inklingfair Surprise, surprise: I’m in isolation again. It might be nothing, but someone tested COVID-positive at the office and yesterday was a mad scramble to salvage what was left of the strategy planning week. I’ve been cooped up in the room, eating alone, reading, taking zoom calls, writing, watching funny EXO clips, and wishing I could step out and go on a bike ride.
I’ve been thinking about the things that made me at different points of my life, and how I’ve always tried to fit them into a neat monomythic narrative: moving houses endlessly, never taking root; Pisay and various found families; music and fandom culture; the unexpected pathos of island life; un-jobs; walking with a community and a soulmate, unmasked.
But maybe it isn’t order I should be looking for, but a way to live with the chaos. Here are all the loose ends and unresolved issues, and they don’t need to be tied up or cut off. Here are the bits of ordinariness that don’t belong anywhere, and they are beautiful. And who says I should always design-think and strategize what’s next? Such a western way of thinking. Even Kyungsoo of the House of Hardly Ever Any Leisure for the Past Decade allows that this is the life we have, built bit by bit over a long time, facing up to what comes as best one can.
I’m still unlearning self-editing and forcing myself to circle back to a point. I don’t even need to put any sort of closure to this post. The point today is, there doesn’t have to be one as long as I am content.
And I guess I am, after a fashion. Today I had time to work, to rest, to listen to music alone, uninterrupted. I am surrounded by families and communities who support me unconditionally. I am serving the people I love. I’m working on things that are meaningful to me.
“What’s built ceaselessly over a very long time has its power. And here, I feel how strong it is.”
