Me, waving at you.

Of the letters I write, how many are just to myself?

I often think that I have to have something substantial to say,  something world-shifting or heavy, to earn the right to send it out to the world.

And then I get an update from one of my favourite artists, Amanda Palmer, that just says "hi I am still here and I love you for also still being here" and it's my favourite thing that day. It's enough. It's lovely and feels like a hug, a string plucked all the way from wherever I am to wherever she is and sounding a clear, high note of we're connected, do you feel that? I feel that.

I am writing words and taking photos for me, but also for you. And I keep doubting whether you'll like them as much as I like them. We crave validation so bad, don't we? It feels good and we want more of it. At the same time, saying fuck it and making art just for the sake of creation feels So Damn Good too!

Here is me trying to do both. Like dipping my fingers in a lake just because it feels good and I want to, but a part of me is hoping that you'll see the water tremble from the opposite shore. And maybe send a wave back. Isn't that what we're doing anyway; waving at each other and hoping that someone waves back?

Hi. I took some photos and wrote some things down and it felt good. I'm here, waving at you. Thank you for being here too.

Dear Moon

you're new in the sky and it rains, rains, rains. There is nothing to see anyway, only a sliver of you like a memory of the sun-drenched days we've had only a moment ago. I'm adding fairy lights to online shopping baskets and saving them for later, for more light in the darker days. The cat started sleeping under the blanket again, the true sign that summer is definitely over and there’s no need to feel guilty for turning on the heating.

Another artist I’ve been following, the poetess Rupi Kaur, asked a question in her newsletter: what are you waiting to restock?

answer: The easy one would be laundry detergent. Teabags for loose tea that I'm getting dangerously low on just as the days are getting colder here. Hairpins that I keep losing to the void of daily commute and tables in cafes.

But those are not what came to my mind first. It was the not-so-easy answer, the knowledge of it settling behind my diaphragm on a heavy inhale. 

I'm waiting to restock my courage, until I feel like a pride of lions on soft paws with razor sharp claws is walking beside me into the difficult conversations I need to be having. I'm waiting till I feel their roars in my belly and then, then I'll make the call. 

Dear Moon,

why am I surprised that you, too, pay attention to me, when I stare at you and think about you so often? Of course you’d notice.

When you like to bathe in the light on the moon, prepare to get thoroughly cleansed by the tides.

Dear Moon

Turning inwards came like a flash this year. The dead have been whispering for a while, and as the All Souls came and a black cat led me to the cemetery gates, candle flames flickering at my back, all I wanted was my books and silence. The dead have been whispering, learn and listen and practice. Help when you can. Read what you can. And sing.

Abracadabra. I create as I speak. I create as I form words, soundless and soundfull and put them into the world. Vibration from my lips, ink on my hands, grooves of paths meandering on paper. Blinking cursor on the screen. I speak it into existence, my walls are my witness and my intent is my amplifier. I sing it into being like the world was sang into being and then sang into sleep, again and again. I reach my hand for the shadows. Maybe they just want to hold hands.

Of the letters I write, how many are just to myself? How many are adressed but never sent? How many with a name on the top of the page are forever inbetween the pages of my notebook, destined to carry everything felt, but never to deliver it? How many are just for the moon, meant to be read in the dark and then dreamt about until the morning?

Of the letters you write, how many are just to yourself?

I volunteer to be a penpal if you feel like hitting reply. Waving back. We’re all at the same lake, dipping our fingers. The water might just as well be ink.

Abracadabra.

Love,
Mab