advice – audrey di mola – folkloric futurism

go slowly.

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you are the only one who can decide what is healing to you and what that actually means.

sometimes you can’t accept help.

sometimes help is the thing that turns you further and further away.

sometimes you know you’re spiting yourself. isolating yourself. hurting people you love. but there’s nothing you can do.

for me, i’m such a hyper-aware/obsessive/fixating person that my cognition is on overload- what is the reason? how are we processing this? what comes nextnextnext?

the greatest thing- the only thing- we can do.. is just show up. as yoga teaches us every time we arrive.

just be there, in some situation out of the ordinary. with no expectation, cognition, pressure, NOTHING.

applaud yourself for the days you move. smile. go outside to touch a tree. look at the stars.

don’t guilt yourself into or out of anything.

just show up at yoga. start making some crazy collage. make a therapy appointment. go for a walk. make yourself a meal. any small thing. and then just be there. be in it. receive it. because the healing just happens. i feel it right now, 3 days back into yoga.

you can read self-help and advice books until the end of time- and i love them too- but you have to just embody it. get there. be there. get out of bed. or go to sleep early. and show up.

sometimes teachings work backwards for me because i constantly beat myself up- i know this. i know better. you feel the pressure, the expectation, the guilt, shame, time slipping away.

so- i am just writing to you lovingly from a moment outside the darkness.

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just show up.

because the possibility of transformation is so much more pure and REAL than any kind of cognition, reasoning, logic, grandiose or complicated process your mind wants to implement.

right now- that’s all i can ask of myself. showing up, everyday. some consistency that i have never had in this increasingly bewildering world.

our lives feel meaningless because we’re always waiting for the big bang, so overstimulated it’s only the big things that can touch us anymore. what about the sensations of being alive, the sights and sounds, awareness?

as my best friend said so perceptively.. we are pulled over on the side of the road fiddling with our GPS, google maps, and wifi signal. instead of remembering- WE. CAN. JUST. DRIVE.

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here, my heart goes analog.

“go slowly, and you will find the way out.”

sea shanty

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things have been tumultuous.

today, on a whim, i got in a cab and told the driver: “anywhere in coney island.”

in my entire life, i don’t think i’ve ever been to the beach completely alone.

after having so much trouble writing.. relating. feeling. loving. believing.

in the sea, by the sea, as the sea- i was accepted, broken.

and in the space- i wrote.

i.
it is always as if- i am
seeing it for the first time.
i must believe as the first man did
god is in the ocean.
god is in the earth.
i no longer believe in one god.
i do not know of omniscience.
i only remember what healing is
when my feet touch scorching sand
particles glittering in a force
as wild
as i am.
nature is my only echo.
i am part and parcel.
crash of wave in my roiling heart.
murky depths.
unexplainable.
home to everything.
home to nothing.
home- forever changing.
i must have been a sailor.
because i can’t remember
what it’s like to not be in motion.
dwarfed and frightened and
awed by
majesty beyond your
mortal life.
when i arrive here:
I Arrive.
seagull shadow on
pen and paper.
leopard crabshell
discarded on the beach.
i want to walk
straight out into the
water
and never look back.
as hard as i try-
i cannot understand
anything else.
my heart on fire
has cooled
to floods, to this-
giving and taking
away, giving and
taking
away.
my mind which
never lets me
rest now
dissolving to
foam, bubble,
fragments. seabirds.
i know now
even the barnacles,
the ocean moss, the
crusted shells in
cluster-
have a place here.
i, too, would
latch on
and never leave.

ii.
i love
everything about
the ocean.
even, suddenly, things i couldn’t
bear to behold.
here there are no
notifications.
no guilt, no
smashed
hands or
phones.
you cannot force me
to feel.
i, who in these moments
have felt nothing,
now feel
all.
or at least-
the smallest glimmer
from a match-flick
of something.
an ocean whisper-
don’t leave us.
not yet.
we still have
things
to say.

iii.
if i could lead you
into a poem that is
my life
right now it would be
sounds and
only
darkness.
the slightest shrill of
wayfaring birds, the
slightest swing of
contained flame
in the distance
on the end of
an
outstretched arm,
the prow of a ship,
a billowing sail
saying only- i can
do this.
you must try
to move with me
in the dark.
walking will
do you no good here.
nor any knowledge
of four walls.
only sandy stretches
glittering like nebulas
a sky made of
bluing mussel shells
and fading
footprints.
there is no way
to make me see
otherwise-
the worldly things
besides
ankles tangled
with seaweed,
the crash of wave,
the
infinite
motion.
please do not
ask me to
stand still.
please do not beg me
to feel something
when i am curled
inside
these shadows.
only remind me
of the cycles.
the dusk and dawn
of the sea.
remind me that
these waters
in my heart
my head
this poem
are home for all
who have no
other place
to simply be.

iv.
i feel so infinite and
at peace.
like nothing exists
but this.
if i have to, everyday
or every other day or
every friday
i will return to
this ocean.
i feel as out of place
in the world as
a girl with fins
on land.
i am singing my own
sea shanty
in my heart
always.
i told him this morning
my heart feels like
a piece of driftwood
with the ocean crashing
against it.
and now here i am-
standing in the
water.
calmed by the sea
crashing into
me.