Hello, some things are new around here. Let me show you around.
Here is a shower rinse yourself clean:
Is there sunlight dancing in the water? Are you moving your hands back and forth across the stream? Are you opening your mouth, filling it up and then spit-taking it back out again? Are you breathing? It must be asked.
You might have noticed that there are no numbers in the title, or perhaps, you had never noticed that the title had numbers to begin with, or perhaps, you have noticed, but that observation is neither here nor there.
At one point the numbers brought me a great amount of satisfaction. I could say, wow, this is my 8th newsletter, and then 15th, and then 20th and so forth. Many times I have shouted “hello” in the cavernous void of the world, and fled before I got a whisper of a response. The numbers were proof that I was lingering. That I would return to words, and brace myself against doubt. Like some strange cosmic game of chicken I would stand firm.
But now, they don’t bring me the same delight that they once did. Some where along the way I realized that this was no face off against some formidable opponent. Maybe it was a game, but not in the way that I once thought.
These past few weeks, hell, the past few months have felt like a loosing battle with doubt around my creative expression. You know the one. Where a good idea that you may have shared about too quickly is rushed up on by dread that drags it down down down. Or an excitement about a project that sinks into the couch like a remote you can’t find.
If you are one that keeps up with the stars, you are probably familiar with the unruly venus retrograde we are currently experiencing. I thought this venus retrograde would be about relationships and love visa via my last video newsletter. Yet, my relationships have been the most steady and solid thing in my life during this season. No, I think there is something else wounded and gurgling in some corner of my mind. Something that wants to sparkle, and create and express. Something I must retrieve. The figurative remote wedged in-between the couch cushions.
I’m glad that you are along for the ride.
It starts the way everything starts—with a wide empty space
How to be a wide empty space
Don’t
Fill yourself up. This seems almost painfully obvious. Why be a wide empty space, if you are just going to end up being a storage facility for cardboard box’s filled with old diaries and that one painting that your dad said “wasn’t very good” when you were fifteen. A wide empty space doesn’t need a new productivity routine, or an old angry story.
Do
Exchange the desire to fill that empty space up with filling your stomach instead. Have you eaten? Have you drank water? Again, it must be asked.
Don’t
Treat yourself like a waiting room. You aren’t a doctor’s office where some time can be killed by reading a women’s magazine from 2019. This moment is not a conduit to lead to another more exciting, more action-rich moment.
Do
Meditate on time. As a wide-open space, time has no place to hide, it is bare and out in the open. What is it’s quality?
Do
Trust whims. The art of the empty space is in the listening. What is calling? It is worth it to ditch the studio to play smooth jazz off ur computer while scrolling on Pinterest if such a call comes.
Do
Return here often.
I’m saying goodbye to my apartment soon. It will meet it’s end in early September. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time sitting in hospice with it for the past 6 months. A friend over the phone asked, “do you have an aquarium in your house?” The leaky faucet was expressing itself the way it always did. “I say it’s like I’m living near a babbling brook.”
My lover turned to me the other day motioned to the apartment and said, “this will always be the place that we fell in love in.” What a thought. What more could you possibly ask of a space?
I have a secret. Something that I have never felt before in my 23 years of life. As this summer comes to a close, I have been dreaming of fall.
But, I’m not wishing away August. August, that month of yearning, of catching the last rays of sun on your back porch, of remembering to call your mom, and of wondering what can stay after the summer.
I love you, and I don’t just mean that.
-Thai xx
P.S.
For tarot readings I’m offering a session to talk for 45 mins over zoom with tarot, and another lovely one which has been really fun to start up. A three card reading where you ask me some questions and I send you a personalized piece of writing, your own spell.
You can enter your info here: ☆〜