One of my first memories of drawing is copying a still frame of Misty from Pokemon out of a magazine, which helpfully provided a grid to help young artists break the image down. I did this with as much precision as a toddler could muster. I did it right.
(I can’t be certain that this is my first memory of drawing and so I must say it is one of the first, even though it would be cleaner just to say first. Neither you or I have any way to determine the accuracy of my statement, but I can’t be imprecise.)
(I started a white paper for one of my jobs in a similar fashion and therefore I am self-conscious of being redundant. But, I have seen the Confluence statistics. The chance of you having read my white paper is slim. The chance of you having read my white paper and remembering the fact that I started with a similar anecdote, infinitesimal. Still, I fret.)
I am not an easy person — that is to say, nothing about the construction of my self was easy. All of which you know has been built with great intention and all of which I have accidentally let slip has been logged and marked for deeper, safer storage. I am most comfortable operating in binaries. I like simple, clean instructions. Do this. Do not do this. I still remember the basic rules from the Christopher Hart ‘How to Draw Manga’ books I would pluck from some miraculous corner in my local Barnes & Noble: Humans are 7–8 heads tall, men have wider shoulders, women have wider hips, the space between the eyes is approximately the same width as one of the eyes.
(Do I capitalize the first letter after a colon? Unclear. Some style guides say yes, some say no; the technical writer I worked with at my last job and an essayist I respect both do it, so I suppose I will do it too. I may research the issue further later, and I may update my essays to match.)
(Wait. No.)
I do not move with ease through this world. I’m deeply aware of the amount of space I take up, both physically and in conversation. I consciously make myself smaller, safer, rounder, more deferential — frankly, more corporate. I have achieved an exhausting capacity for endless nuance by way of creating mazes of if/then statements inside my brain. I am conversational only by way of memorized dialogue trees. If you catch me off-guard, I stutter.
(This is part of the reason I struggle with writing. I am constantly fighting against my instinct for brevity because other writers I admire are more descriptive; I feel disingenuous because my written voice is so different from my spoken one.)
I have a great deal of anxiety about time. I think about death most days and lately, this has evolved into a deep unease about the vastness of space and the eventual heat death of the universe. My late-night spiraling thoughts about this are bordering on edgelord fanaticism. I ask myself questions like, “Is the space before the big bang and after the heat death of the universe the place where God exists?” This is usually what reminds me to put on a funny podcast, so I can actually sleep.
See also: Lyrics to “Letters (Off-Broadway Version)” from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, as performed by Dave Malloy, via Genius.
Here at home I drink and read
And drink and read
And drink
And I fill my mind with rot,
While my heart is empty
And I’ve been studying the Cabal
And I’ve calculated the number of the beast
It is Napoleon!
I will kill him one day
He is not a great man
None of us are great men
We are just caught in the wave of history
Nothing matters
Everything matters,
It’s all the same
If only I could not see it,
This dreadful, terrible “it”
When I was twelve I laid in bed and in my head calculated the potential amount of days I had left on this earth, if I lived to be a hundred. In retrospect, it makes even more sense that I got really into Ayn Rand in high school: A Randian hero isn’t just the image of American individualism, but someone whose work leaves a permanent mark. Buildings. Trains. Tangible, heavy, brutalistic fingerprints; undeniable success.
(As a woman I am not allowed to be “heavy” or “brutalistic.” I am naturally a straightforward person but I have been told many times that I come off aggressive. Unappealing. So I add options to the infinite dialogue trees inside my mind until I can achieve something softer, more pleasing. Did I entertain you? Do you like how I sparkle? Ah! You fell for my magic trick!)
(Am I too serious to be funny? I can’t be both, surely. What is the exact percentage of serious-to-funny that is me? What happens if I deviate from the ratio?)
I am constantly in search of absolutes. I spend my days trying to pull myself inwards from every direction: I wish to be less broad, I want to understand both what I was and what I will be and pull all these selves from across time into something present and editable. I have a finite number of days and so I must somehow pull the best qualities of future-me into now without hastening her arrival and therefore, my demise. I am afraid of making something she will be able to make better and so I make nothing and wait for her to get better, but she is me and by making nothing I hurt both of us, and actually, unmake her.
One of my favorite scenes in all cinema is the cleansing of the old river spirit in Spirited Away. Chihiro figures out that there’s something stuck in that stinking mass, attaches the rope, and the entire staff of the bathhouse gathers to pull until all the contained junk is loosened and regurgitated onto the floor. What remains is a creature that sighs in relief.
The old river spirit also takes on many forms in its brief appearance in the film. It is a stinking mass of junk that is able to craft some of its form into a hand, it is a wrinkled mask, it is a dragon. It is all these things, but it is also only ever the river spirit. And it offers medicine.
Maybe that’s why I’ve always liked the ocean. It is ephemeral. Shapeless. It sustains anything that can survive it, it will destroy anything that underestimates it, it houses some of the silliest-looking creatures on this planet. It is heavy. Brutalistic. It sparkles. It is all these things at once. It is still one thing.
That is why I am writing this essay. I am cluttered with junk: Worries about my personal life, my career, the political climate, strange and meaningless self-doubts, a gnawing anger about my inability to be vulnerable or express myself without immediately self-flagellating. I am rushing to write this and post it before I leave the house tonight — in four minutes — so that I don’t overthink it. I am wondering aloud if maybe I have been wrong my whole life, about the fact that I am a thing to be carved away at. Maybe I am not looking to be a relief, but to find it.
