I often fantasize about being totally impenetrable in various ways. 

Sometimes it’s intellectual: I’ll be faced with a hard task or decision and fantasize about ways to move forward entirely scientifically, down to the last bit of minutia. Every micro-element validated by peer-reviewed findings from Google Scholar, every piece arrived at logically with a citation, and no one can argue with my conclusion.

Sometimes it’ll be about physical strength: I’ll imagine being so tough and strong, no one could ever hurt me or treat me like I’m weak. (Probably a component of why I’ve been involved in fighting sports since I was 10.)

Or it’ll be emotional. Like, when I knew I wanted to buzz all my hair off but was afraid of what people would think or say, I imagined posting my new cut with a Facebook post to end all Facebook posts pre-empting anything hurtful someone might throw at me, like how I looked better before, how they don’t get why I’d do this to myself, etc. I would make the perfect rock-solid statement to justify myself and my decision, and neutralize any painful thing that could come my way.

Obviously, this is all ridiculously impractical. I know that science doesn’t have the answer to every aspect of life (especially academic research!). I know human bodies are always to some degree fragile. And I know there’s no way to avoid all possible emotional pain without totally shutting down. It’s all me just fantasizing about living a life where I never need to be vulnerable.

However, when things challenge me deeply like they’ve been challenging me here, it gets so tempting to re-engage with these impenetrability fantasies. I have to remind myself that no matter how awesome it sounds, even if it were practical, I don’t want that life. I’ve tried being a perfectionist, wearing thick protective armor, and holding everyone at arm’s length: it was honestly just lonely. I felt like a defective unit from the people-maker factory, more robot than human, incapable of honest love and connection. Over the past several years, I’ve become more comfortable that life contains risk, uncertainty, and imperfection. I’ve learned that if I want deep love, I have to trust people with a living piece of me they can choose to care for or harm. And I’ve grown to find peace and beauty in all of that. (Most of the time.) It’s been gratifying to grow into feeling more and more resilient, more and more human.

So nowadays when I feel like I want to crawl in giant shell and tell everyone and everything to go away, I stop myself and write about it instead, or I listen to “Let it go” from Frozen.

YES, FROZEN. When I first watched it, I was dealing with some hard things, trying to hold them all in, outsmart them, and be strong and perfect for the protection of myself and others. Watching that lil’ princess finally storm away from all the expectations and people and hiding and restraint, watching her let herself be free, seeing her ice-magic herself an awesome new dress and hairdo and fancy house where no one could ever see her cry, I was like “YES GIRL! Let it GOOOO!” But of course in making herself free in some ways, she was also building herself into an isolated palace where no one would ever reach her. I felt her in that moment, because Disney is smart and knows how to reach peoples’ neurons. 

Anyway, long story short, being raw is a journey for me, and something I still struggle with. But I’m over here doing my best with Elsa. 

I’m settling into life in Puebla, and the second week was exponentially better than the first. I feel more capable of getting through discomfort in healthy ways, I made a friend, I have a go-to coffeeshop, and I’m getting more comfortable with the me that’s underneath all of the protective layers I’ve been peeling away. Overall, I’m just feeling more resilient to handle whatever comes. 

But now that my own personal period of peak destabilization is passing, I’m getting loaded up with tons of destabilizing ideas. If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I would have told you I spend a decent amount of time thinking about gender, race, class, power, and cis-heteronormativity. With my beautifully radical set of friends, what else are we going to talk about? But wow: the readings I’m being assigned and my conversations with the program director are rocking my concept of the world harder than it’s been rocked in a while. I’m being deeply challenged and deeply humbled. 

I don’t think I’ll do a great job of expressing the complexity of everything as I’m still absorbing it, but one of the main things I’m thinking about now is how to make art (or really, contribute anything) within a world that will immediately try to suck you and your art into existing structures of power. Because art isn’t just predominantly made by cis-het white men, it’s also interpreted by them. So whatever a marginalized group creates runs the risk of immediately being used to support a narrative that “others” and oppresses them, essentially using their “different” biology to contextualize and explain the art. For example, something a woman creates will be thought of in the context of her womanhood, something a Mexican man creates might be said to “a Mexican observation on [x]”. Whereas something a cis-het white man creates will exist outside of that constraint because his identity is default. 

I’m also struggling with how to represent important things like gender and race with the understanding that these concepts (and so many others in our society) are constructed by our society as tools of oppression, and talking about them can sometimes just aid the machine. While people perceived to be a certain gender or race absolutely experience issues that need to be recognized and addressed specifically (see: Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter), how do you talk about a marginalized group without adding scaffolding to the giant machine that’s using these constructs to keep people down? And how do you talk about groups without flattening the richness and diversity of experience within them, and actually oppressing others in your quest to dismantle oppression? (I’m looking at you, white feminism!) 

I could go on and on about other things sending my brain spinning, but that’s probably enough for now. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, but I’m really glad to be in this headspace and learning, especially since with my many privileges, I run a high risk of making the world worse if I don’t actively try to fight these power systems.

One day I’ll write about something totally light, like avocados and ice cream! 

While this week contained some beautiful moments, I have to say it was also pretty challenging for me in many ways. Most everyone I’m meeting is interesting and kind, but it’s disorienting and isolating to be disconnected from nearly everything familiar and comforting to me.

I also think having clear plans for the future — whether in terms of location, of tasks I’ll be doing, or of people who’ll surround me — can be stabilizing, because I get to think of whatever’s happening in the moment, however uncomfortable, as somewhat temporary. I can say to myself: Sure, the present is like this, but in [x] amount of time, there’ll be [y]. It’s hard sometimes not having that to hold onto. I know it’ll teach me something, but right now it’s definitely uncomfortable. I always want to stay conscious of the privilege inherent in what I am doing, and maintain gratitude that I have the opportunity to learn these lessons at all. That’s important. But the hard days still come!

Last night, though, was a blessing. Sometimes, being lonely or sad makes me wall off even more…I think because I feel fragile, or because I want to hide this ugly sub-par version of myself from other people. But last night, I went into the kitchen for dinner and was just wrapping up when another resident walked in. I had noticed some pain and depth behind her cheerfulness a few days earlier, but hadn’t had a chance to get to really talk to her. This time, I closed my book and pushed aside the wall, and really tuned into what she was saying, getting to know her story. She was so genuine and open, it made me want to match her, and we ended up having a beautiful moment of connection. When two other residents came in, the energy carried through. Sitting there with the three oldest members of the residency, I got to learn more about what they’d all been through in life, and they gave me some wonderful perspective when I told them about some things I’d been struggling with. We were all just raw and supportive of one another, and they reminded me it’s normal to feel weak and confused sometimes — it won’t last.

All of that left me feeling so connected and at peace, the most hopeful I’ve felt since I got here. And I wanted to take a moment to document and be grateful for that.

Stopped in Mexico City for a day before heading to Puebla — mostly for cost efficacy (a $146 direct flight!!), but also for a chance to get a peek at the capital, which I hope to revisit in more thoroughness later on.

The city is beautiful, and I’ve loved walking around seeing monuments and city parks, trying new foods. It’s also nice to feel a little anonymous — nobody looks twice at me in this big city. But I also feel kind of like I’m in a dream…kind of cloudy and disoriented. It kept catching me by surprise that I’d need to speak Spanish outside, that I have to check a map to figure out where I’m going, that I’m a foreigner in a place I’ve never been. 

Usually, I’m all about this —  and in particular, the chance to hear and speak Spanish is a highlight of being in a Spanish-speaking country. I love the chance to practice and use something I’ve learned and want to get better at, and I also associate the sounds with being at Mama Tina and Papa Chilo’s house (my great-grandparents) as a child. I was always so happy there, listening to them talk to each other, playing Double Solitaire with Mama Tina, running around the garden, getting to take a candy from Papa Chilo’s special drawer. But here in Mexico City, even all the Spanish just feels like part of the cloudy dream. Part of it may have to do with the red-eye flight I took to get here (see: cost efficacy above!), but I think it’s also something else. Although I’m absolutely so excited and grateful for this time in Mexico, I also spent a lot of time before this trip in denial that I was leaving at all. Facing the reality that I would be leaving my Chicago friends and especially my partner with no real idea of when I’d see them all again — it was too much. And I think that’s part of the reason I feel like I’m not all the way here yet. Denial is powerful! 

I take the bus to Puebla in about an hour, and I think it’ll be nice to unpack my things, make the space a little my own, and know that at least I’ll be in the same location for four weeks. I think there, my brain will get the chance to catch up to my body. I’m also really looking forward to spending time writing. I’m nervous about it, but also so ready to see what comes out, and what it feels like to write most of the day. I’m feeling especially bolstered after starting Your Art Will Save Your Life, which a friend gave me right before I left. It’s been a good way to calm the little voices that come up, saying “you’re being self-indulgent and impractical!” or “you’re not a real artist and you’ll never make anything worthwhile!” So that’s nice.

Okay, off to Puebla. Already feeling a few of the clouds lift from my mind, thanks in part to sweet, sweet coffee hitting my brain after an actual good night’s sleep.

I move to Mexico tomorrow.

Some friends suggested I start a blog, and I thought that’d be good for me. I’ve started blogs in the past, but always gotten held up by wanting anything personal I put into the world to be perfect. So it seems fitting that now, during a time when I’m trying to let go of so much — physical objects, emotional safety nets, routines, concrete future plans, and even the hair on my head — that I should let go of the idea of putting a perfect thing out there and just put something out there. Because I’d really like to chronicle this process for myself, and share it with anyone who’d like to know what’s up in my brain.

Plus, especially if the next four weeks are going to be spent at an artist residency, I’d better start getting comfortable showing writing that’s closer to my chest than the normal stuff I write about science and health. I’ve grown as a person watching others expose vulnerable pieces of themselves, and maybe it’s time to do a little of that myself.