decided I have that I haven't confirmed?
James Potter: right, yeah, of course, clearly i'm the one in the wrong here
still sleeping in my bed, are you?
Lily Evans: I have to go do a work thing now.
James Potter: oh, sure, that old excuse
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i adore how protective nine is of rose but i also think what is regarded a lot of the time as ten not caring about or valuing rose in the same way is him having more faith in her. it’s kind of like when people complain about rose not challenging ten the way she did nine when they’re just much more on the same page in s2 because they know each other better, so she doesn’t really need to.
in theory, ten could have yelled at rose in the idiot’s lantern for not waiting for him when she confronted magpie. but he doesn’t, he loses his mind trying to save her (VERY nine) and also acknowledges that her observation was spot on. the whole “domestic approach” line gets attention but i have never really interpreted his intention as being to insult her; in some ways, i feel her reaction is a holdover from nine, who did put down the idea of domesticity (and also actively manipulated her into leaving her mum in world war 3 which never really gets mentioned).
and of course, rise of the cybermen is a parallel to father’s day. the doctor starts out harshly talking to her the way he did when he was nine, forbidding her to see her father, but then he gives in when she just looks at him. which is exactly what he does that in father’s day too of course.
like, why do you think she refuses to be sent away in doomsday, another direct parallel to parting of the ways? she’s saying she’s not a kid anymore, that she already made her way back to him once before. she can’t be protected from the hard choices anymore and she won’t be, because she understands everything that it means to be the doctor’s companion. you never see it on-screen but clearly sometime between tooth & claw and doomsday she asks about what happened before he regenerated; she has to learn that she is the bad wolf, especially when she is to continue her journey of turning into nine in s4 and making hard choices. ten wouldn’t have known that, but it’s a mark of the respect and faith (he believes! in her!) that he stops protecting her from the truth.
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