Listen to Natahna reading Big Feels 7.2 here👇🏻
Writing is so strange.
I’m having the kind of feeling when you stare in the mirror long enough that existence becomes terrifying (does anyone else get that feeling?).
Why did I ever start to write? What will it take for me to stop?
I want to do other things with my hands. I want to be good at drumming and I want to figure out how to make a chair like this (see photo):
I want to hold someone’s hand on purpose and for them to hold it back.
There is something to be said for yearning. I famously have a very bad memory–but the chunks of time that I remember with the most vibrancy are those steeped in yearning.
I went to Vancouver in February, a quick weekend with family, my sister and her babies. I spent part of an evening walking around old haunts and neighbourhoods from when I lived there in my early twenties.
I remember more about my time in Vancouver than I do most things. Maybe it’s the wet that helped the memory seep into my bones, or perhaps more simply it sticks because it was the first time that I made a decision out of desire, not duty or obligation or expectation.
I spent so much time alone in the city. I would wander wide-eyed, simply wanting. God, was I porous.
I started my first blog in Vancouver. It was called “The Girl Three Doors Down.” I had twelve followers, strangely all from the UK. I felt fiercely loyal to each of them.
I bought a gorgeous umbrella with a Monet painting on it.
I saw Sufjan Stevens play at The Orpheum. He had two full bands facing each other on stage, dueling. It was his The Age of Adz tour. I was a fan, but I was listening to this album for the first time live. I remember thinking that this must be what Beethoven fans felt like in the 1800s.
I got the first job I applied for, my first week in the city. I walked into a Cactus Club with my resume and got an interview on the spot. I was the hostess. I might still be a hostess if it paid more. I was fucking incredible at it. I had that place running like a well-oiled machine. The new kitchen boy liked me, but he wasn’t my type (my type in three words: Hot Little Weirdo*), plus I was closeted and in love with the waitress who had the same birthday as me. She had tattoos up and down her arms, her legs. She tried on my hand-me-down Ugg boots and said it was like putting her foot down the neck of a baby seal. She was hot shit. I bought her a cake for our birthday. We had kiwi cocktails with it. She invited me to her house, but I never went. I don’t remember why.
Our author, D’orjay, over at Party Trick Press, did a live on Instagram last week to promote her latest volume of the Shit My Shaman Says series. She led us in a journey where we were prompted to meet with a younger version of ourselves. I saw early-twenties me, wearing tight, grey skinny jeans, my Ugg boots, and a baggy blue sweater that used to be my grandpa’s, it had thin red and white stripes on it.
She looked up at me, “It’s not my fault.”
I guess I have been blaming her for a lot of things lately. One of the things being that she gave up the Vancouver freedom that she found at the very first opportunity.
Of course, how could she have even begun to know how to hold on to it.
I want time to do other things with my hands. I want to keep writing. I want to stay wide-eyed and let the yearning, the surprise of desire, make a mark on my memory.
Maybe this part from the closing song of that Sufjan concert says it all,
“If I was crying In the van, with my friend It was for freedom From myself and from the land I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes”
Talk soon,
Natahna
*Sound off in the comments on what your type is in three words (credit to my friend Sarah for prompting this one). ;)
The Recommends: The song, SYNCOPATE by MICHELLE. Make sure you listen with your good headphones—you do not want to miss THAT BEAT.
brainy. open. playful.
angular. thoughtful. sleazy.