Falling in love is almost mythical, elusive by nature and yet it happens to all of us.
As someone who feels less than I should, the falling part doesn’t usually read on my Richter Scale. Love sneaks up on me, envelops me like a cloud takes over a skyscraper. Soon it has me surrounded and I can’t recall what the view looks like without the misty curtain.
The past couple of days I’ve experienced something strangely reminiscent of heartbreak. Having just completed and released a long time project into the world, I felt like I should be jubilant. This thing is here and ready to be shared and I should be...rejoicing? Instead I cried and asked my boyfriend why I was sad, childishly asking him to celebrate with me.
In the days since, my time has been filled with figuring out the intricacies of shipping, exploring what international mailing rates actually cost (lol so much) and more feelings of loss.
Now that the massive stack of orders has been filled, I’m left with space. This is so unfamiliar to me, for many months the book has been steady on my mind, like a companion asking for attention when I have a spare moment. I found a routine of work and carved out something close to a balance for the other aspects of my life. It seems I fell in love again, this time with a process its routines.
I’m actually more prone to falling in love with processes and the purpose that comes with them, than I am with people. The amount of things I have created and put aside just when it was time to really set them into the world is actually pretty comical. Eventually I became exhausted, morphing passion from one thing to another consumes a lot of oneself.
2018 was a hell of a year for projects. Every Wednesday I helped Gabi host an art party at a local bar. We’d leave the house at 1 PM to miss crosstown traffic and set up the space, returning home at 2:30 AM once we’d pulled down the art after last call for drinks. For years we’d put on art shows, often in our home and that year we attempted to launch our own permanent space. In addition, I was invited to participate in a few shows that friends were curating. I jumped in, bringing sculptural orbs from my art videos to life for various DIY events. It was exhilarating to transform spaces into places from my imagination. The rush from every successful show felt like a head-over-heels-fall into dreamy love. Yet in the mornings I woke up feeling alone. Sometimes with my head spinning from the amount of people I’d spoken to, voices raised above the sound of a crowd. Another one night stand with fleeting passions and half meant promises.
At the time I was living in the downstairs corner room of a big house with 5 other people, a dog and a cat. I made my room monastic to balance out the chaos of my schedule. The sun would pass through my windows briefly throughout the day touching the plants I’d stacked by the sill, leaving the bed cold and the walls grey.
In that bare space, I was able to reflect on my chosen state of perpetual busyness. It was as if I’d gone through a thousand courtships, the building of relationships, some plateaus and then the inevitable drifting apart when the work outweighs the benefits.
Maybe, I asked myself, I was hooked on the rush of the ride?
I don’t regret any of it. I love that I was able to throw myself heart first into so many projects. I gave everything my all, all the time. As a result, I learned and learned and learned.
Finally I learned that I was ready to really commit. Commit to creating something with longevity in mind. It was in that room under the stairs I asked for a focussed stream to pour my energies into. One that could sustain me and uplift others at the same time. After creating that intention, I vowed to make a real effort to follow through.
The relationship with this current project hasn’t ever felt like falling in love, but a slow build of trust. Foundations were set back in 2019 when Gabi asked me to co-author Meditation: A Guide for the Casual and Committed. This led me to start Intentional Reality, a 6 month subscription based program that went from October 2019 to May 2020. This was largely the experimental phase, where I played with ways to make mindfulness accessible in the digital realm. When covid lockdowns began, I started the “What Do I Do With My Hands?” series on Instagram, offerings to help people recenter in a time of upheaval. Everything tumbles into one another, soon Illusion Pod was born and then this newsletter, and now the booklet. All of it has been an extension of the initial goal. Sustain myself while creating a path to intentional living for others. Cut to 2021. Now is a very different thing. Now is good, even though now is hard.
It’s hard because I really really care about this relationship. I’m finding myself up at night thinking about it. Much of this is yet to be revealed, every week I discover something new about it. So far, the biggest thing that I didn’t see coming is the feeling that it’s no longer just a personal experience between me and a project.
It’s me, the project and everyone else who is experiencing it with me.
That’s the craziest part. The scariest part. The coolest part.
The love that I feel for this project has extended to everyone who takes part in it. When there’s more love there’s more to gain and more to lose. It makes sense that this would be stressful, but it’s something to be celebrated too. I’m working on figuring out the latter part out now. Another process, a worthy purpose.
I guess all of this is to say, thank you all for being along for the ride. I hope you know how much I mean it that when I say that.
More to come, lots of love,
James
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