They say this is a good first blog post.
My “About” section went through some excruciating revisions, beginning with “I think too much and feel a lot. You might find me interesting.” It made me want to vomit in my mouth a little bit; how do I explain what I’m ABOUT when that is truly the reason I wanted to start a blog? To FIGURE OUT who I am?
I was inspired to do better by a beautiful friend, who exists for me in a very specific context: we sat beside each other every Wednesday evening at the front desk of a yoga studio for 6 months, buoyed in the aroma of essential oils, late afternoon light, and cheerful conversation. We are both Pisces, so our hearts live on our sleeves; and although that 6-month stint ended many years ago now, and truthfully, we don’t know anything else of each other’s lives, she is dear to me as a companion and inspiration. She’s a writer. A wonderful one (www.maialeggott.com – go check her out!), and the crucial missing element of my “About Me” widened its eyes at me from every post on her Instagram page. Honesty. Devastating honesty, the kind that requires equal parts courage and recklessness. Like cliff-diving into a frigid body of water.
So here goes. Who am I? I am an immigrant first born daughter. I’ve somehow made it to my mid-thirties, pressed along at breakneck speed by determination, privilege, the sacrifices of my hardworking family, and the wide open sky in a country full of promise. In the process I’ve been buffeted, squeezed, bruised and stretched. I find myself climbing out from under the weight of compounding colonial structures and societal expectations. Scratching that great blue skyscape to find out it’s painted onto a tacky piece of plywood, nailed onto the ceiling of a small and disheartening box.
My fugue state, my identity crisis, may have always existed, though it’s maturing now. It can look itself in the mirror and caress all its wrinkles, narrow its eyes and wonder which ancestor it takes after. But I’ve been a question mark my whole life. I am mixed – half? – though I don’t think I’d separate easily. I keep trying to isolate solvent from solution but I’m all shaken up. Filipina and Sri Lankan, two cultures that occupy the same place in the world’s imagination (“third world”, “exotic”). Two cultures that express love, faith and community in beautiful ways, and their colonization in ugly ones. “Where are you from?” I have only ever answered Canada, because that is the page on which these two paint colours were splashed – but it is strange to pay more attention to the whitespace than the art.
Whitespace feels apt. The unseen backdrop against which we create. Like water to fish: the whiteness of where I live. How I live. This is a new space of learning for me, and I have work to do. I’m learning to understand how this western context I’ve been swimming in has infiltrated me, has infiltrated all of us – in good ways and terrible. How it’s given me my favourite gift: science. Scientific thought, rigorous truth testing, study, learning – it has always been a part of who I am. Curious. I’ve prized it. What I haven’t valued, what I’ve lost and am starting to uncover again, are the parts of me that society has taught me don’t belong. Spirituality – knowing my own divinity, Truth, intuition. Creativity; the non-linearity, the flow, the kind you don’t want to capitalize from as your side hustle. My voice: the way it flows out of me, uninhibited, self-assured, pen to page and symbol to screen. This is my space to cultivate it. I’ll let it lead the way.
TD
The Fugue 