distance equals power
unbearable lightness of being
courage takes practice
double entendre
Walking around DC, lost but generally in the right direction, allowed me to settle back into my bones. I recall the room you asked me to think about: yellow paint raised like Braille; its speech ready to be discovered through touch.
Judith Butler asserts, “the very terms by which we give an account, by which we make ourselves intelligible to ourselves and to others, are not of our making”.* This theory is comforting and forgiving. It allows for perception, which is shaped by unconscious distortions. It means the first person narrative is always unreliable. This should not be seen as negative or even fatalist, nor submissive. It’s obvious which is why it is shocking. I am not who I was yesterday.
I think about memories and where I store them. Some have leached back into my consciousness despite the high security barriers I placed around them. Others have settled into the rhythmic beat of my heart, my speech, and my ways of knowing. Many have been crushed into the mortar that binds me.
I remind myself that I feel for a reason.
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* Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself
