Small fragments
My neighbor handed me a hammer this morning. It was passed through the front door along with a small box of screwdrivers with many faces. I thanked her, and handed her a dried rose in return. She told me she’d be back later in the afternoon to help me with the canvases, but I told her I thought I’d manage. She’s going to hike Mt.Takao san1 today. I don’t want to rush her, and mostly I’m just scared of accepting too much help.
Summer has arrived. Sweat gathers into small diamonds on skin, and it feels like the whole city is breathing slower. The air got thicker on the 23rd, and Humidity crept in like an old Friend. I’m just worried The Paintings2 won’t dry in time for Tomorrow.
There is paint on the floor and on my skin; smudged on the coffee mugs and staining my clothes and the walls that I pay rent for. When I leave this place, I’m sure I will have to pay for damages in color.
F3 had said he was going to drive me to the exhibition because he has a car and he was trying to be helpful. The passenger seat in his car is familiar, like a second home that moves. Tokyo gets drowned out, and we have our own little world inside another. He moves, I move. In reality, I’m not moving at all, just sitting, as he drives. Looking out the window; stationary, as he goes. We can call it trust, but it’s many things.
The other day, a close friend of eight years gave me a gift from her father, who is a potter. The gift is a blue mug with an abstract depiction of white ocean spray traveling across its cylinder shape. My friend said her father often bases his work on the ocean and its endlessness, variation, and depth. Both of her parents, though we have never met, thought I could benefit from a mug from the sea. I think of waves every time I bring it to my lips, it sits next to me now as I paint. Something blue.
"you are safe with me" he said in a temperature that i understand I ask him, I finally say it: Are You Going to Eat Me Up? he says there is a phrase about honey that warns never to eat too much honey i am the honey he says he says i am the honey
This morning my neighbor lent me a box of nails. She wasn’t sure the screws would go into the wood of the canvases very easily. The box of nails is mint green and red and it looks like it could be from the 80’s. 420 yen is written on the side in black marker, then crossed out twice. 380 yen is written above it, but this number is slightly faded as if the pen was running out of ink. Or perhaps it grew unsure of itself after acting out such strong convictions.
I must put the hooks in today.
We have this thing we do.
When I call your name, you say:
“Yes, my eyes?”
Then you ask: “Do you love me?”
“I only love you.” I reply on cue.
“Now say, ‘I die in your love.’”
“I die in your love.” I answer.
“Do you love me?” He asks again.
“I die in your love.”
Putting the hooks in was easier than I thought. Though I did break a glass in the process of tying the strings. My elbow knocked over the glass when tying the third knot of the fifth painting, the one I had tied the tightest. I had to press pause to find a broom and sweep up the shards.
I found the final thread in fragments when I was sitting in the Passenger Seat of F’s car two weeks ago. Truth presents itself in passenger seats when left alone in them for long enough.
F was outside the car, across the street, talking to a friend. My heart was beating through my chest when I found it. There was More truth that would unravel after, but at that moment More wasn’t needed. Enough was all there was.
Without thinking, I reached behind me for my backpack which was sitting in the backseat, along with the paper bag filled with art supplies we’d just bought for the exhibition. I remember seeing the bag and my chest tightening—how odd it was that just an hour before we’d been holding each other while buying paints and canvases. Arms were wrapped around waists, Palms were pressed against Palms with fingers interlaced in Different ways on Different floors. If I focused on drawing I think I could become good. He had said, rather innocently, in the Aisle of Empty Notebooks. I opened the car door, and slid out carefully, then closed it as quietly as I could. I looked up across the street to see if he noticed, he didn’t. I was crouching on the ground at the side of the car, waiting for the right moment. When I was sure both he and his friend weren’t looking, I ran.
An anthem we keep singing and reading but don’t actually know, know.
When I reached Yoyogi Park I stopped running. I had run all the way from Tokyu Hands in Shibuya. F had called several times when he realized I was no longer there—in the Passenger Seat. I didn’t cry until I got to the fountain at the center of the park. But even then I didn’t have many tears. I think they call this phenomenon “shock.” The inability to process emotion normally in a moment of duress.
After the last month of us fighting to stay together, here was the other half of the whole, arriving in a strangled mess: flight. Flight arrived in my chest like a bird and carried me home in a kind of numb awake-ness. From the fountain onward, my slow but steady steps were accompanied by Half an Image of him that I haven’t yet been Able To Stomach nor Accept.
There is There always is, even after, I can still find it Everything I’ve found, was in the body It is here that I love you In my elbow corner creases So, it’s mine Born here, in softness, not there Where you take And paste onto your Self Not one, but many who carry you, hold you so that you may stand How delicate, and hungry What kind of teeth must I grow to keep elbows soft And bending
The day before the exhibition, I found something I wanted to wear and I bought it. I waited in line for longer than I usually would have endured just to try it on. Everything was on sale because the seasons are changing and people’s bodies are breathing differently. In the new clothes, I felt exposed. Invincible. Fragile. See-through—the way a new plant may feel when it's still waxy and green and bendable. Though I was in pink and white.
Where is the dress made for me I want to slip it on I want to feel good
My neighbor drove me to the gallery. She was wearing a bright red skirt with a black top and a long necklace with a pearl hanging from its center. She helped me carry in each piece, and hang them from the ceiling with wires and clips. I thanked her for the screws with many faces, the hammer, and the nails; for driving me in her car, and letting me sit in the Passenger Seat.
She asked me what the paintings were about. Getting swallowed. I said.
Swallow was born in March, 2022. If you find value in my work and want to see it grow, please support by subscribing and sharing it with others. 大都市に飲み込まれちゃった. Daitoshi ni nomikomare chatta. [ I was swallowed by a big city ].
Afterword:
blue swallows window is ongoing painting project. To support and sponsor the project, go to my paypal link here. Funds will go directly to canvases, brushes, and paints among other expenses needed for ongoing painting and exhibiting/showcasing. My next exhibition is this coming Saturday, July 2nd at 1oak in Roppongi. It’s a live painting event, and it’s going to be a little bit wild.
project statement:
I’m responding to strong feelings. Recently it comes out in color and texture and words. Fragments of a story. I don’t completely understand the peaks and valleys of emotion or experience, except that there are peaks, and there are valleys. Reckoning with those gaps was the practice. There is pain in not knowing what is real or not real, and waking up to unpleasant realities.
But as I go further I realize there is a deeper, and stronger unknown-ness. There is freedom in letting go of narrative, and knowing. Of honoring every layer you lived. Old skin sheds because it does not know how to hold you and your endlessness. There is beauty in this kind of breaking, and in the shattering of an original understanding4. Some kind of unfounded strength sits inside our rib cages.
I want to remind myself, and others, of that.
It’s my hope that it will afford some relief and some lightness as we tread.
高尾山, Takaosan is located in Hachiōji, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the closest mountains in the Tokyo area.
Ongoing painting project called “blue swallows window” (scroll up slightly to see the above project description).
Read Kahlil Gibran’s poem, “On Pain.”
So profound--all those human emotions that can help us see or feel confused, that can comfort or distress us. I love how you weave the poetry, art and emotions all together. Thank you for being so vulnerable.
Super enjoyed this narrative. A mystery unfolding. The whole piece reads like a poem, from one visual to the next. Absolutely beautiful! A heart wrenching story with the painted word. Love the poem on the last picture.