I’ve been noticing that, much as I am reluctant to re-enter the physical social world after covid, I’m also reluctant to enter the world that is sharing and talking about myself in any context whatsoever.  

I used to be quite active on social media.  I used to make and share dances all the time. I used to write poems and blog posts and share them every single day.  Something has changed. Now I sort of stare at social media and cannot bring myself to post. 

It feels like trying to condense a cloud into a glass of water, and ain’t nobody got time for turning their cloudselves into water for the benefit of Meta/Instagram/Twitter. 

But. 

Part of being a creative person is sharing the cloud condensation you manage to get done. At least, it is for me.

Here’s a word cloud of things I’m thinking about lately: 

drying rivers witchcraft secrecy privacy cowardice gender dinosaurs transmasc nonbinary fear clouds travelogues overthinking the dangers of visualization what if I could be different learning to sew fabrics mending and doing it creatively cooking baking bread thimbleberry friends twenty years trauma moving fingers just to move them how to be a boss the imaginary the human capacity to look away abortion uteruses Amsterdam ebikes gardening house plants harvest canning … 

You know I could just keep going and going. 

Anyhow I won’t do it for Meta/IG/Twitter. Part of why I feel stuck is that social media has been a real downer for yours truly; it feels hypocritical to contribute to a thing I don’t like.

But I’ll do it for me. It feels good to condense something out of nothing — just this pile of meat and electricity and pizza — into something else. Into a thing that someone else can put into their pile of meat and electricity and pizza and we can sort of commune at a distance. This essay from Sarah Gailey is pointing in the right direction.  I want to make a shared space where we can both go and hang out no matter what time of day it is and for god’s sake, without any scheduling headaches. 

One can hope that this quiet period is a kind of fallow situation to be followed by Large Amounts Of Sharing!!!!!!!! but one does not truly know how this all is going to work. I’m nudging myself to come out of my cocoon. I’m checking to be sure my body has fully reconstituted itself after the liquid phase of pandemic metamorphosis. (Spoiler: It has not, I don’t know how to dress the bottom half of my body anymore.)

I’m applying for grants and residencies. I’m toying with the idea of online alpha readers. We’ll see! Where will this half-metamorphosed butterfly cloud go next?