Nothing Ever Happens Cherry Nin
1 To fully admit to yourself that you want to be an artist, to attempt to break through the shame of that, of wanting something for yourself, something so dripping in Capital, amongst the collapse of it all—will the systems that uphold my dream even be in place? I want them to fall, I usher this collapse onwards, I poke at the beast. I enjoy doing things quickly. There is always a rush even when things must happen slowly and most things must, and this extreme urgency is the most uncomfortable part of being a human, this disconnect, this being stuck in time thing, this never having enough of it. Yesterday I was reading Eileen Myles and they said something about needing to write quickly as to avoid making too many decisions. Harry Dodge said that the art object itself isn’t the thing, because the thing is moving so fast that the object can’t keep up. These are two arguments for rushing. But maybe they are also arguments for surrendering, avoiding overthinking. There have always been great artists, in different worlds, outside of capitalism. They are tucked away but I need them like I need wind. Do you know where they are and would you mind sending me links to their work? Feeling this curtain cloud in front of my face brain. Rat said my characters are always about to explode. So am I. 3... Th is condition of being lodged in time… do you feel it too? I know not everyone does. It’s like dysphoric. It’s like 2... t he feeling of your appearance not matching how you feel on the inside. I know you can relate to that at least. Most things must. 1... S orry I have to go now, before this thing starts leaking meaning.
2 James Baldwin’s character Giovanni said that you don’t have a home until you’ve left it and once you’ve left you can never return. I think a lot about familiarity and connection to place and non-place and placelessness. I am not quite sure where I want to be yet. I am 25 and I miss my dead mom and I want a family. I am seeking signs of something. I think that being queer and an artist is really about non-place, about trying to find place but being perpetually sort of in the shadows. We 38
are trying to make a place, we are all doing the same thing (floating, getting by, working our asses off ) so the thing we are doing is okay, queer artists have always done this right? And they are grown up and okay now right? They have places and freaky families and were kind of late bloomers but now go to parties with other famous queer artists right? But this is not the 20th century right? We don’t get happy endings just the toxic aftermath right? Saying all of this I realize, what about AIDS and white supremacy and the many other horrific things? And so I realize I am really only thinking about a select group of people who made it to middle age, seem to be doing fine, at least by the standards of this world, even in this world. But still. I doodle in my journal: THINGS GET BETTER OK. At night I am asleep but actually I am in a very long tunnel, I am alone but actually I am with all of you, each and every one of you, and there is a light at the end and I (we) are walking towards it but it is going to take a long time, much more time than we have time for and much more time than we have hoped for. WE WILL have small moments where we can breathe again and I will smile at you as we pass each other on the street and I will feel like the luckiest person in the world just to see a stranger’s (your) entire beautiful face. Beautiful day, isn’t it? Nothing ever stays the same. That’s the only thing I feel I can really count on. The sky too. Though I heard that some scientists want to pump sulfur into the atmosphere to slow climate change which would make it so that the sky is no longer blue. Yeah, gorgeous.
3 Jackie Wang writes about the idea of oceanic feeling (which I understand as a sort of transcendence, a universality, or the feeling an artist gets when they feel the compulsion to create), describing it as a manic defense against pain, a thing rooted in pain, but also something that can be experienced as ecstatic joy. A terrible gift, she calls it. Hannah Black says that New Jersey looks like the apocalypse already happened and nooone noticed. These four walls. Trenton’s motto is TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES, and there is a green bridge in the city that says it in all caps and you can see it through the window when you are taking the train from Philadelphia to New York City and you will be a bit startled by this, its bitterness, you will be entertained by it, but you yourself will never actually step foot in Trenton and you yourself will not feel this thing rooted in pain. You will think, Trenton is the kind of place where nothing ever happens. But also I read that something is
