Reading in detail about your mother's suicide attempt is not an experience many get. I don't know how many mothers are suicidal in the first place, or how many people will ever find out about that attempt. It made me sick in the way that I finally knew how it will feel for my loved ones if I ever have an attempt they find out about (In which a few have. 2 years ago I jumped into the highway and miraculously survived. Afterwards, I nonchalantly mentioned this to my boyfriend and I have no clue how much emotion was stirred as I wanted to move on from the subject rather quick.) It made me sick in the way that many children do upon realizing how their existence changed their mother forever.
My mother's writing does not need to approach death to get me to cry. Reading the poems about my siblings & I invites tears within the first stanza. A friend of mine even made a little song from her poem about me, and the way that a short spout of writing could move someone else so deeply makes me feel blessed to have been the subject. The way she writes the simultaneous tenderness, and her deep regret in bring us into such a horrible world, instills a physical ache into my body. I wish I could put it as beautifully and gentle as she can; I wish this article could reach a fraction of the impact even one page of her work can. The recognition of your own emotions and illness in another is always impactful, but especially so when it is your mother, with whom you can relate her stories of depression to life events you also experienced. My mother is deeply sick, and in taking a college class with her, I have seen this passion seep into her academic writing as well. My writing is technical, it gets what needs done in a detailed way; My mom paints a picture of interlocking concepts and creates grand scenes of existence that shouldn't seem possible when writing about vocabulary words in Chapter 9 of our Sociology textbook.
My sociology textbook sits in the background of a photo of my cat I took tonight. In examining this photo, I realize how saturated my room is with art. My friends art, commissions, my own art and premade pieces bought at conventions adorn each wall of my room. It reminded me of my music listening habits, how I like to always be listening to something. Music and visual art and every other medium occupy different realms. To constantly be around visual art is easy; I adorn my spaces with pieces I pay varying amounts of attention to. Its mindless. To constantly be consuming music however seems much more intentional. I am often inquired about just How Much Fucking Music I listen to, as if its shocking. To me now, it is an extension of my room decoration. I have always, but especially of late, been swept of my feet by art as a whole. That is the purpose of this writing - this art - to express my love for art - in life itself.
I've recently been surrounded by concepts of doomerism, and in this darkness trying to violently put out my light, I realize how unappealing those ideals actually are. Doom is appealing in the moment of panic I have realizing how little time I have to meet a deadline, but it is not the feeling that drives my actions afterwards. Doom yells at me to give up, because I have too much to do, so few hours, and even less energy. Even if I give in to these temptations, doom actually proves itself to be false. When I sit on my phone instead of working, I acknowledge that I could have gotten my tasks done in the same time, and that success is indeed an option. When the deadline passes and that wave of "I could have, should have done that" hits, it shows that I care. It shows that avoiding those feelings in the future is beneficial. Even when doom wins that one battle, it cannot take over my entire mindset, because doom is ugly and does not want itself to win.
I have been watching a lot of Jacob Geller recently, and his relationship to art is the main inspiration for this piece. His videos primarily feature videogames, an art form I have never been able to properly enjoy due to my dislike of actually playing them. He does not only use video games however; Most of his videos also feature visual art, writing in the form of novels or poetry or articles, and music. He views everything so deeply and beautifully, and weaves different stories together to tell his own. Since my thoughts lately have been so cosmic and from so many different perspectives, this style of his really entrances me. I also enjoy the smallscale weaving of pieces people do on social media; I know they my seem cheesy or cliche or fake-deep, but I really enjoy those tiktok slides or tumblr compilations of different poems and visual art and songs all surrounding one emotion. It moves me deeply that the same emotions have been experience so many times in so many different ways and that no one can keep them to themselves. When people can create these emotional webs and create their own narrative, therefore telling their own story like Geller, it makes me want to create more art myself.
In these videos, whenever Geller mentions visual artists, it seems these people were always fully content just drawing. Maybe they dappled into other visual mediums, but it never extended to say, music. I've been thinking a lot lately about my currently unquenced desire to be musical. I think I may be slightly more musical than the average person - I can play multiple intstruments, I have written a dozen songs of both instrumental and lyrics (although potentially in the hundreds of songs that are either or), I can tell when something sounds like shit. But I have in no way explored this medium as I have my art. Hell, I think I'm better at crochet or sewing or writing or any other visual medium that I've not even dabbled in too much, than I am at music. Every step I've made that direction has been so pathetic, and I almost want to give up. But I know deep in my soul I will never be satisfied until I release something. Until I can create a song I'm fully content with.
I yearn to know what my musical style is; How do I write lyrics, what chord progressions do I fall back on, what vocal style do I pursue. I know my art style instinctually, I can feel it possess my hand everytime I bring a pen to paper. I know my writing style is not very vivid, but technical, and long-winded. I know that my sewing and embroidery is sloppy, but gets the job done. How do I create music? How do I exist in an audio format? I will know no peace until I have an answer to this; And that answer will grow and evolve and keep answering itself over and over, the way my other artistic endeavors have
I cannot stop thinking about how infinitely large the universe is. In my astronomy class, I learn simultaneously of the unfathomably gigantic constructs that are galaxies and also the tiny subatomic particles making up everything. In sociology I must combine hundreds of years of history with my current understanding of societies to understand people; This oftentimes brings up discussions of ethics and philosophy, or calls personal experience into question. My personal experience which is so so very small. I cannot fathom those who have no interest in expanding their knowledge on at least one thing, although I personally am infatuated with the entirety of existence. I can never not enjoy art, because even if a story falls flat or scribbles are poorly made, I can't stop thinking about how someone with the exact same level of complexity as I created it. Their biases and flaws and love and hate melted together to create it; I can't get over that. When creative tasks get highly skilled - A genius layering of vocals and instruments, a detailed painting that took months, writing that flows so smoothly - the skill of course makes it more enjoyable, but its value is not above anything else. The scraps of art and songs I write could one day amount to that masterpiece. I can't just see one talented creator, but think about how fucking long it took them to get there.
Humans persistence will never fail to motivate me and also terrify me. The same drive that creates the pleasures of the world, simultaneously seeks out the creation of pain. Oftentimes they are intertwined; Why else would tragedy or horror thrive as genres.