Category: Body

Seven Years Can Be a Lifetime

Siena RoseLeave a comment

Dear Twenty-Year Old Me, 

I know it’s been awhile since you felt loved. I was with you in your bedroom on your birthday that night on Dorset Street. You were listening to “I Hope You Dance Radio” on Pandora while ripping off curls of blue and pink wrapping paper from the boxes. I saw you crying, heaving with sobs over the small piles of tufted paper and ribbon. I could see that you were hurting. I loved you then. 

I know you wanted somebody to see, and you also hoped so fervently that nobody would see. I was there with you when you downed a bottle of red wine on a Thursday night, taking big gulps straight from the bottle, blasting “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” by Frankie Vallie on your iHome. I loved how you twirled around the room, screaming into the wine bottle as a microphone. I loved you then. 

I know you feel so alone. I can see your core, glimmering like well-loved embers, but I can see that you have no access to it at all. I heard your footsteps as you padded down his hall late at night, feeling a hard knot in the pit of your stomach, approaching the inevitable atrophy of your self-esteem with grim dedication. I loved you then. 

I know you do not feel like yourself. I was with you as you crouched in the corner of his kitchen, exploding with rage and terror, screaming out expletives about love and devotion. You succumbed to the hurt, cowering animal inside you. You spit and snarled. You clawed at the air. You couldn’t expand your body enough to express the weight of your anger. I loved you then. 

I hear you. You are so afraid that you don’t exist. I hear you. You are so tired. I hear you. You feel eighty years old and you are only twenty. I know you are tired. I am always here with you. I will never leave you. I will love you forever. 

With all of my love, 

Twenty-Seven Year Old Me

What if it’s okay for me to be exactly who I am?

Siena RoseLeave a comment

What if it is okay for me to want exactly what I want? What if it is okay for me to desire many worlds, trailing my fingers in imaginary eddies, forgetting and remembering, forgetting and remembering. What if it is okay to grieve? What if is okay to gather my losses, lifting them one by one to my mouth, tasting the indigo sweetness of each perfect morsel.

What if it is okay to be in a body? What if it is okay to heave and loll in the heat of the day, to follow the creases in my hips, to pluck pleasure from every skin-covered bone, to feel the weight of me falling into the earth. What if it is okay to work? What if it is okay to push myself to exhaustion, to let go of time for longer than expected, silently hoping that what I am doing is worthwhile, somehow.

What if it is okay to rest? What if it is okay to delight in a slow moment with myself, to sink into my soft sheets at 3:00 in the afternoon. What if it is okay to invite uncertainty? What if it is okay to reside in the liminal spaces between knowing and ignorance, allowing confusion to seep into my chest like the ocean washes the clam shell clean.

What if it is okay for me to be exactly who I am?
What if it is okay for me to be exactly who I am?
What if it is okay for me to be exactly who I am?

Who are we responsible for?

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“Emotional labor involves modifying our emotional expression – our speech, facial expressions, and body language – to satisfy organizational goals and requirements. For instance, we may need to outwardly express an emotion we aren’t actually feeling inside. Or we may need to suppress an emotion we’re feeling, because it isn’t considered appropriate at work. Emotional labor is common with jobs that require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public, such as politicians, or require the worker to provoke an emotional state in others, such as teachers, chaplains, therapists, or sex workers.”
-Elizabeth A. Stanley, PH.D., Widen the Window (190)

Let’s add musicians to that list. We arrive onstage with our faces arranged in appropriate ways so that we manage the emotions of our audience.

Onstage, we are responsible for our audience. We are the hosts, filling their cup, managing reactions and conversation. We are the facilitators. A facilitator cannot be lost, or, if they truly are lost, they must be intentionally lost, as if to teach or pass on something important through the act of being lost. Vulnerability cannot show up as a complete breaking-down, but rather a gentle gift given to an audience.

If we feel like we are about to break into a thousand pieces and are completely dissociated from our bodies, we cannot show it.

If we want to run away, hide in a dark, hollow tree trunk for a few days, maybe weeks, away from any members of the human race, we cannot show it.

If we feel intense anxiety, we may show it, but only after we package up our story of anxiety so that it is beneficial to the audience.

We arrive with our mouths turned upwards, or held at a perfectly neutral angle, so as to add to the drama and embrace of the moment. We stand behind our instruments, eyes twinkling with just enough life so as to appear fascinated by the ritual we are performing. We smile as our insides twist with deep discomfort. We suppress joy as we sing songs about suicide. We suppress desolation as we play sweet cascading piano runs in a song about falling in love for the first time.

If we are lucky, we embody our music. We become the mask. It is true, good acting. We no longer exist.

If we are unlucky (perhaps, two hours before walking onstage, we had an unavoidable, exceedingly difficult and draining conversation with a loved one, and now we have nothing left to give), we hide behind our music. We perform the mask. We are crushed under the weight of the mask. We no longer exist.

It is crucial to modify our emotional expression, or perform emotional labor, for the sake of the audience, our career, our musicality. The non-existence is crucial, too. Without it, there would be no good music. Our existence would only get in the way. When we half-croon, half-call into the microphone, “I’m so grateful to be here,” do we mean it? Or, are we simply caring for our audience so deeply that we dis-integrate? In the end, is there nothing left to mask?

the displacement of anger

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We are running through a living room, on the north side of the house, unsure if this is a game or a real life-or-death situation. My sister has my bead container. It’s this plastic box with tiny compartments for each type of bead, and all of my treasures are inside it. THIS BOX CONTAINS EVERYTHING I VALUE IN THIS WORLD, AND I WAS ABOUT TO MAKE THE MOST EPIC NECKLACE EVER, AND THIS TINY 6-YEAR OLD IMP IS TRYING TO STEAL IT FOR HERSELF. The fucking nerve.

Anger billows up out of my armpits, my shoulders, my knees. I sprint faster, finally gaining on my younger sister, who, in a flash of inspiration, runs up the stairs.

NO. The hot pressure sticks to my ribs, threatening to detonate. A word blooms in my stomach, burrows up through my esophagus, gets under my tongue, digs deep into the crevices of my jaw. I’ve said this word so many times before, in thousands of ways. Sometimes it comes out soft, gentle, imploring, but other times it comes out fighting, harsh, terrifying.

I see what is happening in slow motion. That’s not even the right way to describe it. It’s not slow motion. It’s focus. Detached focus. I see what is happening with a focus so clear, it’s as if I am a monk meditating in a Himalayan temple. I know I am about to scream. I know that it is going to be so loud that it will hurt my throat to do it. I know my sister will not be happy about it. I know I will do it anyway.

“MAYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I bellow.

Everything stops. She stops running, I stand breathing heavily. The anger dissipates. She comes down the stairs, full of genuine innocence and hurt. She is deflated, I is deflated, the moment is forever deflated.

Now, the memory is blurry here. I’m not sure what happened to the bead container. Did she give it back to me? Did we string necklaces together? All I remember is that she was sad.

In that moment, I decided that I didn’t want to experience her sadness that way. I didn’t want it to be my fault. The blame was too much. So, I made a pact with myself. I would never scream at my sister again. No matter how angry I got, I wouldn’t let my anger escape from my body like that.

Ever.

I kept that pact for years, almost perfectly, not just with my sister, but with everyone else in my life.

Recently, I have been blaming young Siena. She was too weak for the world. She didn’t stand up for herself enough. She didn’t say no when she didn’t want something. She didn’t say, “give me that,” when she DID want something. She let people in. She exposed us to danger. She didn’t protect us. She was a coward, a phony, a pussy. My trauma was her fault. The abuse I experienced was her fault.

But, remembering this story made me realize something: the anger didn’t disappear. The “NO” never went away. It was simply displaced. I was always pushing back.

I wrote long journal entries about anger. I played angsty piano octaves on the piano as I performed Mozart, Chopin, and Debussy. I acted out angry characters in theater productions. I sang. I mimicked the faces of actors as I watched movies. I danced. I made myself heard. I made myself safe. I rejected the world in my own ways. My sensitivity gave me wings, won competitions, got me into small competitive circles. I was strong and took care of myself masterfully. I was a hero, a human, a warrior. 

In fact, I’m now realizing that I have been counteracting the dominant figures in my life the WHOLE TIME. Maybe I wasn’t screaming at them directly, but I was sure as hell screaming in other ways.

I have always said every single thing I needed to say. I said these things loud enough for people to hear. I was never weak. I was never defeated. I knew exactly how to take care of myself. I was Queen of Myself. I was a fearless leader, a wise nurture, a great intelligence.

There was not a lack, but rather a redirection of strength.

This was always the plan. I was meant to be right here, right now, right as I am. I have never been anything different. I was never feeble, although for a long time I thought I was. I am simply learning where to place my anger.

the unfurling

Siena RoseLeave a comment

It’s so easy to forget that I am an artist. I get buried underneath the bullshit, the piles of papers to file, the social media momentum to keep up, the correspondence to maintain. I pale. I curl up. I sleep too long. In the midst of all that, it’s so easy to forget that when I step in front of a microphone, I unfold. My trauma is held. My sadness is alive. My joy is palpable. The thing, that core thing, the singular thing I am always chasing, emerges in front of a microphone. It’s not love, or friendship, or even nature that facilitates the unfurling. It’s art. Art is impossible to ignore. It demands. It invites. It needs.

fifteen years old

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I am 15 years old. I have been having dreams about death. In my dreams, someone is holding me at sword point. I am locked in an embrace, 10 feet under water. I watch tiny kittens writhing on the floor. I feel the noose around my neck, the chair kicked out from under me, the pained eyes of my mother watching helplessly from the sidelines. A bullet lodges itself in my chest and I collapse into the sweet-smelling grass of my childhood backyard. I accept death. I feel nothing but relief.

we are the subject, not the object

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I was.
I wanted.
I came.
I remember.
I felt.
I wanted.
I needed.
I conducted.
I made.
I wanted.
I knew.
I lived.

I was afraid.
I was listening.
I wanted to be free.
I came across myself many times over.
I remembered.
I felt myself forgetting.
I wanted to be good.
I needed everything.
I conducted ceremonies.
I climbed up, even as I dreaded falling off.
I made myself jump.
I wanted wholeness.
I knew I would always be leaving a version of myself behind.
I lived anyway.

breakfast

Siena RoseLeave a comment

tiny hairs on the tomato stems are white in the morning light. basil leaves broad and satin, tilted towards the southern window. hot water poured over Earl Grey leaves, curled like seeds in a silver cradle. silky cow’s milk drops in, the whole fragrant mug waiting patiently on a table as the Bergamot and tannins infuse into the gently steaming mixture. peanut butter spread on store-bought english muffins (the homemade ones are long gone), melting into the doughy crags. tendrils of coffee-scented air waft across seedling tops, red armchair, rainbow beams of light from the crystal hanging in the window, laundry draped across the old metal rack, stacks of poetry books, cobwebs between the ceiling and the walls. breakfast has commenced.