Process & Personhood
— BY JESSICA ELLEN HEMMINGS
I have realised lately I am a person of process. I use to think that my long-sighted fog was something I had to change, now I see it as the chaos of possibility that I can choose to step in to.
A written thought, a painting, a photograph. I collect an array of elements - words, pigments, objects, and I step in to my process. The learnings ingrained in my memory are my guides.
With this realisation came another. I can choose my intent, I can use this as a tool for searching in the chaos. If I choose to look for the good, the option that will make me smile, it will, more often that not, make itself known. My words use to often be layered in an air of melancholy. I don't have to let go of melancholy but I can use, instead of the sadness, the stillness and the quiet observation that it has taught me. I feel a new warmth in my words, a lightness in my practice.
Perhaps the beginnings of these new thoughts was time away from home, giving myself space to process. Something shifted in me while I was surrounded in warm air and feeling the sun on my skin almost every day. Now on this day, while I'm sitting here at home, these words from that time remind me of the beginning of this change:
break the sun
and you'll break my heart
cross my arms over the sky
cover my eyes so there's only shadow
moments of burning orange
seeing on my skin the warmth of day
ripples in my white clothes
stained with red earth and speckled with broken shells
ripple in the blue
follow you through the pacific
not ready for the chill of the moon
but I'll welcome it's soft glow
sun stretched eyes
constellations on my skin
drench me in the feeling of a long day
bring sleep to my dried out bones
relieve me in the arms of blue
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