Liminal grounds.

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“Your face...is a mystery like the sphinx’s: decipher me or I’ll devour you.”

—An Apprenticeship, or the Book of Delights (Clarice Lispector)

The aforementioned book and I have been spending lots of time together lately, so forgive me as I leave a trail of quotes from the text italicized throughout this letter!

I’ve been thinking a lot about these in-between spaces we inhabit, you and I. Due to the nature of what I do and how I choose to move through the world, I often find myself folded between layers of life—not all the way this and not all the way that. Perhaps this is taboo to talk about. But perhaps you know this feeling too.

Before I continue my thought: thank you for an amazing birthday month! I had some amazing experiences with delightful company, enjoyed a trip to the New Mexico desert, and adopted a kitten named Fande (whose name is inspired by The Ulster Cycle from Irish mythology, and who my other cat Pythia now loves and adores)! I am filled with warmth and light when I think about the profound blessings that have touched my life this month. Allow me to express my abundant gratitude.

Though I undoubtedly took part in plenty of anniversal celebration, I have also been indulging in some much-needed quiet, solitude, and reflection these past weeks. I feel like I have had something both vague and vast on my mind, and I find that the language to properly articulate this big emotion related to the deeply interstitial nature of how I live escapes me. So I don’t know if I have any profound revelations to proclaim about what it means to set up shop here in the thresholds—I think maybe I’m just curious if other people feel it too. What is the texture of the demimonde? How does it speak to you, and in turn, how do you relate back to it? When do you most notice the wallpaper of its boundaries? Is it lonely? Is it full of life? Would you have it any other way? I am full of questions and wonder and awe.

Amidst (and perhaps related to) my pondering, I’ve been experimenting with micro-dosing mushrooms, with the gentle guidance of several sweet friends and peers (you know who you are, and thank you once more!). I couldn’t tell you exactly how I feel different, except that I sense a greater attunement with the “silent soul of animal life.” I’m noticing more. I’m doing a lot of watching, listening, and just being. I’m also attempting to learn the art of photography and self-portraiture—a departure from my usual mediums of film and digital design in response to a pull I feel to expand the horizons of my art discipline. I may eventually share some of my practice on my fans site as well as on Twitter and Instagram, once I stop feeling shy about it (though the images above are a couple of my early experiments working with a camera besides my phone for the first time ever!). I’ve also returned to my journey of language study, and my mind has been somersaulting with the pleasure of learning.

In line with this lively springtime energy, I’m dreaming of morning farmer’s market strolls: “And suddenly she saw the turnips. She was seeing everything to the point of filling herself with a plenitude of vision and with her handling of the fruits of the earth. Each fruit was unwonted, though familiar and hers.” This, followed by a lovely picnic in the park? Or a culinary session spent swaying to balmy playlists while making fresh baked goods, cocktails, or a delicious meal out of our finds? I’m willing it into existence. Something sweet is in the air.

As always, thank you for indulging me in this labor of love! Onwards now, through all our tangled ways of being: “It was a vast and calm knowing that ‘I am not I,’ she was feeling. And it was also the very least, because it was, at the same time, a macrocosm and a microcosm. I know myself as the larva transmutes into a chrysalis: this is my life between vegetable and animal.”

xoxo, L