#do dishes as a cathartic healing experience

[remembertheplunge]

I love this, Some times I save the dirty dishes up. I wash them after some ugly experience in court (Im a criminal defense attorney). The warm water running over my hands and the actual act of accomplishing something by cleaning the dish and placing it in the dish washer is cathartic and healing. When the dishes are done, I don't now feel like I have been defeated by the day. It's symbolic victory. While I am washing the dishes, I try to stay present with touch, sound sight of the experience.

instructions for the journey by Pat Schneider

[montanababe7]

Inner healing ❤️‍🩹 isn’t always pretty. Honestly. Some. Times. It’s down right messy. Closing different doors and old seasons. It’s like Alice in wonderland through the looking glass. Yes. I read a lot. Any who. I’m not who I once was. The high school girl. Or the gal at go ministries international or even at the moments in between. I’m now a stay at home mother of three beautiful unique precious little girls.

My point is. There has been so much inner healing ❤️‍🩹 taking place. I’ve been asking Jesus to restore my heart. to heal even the moments that I truly have blocked out in my mind. I’m done putting those emotional masks and walls up.

I’ve been so torn in the middle of the memories of where I was 20 some

Years ago and the version of me today.

Honestly. Some days. I feel like I’m wondering who I am supposed to be. Other moments. I don’t have a care in the world.

My point is, I can’t help but feel and sense that this next season and chapter of my life-requires complete focus on holding Jesus hand. Not looking to the right or to the left. Wondering if I’m doing everything correctly. If I’ve truly measured

Up. If the 4-5 washes of laundry makes my worth or the dishes done. Or is it simply found in loving my family. Seeing mike and I’s, children growing up before our eyes. But, it’s also found in simply sitting at Jesus feet. Listening to his gentle and still

Small voice in the quiet. not ever having to wonder if I’m good enough or if I have done all I can do. If my looks are perfect for my man. If I’m beautiful enough. To stop the memories of

Yesteryear that at times play in my head. The things kids said many years back not choose my value. Some days. I look in the mirror and I remember what was spoken when I was 8-10

Years old and I cry hoping and 🙏🏼 praying my husband finds me

Beautiful. The quote sticks and stones. Some words it’s

Hard to forget. Especially when kids or even leaders told me: “Jessica. In a lot of ways-you’re alot like a f a t or uh ly person. You’re so socially awk ward that zero guy would ever want you.” Or the one that I’ve begged Jesus to help me forget- “Jessica, your face is u g li er than a mule’s b u t t.” Again. Yes. THese wr just words. Hello? I look in the mirror and I see a perfect hour glass figure and yet, I remember those words.

I pray Mike and I’s, girls never experience the crue lty of painful words.

I pray others always build them up and never tear them down. I pray they never have to built almost an armadillo outer shell 🐚. I pray 🙏🏼 they never experience the need to go zero contact with family. These things make my heart feel older than 37. I pray. They always feel loved 🥰, cherished, and safe.

I have a tendency to pu sh people I care about away. I block some people literally when I’m hurt.

Yes. I am being real. This evening has been like Holy Spirit Healinh. Even in writing ✍🏼 this. I feel honestly like I’ve been gut t ed. because this is me telling the true Jessica. The Jessica that cleans or tries to close her mind & hear t off to not feeling anything. It’s like. If the house is spotless, I helped the girls clean their room, give my oldest daughter makeover, paint 🎨 her nails 💅, make sure the younger two girls happy also, I can feel like I’m doing everything right and those closest to me will be proud of. It also happens in the form of writing ✍🏼 down recipes. Somehow. Even that will heal the broken parts of me. If I can prepare the most perfect Betty Crocker recipes-you know that absolutely best dinners, meals, and desserts; that I’d have finally achieved it all.

Later on, I’ve prayed for. Poured my heart into others. Deep down. I know that I’m still hurting. It’s like. God I’ve done all you have asked of me. Why do I feel like I’m not measuring up. It’s in those moments that Jesus holds me close. Jesus speaks to my heart. I write ✍🏼. I cry 😭 and I pray 🙏🏼. I feel

Better.

This writing even now is 100 cathartic. You see. I’m

Like a ball of 🧶. I keep my heart deeply woven. Writing helps. This is how Jesus ministers to me a lot. It helps me heal and grow. I know this message wasn’t just for me.

I pray this raw and heartfelt message aka truth. Helped someone. 🙂

Thanks for reading 📖 and listening 🎧.

Jessica

Jessica Wolf

[thegeminisage]

top 5 moments in broken road?

i literally waited until now to answer these ask meme questions so i could do this w/o spoilers. anyway time to do an ask meme i got questions for THREE ENTIRE WEEKS ago

#5 - "my girl" john/mary reunion

Mary rushes forward into John's waiting arms. He gathers her up and holds her close, pressing kiss after kiss into her hair, tears running down his face. "My girl," he says, in aching disbelief, drawing back to cup her face in his hands. "My girl." She laughs through her own tears, and when he smooths one gun-calloused thumb under her eye she turns her face into his hand, and then he draws her close and kisses her, like they're the only two people left in the whole wide world.

look. am i valid? no. but they compel me. to them their story is just as real and longlasting as dean/cas is to us. so i added a little gutpunch to that reunion because it’s my fic and i get to do what i want >:) actually, even though i made a point of calling john “dad” and mary “mom” in dean’s pov, in this moment, i deliberately used their names - it’s more than just mom and dad, it’s theee john and mary winchester back together after all these years. no, they don’t stay that way, but after a 22-year quest in her name, it still deserves to be like a Reunion. 

(other four are below the cut to spare ur dashes. there are major spoilers for the whole fic, just warning u)

#4 - john getting punched by [SPOILER]

Dean's shoves his father with all his might, yelling, "Let go of me!" Partially because even though just moments ago the dungeon was exactly where he wanted to be, he absolutely doesn't want Dad to be the one to put him there, partially because he's afraid that Michael is about to break free from that cage in his head and vaporize everybody in firing range, and partially because he's afraid that if Dad doesn't let go, Cas will kill him.

But Dean's only got one hand free, and Dad's grip is too strong. Michael and sleep deprivation have made Dean weak; he can't get away from Dad on his own.

Then, when Cas is still just out of arm's reach, Sam lays into Dad with the fiercest right hook Dean's ever seen.

Dean knows that right hook well. That's one of the first moves Dad taught him, one Dad forced him to practice a thousand miserable times—how to stand, when to turn, where to throw his weight—until he honed it to absolute unthinking perfection. And it is perfect: Sam nails Dad right on the jaw with all six feet and change of muscle, sending him staggering back, his grip on Dean slipping free.

Dad slumps against the wall for a moment like he's literally seeing stars, like it's all he can do not to pass out. His nose looks like it might be broken. Dean rounds on his brother; if he was expecting Dean to thank him for that, he's going to be disappointed. "What the hell, Sam?"

But Sam's looking at Dad, not at Dean. "He said," Sam pants, "to let go of him."

i’m normally very anti-punching john, but i feel like if anybody has the right to do it, it’s sam. he’s spent his whole life being protected from john by dean and he finally gets to return the favor! all his problems are solved because he’s literally the bigger man now in every way! i doubt sam would ever punch john on his own behalf, but it is UTTERLY in character for him to do it in defense of someone else, but i bet it was pretty fucking cathartic too. picking sam moments in this fic is like picking children but this...you know, it wasn’t even in my outline. it happened organically as i wrote. and it just. feels right.

#3 - sam telling john to clean up his mess

"Seriously, Dad—we've had enough of your lip service. You're sorry? You want to help? Clean up your mess."

What? John frowns. Does he mean Dean?

But, no—Sam twists and picks up an actual mop and bucket from the corner behind him. The bucket is full of red-tinted water. "Go in the kitchen," he says, "and if Dean says you can use the sink, run some clean water with bleach. We gotta get the blood off the floor, because the longer it stays there, the worse it'll stain—especially on the hardwood."

"Uh," says John.

Then Sam gives him a severe, no-nonsense look that nearly punches the breath from John's lungs—because for the very first time, he sees his Mary in that stubbornly unimpressed face. "Do you understand? This isn't a motel. You can't expect someone else to do it for you. Don't go in the kitchen," Sam says slowly, enunciating every word, "unless you're going. To clean up. Your mess. You want room service—there's the fucking door."

THERE’S THE FUCKING DOOR. i love this bc firstly i believe in man of the house sam and secondly it falls into the same thing of like...sam is finally big and strong enough to protect dean and by god he will make himself an impassable 6′4 between this man and his brother. i think especially since finding out about flagstaff, DOUBLY since becoming a parent, sam is like...so less than impressed with john’s bullshit, and even more impatient than he already was of john’s stupid excuses. 

there’s also this motif of cleaning throughout the fic - in john and sam’s very first scene alone together, they are washing dishes. at first this was a nod to sam and dean doing it in lebanon - dean washing, sam drying - but washing is the “hard” part of doing the dishes; when my mom taught me how to do them i began learning by drying first. so of course dean has been washing and letting sam dry all their lives - almost literally, because john talks pretty early on about dean being a neat freak too, because john simply wouldn’t pick up after himself but still hated the mess. there’s a few mentions of it in the fic, how john liked being able to leave a mess behind in their motel rooms, how he’d prop his feet on the table - but in season 10, it’s sam on his knees scrubbing the bloodstained floors after dean’s murder spree, and in broken road sam makes john wash the dishes, and at the end, sam makes him mop. @maulthots put it best:

like that’s it. that's literally it. and then, finally, john offers to clean up on his own without being asked. that’s Growth™, at least in whatever way he’s capable of it. at any rate, he’s too afraid of getting hit again to NOT clean up after himself lol

#2 - dean/cas car scene [content warning for nsfw and discussion of past sexual violence - scroll down to #1 if you’d like to skip it!]

Cas lets go of Dean, but it's to reposition his hands on Dean's knees, slide those huge palms up Dean's thighs. Dean feels the heat of them bleeding through his jeans. Then, holy shit, Cas rests his thumbs on Dean's belt buckle, and makes eye contact.

Dean wets his lips, a little uncertain. He has no idea what Cas is going to do. "Yeah, okay," he croaks.

Cas leans in and kisses him again while he undoes Dean's belt. Like—fuck, like he knew Dean wouldn't want to watch. Dean hears the zipper on his fly, and all at once it clocks that, yeah, okay, this is really happening. Heart thudding in his ears, Dean reflexively lifts his hips so Cas can pull his jeans off. But Cas only slides them down a little. Then he reaches into Dean's boxers and gets a hand around his dick.

Oh. A small, quiet noise drops out of Dean into Cas's mouth, and he turns out of the kiss, panting as Cas pulls him out of his clothes. He's not sure what he was expecting, but this is okay. Just a handjob—he can handle that. It's good, actually. A little dry, but Cas has a light touch, and Dean has decided that he likes Cas's hands. He knows the shape of them very well.

i really enjoyed writing this whole scene, but this was my favorite part. cas technically does get dean’s consent, which was important to cas and a little bit of a big deal for dean too, but dean didn’t ask what cas was going to do before giving that consent, because he almost...doesn’t care? like, dean’s previous experiences with men were all lousy at best, and violent and traumatizing at worst, and arguably none of them were 100% consensual. so part of him is figuring that whatever happens will be within that spectrum, and he’ll just deal with it being awful no matter what it is because he almost literally can’t picture it not being awful. he's not doing it because he likes fucking men or expects he’ll like fucking cas, he’s doing because he wants to be close to cas, he wants to be away from michael and his dad, and because if he and cas are together now that’s part of the package and he’s just done the full “for keeps” commitment bit, so he’s not gonna pussy out now, right? he trusts cas not to actually harm him, and be closer to “lousy” than “violent,” but he is, in his mind, basically giving cas consent to hurt him, because to him that’s what sex with men IS. and he’s understandably pretty nervous because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen - all he’s sure of is that he won’t like it. 

but then he does like it! he likes it a lot! trusting cas turns out to be the correct choice! because if cas had turned him down in that moment, trying to baby him or second guess him, i think dean would have felt really hurt and angry and embarrassed, he would have felt like he was broken or untouchable. which is why cas took him at his word, but ALSO did pretty much the most tame thing you can do and still count it as having sex. so cas managed to thread the needle perfectly because he knows dean so well and he’s literally been inside his mind and witnessed that trauma and knew everything to avoid doing. so for dean it wound up being TRULY consensual instead of the sort of fake consent he’s used to handing out to johns. if that makes any sense. idk i just really enjoyed doing it. i think a valid reading is that dean has this physical fear of men that is just...not explored very much in fic. and it was nice to write something where cas was sort of able to undo or heal a little of that damage. 

#1 - michael

No, no, no—we can't die—we can't die, we are eternal, we are our Father's most beloved, His favorite son—

No no no no no no no no no—I can't die—I can't die—

Light fills the room, reflecting in Dean's eyes making them look as though they glow. And for the very first time, John sees him. John sees him, John sees him, John sees him—

Where is my Father? Is He watching? Can He see me?

Father, help me, I beg You—please, I don't want to die—

I don't want to die—

i could honestly paste the entire michael scene here, there’s not a thing about it i don’t love, but this was probably my favorite part. and look, i waited NINE YEARS to see michael!dean, i deserved to go apeshit!!! i think the fun thing about michael is that he’s a great foil to both john and dean, the literal connecting tissue, especially when he’s hopping bodies like that. he’s dean’s aggressor but he’s also dean’s twisted reflection, nearly broken by his father’s absence. it was impossible for john to see dean as he really is until michael let him see it through dean’s own eyes.

and then “i” at the end - i knew going in that i wanted a “we” pronoun (though i almost chickened out of it), because michael’s in charge but he’s also making his vessel do things with him, like laugh or scream or hurt people. but when michael dies, he’s alone figuratively and literally, because john’s not dying with him, and his own father has forsaken him too - and that’s the way dean so often felt, and FEELING that was probably the only thing that could possibly give john the motivation to be even slightly less self-centered and shitty. 

michael was my whole reason for writing this fic - because i was livid they didn’t use him to tie dean and john together in canon, because the burden of being his vessel is just one more thing dean had to take...this whole chapter, this whole fic, hinged entirety on the batshit insane dynamic between michael and dean and john. and like there are parts of this fic i was insecure about and wished i could have done better, but this? i think i nailed it. definitely the part i had the most fun writing. 

but like, honorable mention?

"Dude," Dean says, flipping on his blinker so he can pull up beside the local grocery, "can we not do any touchy-feely shit, please? That's—"

"Gay?" Sam suggests.

"Get out of my car."

>:)

[kintsugikintsugi]

BDSM Love

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants. They do - it’s latex –

Juha (Pekka Strang), a tall, brawny man, experiences the unforeseen demise of his wife. Tentatively implied as a suicide, she jumps into the ocean, as Juha vainly, attempts to save her life. Cut to years later, now a lead cardiac surgeon in Helsinki, he still delves into the rabbit hole of trauma and emotional inertness. He is unresponsive, cold, passive. He performs cardiac transplants with the same dullness as the moment he washes the dishes. That is only until Mona (Krista Kosonen), a sadistic dominatrix, appears in his life.

Now he must obey.

An audacious cinematic endeavor, Dogs Don’t Wear Pants, is not a film for everyone. It is not.  With all of its stomach-churning iconography, and sometimes explicit representation of BDSM undertakes, this film might estrange, divide the audiences. Unless you can take the pain. It is only then, that you will realize how Valkeapää’s feature, is ultimately one about self-discovery through self-destruction; one that enables the liberating shift from numbness to feeling.

Elli, Juha’s rebellious teen daughter, wishes to have her tongue pierced. Juha, an open-minded father that shows hardly any objection to his daughter’s caprices, escorts her to the local tattoo parlour. As Elli insists that he leaves the room, Juha walks around the parlour premises. He stumbles across a dog mask, covered in glossy nails. Mona, confusing Juha for a client, knocks him down and strangles him with a black spreader bar. Juha leaves immediately. The next day, a bruised thumb evokes a peculiar feeling, that prompts him to call Mona and set a meeting.

They meet. They meet twice. They meet more.

The two characters, for a substantial part of the film, indulge in graphic BDSM practices. Mona, dressed up in latex jumpsuits, and switching from brunette to blonde bob cut wigs, asserts her dominance over Juha. The cardiac surgeon, tied up in a leather black harvest, extatically obeys. The BDSM scenes do not hold back: vinyl boots, golden showers, burning candles, auto-erotic asphyxiation. The latter, mostly, showcases that Dogs Don’t Wear Pants is not a body-horror film; nor a film that mocks or pathologizes BDSM affordances. Through autoerotic asphyxiation, Juha re-enacts the moment of his wife’s tragic loss. Through the tactile, carnal anatomy of the senses, he recalls ethereal, underwater visions. Within that obscure veil that separates life from death, consciousness from nothingness, the two are back together.

The film, then, unexpectedly reveals signs of tenderness. In one of the film’s scenes, Juha regains his consciousness, and softly touches Mona’s cheeks. Her, stuck into an emotional paralysis, slaps Juha and runs away. She is not used to gestures of affection; she is not any less alienated than her sexual slave. But, through this act of total submission, both character’s inner psyche starts to tremble. They start to feel.

However, Mona, unable to identify her feelings, cuts off all ties. She no longer wishes to meet Juha. She believes that he solely sees her as the physical object that facilitates his fluorescent visions. Juha tracks her down. Soon enough she enters an underground, BSDM-themed nightclub. 80’S funky music sets the sonic landscape. Juha, enters the club as well, and dressed in a leather bondage, is looking for his master. He stays in the middle of the dance stage. He sees Mona. Mona sees him. He starts dancing, poorly. He is smiling at her from distance. In a cathartic last scene, a la Bon Travail, he is now liberated, healed from the traumas of the past, in the place where he belongs. Mona is smiling at him from distance. She now knows that he is there for her, ready to submit.

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants is not just a film about leather pants, kinky basements and cat-o-nine tails. The Finnish breakthrough, with all of its deadpan humor and black-comedy cues, frames the darker, rougher edges of sex as a way back to feel. Shot in glowing neon and shiny latex, the film entails sex as a method, a process of healing. Unlike films that picture BDSM as controversial and psychologically abnormal, Valkeapää de-stigmatizes it. It’s a sex-positive narrative, that prompts you to thrive in your own skin, to find the people you can openly be yourself around.

What is your safe word?

Dogs Don't Wear Pants (2019) dir. J-P Valkeapää

[maren-as-an-adult]

The 2020 Experience, Part 4

December was...rough. Every free moment I had was spent looking for better paying jobs and more apartments. Christmas gifts were planned and purchased under extreme budget. I had an upcoming OB-GYN appointment. And the accumulated stress finally broke me physically and mentally.

I started noticing it when I had my OB-GYN appointment. My appointment wasn’t until 4:30pm, but I wanted to get some Christmas shopping done, so I took an early train into Atlantic Terminal to do some shopping in and around Barclay’s Center. I didn’t have breakfast before I left, so I grabbed a latte and a slice of iced lemon cake from Starbucks. There were some benches outside where I sat down and ate. Afterwards, I hit up Target and Marshall’s. Once I was in line for Marshall’s, I started feeling... off. I could feel my pulse rushing in my face, and my stomach felt simultaneously empty and twisted upside down. I couldn’t tell if I felt like I was going to vomit or poop, or if I was just really gassy and needed to fart. I made it through purchasing and left to sit down somewhere, anywhere. I think I settled down in front of either TJ Maxx or Burlington on the ground. I pulled my knees into my chest, waiting and hoping for this feeling to pass. After about 15 minutes and no change, I knew I needed to find a bathroom. And in COVID times, I had a better chance of finding a four-leaf clover growing out of the concrete than a public toilet I could access.

Target, however, was my savior. Having purchased from them earlier, I happily took advantage of their open and clean bathroom facilities. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say I spent a long time on that toilet trying to feel better. Eventually I had to move on, and I decided I would go outside and get as much fresh air as I could, hoping that would somehow cure me of this... whatever feeling it was. It helped, or at least that’s what I told myself as I slowly sipped water from my water bottle. I tried to make one last stop at one last shop before heading down to Bay Ridge for my OB-GYN appointment, but after two instances where I was forced to sit down again and wait for the feeling to pass to something barely more manageable, I decided the best course of action would be to arrive exceptionally early to my appointment and hope they had an unoccupied bathroom I could access.

Thankfully, they did. I somehow managed a thirty minute train ride, a ten minute wait for the bus, a ten minute bus ride, and a ten minute walk to the doctor’s office, where after filling out a few forms I retreated to their very clean single occupancy bathroom. I felt awful and wanted something done about it, so I open mouth breathed while kneeling in front of the toilet bowl for a while. It’s a technique I use when I feel like I may throw up and want to encourage my stomach to expel whatever’s clearly upsetting it. [I also wish to take this moment to make this very clear: I am not, nor have I ever been, bulimic. I don’t endorse or condone bulimia. I’m sure it’s very easy to read what I just wrote as inducing vomiting to purposefully purge, but it is not. I was not trying to make myself vomit, but I was prepared for that to happen should my body have decided that’s what it needed to do.] What ended up happening was about five minutes of dry heaving before my body apparently decided that because there was nothing there, that nothing was wrong anymore.

What was wrong with me? I hadn’t interacted with anyone who was sick, had I? I had recently started babysitting, could I have gotten something from one of the kids? Was I not as diligent as I thought I’d been with maintaining social distance and wearing a mask and sanitizing and washing my hands? Or was it something else? All I’d had to eat that day was some processed cake and a sugary latte, could I possibly have developed celiac disease overnight? Was my body finally shutting down it’s lactose-digesting functions? Was I just really overcaffeinated because I forgot to specify “half-caf” in my Starbucks order?

I posited these queries to my doctor while she poked around my vagina. She said it was possible I could be lactose intolerant or I could be crashing from the caffeine. When the staff had taken my temperature I wasn’t running a fever, so it wasn’t likely I’d caught anything off of someone. With a final fingering to gauge the position of my uterus (I learned it has a slight anterior tilt), my appointment was done and I was free to go home. Though I felt better, I decided against calling on my old roommates and to instead just head back to Graham’s. I made one last gift purchase before hopping on the LIRR, and my Christmas shopping was essentially done.

The feeling didn’t disappear though, and on some days it became unmanageable. My GI system was clearly in distress, and not a lot was helping. I found a few packs of ginger turmeric tea at Graham’s house and made myself a cup, firmly placing my faith in the healing properties of what some (uncultured) people call “hot leaf juice”. I think it helped, but I can’t be sure. I’d told Graham about what was going on and what I thought it could be, and he could sympathize and to a degree empathize. It wasn’t until one night when I was again dry heaving into a toilet bowl that Graham fully saw what an awful state I was in. I told him at this point I thought it was a manifestation of the stress we’d been under for the past eight weeks. For eight weeks we’d been searching for apartments, passing on nice ones just out of our budget, trying to come to terms with the infinite number of mediocre same-floor plan, same-color, same-appliances, same-building looking ones, and getting discouraged with the shitty, falling apart ones. I had spent my first Thanksgiving away from my family and had resigned myself to spending Christmas apart from my family for the first time as well. I’d had three separate COVID tests in the past two months. I hadn’t spoken to my therapist since before Thanksgiving. And I had spent the entire month at Graham’s family’s house, which was not something I had wanted.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Truly, I’m indebted to Graham’s mom for letting me not only stay with them rent-free (but agreeing to walk their dogs) but also keep my stuff there while she is also getting ready to move out. But I have never felt comfortable calling someone else’s place my home. I cannot help but feel like an outsider, and no matter how many times people tell me to “make [myself] comfortable” and “help [myself] to whatever food there is” I will feel like an imposition and a burden. It’s only my anxiety coming through, but it comes through LOUD.

I finally scheduled an appointment with my therapist again, and poured all this out to him. I told him exactly how bad things had gotten, and not for the first time I considered asking to be prescribed anti-anxiety medication and possibly antidepressants. I decided to keep going without them...for now.

Christmas Eve came and Graham, his family, and I all celebrated together. We were gifted some lovely items to start our life living together, like a knife set, a set of glasses, new bedding, and a casserole dish. It was a lovely respite from the stress.

On Christmas Day, Graham and I went to see another apartment. This apartment was in the same building as the apartment we almost signed for, and the only differences were that this apartment was on a lower floor and didn’t have a balcony. It was also almost $100/month less than what we had almost agreed to. The owner said he would send over the application and answers to our questions on Monday. We both felt good about this apartment.

When Monday came with no e-mail from the guy, I reached out to him to ask when we could expect it. His response was that he had just been diagnosed with COVID-19 and now wanted to sell instead of rent. This became all too much for me, and when I got back into Graham’s car as we were out running errands, I started screaming. I hadn’t screamed like this since a particularly bad day of work I had back when I worked at Target. It was cathartic, but I felt cold and disconnected from Graham for the rest of the day. Something had broken inside me, and I wasn’t sure if it was my heart, my soul, my mind, or all three. It took a while for me to recover, and honestly I’m still hurt and feel betrayed by this guy. I understand I cannot speak for what’s best for him or what he felt he should have done, but Graham and I felt that we were given the runaround by this guy. We scheduled another COVID test for ourselves, and tried to move forward.

We made it to New Year’s Eve, and stayed up to watch 2020 end. New Year’s felt somber this year, and it felt hard to celebrate the start of a new year when the one we just went through was so damaging.

But we made it. We’re here, and it’s the first week of January in 2021. Currently there are radical conservatives storming the Capitol protesting the electoral college results, but in less than 20 days, Trump will be out of office. I’ve given myself goals that are manageable for the new year, and Graham and I have three applications out for three different apartments, and there’s a chance we may be able to get the apartment we saw on Christmas Day. We keep moving forward, because the alternative is to not move at all.

And I refuse to allow that for myself.

[youlooklikearealbabetoday]

if you could get any kind of continuation or expansion of the movie thelma, what would you want to see?

asdakjhaljdafs so on the one hand i can’t even begin to comprehend what joachim and his talented team would bring to the table if either or occurred. i do know it would blow out of the water anything i have thought about. also i really think the movie is pretty perfect as is in content, editing, and narrative beats. on the other hand, the world of ‘thelma’ is ripe with possibilities, especially related to thelma, anja, and the former’s abilities. so yeah! there’s a few things i’d be very interested to sit down with joachim, eili, and kaya to discuss lol. 

the following are some things i’ve thought about along the way. they’re less headcanons and more like themes / general arcs (though i may have snuck a headcanon in once or twice). may end up having some new thoughts after a few more rewatches and these could change in that process. 

expansion

+ anja’s return and reunion with thelma

based on anja’s slight disorientation when she arrives outside thelma’s apartment and her saying she thought thelma texted her / non-plussed reactions the morning after, i’m thinking her behavior when she reappears goes about relatively the same way.  however… we did see her gasp / scream when the window ‘broke’ and enfolded her so maybe she remembers that much and is a little more distressed. not to mention last she remembers thelma and her weren’t speaking, so reuniting with thelma holding all these questions and uncertainties would be cathartic…and most likely heartbreaking. i feel like this alone could be a short film askhjfalsj,

+ their first time

i’ve gone back and forth in terms of thinking their first time happened between thelma leaving her parents’ place for good and the final scene with anja at blindern vs. happening after the end of the movie. atm i’m in the former camp based on how comfortable thelma was with PDA at the end and the sharing of clothes ;__;… but i’ll just leave @hedawolf‘s first time headcanons here because they’re a thing of beauty.

continuation 

+ evolution of thelma’s abilities

her powers are an allegory for her emotional / mental development and to see how those continue to evolve and stem from one another would be a key component of a continuation. are ‘physical displacement’ and ‘healing’ as far as it goes? i personally don’t think so as they represented different states of thelma’s development — repression and acceptance — so as thelma continues to mature, presumably so should her powers.

+ thelma’s grandmother

with trond no longer around to keep her in a drug coma, thelma’s grandmother should start to come out of it. i see thelma try to connect with her as the only other person (that we’re aware of) to have the same abilities as thelma. we know her grandmother shares the ability to displace, but can the grandmother ‘heal’ as well and/or have other abilities that thelma may not have based on her own personal experiences? 

+ thelma and anja navigating their relationship

thelma telling anja about the fate of her brother, father, and her abilities. obviously when in a new relationship, the discovery and learning about your s/o — both the good and not so good — is a raw thing. it can feel tenuous at times. i’m fascinated by how they would work together to understand those aspects of each other and especially of thelma’s abilities because they’re a they now. a team. 

per kaya’s request, an argument while doing dishes! for real though, some conflict would be a very honest part of them navigating a relationship. i can’t imagine — with all thelma’s been through — that her newfound confidence doesn’t waiver now and then. but because they are that gross couple, they work through it and come out even stronger. 

+ more of anja’s background 

loved the glimpses we got into her relationship with her father and mother that showed just how similar anja and thelma are. i’d be cool with separate interactions between anja and her mother to get a further understanding of their relationship, perhaps a part of it is anja telling her mother about thelma as a parallel to thelma telling trond about anja but in a MUCH different scenario and outcome tyvm. or her mother talking with thelma. still thinking on this… i’m guessing anja comes from the middle / upper middle class based on her nice apartment and it seems like her and her mother are able to go to the opera house frequently. 

i have a headcanon that anja drew her ‘smallest man’ tattoo, as well as one or two of her other ones. she’s secretly an amazing illustrator and photographer (someone so observant has to be). sometimes she leaves drawings on notecards or random pieces of ephemera like receipts for thelma to discover — various delicate half-profiles of thelma that were obviously done in the same room while the subject was unawares doing homework, taking a nap, reading, etc. or doodles of funny, weird characters she knows will make thelma laugh.

+ thelma / anja / julie

fluff wish. i really do think julie is an unsung hero and would love to see her with either thelma or anja or both. gimme all the positive, encouraging friendships between women.

thanks for the question and sorry it took me so long to answer! would love to hear what other folks would like to see.

[loumauve]

@aimofdestiny tagged me

long ass, rambly response under the cut:

1. Are there any tropes you’d like to see more of in pro fic (aka… traditionally published books)? If so, which ones?

tbh, I haven’t really picked up any books lately. whenever I feel like reading I feel like a v specific set of characters and setup, and fanfic is perfect for that while traditionally published fiction is not.. but ??tropes?? idk. are they all tropes? who ever cares. STUFFS I love include: 

COFFEE SHOP/BOOK STORE AUs (geonncannon has some p cool published fiction with similar content; also Ferry Tale... dudes and dudettes... pls read that. I know I say that every year but I really do mean it), CROSSOVERS of any kind, when I feel sentimental SOULMATE AUs (but mostly the less traditional ones. like.. friend soulmates are v cool too),  anything SUPERNATURAL like GHOSTS!! or vampires/werewolves (teenage me was v into those and sometimes still gets to run around and play), ANYTHING KINDA TWISTED AND MESSED UP tbh (don’t ask me to explain that pls omg.. imagine dub-con, ppl fucking themselves up bc they’re messed up and need years of therapy, all of that. I’m a terrible person, lol....but then also THE HEALING PROCESS!!!), if done right - PIRATE AUs, ANYTHING POST-APOCALYPTIC, PRETEND RELATIONSHIPS (wherein all parties harbour feelings for the other(s) but think they oughta keep it to themselves), HURT-COMFORT (of course! I mean.. you get it, right??!?), REINCARNATION (esp the kind where it takes them a looooong time to get it right, and they keep DYING and messing it up and killing each other time and again... I just love it all. make it hurt, lol), TIME TRAVEL (again, IF DONE RIGHT), ANDROIDS/ROBOTS with self-awareness and feelings,  anything to do with SPACE and travel therein, FOUND FAMILIES!!!

tldr: all of them, but mostly the above.

2. What art and/or craft would you like to pick up but haven’t for whatever reason?

anything I’m into and haven’t picked up is bc I tried it once, wasn’t good at it right away and promptly decided to give up on it, lol but if we’re talking as if I could do it, and do it well - hm.. I guess I’d love to be better at building things from scratch (think furniture, houses, the like) and also engineering abilities... I admire people who can do that shit and make sth cool, even if it’s shitty robots (SIMONE, YOU PERFECT JELLY BEAN - ILY)

3. What is your favourite cold/iced beverage?

there’s this one non-alcoholic cocktail... Mosquito I think? that’s p dope. but if we’re going all basic then it’s prob a tie between vanilla coke and cocoa idk

4. What is your preferred spice level? How hot is too hot for, idk, chili or curry or hot sauce or wasabi?

look, I so pale... I like spicy foods, but my body hates them. and they make my mouth burn and my eyes water and it’s nice when I’m sick, but otherwise I think I’m prob p bland in my choices of spice. the whole stereotype of white ppl and pepper+salt being their only spices doesn’t exist without reason, lol. I wish I could tolerate them more, bc I like chili and curry and loads of pepper, but it just hurts and I’m all about keeping my body (and asthma) on safe levels.

5. Rec me a youtube channel you like. Can be anything. Go on, I know you have a fave.

FUCK!! don’t make me pick, you jerk! I’ll give you a few options, cool? cool!

Kati Morton - for mental health stuff and just having a caring person talk about stuffs Peter Draws - bc he does what he says and he’s a p cool, p weird guy but he also cares about you and wants you to do you, and I dig that. (also his voice is super calming and sometimes I watch his stuff so I can doze off when I’m having a hard time falling asleep) Cooking with Sros // Rural Life (I think that’s where I first started watching her videos) - bc it’s calming to watch her cook super neat dishes that are traditional where she lives (also - sometimes she walks around in her garden and just PICKS STUFF UP bc IT GROWS THERE and I just think that’s the coolest bc you couldn’t even get some of those ingredients here, so like... that’s an entirely different thing I’ll prob never know enough about Simone Giertz - bc she’s awesome and so FUNNY!! and cute and awkward and hella smart, and... before the whole brain tumor thing I would have said I’d love to have a peek around in her brain, but now.. if all goes well she’ll have an actual picture of it to look at, and maybe it’s not cool to be excited for her..?? but yeah, she builds stuff WITH HER OWN TWO HANDS, and she has to know SO MUCH to do it, and just... DAMN CRUSH MATERIAL right there. like, I’m so weak. but also I just want her to have everything. I want her to be able to do to space. fuck

6. Do you keep mementos of old relationships? Why/why not?

HAH! FUCK. I do. have. will? sometimes I ask myself why I keep them and don’t just burn them or whatever (throwing them away wouldn’t be nearly cathartic enough an experience for me), and maybe this is still the grieving part of me that’s looking to haunt itself? idk

all I know is that so far I’ve kept letters. I’ve kept hoodies. and.. idk what I kept out of that one relationship.... can’t remember atm, but that one hurt far too much to keep a lot of reminders around.

7. What sort of music do you put on when you do chores, like dishes or laundry?

my go-to song used to be Eye of the Tiger, but these days it’s mostly podcasts or the music of the mood/day/week (those songs you listen to on repeat for hours after you’ve (re)found them.)

8. Is there any scent you particularly love? Which one?

it used to be musk, like.. those scented burning sticks..(that’s prob not the right English name for them, lol) but I guess... the good rain smell maybe? (not the bad smells-like-snails-and-slugs-and-dead-worms rain smell). also some roses and some paeonies.. I’m picky tho. and forever fave LAVENDER

9. Do you like to cook? What’s your signature dish?

I do, actually. when my kitchen doesn’t look like shit bc my emotional state and therefore life has derailed

and eh.. it’s like a paprika bellpepper tomato soup.. with salami and feta cheese and sometimes corn, sometimes rice, sometimes minced meat. always depends on the mood and what I have lying around. not so much a signature dish as it is what I make most often, mostly for myself. 

10. What’s your fave ice cream flavour that you can’t get in most places?

it’s gained in popularity, but - after-eight. for sure. anything minty with chocolate is amazing to me.

11. What’s your current favourite outfit?

uhm.. I don’t really have favourite outfits, I just have favourite articles of clothing (THEY’RE MY FAVOURITES. THEY’RE ALL MY FAVOURITES. ALL OF THEM) and I tend to mash them together without a care in the world... well, mostly I care about temperatures and sun exposure bc I burn like a crisp in the sun, it’s not pretty.

but lately I’ve been wearing the european tour shirt from the My Favorite Murder live show bc I WAS THERE AND IT WAS THEEEEE SINGULAR BEST THING OF THE YEAR (aside from getting through my final exams). also, I love my old pair of Chucks, the blue leather kind, and the soles are falling apart and it’s all kinds of battered and worn out, but I love them. they make me happy. also there’s some striped black and white socks and some white dotted black underwear and some super comfortable black shorts. but what really is just LOVE still. and prob always. until death do us part - I have this super soft, super floofy, sways around in the wind, lets all the wind through the knitted structures of it, blue-ish, button-able long swishy swooshy ...jacket? apparently it’s called a cardigan, AND YES I HAD TO GOOGLE THAT. I DON’T KNOW THINGS!! JEEZ LOUISE

[settle-down-frohike]

Will you please please rewrite the scene where Mulder tells Scully he's happy for her but he's just not sure where he fits in. Honestly your majestic writing abilities are the only thing that can fix it!!!!

Sorry!! Big long preface ahead!!! First, I must apologize to @scully-loves-ruthie upfront. This probably isn’t exactly what you asked for. I have a real inability to write against canon though I wish I could. Fic is a band-aid of sorts for me but I can only write (not read mind you, shove that AU up my ass all day I’ll love it) what could in some realm, be canon. I can’t dangle impossible perfection in front of myself or immerse myself in such a way as to write it, because it only reminds me of what can’t have, and then I get all morose about the way things are.  So this isn’t a rewrite of this scene so much as it is me trying to babble away my confusion and former hatred for it and then exteding it to my liking.  I utterly HATED this scene, and damn you, you made me watch it over and over and over and over. It was misery. But I have to thank you, because it was cathartic in a sense. It forced me to deal with my own feelings of blame toward Mulder for going off on his own and leaving Scully behind and find some empathy down in my cold dead heart. So I hope in light of all of this, I hope you will forgive me, friend.  

Oh! and one more thing, the ever fabulous @kateyes224 wrote a true re-write of this scene a while back called Three Words More. If you want quality work, skip mine and read hers. :)

Sorry for the babbling. Tagging @fictober, @today-in-fic, and @always-angst

Sensory Integration

He hasn’t told her this for fear she’d have kept him incarcerated, but he’s still fighting waves of nausea induced by the sensation of free fall every few minutes. His stomach rolls end over end, as if on the downslope of a rollercoaster. His feet still don’t feel as if they’ve touched ground, which is ironic for a man who was 6 feet under its surface not 36 hours ago. He feels suspended above this world, tethered only by the clinical sound of her voice as she catalogues his condition. It is the only thing that feels like home right now, and God, he wants to be home, he does, but he’s an apparition, a ghost of himself, floating along a tour of his own life like Ebenezer Scrooge.

Only people don’t talk directly to ghosts about their scars and miraculous healing and their perfect health. They’ve been circling each other cautiously since she came to retrieve him this morning. He senses her restlessness and gets the distinct impression that she’s holding back from latching into him and falling apart. He’s grateful for her restraint, because he can’t handle sudden movements right now. If she were to approach too fast in his direction, he’d end up curled in the fetal position somewhere in a corner, protecting his vital organs. He doesn’t know how he knows this, he just does. He’s like one giant Pavlovian experiment.

Stimulus.

Response.

Repeat.

On the silent ride to his apartment, he keeps his gaze on the passing scenery. The feeling of forward motion relaxes him. In his peripheral he catches her cautious, fleeting glances, and wonders if she’s worried about him or expecting him to say something. An apology perhaps, but that’s probably just because he feels like he owes her one. There is at least that much of his former self left. He knows, on some level, that this is at least partly his fault. He left her to protect her, his intentions valiant, the result catastrophic. That too, at least, feels familiar.

The walk out of the elevator down his hallway is akin to a prisoner being led to his cell. He imagines the catcalls from either side. Wonders if they are similar to the whispers she must’ve endured in his absence.

“Hear that? Ol’ Spooky finally got what he always wanted– a ride in a spaceship!!”

“Typical asshole, right? He’d have made a shitty father anyway. Shame he had to knock her up before he took off this time.”

Had he, though? Does she assume he assumes it’s his? He knows her. Knows she’d have never pursued this again so quickly without him. Would she?With someone anonymous?  Is it..he…she.. his? 

The nausea assaults him once again at the door. A reckoning lies beyond, and he isn’t sure footed enough yet to do anything but react. He hopes for something else familiar to grasp on to once they walk in, the scent of burnt coffee or old laundry, dishes in the sink, but the echo of her heels on the hardwood is the only thing that registers. For a place that is full to the brim still of his possessions, the sound only reinforces the impression of emptiness. It seems to him now a shrine, a collection of things in memoriam. He has waited much too long to speak at this point he knows. He doesn’t want to frighten her. His pulse races in his ears.

Say.

Something.

“It looks different.” His voice doesn’t shake like he thought it would.

“It’s clean.” Her humor astounds him; it is without a trace of bitterness. He knows she is not angry, but at this point he would understand if she were exasperated. He’s drawn immediately to the serene glow of the tank and a fleeting bubble of giddy reunion rises in his chest, immediately followed by shame for not feeling the same around her. Again something is off, but in the right way. He recognizes something as missing, and it’s a relief. 

“I’m missing a molly.”

“Yea,” she chuffs, “ she wasn’t as lucky as you.”

Dread floods his senses once more as well as the need to retch, so he sits awkwardly on the desk to steady himself and prevent swaying on his feet. Being under the gun used to be what made him thrive, and now he just wants to hide. But she is being so intolerably patient there fiddling with the key he gave her in an act of good faith, and the pressure of owing her the same.. something.. everything, is weighing on him now.

“Mulder…” there is the faintest trace of impatience in her tone now, for which he cannot blame her, but the numbness he feels only serves to allow the blankest of stares in her direction.  She continues to narrate an abbreviated, watered-down recollection of her experience and he is drifting again, the rope to which he is attached to this world suddenly stretching, fraying and unraveling, because this isn’t her. She’s lying by omission on his behalf. She knows damn well he knows exactly what it was like. But she’s flailing, trying desperately to pull him to her by playing on his propensity for compassion. This particular shade of cheap manipulation isn’t her color, and even she is struggling with it.  She wants so desperately to connect with him right now, even if it is only by the shared recollection of what it is like to be utterly devastated and reborn by the absence and presence of another. Her words muddle and blur until,

“…And now to have to you back, it….” He isn’t so devoid of sensitivity not to catch the slight glimmer of tears as she trails off. But he is in no condition to provide comfort to anyone right now.

“You act like you’re surprised.” His old instincts are kicking in automatically, for which he is grateful, deflection by sarcasm is his default setting. But her response is so genuine that it smothers any relief he felt having had any words to say at all.

“I prayed a lot.”

He has always wondered himself worthy of her prayers, whether she would allow herself to pray to a god she holds in such reverence {the same one that he has punished with indifference for so long} to grant him, a nonbeliever of all things, mercy. But pray she did.

“And my prayers have been answered.”

The incredulity in the way she says it tells him she is just as astounded as he. Had she ever felt him worthy? Or was it sheer desperation that drove her to her knees?

The elephant in the room is in fact no elephant at all, the evidence of her pregnancy only now making its way into his consciousness, her firm rounded belly at such stark contrast to the exhausted slump of her shoulders and rest of her anxious, wired form. She is so beautiful to him still. Incandescent skin, and longer hair all signs that physically, she is flourishing. But her countenance is all wrong. She is like a tree branch in winter,  drained and brittle on the surface, new life burgeoning beneath.

“In more ways than one.” He makes a feeble motion toward her middle. There. He’s acknowledged it. The band-aid is off. She glances down as if she herself is only noticing her condition just now. A slew of unexpected emotions tighten his throat. Fear. Elation. Possessiveness. Resentment. Curiosity. Scully is pregnant. Very. She even waddles. He chuckles inwardly at her maternity slacks’ indention beneath her blouse.

Scully shopping for maternity clothing.

The thought is at once light and unfathomably depressing at the same time.

“Yea.” Now even she sounds like she would be grateful for a quip, but she is capable of nothing but earnestness at the moment.

“I’m happy for you.” He wonders if she caught the catch in his voice just now. Internally he is in free fall, his stomach is swirling and his heart is racing.

His appendages are numb and the entire room is spinning. He nips at the side of his mouth enough to bring pain, enough to center his thoughts to continue,  

“I think I know…how much that means to you.” The phrase feels slimy and bitter on his tongue. When she was sick–and the unexpected recollection of that time pierces his gut like a forgotten splinter—the cancer was always a ‘that.’ The fact that he has just referred to her pregnancy as such feels so utterly wrong. He’s made her granted wish sound like an incurable condition, and he hates himself for it. He knows he’s dissociating. He knows the term, his education coming back to him like pieces of a puzzle, falling into place at random.

“Mulder…” Oh God, that voice. Whispered and rich with the emotion that only those that pray can posses.  It’s a thousand moments before the apology he’s demanding of himself is tumbling from his mouth in an almost juvenile, petulant fashion.

“I’m sorry…” he shakes his head in an effort to regroup, “I don’t mean to be cold or ungrateful I just…I have no idea where I fit in…right now.” He’s purging. Words that have been festering for days now are pouring forth, like pus from a wound, a necessity towards healing but grotesque nonetheless. The look on her face is searing and utter in its despair. She is unquestionably disappointed. Nothing, none of this is going like she thought, as she’d hoped, and it’s evident in a way that is so uncharacteristic of her usual aplomb.

He could blame hormones for rendering her so unusually transparent, But that would be too convenient. The truth is that the strife of the day-to-day without him has worn her threadbare. She has only her naked self to give now, and all that it may entail. Herself and someone else.

Jesus. Someone else.  

Painful enlightenment forces him to soften his earlier declaration of despondency with practiced analysis. She looks as though if she speaks, she will cry. And he won’t do that to her.

“I just uh…I’m having a little trouble processing…everything.” And though basic and uncouth, it feels like the most organic thing he’s expressed yet. This, at least, is unadulterated truth. He beings to speak again, having felt like he’s gained at least some ground but she interrupts him.

“I um…” her gaze is on the floor and her expression is incredulous. It seems she too, is struggling to process, “I…I need a minute I’m sorry..” he rises out of instinct to go to her but she holds up her hand in reproach and escapes towards his bedroom. Like Pavlov’s dog, she elicits an classically conditioned response by her motion and he stays, dutiful, waiting on his next command.

He can’t help but notice the protective way she cradles her unborn as she hurries away.

In his heart of hearts he knows that this child is his. How many times on the couch in this room? One memory in particular comes unbidden. The salt and tang of the succulent flesh between her legs, pummeling into her and the helpless yelp of his given name triggering his instant release. He’d wanted her to get pregnant that night. Many times. Felt he could will it into existence beyond reason. He could make their own miracle, faith be damned, if he fucked her hard enough, came hard enough. He’d wanted to brand her from the inside out. Damned right he’d wanted this.

What is it they say about having everything you ever wanted? If he lost it now, would that feel like freedom? Is that why he wants so desperately to run right now? He wants darkness, and quiet, and constant noise. He wants to be left alone and held and he wants mostly not to feel as though he’s just jumped from a plane with no parachute and no notion of when or if he will land. His stomach pitches again, causing him to salivate.

The flush of the toilet brings him to attention and she returns, slightly flushed and with composure clearly only gained within the last few moments. She hadn’t noticed the last smear of her mascara. He’s made her cry, and he kicks himself internally. She doesn’t resume her place on the other side of the room though. She continues slowly, and purposefully to him, but she does not reach out. His heart thuds against his ribcage and he swallows against the fear of her next words. She fears them herself, its evident in the way she takes a calming breath and speaks to his clavicle.

“I need you know Mulder,”

Oh God. It’s mine isn’t it….. It isn’t mine. She’s about to tell me. This is it…

She swallows her apprehension and continues, “I know what it’s like…to come back…from an experience and feel…out of place.” Her name begins to form on his mouth. Her gaze is still cast carefully downward but ever the empath, she interrupts his sensed rebuttal and continues, forcing him to listen.

“But I need you to know,” and with those words her eyes fix upon his own. He remembers her now. Knows this look. Her eyes are wide enough that he notices the whites of them glisten. They are brimming with integrity and honesty and deep, abiding love.

Their history crashes over him in waves, roaring above the static of his confusion. Like wedded vows, her words ring pure and true and timeless, the look on her face then the same as it is now.

“I’m not a part of any agenda…you’ve got to trust me…”

“Mulder I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anybody but you..”

“I just knew….”

“Mulder *fight* him…”

“I wouldn’t change a day.”

“Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only to what we know of it…”

“If we quit now, they win…”

“ …personal interest is all that I have. And if you take that away than there is no reason for me to continue.”

“And you are mine…”

A heaviness surrounds him, a soothing, gentle, bone-deep pressure. It pulls him downwards, the centrifugal force of her gaze pitching him into the dark pool of her iris and he feels finally, finally grounded, secure in memory and the totality of gravity, the finality of arrival.

“…when you are ready, I’ll be here,” She pauses, “we’ll be here.”

Tactile sensation has found its way back, and he realizes that his palms have subconsciously come to rest on the ripened crest of her form. He feels the roll and flutter of life beneath; it is as real and tangible as it is supposed to be. It feels like hope.

\

[seafoamchild]

may 14th, 2017

last night was so fun. i went to madison for a grad party but then me and julian went to a russian dumpling restaurant and put magic mushrooms on our dumplings right in the middle of the fucking restaurant and just ate them. we started coming up while we were at the bar. i love that feeling when you know a shroomy adventure is about to happen. we walked up to mansion hill and laid in the grass and just looked up at the trees and the stars as everything started to morph and pixelate. i closed my eyes and saw some very weird shit. 

i came out of my trance and julian was gone and i thought i was gonna be all alone for the rest of my trip and everything was moving so much. but then julian came back. we walked through the park at night and everything was so funny. we just laughed and laughed. we walked past a creepy looking guy with sunglasses sitting on a park bench in the dark at one o clock in the morning and we were just like “hey” and like five seconds went by before the guy said “how you doin” in this super creepy voice and it was so funny. we walked through the park along the lake and it was so still and pretty. then julian was like “so my friend accidentally killed someone here” and i was like WHAT THE FUCK and he was like Yeah she drove like the maintenance truck for the city park service and just ran over this old lady who was tanning and we honestly couldn’t stop laughing about how fucking fucked up that is and then he was like “oh yeah my friend John accidentally killed someone too” like he also fucking ran over someone with his truck apparently by accident and i was just like what the fUCK is even real right now

then we were like climbing up on this ridge next to the lake behind this corporate building and it felt like such an adventure and i remembered the time i worked as a delivery girl and i brought chipotle to this guy at a frat house and he somehow knew who i was and he was like “hey i want you to have this” and gave me a fucking rig and i was like what the fuck?? and he was like yeah this rig is worth like $150 but you can have it for free and can you like me on facebook? and i was just like WHAT HOW DO YOU KNOW ME like that is one of the weirdest things that’s ever happened to me

and then i remembered the time i was drying dishes in tanzania at seven o clock in the morning and then a dead chicken fell out of the sky and landed right next to me and i was so stunned and i just could not believe what had happened and i went and told everyone and it was just like WHAT IS THIS and then i told julian about when i was walking around the ardnamurchan peninsula in scotland with jenny and we just found a severed sheep head on the ground and it looked so fucking satanic.

oh and then we were just sitting on a wall on gorham street and all these cop cars came zooming down the street to this commotion that was going on a couple blocks away and we heard a cop scream “DROP YOUR WEAPONS!” and we just watched the whole thing unfold and we were just like What the fuck is this place honestly... i think everyone was fine. and then we walked down the street and these two drunk girls were just running down the sidewalk screaming nonsense and this girl literally almost got hit by a car because she ran right out into the street and it was so stupid but we couldn’t stop laughing at how dumb she was.

we talked so much about wisconsin and how weird it is to be from here and to come back here after seeing other parts of the world and realizing how midwestern everyone is and how much they like being midwestern and how they’re just so comfortable with drinking beer and watching football and going to the bar and just... i don’t know. it’s really not for me, this culture. madison is so fucking vanilla and i honestly hate it. i forgot how much i hated it. people are just so boring. i don’t know if i’m just always meeting the wrong people there but honestly everyone i meet is so fucking boring or trying too hard and it’s just... we’re not on the same wavelength. and also the drinking/bar culture is absolutely horrible.

me and julian went to the livesaving station on the lake and went down to the water and just looked out at the city lights that were morphing and glowing and blooming. it was beautiful. the moon was beautiful, it was just beginning to wane. pretty sure we heard an animal being killed in the bushes. we talked about how it’s so weird to think about getting a career so you can make money but then you have money and aren’t happy. like so many of my friends are entering the workforce and they’re like “yeah i have money now but i hate my job” and it’s just like, i don’t know, what even is the point then? obviously you can’t really survive without any money but like, i feel like there have to be other paths to take besides just having an unfulfilling job while i’m still this young. i just can’t stand the thought of following the societal norm.

we went to brittingham park and just looked out at the lake and how still it was and how the lit-up houses on the other side had perfect reflections in the water. it was a smooth, flawless mirror. the lake was the same color as the 4am sky. i was still tripping a bit and it looked like the houses and their reflections were like magical sideways faces, floating in the pre-dawn nothingness, all connected with magical energy.

we also talked about how we’re both just kind of loners and we do our own thing but that’s actually so cool and a lot of people can’t be like that. a lot of people need structure, they need to be told what to do, they just need to be in a group setting. but i have done so much on my own without a plan and i don’t really need much help. like i traveled alone for almost 9 months and i think i’m realizing how many people would just never do that. how much that would scare people, to be so vulnerable out in a foreign place for such a long time. i think it’s really cool that i thrived in that situation and made so many good things happen. it just occurred to me that i’m a pretty cool person and so many people think i’m crazy, which i mean, i kind of am, but i think i scare people sometimes because i literally just do what i want and i don’t care. some people are so stuck in their mindsets. like all those people who thought i was crazy for doing LSD and mushrooms. honestly not to sound like a total hippie but those things are just portrayed as “illegal drugs” therefore they must be horrible and scary and dangerous but our society will never admit how healing and uplifting and spiritually renewing psychedelics can be. people are just so scared of things they don’t understand and i wish there wasn’t such a stigma attached to experimenting with hallucinogens because they really can help you talk about everything you’ve been thinking about, they can help you with all the introspection that you didn’t even know you needed.

i’m really glad we did those mushrooms. we walked for literally 5 hours straight. like we probably walked at least 11 miles. and we didn’t eat anything. we got a pizza from kwik trip but it looked gross. my legs are so sore now and i’m so exhausted, mentally and physically, but i really needed that trip to help me talk about all these thoughts i’ve been having. it was so cathartic. and it made me realize that i really don’t want to live in madison this summer like i thought i did. i hate that place. i really do. never again. there’s a reason i hated it so much in college and it’s not just because i was crazy. i belong elsewhere. i love myself.

[theo-westenberger]

Cracks and Crevices: Writing through Trauma

Contributed by Jordan Alam, 2017

In the labor and delivery room, the birthing person gives a particular type of cry when their contractions get more intense. When contractions layer up on one another, they give the person little pause as their body takes over and moves the baby further and further into this world of air and light. I try to sleep when the parent sleeps and wake when I hear them cry out. I put pressure on their sacrum until the moaning stops and they settle. In the dim light, with the blinds drawn, the room becomes cut off from time – hours turn into minutes and single contractions feel as if they can go on forever. This is where I am when I am not writing.

It takes total focus to enter that room, as it does when I am staffing the shelter floor. There, children are always running through the kitchens and the bathrooms are never properly cleaned. I arrive in the afternoon and I stay till late at night, answering phone calls and attending to the residents’ needs, which can span from mediating conflicts over laundry to calling an emergency vehicle. I listen to countless, countless stories of trauma. I support my clients as they make endless appointments with social workers and daycare providers and housing authorities and managers. Those in the most desperate situations are also burdened with the extra work of proving themselves worthy of care. I shut the door sometimes just to catch my breath; the need is never-ending.

What does that mean for a writer? For me, it means it is harder to contain my jobs within the bounds of the workday. For many months of this year, my words had dried up as I took on the stories of others. I would chew over what had happened that day, about my role, about the structural issues which had brought us to that moment. Journaling used to be a release valve, but during that time it just reminded me of everything I could not fix.

I see the need in classrooms and hear it over the phone. In my various part-time jobs, I connect people to resources and problem-solve around lack. All that time, I am filling up my cup. This is the image I tend to use when thinking about what it means to hold onto weighty emotions: a cup with a steady stream flowing into it, always at risk of overflowing. As Laura van Dernoot Lipsky so cogently presents in Trauma Stewardship, we need to take seriously the experience of vicarious trauma by those who work in social services and other caregiving roles. Though the emotions themselves may be positive or negative, when you are practicing empathy in caregiving you take on the material of that person’s lived experience.

I walk through the world inhabiting multiple identities, many of which are currently targeted ones. I am queer and Muslim, femme and South Asian, all of which are very pivotal identities that show up in the characters I write. It comes as no surprise that the books I am most interested in push characters to contend with high stakes, internal and external. To honor the truth of their stories, I have to talk about the racism that each of us experiences; I have to write about the challenge of violence enacted upon us as communities and individuals. Most recently, I have written about two Muslim teenagers exploring their relationship to one another after one has run away from home. In the draft of my forthcoming novel, I write about domestic violence and the victim-blaming that follows that puts my character in an ever more precarious position until she has to make a major life shift. Some writers contend with the tragedies of our current world by writing utopia, but I am not among them.

Proximity to major life transitions is indispensable to my writing. I am not a parent, but I have had the opportunity to witness people become parents for the first time. I have watched fifth graders write skits about current political issues. I have supported adults through some of their most vulnerable moments, and in the process understood something valuable about resilience. But often that proximity can also overwhelm. Emptying my cup of these stories is not a perfect process. I once thought that making art itself was the cathartic part of the journey, but am now recognizing that this is another part of emotional labor.

How to address this saturation point? Part of the challenge is structural: if we as a society do not fully acknowledge caregiving as work and do not support its workers, then we are perpetually asking people to take on the challenge and then find spare time to heal from it. On a practical level, when I find myself avoiding work or approaching it with a pessimistic attitude, it doesn’t benefit me or my clients. It helps, on an individual level, to be realistic about limits. Care providers I know tend to be overachievers. They get into it because they have been affected by the circumstances or have loved ones who have and they want to make a dent in the suffering they see around them. I also apply this logic to my writing – I want to make a meaningful dent, and put extra stress on myself to do that even after a full day in emotionally draining settings.

I am currently going back over writing advice that has helped me reconceive my projects. The Art of Slow Writing speaks to the idea that strong writing is a long process and gives practical suggestions on how to use one’s time wisely. Writing Alone and with Others directly addresses the idea of writing with and through trauma. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird encourages us to take it one step at a time. And Lynda Barry’s books: What It Is, Picture This, and Syllabus are colorful imaginative pieces that push me to go back to when writing was a form of play.

When I am not writing, I am also doing dishes and folding up laundry. I’m attending game nights and roller derby practices. Errands end up taking too long; there’s not enough food in the fridge. Time that I have planned to write gets eaten up by other obligations. I feel a deep urgency to address social issues in my community and in my art, especially in the current political climate. But that urgency must also be met with my capacity. To echo Dean Spade in Normal Life, I want my activism (and my art-making) to be a decades-long practice rather than one that leaves me burnt out in a couple of years. There will always be more to come, and I am curious about how we get there.

Jordan Alam is a writer, editor, doula, and social change educator based out of south Seattle. Her short stories and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, CultureStrike Magazine, The Rumpus, and AAWW’s The Margins; she has spoken at events including the Aspen Ideas Festival and the Eyes on Bangladesh exhibition. She is also the founder of the Asian American social justice publication, Project As[I]Am. Find more info about all of her projects at her website.