SEEN

By Megan Wray

Identity is shoved down your gob and it dribbles down your cheeks. Do you eat it? It doesn’t taste good; it tastes like unhappiness. Instagram ads, dysphoria, and money YOU WILL NEVER HAVE. Is that what you want to eat, and who the fuck is this big white man feeding us? How do we feed ourselves, or how do we stop consuming altogether? Well, first off, we are told we must be smart and serious and, like the chef, have a plan, a point, and a recipe; we cannot be strange. To out-cook the chef, we must think like the chef, outdo the chef at his own recipe, use more expensive, more luxurious, more superfluous ingredients and words, beat him at his own game! 

Or we could do something else, we could play a different game, find something else to feed our souls, find ways, though small and tiny, to live differently, to enjoy living differently, to resist. I don’t know what that looks like for you. I’m uncertain sometimes what it is for me, but I know we must try to do things that feel pointless. Here are some. Try to see what you feel, what you think. You can chew them up or spit them out if you like!

1. MY BODY.

First, choose any part of you (literal, e.g. my feet, my mouth, or abstract, e.g. my words, my soul) 

Grab a pen. Now take your body part and fill in these blanks! It can be as simple or as big as you like. What/can/will your body do? Because it has/can/and will do so much! Go off the page, write as much or as little as you like! Share it with friends or people, or keep it a secret, shared just with yourself! Make it silly or serious, JUST DO IT, TRY IT.  

My __________  HAS! __________________________________________________

My__________  CAN!_________________________________________________

My__________  WILL!___________________________________________________

2. EAR WORMS EVERYWHERE. 

Make up a song using a made-up tune, made-up words, and a made-up meaning. Sing this until it gets stuck in your head. Perform it under your breath, host a concert in your head, or out loud in the shower. Then go get it stuck in someone else’s head. See how many earworms you can plant!

3. TRACES OF YOU (this is nice to do when you feel alone).

a) Take your left finger and place it on your right hand.

b.) Start tracing the outline of your hand over and over. Shut your eyes. 

c.) Think as you trace of all the places you have left this handprint of yours: maybe in someone's palm, on the ground in the dirt, or on the seat of a train. Maybe on your body? Where?

d) See all these places in your mind as you trace all the places where you left tiny parts of yourself, and where those places left tiny parts with you. Don’t forget them, see them in your hand and remember those traces wherever you go. How do you feel? 

4. COUNTING DRIPS!

Count every drip that falls on you in the shower and see if you can say thank you to each one for keeping us alive and clean! 

5. DANCING IN PLAIN SIGHT!

Best to do this on public transport, walking somewhere, or travelling between different places. Find your move. Is it a bob of the head? Is it the smallest jazz hands ever, or is it a sneaky sway of the hips? How abstract do you go? Is it the everyday foot tap, or is it a new move you invented? Now you have the move, do it!! But do it in a small, tiny, microscopic way, like you have a tiny elf inside you, controlling your body, from your limbs to your head. The move is just a flicker. See how this feels. Silly? Mischievous? Good? Free? Let that feeling grow in your movement. Maybe it stays small, maybe it grows only slightly, maybe you will end up dancing in plain sight! If this doesn’t work, try your move alone in your bedroom with music on LOUD. 

Why try these activities? What point would they have? I’m not quite sure. None maybe? A point of reflection? A moment to feel silly, a springboard for a thought that turns into an idea that goes somewhere, or maybe a way to look outward to others around you? Creativity, now, is increasingly becoming a commodity, something with an endpoint and a product. Even when done for ourselves, we must feel inspired or healed. A cathartic process must happen that is then shared with others and maybe even charged for! I don’t think that is wrong, but it dims other reasons or thoughts. That is, that there does not need to be a point, that what you will gain or not gain comes from simply doing. If we do and just be, what happens? I ask you to do just that: try, and see what trying, for the sake of trying, may bring you.

These activities come from my own experience and from shared experiences with others in participatory art workshops, conversations with friends, listening to music, moving my body, wanting change and community, and trying to resist. I believe that these activities and where they come from (applied theatre and the participatory arts) can be a vehicle for change through forming community. I think embodying the change you want to see in the world, seeing how it feels and what it can look like, can keep resilient hope alive. Being present and being silly helps untangle our identity from what the chef feeds us, allowing us to find freedom of expression. This is what it has done for me as a young woman, as someone who has felt lost and directionless. Finding expression and confidence through creativity and imagination has grounded me and helped me build community with others. These exercises are also just silly and a bit stupid, but that’s the point. There’s power in how something so silly and playful can be just that; silly and playful. It forces you to hold on to that playfulness we are told to lose, to grow up from, and to forget about, and to instead focus on productivity and building a life to share with our children! Don’t lose that playfulness! Don’t lose that want and hope for change. The more it stamps its foot on you, the more we must support each other to push that foot up and force it off of our spines. You may not get anything out of these exercises but I encourage you to try them and maybe make up your own! It is the trying that keeps us alive.