White Stone Black
With much grief, I've put all of my scarves hats coats into the back of my closet. I'll miss them so much. Even if these clothes aren't what fit me anymore, I'd rather wear what's familiar. Even if it's full of holes or too small, I love my childhood shirt. It's a deep indigo blue with golden lettering implying having gone on a great adventure and returned home to a campfire in the woods. I should throw it away, and yet I also have a giant collection of different soda cans behind me. All of my Yu-Gi-Oh card pack sleeves in a small box behind my computer from doing opening hand-streams on breaks between games with friends. Some of those cans are from shops now closed, faires with different stalls, and have touched lips of those I'll never see again.
Two years ago, I noticed a small fly chilling in the hall next to my apartment door on the wall. I turned it into a black dot with my open palm. Nobody has ever noticed it, and it makes me smile to see it still there. I feel the same way about the art in my gallery. Immutable evidence of my past, even if it's as mundane as killing a fly, or having enjoyed a video game character's vibe. Not particularly part of my personality except amongst the right company, but I think all of these add up to something more than conversation starters. I'm not really a soda person I actually prefer tea, so why do I do it?
I've been really happy the past few months. I'm not sure if it's the weather, or Dionysus is sneaking wine into my tea, or it's some Monotheistic God's clemency, or the Devil is leading me astray. It could just be a random happenstance of chemicals, but I'm still proud of it. If it was a location it'd be a golden sunflower field with grass and trees whistling with the wind against an indigo sky. Always wanted to be a Sunflower; when I was watching Sonny Boy and they asked if you'd rather be a Sunflower or a Dandelion the answer was obvious. How could you want to be a little weed that scatters to the wind at the first possible moment? I couldn't tell you how to follow in my path, but maybe by going over what I've been up to I can give some resemblance of a recipe.
I went to a
Now, I have been working on a drawing based on the experience. It's hard to recreate the feeling I had to try to convey to others what it was like for me. Sometimes I'll latch onto a two-second clip of a song and add it to a mix or my soundboard. Other times I'll make a joke out of it; everyday I update my status on Discord and often I'll incorporate what I've been enjoying. It's been a nice excuse to try to work on animation again, and this is the process for most of my work. Art style I want to try mixed with thing I like. I have an entire cardboard box from my fold-out table plastered with layers of sticky notes for art ideas, which you can sort-of see on my homepage if you've never noticed.
Yet, I'm not naive and I don't think those moments can be enjoyed and appreciated forever like some sort of ever-lasting jawbreaker. My art isn't for that, yet when I scroll back through the Gallery of crushed ants and smacked flies it does relax me. Maybe I just lied to you, and I do want to live in that moment forever. I can't remember drawing many of these, but I do remember the experiences that I was pulling from. I think most people just take photos and move on, and maybe I'd like to be like that too.
Surely, if I just focus on having more of these novel experiences, I won't need the art to hold onto. I can rely on my ability and connections to see the world, not remember my little corner of it. I sometimes do stray from drawing; I was really into the piano during the winter. And I'm still learning, but I'm realizing I have the same relationship to it as I do with art. I've been playing Umineko When They Cry, which is a visual novel I had gotten maybe halfway through when I was still in highschool, and they were taking a break from translating it. And I forgot to check-in later. So, now I'm re-reading it, and I'm loving it! My latest gallery piece is about it, and the point of this tangent is I've been learning Far on piano. I genuinely cried when I heard it again, because it reminded me of a friend I used to have when I was fourteen. He had gotten me into midi transcribing when I played Space Station 13, and we'd go on public servers and play duets. He's from Ukraine, and I haven't heard from him in so long...
I've made art of friends who have died before. I look back and I feel bad because I know I didn't capture their spirit. I feel like Auda Abu Tayi and I want to smash the camera that captures their soul, not because it'd be trapped in there but because it's unharmonious to believe it possible. When I'm writing in my journal or here... what I'm doing. what am I gaining?
I've been having many new experiences, and they carry with me without doing anything about it. I went to a house-party for observed Cinco de Mayo to eat tacos, and I had a wonderful conversation with an expert in Hanafuna cards. I didn't think much of it, but a month later I went to an art faire and there was a person selling handcrafted ones! I talked to them deeply on the subject and they were impressed with what I knew. Now, will I ever make these kind of cards? No I don't think so. And will that latest interaction lead me anywhere? I highly doubt it. Me and a few friends have been going to art events together. It's fun! Part of why I show so much of myself on my site is I think getting to know the artist does make the paintings feel more alive. We got into really long and indepth conversations about technique, inspiration, and goals with all of these people. I'm going to add them on social media, and I have their business cards pinned to a cardboard sheet that's taped to my art shrine wall, but again I really expect nothing to come from all of this.
It's sort of the same feeling when I fall off my skateboard. Sure, there's pain, but I don't believe it'll carry with me. I don't cry and I don't panic, you just douse your elbow in Isoprobyl Alcohol and bandage it up and before you know it's like nothing ever happened. You can go to a rave once, or to a friend's movie night every Saturday for years, and there's no guarantee for either you'll get to do it again. Everything returns to nothing. If I went to the Bahamas tomorrow, what part of me would change? I don't think anything; I think I am who I'll always be. I might blink and wake up staring at the ceiling of my deathbed.
How can I say that? I've been doing new things; I had years of yearning to get on the skateboard and only now have I been actually doing it. I randomly stumbled on an entire avenue being closed for miles as part of a street faire. So, I rode in on my skateboard and just went up and down it over and over. There were others on boards too and we chatted and I made people laugh as I oft do. I've been making new outfits; I picked out an orange windbreaker that I love, and have made a few outfits around it. Which is what the cover image for this Daydream is of! My last phone couldn't be charged without being held at a 47 degree angle, and after seven years I bought a new one. The past me would've kept making that phone work until it shattered into a million pieces. I used to find peoples' voices grating and hard to understand; it'd take months before I could understand someone without intense concentration. I've been having phone convos that go on for hours as I board around talking about random books I picked up from the library, or anything really just to hear their voice. The skin on my elbow is replacing the old after many, many cuts.
I don't think I've gained anything, though. Friends will be daily rituals, and then you won't see them for years. I hold them all in my heart, and there's no ichor or vitriol when I think about them. I don't even think I miss them, but I feel like I gave them a part of me to hold onto and I'm missing that me. Friend B will never be how they are with you like they are with Friend A, so you need A even if you don't really care for them. None of those experiences ARE me; it's not like EXP that you accumulate and suddenly you're the next level. They're like the soda cans; they just happened and maybe you remember them and maybe you don't. It's all arbitrary.
That's not to say I don't change. I've lost my competitive spirit for a lot of things - I used to study 18-move-long lines in Chess to try and reach the highest ELO I could. And I peaked high! But now I just go to the library or play friends and see if I can make aesthetically pleasing moves like trapping my opponent's queen unexpectedly, or win after sacking mine.
And that's not to say I'm forced to change. I started FF14 raiding again with a static. It took a few pulls for me to remember what a light party was, but after that I was back in the groove of spot healing people for greeding a GCD and almost killing themself. We cleared the latest Extreme and I'm really excited to keep going! It's familiar. I've never really known if it's part of my personality, or just a thing I happen to do over and over.
I used to hide in my room and read. From being so boarded up, I dreamed a version of myself I wanted to be. For sixteen years, I've wanted to eat with friends in the witching hours at an IHOP because of 3 AM. I've always wanted to be a D&D fanatic, and when I tried after our highschool games it made me bitter as my friends moved on to College ones. When I had any expectations for my art, it made me sad. I lament being too lethargic to get up from the deck of Charon's ship, just staring up at the ceiling of the cavern.
Maybe I'm being harsh to my vessel. It could be closer to Huckleberry Finn's raft, or something Walt Whitman would drift in while drafting Blades of Grass. I've always judged people based on what they can become, like grasping a rock at a beach and flipping it in my head to value how far it can skip. Just trying to be better everyday so I can skip each stone further along to another shore, and hopefully some equally optimistic heroine picks it up for the next stretch. But, maybe I'm not a good judge of character. This river I'm drifting down; am I floating, or am I being pulled? Is there actually something being reflected in the river or is it the water itself?
Looking right of the bank I don't see anything particularly new. Trees and mossy branches hang over the riverbed. Yet, I know in a few months they'll be twigs and bones and dust and under 6 feet of topsoil. I hope a Dandelion isn't particularly attached to where they land.
