volume 1: i am your king

memorializing, languishing and anticipating in another episode of coBID 9peen

Jan 04, 2022

Lately, it feels like I’m trapped. Trapped in a hideous chevron infinity scarf à la 2012. Or maybe I’m being swallowed in the tiny virginal neck hole of a brand new turtle neck, suffocating in an Eaton Centre change room. One of those change rooms with the floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains that barely close on either side. My asshole on full display in H&M…

This is how it feels to be ripely 24 years old, mid-pandemic, burning my life away on a 100dB Logitech keyboard at my extremely :) rewarding :) corporate entertainment job. Work from home? More like work from rock bottom. Work from nails on a chalkboard. Work from hell. Work from the juice at the bottom of my countertop compost bin. Work from — whatever.

Something that resonated recently; a Facebook message I received from my mother:

“You should read Dante’s Inferno to be prepared. Find out what circle of Hell you are in.”

Thanks, mummy. Appreciate your continued commiseration.

Apologies everyone for coming in hot with the hater-ade off the top. I think my burnout and joyfulness can still exist side by side? At this point, I think they have to.

For those reading and for those who know me, welcome. For my lifelong editors (hi, Ryan), here we go again. Taking another stab / I have relapsed / A hardened criminal, I am reoffending. “Online bloggery”.

With this new year upon me, I am hoping to write a clumsy little newsletter, every once in a while. Because I love a good soapbox and other times I would like to remind myself I still know how to read and write. Few people admit they love the sound of their own voice. But I’ll say it: I love the sound of my own voice and my corporate job has truly devalued the sound of my voice. My loving, curious and sometimes shrill voice.

I recently read bell hooks’ All About Love, noting, in particular, her observations on the relationship between self-love and career. If I actively chase and embody love in my personal life (what the fuck even is that? I am “personal” all hours of the day, but okay?), then existing in loveless professional spaces is in direct opposition to self-love. There is no division. Life is life is life is life. If I hate my work, I hate my “self”.

In 2022, I’d like to choose love. Over and over and over again. If anything in me has blossomed from the pandemic, it has been my vast (and sometimes annoying) inward exploration. I roundhouse kicked open the fucking saloon doors to woo-woo and found the true meaning of self-love. I have been led down a path of complete friendship with myself and my body. And I love my little vehicle. Beep beep.

To me, this is the year of the horsie. The year I ride off into the sunset, wind in my hair, away from things that don’t call upon love, as I can no longer afford to participate in lovelessness.

I think astrologer Alice Sparkly Kat might agree.

For those wondering, I am a Scorpio sun, Virgo moon, Gemini rising biatch.

I invite you to join me on this love-fueled journey, whatever that means to you. Who will be your guiding animal this year? Some ideas: a doggie, kittie, lizardie, zebra-ie, goatie, shrimpie, whalie…

As an opening practice, I’d like to call upon one of my favourite loves. ❤️ Lists ❤️.

Here’s how I plan to become the king of my love kingdom in this next year around the COVID sun:

Know that everything is sacred and everything is worthy of ceremony. Mornings, birthdays, Mondays, and dinner.
Move slowly, cut me some slack and remember that life is motion/waves/ebb and flow. It’s okay if I forget the progress I thought I made. I am not meant to be fixed. I am not broken.
Don’t save the best for last. Best first, always. Fuel the present me — be happy now. Drink the best flavour of kombuchie right now.
Remember it is okay to move in silence. Decide how much I want to share with the world later. I am famous to me.
Avoid intentional suffering. Let go and lean into challenges. Pain comes with resistance. Sometimes things go better than I think they will and the pain comes from anticipating they won’t.
Absorb as much sunlight as possible. Windows work too.
Be careful of my energy. It is a limited battery that needs charging regularly. I am an iPhone.
Always write it down. Call someone. Get those thoughts outside of my body. I am not my thoughts.
Validate me first. Witness others in their experience. The airplane metaphor: always put my mask on first.
Remember I am strong enough to do hard things. I am so many things — all at once.

Finally, as I arrive at the bottom of my first newsletter, I wish to share a quote, song, poem and a Tik Tok that speak to me on this fugly January evening.

quote:

“In life, you must familiarize yourself with what is glamourous.” — Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados (rip my solo NYC Christmas trip)

poem:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

The Woman In This Poem
by Bronwen Wallace, 1987

The woman in this poem
lives in the suburbs
with her husband and two children
each day she waits for the mail and
once a week receives
a letter from her lover
who lives in another city
writes of roses warm patches
of sunlight on his bed
Come to me he pleads
I need you and the woman
reaches for the phone
to dial the airport
she will leave this afternoon
her suitcase packed
with a few light clothes

But as she is dialing
the woman in this poem
remembers the pot-roast
and that fact that it is Thursday
she thinks of how her husband's face
will look when he reads her note
his body curling sadly toward
the empty side of the bed

She stops dialing and begins
to chop onions for the pot roast
but behind her back the phone
shapes itself insistently
the number for airline reservations
chants in her head
in an hour her children will be
home from school and after that
her husband will arrive
to kiss the back of her neck
while she thickens the gravy
and she knows that
all through dinner
her mouth will laugh and chatter
while she walks with her lover
on a beach somewhere

She puts the onions in the pot
and turns toward the phone
but even as she reaches
she is thinking of
her daughter's piano lessons
her son's dental appointment

Her arms fall to her side
and as she stands there
in the middle of her spotless kitchen
we can see her growing
old like this
and wish for something   anything
to happen   we could have her go
mad perhaps and lock herself
in the closet crouch there
for days her dresses withering
around her like cast-off skins
or maybe she could take
to cruising the streets at night
in her husband's car
picking up teenage boys
and fucking them in the back seat
we can even imagine
finding her body
dumped in a ditch somewhere
on the edge of town

The woman in this poem offends us
with her useless phone and the persistent
smell of onions we regard her as we do
the poorly calculated overdose
who lies in bed somewhere
not knowing how her life drips
though her drop by measured drop
we want to think of death
as something sudden
stroke or the leap
that carries us over the railing
of the bridge in one determined arc
the pistol aimed precisely
at the right part of the brain
we want to hate this woman

but mostly we hate knowing
that for us too it is
moments like this
our thoughts stiff fingers
tear at again and again
when we stop in the middle
of an ordinary day and
like the woman in this poem
begin to feel
our own deaths
rising slow within us