art

The urgency of the Moment

/ RCRuiz

I had been discussing increasing the impact of Moving Love film project with ImpactMakers producer and director, Vera Born, and during this discussion, I pitched creating a number of workshop sessions based on visionary world-building principles. Making use of these principles, I proposed a quartet of sessions, first focusing on what the community of LGBTQ+ asylumseekers wants and needs, then moving outwards to gathering insight into what the larger Dutch public thinks, before going on to inviting policymakers, lobbyists and lawmakers. The final session, which is yet to happen hopes to gather all these threads together and incorporate them into a reader which the producer (ImpactMakers) wants to make.

The issue of safety for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and for vulnerable groups in the asylum seekers centra is one that’s also highlighted in the news. Sandro Kortekaas of LGBT Asylum Support has also been tireless in highlighting the urgency of attending to the safety of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. In March, LGBT Asylum Support sent a broadly supported petition to the Minister of Asylum and Migration highlighting the egregious fact that ten percent of queer asylum seekers dies by suicide in asylum centra.

From working with the community of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, it’s impossible to not hear stories about the acts of violence and abuse that are regularly directed towards LGBTQ+ and in particularly to those who are openly queer. These are the facts. Vulnerable groups are regularly subject to violence and threats and it can’t continue. There is a reason why LGBTQ+ asylum seekers flee and the circumstances under which they live in the asylum centra is far from the luxurious fabulation that we see fed to those of the population. Yes, the asylum center might have once been a hotel, but is it a place of luxury when two to four people are stuffed inside a room for months on end? Is it luxury when you cannot choose what you eat? Is it luxury when you know that you are not safe because you never know where the violence or abuse will come from?

Listening in on these sessions, I also realised that for a lot of Dutch people, there is a rather vague understanding of what life is like in asylum centers. A point rightly raised by one of the participants to the second sessions, was the lack of knowledge on how to support and also where to find community–particularly if one is in a town that is predominantly right wing. This second workshop which was facilitated by my dear friend, Marielle, built around the question of belonging. What do we need to feel we belong and what are the things that make us feel a sense of belonging. It’s a universal question and a great point from which to launch into imagining and thinking around how we might create this sense of belonging.

There is a lot of support for providing safe asylum centers for LGTBQ+ and vulnerable asylum seekers. From the third session, we learned that there are asylum centers for vulnerable groups in North Westphalia in Germany and that lawmakers from The Netherlands have visited these centers. I believe that there is a will to improve accommodations and to improve safety for vulnerable groups but the law is a slow moving institution and it is rather frustrating as we bear witness to the urgency of a matter that seems to just drag on without any concrete resolution.

Nevertheless, it was hopeful to hear of initiatives and to hear of what people are doing around this matter.

On the 19th of July, the final session will be held in FramerFramed. Do drop by if you have time. As one of the politicians present so rightly said: this isn’t a right wing or left wing issue, this is a human rights issue. We all have the right to live safely. We all have the right to thrive.

Maraming salamat for reading. Blessings and peace and maraming salamat for the support.

Here’s the link to the Moving Love Sessions at FramerFramed: https://framerframed.nl/en/projecten/workshop-series-moving-love-think-tank-sessions/

(Image from Moving Love project)

Musical adventures:Pipe organ with Birds

/ RCRuiz

You can choose to listen to this blogpost. The snippet which I talk about is at the end of this blogpost.

Today, I’m sharing a small audio snippet of a music experiment. For this experiment, I used a recording of birdsong layered with an excerpt from Bach’s small prelude in F which I recorded on the Van Dam Pipe Organ. I quite liked the ensuing effect which makes it seem as if the Pipe Organ is outdoors, with the faint hum of traffic in the background ( wooded areas in the Netherlands are never really all that far from traffic).

On one of my recorded practice sessions, there was a meeting going on in church while I was playing the organ. I found the murmur of voices in the background to be an interesting effect, but it’s not something I would share as the conversation is decipherable. I do like this impression from the recording where we become conscious of the world in which the music is taking place. Perhaps a recording in a market space would be interesting to layer under or on top of a piece. I shall have to venture out on a market day to see what I can capture.

I tried to explain to my organ teacher how when I am writing, I am thinking about more things than words. I am thinking of sound and light, of images and movement and how I have been thinking of composing something that will reflect the world I see and hear in my head. I’m not very good at talking spontaneously about my work, so it came out a bit garbled. But I do want to try and see if I can create something that reflects the sound tapestry of the world I’m currently working on.

On King’s Day, we attended a concert given by my organ teacher. These organ concerts were launched two years ago with the intention of generating funds for the upkeep of the monumental Van Dam organ. Seated in the church, I found myself thinking of the birds, of cathedrals, of sound, of the ways in which we move through time, and through the world.

Sometime ago, I had this brief conversation with my son where we talked about FOMO (fear of missing out) which seems like a spirit that haunts this age. As if we will miss out on something if we are not perpetually visible online or present at gatherings or in chats. To not be in motion or to not be seen seems to bring about a kind of restless anxiety.

I thought about this more deeply and came to the conclusion that there is no need to rush, no need for this anxiety. Even when having a cancer diagnosis means there is no guarantee of how long or short life might be, there’s no need to rush anything. I thought to myself: it’s the same for everyone actually. Just that people with a life-threatening diagnosis experience this awareness more keenly than people who don’t have one.

Perhaps one of the most valuable things I have learned from the work I do is the importance of intention and intentionality. It makes a huge difference in how I step out to meet life. I think of what appointments I make and why I choose to make them.

I suppose this is also why I am enjoying Bach so much. There is a lot of intention and thought in Bach’s work and every note feels like it has a purpose. It’s not just there to be pretty, it’s been set with intention. The challenge for the musician becomes: how do I interpret and bring out that intention.

It’s like life. We can choose how we want to live it. We can choose to retreat, to focus only on ourselves, but we can choose to step out intentionally. We can choose not to close our eyes to what’s going on. We can choose to join our voices and our strength. We can choose to advocate for a better world, for better circumstances, for each of us to be and to do better.

On that note, I’m leaving this small bit of audio from my experimentation of mixing Bach on the pipe organ with birdsong from the park in our neighbourhood. I hope you enjoy listening to it. Until next time, blessings and peace and Maraming Salamat for dropping by.

Excerpt from Bach’s small prelude in F with birdsong

Warbles, Barbles and A surprised Bunny

/ RCRuiz

I’m somewhat taken aback to realise that it’s been a little more than a month since I last updated this blog. It’s quite cliche, but things do tend to happen at the same time and a period of intense events just converged and swallowed up the days as we moved through the phases of rounding up and preparing for the premiere of Moving Love. Then, of course, we had the season of Lent and Easter, and I found myself saying Yes when I was asked if I would be up for supporting the alto’s of the local church choir (cantorij).

I think of language again and find myself rather more attracted to the Dutch word for church choir which is cantorij. I have the idea that there must be some other translation for cantorij. Choir translates to koor, but cantorij reminds me of the word cantor which makes me think of chants and somehow this is more in line with the repertoire used in traditional Dutch Reformed churches. (Church chanters? Chanters of sacred songs?)

With all these things going on, we still managed to make time for the acquisition of an older Eminent organ which I now use for at home practice. I read somewhere that in order to learn a new skill, one must count an hour for every year of one’s life and then multiply that by two if one is an older person. This means I will need more than a hundred hours to become somewhat fluent at pedal work. I still have a lot of hours to go, but I am looking forward to discovering what the hundredth hour will bring. I have to say that I am gaining more balance on the organ seat and am sliding off a lot less than I used to.

Where we live, one can hear the birds quite early in the day and so I’ve started a practice of going out for a short walk just as the sky lightens up into the blue. It’s so fascinating to be walking under the cover of trees and I find myself trying to puzzle through the warbling and the fluting that goes on in that birdling chorus. (Is it louder when a car swooshes by?)

This morning, I was holding out my phone in an attempt to capture some birdsong when I saw a small creature running headlong towards me. At first I thought it was little fluffy dog, but as it came closer, I saw that it was a bunny. It was quite a startling surprise for both of us, and I swear I could see the bunny thinking to itself: “Whoops. Human creature.”

It did this movement that I can only describe as a screech-stop before it hopped around and run away in the opposite direction.

I walked for a little bit until I came to what’s called a HeemTuin–something of local ecological garden with a small reserve for wild waterbirds and other kinds of local wildlife.

The benches were still quite damp with dew, but I managed to find a small spot on a bench facing towards the sun. I closed my eyes and listened to the birds, and felt the light against my eyes and for a while it was like being enclosed within a sacred cathedral. In some other world, here would be trees curving towards one another. I felt myself held fast in that beautiful light that embraces all of the world.

I’m very glad for these kinds of spaces and for hours that feel sacred in a world where there hardly seems to be time for anything sacred anymore.

I reflect on what is sacred as I contemplate the rise of generative AI and how quick people are to embrace it.

There is a tendency to excuse the use of it, even when we know its origins, even after we have been told how these tools have been built in an exploitative manner. We say: I just wanted to make this piece of art in just this way.

We forget that the beauty of making lies in how we collaborate and work together with other makers. It lies in the give and take between musicians and text writers, between a screenwriter and a film-maker, between a novelist and their editor and all the other people in-between who enrich not just the work, but enrich us as human beings. The beauty of making isn’t just about the product or the end-result. It’s about discovery and joyful surprise when the unexpected happens.

I was talking about this with someone who works in IT, expressing my feelings about generative AI and his reply to me was quite straight to the point. “If you are wondering why the work comes out sounding European or Western, it’s because the technology was developed in the West. It’s only logical that this technology is skewed towards that kind of sound or that kind of way of formulating things.”

It was something that set me to thinking even as people tell me that “we have to accept that this and that kind of work will soon be obsolete.” (The this and that kind of work often refers to work done by editors or translators or copy editors or writers or songwriters. Like gosh…it covers everything. Soon being human will be obsolete too.)

Other lines I keep hearing: “You just don’t understand how it works.” and “It’s inevitable.”

And maybe that’s true. Maybe in time, a machine will be able to think independently and convey nuance in ways I never imagined…but I still will rage.

I write this thinking about indigeneity and indigenous ways of being. I write thinking about intentions and intentionality. When I sit down to write, I don’t choose words thinking I want to sound like so and so. Whether I am writing or making a piece of art or thinking about which registers to use when I’m practicing on the organ, I am thinking of what I want to convey. I choose my sound with intention, I choose my palette of words and colour with care. I learn from the mistakes I make and often discover that what my son told me at the start of my art-making journey is true: there are no mistakes. There are only happy accidents. Often it’s these happy accidents that enrich us. We learn by failing. We become richer as we forgive ourselves for failing (the forgiving part is a lot harder than it sounds, btw.)

On Sunday, the preacher at the church asked us “what is art?”. And I realised that we need to answer that more clearly and with much more intention in this age when a lot of art, music and literature is being generated by AI. We need to ask ourselves what makes art valuable to us and why do we engage in it? Why do we invest time and effort in it? Why do we value it?

Reading back, I realise that this isn’t a neat and tidy entry. It hops and springs and warbles about. Like birdsong interspersed by the honking of geese and the barking of dogs and the white noise of wheels somewhere in the distance. It’s a fluffy bunny running pell-mell towards something until it realises the shape looming up ahead is a human.

I’ll post this anyway, because it is just like life.

(Some birdsong from this morning’s walk.)

Musical Adventures: In search of sound

/ RCRuiz

(If you prefer, you can listen to the audio recording of this post. It’s a 6 minute listen.)

I’ll be having my third organ lesson soon, and I realise that it won’t be long before I need an instrument with at least twenty-seven foot pedals to practice on when I’m at home. My organ teacher, B. K., recommended that I make a visit to Stolk Orgels, the place where he’d bought his own organ. 

So, we made the trip to Stolk; an establishment that boasts quite a reasonable collection of new and occasion organs. 

B.K. had told me that he doesn’t like the Hauptwerk organ because it’s actually a computer. 

There was a Hauptwerk organ in Stolk, and after the showroom organist had shown us a selection from their stock of new organs, he showed us what a Hauptwerk organ can do and why it’s become quite popular. 

It was interesting to learn that you can programme a Hauptwerk to sound like the any famous pipe organ you fancy. So, you can pick anything from the organ in Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk to the Notre-Dame de Valerie in Switzerland. 

The showroom organist told us that he’d recently had a Hauptwerk organ made to spec and it was a source of continuing frustration. When the computer works, it’s great, but when the computer breaks down, it’s a drama. (I’m sure there are people who love this kind of organ, but I quickly realised it wasn’t for me.)

I also didn’t dare to ask how much these things cost new because by the time we headed into the occasion section, it was pretty clear that even a secondhand organ was going to be a pricey investment. 

We listened to the organist as he played on a Johannus organ which is one of the best known brands in the world of organs. It has a clear and robust sound and I suppose this is one of the reasons why it’s so well-liked. We also listened to the Content organ which has a warmer, more romantic sound. 

I can’t help thinking about the time I went in search of a piano. 

Granted, my Grotrian Steinweg has been refurbished, but when I heard it for the first time, I felt something in my insides. Something that said: this is the one. 

My piano tuner says that old pianos have this warmth about their sound that you don’t get in modern pianos. Maybe a Fazioli would have it. As I’ve never played on one, I wouldn’t know. I once played on an older Bechstein and the feelings I had for that piano are similar for the feelings I have for my Grotrian. Maybe I just love the sound of instruments that carry some sort of history with them. 

I didn’t have this feeling with the organs we saw in the main showroom. There wasn’t this moment of wowness and ‘I am in love’.

So, I asked the organist/showroom person, if he’d ever heard of Eminent organs. Jan used to work for Eminent and he once put together an organ which was given a place in his mother’s bedroom. The funny thing is, no one played the organ in that house and except for the few moments when the grandkids were allowed to play around with the thing, we hardly ever saw or heard it. Still, I was curious if the name Eminent organs meant something to the organist who was showing us around. 

Eminent organs are Dutch-made organs. There’s an entire history about the company on the Eminent website, but the showroom specialist told us that they’ve fallen behind in terms of commercial viability. A trivia thing, which may or may not be true, was that there were two people left building these organs at the mother company. It made me a bit sad to hear this. 

“It just so happens that I have a beautiful Eminent in the back,” the organist told us. 

He led us to the backroom and showed us an organ with a beautiful honey oak cabinet. It had real wood levers, it had something like 6 or 8 woofers (I don’t remember the exact number) and it had come from the home of an 80-year old man who could no longer see well enough to play the organ. It was magnificent. 

As we stood there in awe, the organist took his seat at the organ, pulled out registers and started to play. 

Sound. 

I remember falling in love with the sound of a pipe organ being played in the belly of an old Dutch church. There’s nothing like it really. It sounds and resounds all around you and for a while, it feels as if you are part of this gigantic resonance. You are inside this instrument and when you open your mouth and sing, your voice joins with the voices coming from those pipes. 

Of course, house organs can’t possibly compare, but the sound this organ produced captured my imagination. It was like golden light, clear and warm wrapping itself around the listener. For a while, I was spellbound. I wanted to sit at this instrument, I wanted to press its keys, I wanted to be embraced in its sound. 

Alas, this organ was too large. (It was also way beyond my budget) 

Practicality overrules the desire to own a thing. I have seen and heard a beautiful and enchanting thing. It doesn’t mean I have to own it.

Friday’s event for Queer History Month

/ RCRuiz

On Friday, I attended IHLIA‘s programme for the sixth edition of Queer History Month. The first part was taken up by a keynote speech (in Dutch), and a panel (in Dutch) which included the keynote speaker and the curator overseeing an exposition for World Pride at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. For a while, I felt like I was attending a college lecture. The keynote being one where the speaker, Tamara Kloppers (a researcher at the museum) presented her findings from researching art and objects in the museum that speak of queer history.

We already know that Queer History has always been there, except it’s often been muffled or hidden away or pushed aside because history is often dictated by those who hold power (and money). But it is interesting in an intellectual brainy kind of way where yeah…look we have found this in the archives and here is the evidence.

I did find myself wondering what these findings and discoveries could mean for those coming from queer refugee communities.

As Sorab Roustayar (founder of Queer City and Fite Club) succinctly put it, “Who are these recovered items for anyway? Many of us don’t have a museum card and entrance fees to museums is really expensive.”

So yeah…who does the research serve? Does it serve the community? Or does it serve the insitutions?

What stood out to me was the story of how these pieces of art became part of museum archives. I suppose researchers don’t speculate on the reasoning behind these donations, but I can’t help but think of how a lot of history is personal as well as political.

How does what is uncovered or recovered echo in current spaces? In what ways do we want these findings to echo onwards? Queer bodies continue to be marginalised and pushed aside even in spaces and institutions that want to be seen as queer-friendly.

I have to think of the sharp contrast between the insitutional vibe and the community vibe because once the community panel came on, you could feel the vibe shift in the room. Yes, we still talk about history, but we talk about history that’s happening now and how marginalised communities are making histories which are often elided, underfunded and even undocumented.

(I hope we are not making these records only to have them be hidden in the archives.)

I have to say that I like the IHLIA crew. They’re warm, approachable and friendly. It’s nice to know that there is this possibility to send an email and someone will respond who will remember your name and who will say: okay, just send me an email and we can talk if you need help with your community or your projects. It’s these kinds of connections that help us feel supported. Community work can sometimes feel like shouting into the void. But, as Arlo (from the last panel) says: “you keep showing up because that’s what community is about. You just have to keep showing up.”

You can still visit the annual exposition Queer History month exhibit at the IHLIA plein in the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam (the one at the East Dock near Amsterdam Central Station). Collections from five participating museums are on display together with archive materials from IHLIA to put these objects in context.

There was a really excellent spoken word performance from Duraa. You can check out her website here.

Thanks again for reading. Small movements lead to big movements. May grace and peace be always with you.

The ongoing journey

/ RCRuiz

I’m still basking in the IFFR glow of watching our young filmmakers from Moving Love having that epiphany of: I am a filmmaker.

They finished the course, they made these films, and so they are deserving of that title: filmmaker. I’m looking forward to the premiere when all of the moving portraits will be seen in one space. At present, we continue to send out feelers for other possible locations as we want to bring these films all over The Netherlands and hopefully beyond The Netherlands.

My role as consultant and coach for this project is coming to a close, but I still feel connected to these young people. I very much wish that as they continue on with their journey, they will be able to find people who will help them grow further in their craft.

On Friday’s IFFR film-showing, I met a young filmmaker from Berlin whose film called Unbelong moved me so much. Pars Loren is a non-binary artist and filmmaker and for those interested in finding out more about them, they have an online presence on instagram.

Unbelong is like a visual poem. It has beautifully haunting imagery combining footage from Pars’s life with other archival footage. All throughout the film, we hear Pars’s voice telling us a story, we are invited to be part of the inner world of the self. Unbelong is vulnerable and intensely personal, and it speaks to us on a plane where we connect with that vulnerability and acknowledge the courage it takes to be so. If you ever have the chance to see this film, I want to encourage you to do so.

Unbelong will be shown during an Anatolian filmmakers in Exile event in Berlin on the 14th of February. This event is a Turkish event. but there will be another showing on the 7th of May at the Frauenzentrum (in Berlin) in English and in German for those who prefer English or German.

Do visit Pars’ website for more details.

On another note: I started organ lessons this Monday and am feeling quite rejuvenated and excited. It’s a feeling pretty similar to when I was studying at the conservatory back home in The Philippines. But where I used to dread piano lessons, I’m looking forward to my organ lessons. I can’t fit an organ in my house, but the digitaal piano has an organ set-up which helps in terms of understanding the difference in technique. I’m starting with the first of Bach’s eight preludes and fugues for the organ and with the second movement of Handel’s Organ Concerto HVW 295, which I’m told is called the Cuckoo concerto.

There are still a number of things to write about, but I thought I’d keep it to this for this post.

May blessings and peace be with you always and thank you for dropping by.

What I have been up to

/ RCRuiz

In November and December, we had the workshops for Moving Love which is a film project for LGBTQ+ asylumseekers in the Netherlands where participants who are interested in film-making are given the basic knowledge and training needed to help them on the journey towards making a film.

We had three intense day-long workshops in Ede-Wageningen which is more than an hour away by public transport. It meant an early start on the road and a late return home, but it was incredibly rewarding and I learned quite a bit too about how films are made. After the workshop days, participants were scheduled for their own shoots. The intention being for each participant to create two 1-2 minute moving portraits or micro films. I didn’t get to attend the shooting days as my presence wasn’t needed during those days, but I did get some small insight into how those shooting days went and what glimpses I got looked amazing.

On the 6th of February, raw versions of some of the film portraits will be shown at the Fenix in Rotterdam as part of the IFFR Filmclub x COC Rotterdam x Queer Gym programme. Entrance is free and I understand that there will be a q&a for participants.

This January has been quite busy as I am facilitating for a community writing project under Queer Work. It’s quite a lovely project and one after my own heart as we talk about writing and memoir. I’ve experimented with making a video invitation for this project and have also learned how to make a proper voice recording. It’s quite fun to try out new things.

On the 5th of February, I will be giving a workshop at the Vrije University of Amsterdam. I’m looking forward to talking about the work I do and to share the tools that I use as part of my work. Let’s see. The plan is to make this something fun and collaborative.

During the December break, I had time to read Karin Tidbeck’s beautiful book, The Memory Theater. To my mind, there’s no one who writes like Karin. Karin’s prose is like an enchantment, and I found myself quite immersed in the world of the garden, but more importantly, I found myself just traveling along with Dora and Thistle and wanting to know what happens next. It is a fairytale, one that doesn’t evade what’s harsh or cruel about the world, but it also reveals to us the beauty in relations and connections and it opens us to the possibilities of the world beyond what the eye can see. Reading this book made me miss conversations had with Karin. I know I must make time to look up email addresses and write. A lot of times, I write letters in my mind, but then I forget when I sit down again.

Talking about letters, I have been dipping into Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989. I tried making a recording of one of the letters and if I succeed in doing so, I might post an attempt at an audio recording. I’m practicing with audacity and with another programme as the possibility of doing a podcast has arisen in the course of conversations with another group of friends. We’ll see. We’ll see.

2026 is an open door and I am thankful for time and for how there is always room to learn and explore new things.

There is a lot to worry about with what’s going on with the world. Sometimes, it seems like the madness of the garden has appeared in the world we live in, but in the midst of all the mayhem, I hope that we will continue to remember joy and magic and that we hold on to what connects us to one another.

(I want to apologise for some mispronounciations. I did try my best to get the names right. Non-native English speaker here.)

Thanks so much for passing by. May you find pockets of peace in your daily life.

Fruits of my write-a-thon

/ RCRuiz

If you’ll look at the sidebar (or if you’re on the phone, it’s probably going to be the footer), you’ll notice that I’ve posted two lovely badges from the Clarion West Write-a-thon. It’s been a while since I felt up to participating in the write-a-thon, but this year felt like an important year. I wanted to find a way to write about books again. For some reason going back to the bookblog felt too raw. The place she left behind is still right there and I had a jolt when I realised that it’s been nine years since we last talked about books.

Every memory I have of me and my sister is related to us reading books together, arguing over who would read what book first, complaining about how slow the other person was at finishing a book (no backtracking allowed), arguing over what kinds of books were best, discussing the pros and cons of a book, disagreeing over characters and how things unfolded in a book–and a really bad phase when I was so snobbish about my sister’s love of romance books that I got her some of those body rippers for a present. (She really hated me for that and I regretted it a lot because it wasn’t a very loving thing to do.)

I couldn’t understand the appeal of Mills & Boons romances with men treating women like trash and women still going back to those kinds of men because of ‘melt’. We argued about that too and discussed alternative endings where women would look down their noses at those men and say: ‘I am perfectly fine on my own and who needs love if it means being treated like you are less than just because.’

So, when I got my reading mojo back and tentatively started reading novels again, I missed being able to send her an email and ask her what she thought. I imagined us having face time conversations about details in books that we noticed. What we liked and what we didn’t like and what we wished were different or what we wished we could see more of.

Perhaps it was my sister nudging this bright idea towards me from where she now lives. Why not just blog about the books I was reading alongside blogging my thoughts on the work I was doing? Why not make that a write-a-thon goal alongside revisiting The Cartographer and finding out what I needed to do to make it work this time? Make it not too stressful because writing a thousand words a day might not be doable after not writing for a long time.

It took me reading and writing about Nisi Shawl’s book to find a way to keep the conversation going with my sister. In some way, Everfair unlocked that space where I could write without feeling pressured to review. It was like writing to my sister and trying not to give away spoilers about this novel I’d read. I loved it so much and wanted so much to talk about it with her that I wanted her to read it too. I might give away bits and pieces but not all because she would really scold me if I did that in the real. Writing about Everfair connected me to that part belonging to my sister and the history of books between us.

In between EverFair and preparing for LIMBO’s booklet event, I decided to go read other books on my reader. Long train rides are really great for catching up on reading. I finished R.S.A. Garcia’s The Nightward in less than a week while traveling back and forth to Amsterdam. I finished reading Martha Wells’s City of Bones even quicker because i was traveling almost everyday. Along the way, I noticed how my reading speed seemed to be improving along with my ability to keep focus. (I do have notes and plan to write that reading post sometime soon.)

Perhaps one of the realisations I’ve had is how when we love to read, we tend to take it for granted. I started reading at an early age, so did my sister. I never imagined that I would be not able to read until chemo affected my ability to focus and hold onto things I’d read. I had to learn to be kind to myself and also I grieved a little bit because I didn’t know if I’d get my reading mojo back. Now, reading feels like a miracle. It’s something I’m so thankful for and it’s a reminder not to take things for granted.

I didn’t realise that today was the last day of the write-a-thon until I got the email. It was also stunning to get the mail telling me that a good friend had pushed my write-a-thon goal way past my original funding goal. I am incredibly moved.

During the worldbuilding workshop that I gave for the Springschool Co-creation Lab, I talked about the potential of science fiction to help us think around possibilities. How science fiction at its very best challenges us to think of different ways of being in the world. Science Fiction has this potential for us to dream of different kinds of worlds, different ways of being in community and in relation to and with one another.

It’s my hope that we continue to encourage one another not just to think about how to write great stories, but more importantly to think on how we can create small movements that could lead to change in the spaces we move in. Let’s encourage each other to keep asking questions, to think of different ways of being in the world, to question why we do what we do when we do them and to live and create with intentionality.

Thank you for passing by. Maraming salamat and may blessings and peace be with you.

*Big shoutout to my dear friend, Vicki, who pushed me way past my writeathon goal. Thank you so so much.

**If you want to help us achieve 100%, the fundraiser is still open. Click on this sentence to visit the writeathon page.

Sitting with the discomfort

/ RCRuiz

I’m thinking again today about Aminata Cairo’s visit with us in LIMBO and the talk she gave about what it means to hold space for one another and how while we long for safe spaces, even such spaces can be fraught because of how we are. So, how do we hold space for one another? How do we make it possible for us to continue to be in community and to share space and make it feel safe and joyful and loving for all who share the space?

It’s something I’ve been thinking on as recent conversations keep pointing me in this direction, including one where I inadvertently created some discomfort because I wasn’t intentional. I think about intentionality and mindfulness and how these words are more than buzz words. I mean, the wellness industry has hijacked mindfulness so the word has kind of become one of those buzzwords–it’s not wrong usage, but its meaning has kind of diluted.

To be mindful is to be present in the moment and therapists often use being mindful to refer to therapy techniques such as meditation. Often when we speak of mindfulness, we think: Oh, let me do breathing exercises or let me do grounding work or let me be present in my body. And people then say: I’m practicing mindfulness. These are all great things to do but mindfulness isn’t just that.

To be mindful is to be conscious of how our words and our actions ripple and echo in spaces. Our actions and words, even the emotions we express if done without intention can hurt even when hurt or harm is the farthest from our minds. I tend to be less mindful when I’m tired or when I’m in a hurry or when I’m distracted. It’s why I try to put away my phone when I know I’m going to meet people. It’s okay if I don’t get that selfie. I was fully present and focused on the person I was meeting. (Although I’m kicking myself now because I should have thought about asking for one, but I just didn’t think about it.)

So what happens when discomfort arises in communal spaces? How do we resolve the discomfort? I think the best starting point is to start from knowing where the other person is coming from. Was it intentional? Or was it simply thoughtlessness? It helps when we raise the point and say: hey, could you be a little more mindful about this matter?

How do we respond when we cause the discomfort?

In a conversation with a very good friend, we talked about the discomfort that arises when we feel that something is happening and we can’t put our finger on it. It’s similar to discomfort that arises when white people enter spaces meant for people of colour and proceed to take the lead or take a positions of leadership even when they are not asked to do so. What do we do about that discomfort?

The question I would ask is: are we able to live with that discomfort? Can we put it aside and still be our full self in the space? If we can’t, do we feel safe enough and seen enough to open a conversation about it? For the person faced with this kind of honesty, the question becomes how do we receive it? Because honestly, it’s not enough to say I’m sorry. Sorry is just a first step, the next step is doing better. (Hence, self-examination.) As I say to my son, making mistakes is inevitable in life. What’s important is what we do when we make them and whether we learn from them or proceed to just do them all over again. And sometimes self-examination means removing yourself from the space and allowing people space to breathe. I know, it feels drastic. But it’s not for others to appease me if I am the cause of discomfort. It’s my job to do the work so I can be in community again.

I’m writing as I process these things because I want to make space in my head to write about Maison the Faux’s The Tail (not giving away spoilers) and I also want to make space to write about Nisi Shawl’s excellent Everfair. I’m 40% in! And as one of my dear friends said with a laugh: “Rochita, this is how I know you are reading on a kindle reader because you don’t tell me what page you’re on but you’re telling me you’re so many percent into a book.” (You can laugh now. Times have certainly changed.)

If you’d like to sponsor me during the Clarion West write-a-thon, here’s the link:

Rochita’s Write-a-thon page

Blessings and peace and thanks again for dropping by.

(I actually inserted that button because I have no graphics for the page and wordpress won’t let me embed the page.)

Letting go of perfection

/ RCRuiz

After a while, the portrait I’d been wrestling with made me feel so dissatisfied, I decided to turn its face away from me. Maybe it was the colours I’d been using, maybe it was because I needed a break, but the more I worked on it, the more I felt as if I wasn’t getting anywhere near where I wanted to be. It’s funny to write this when during my last entry, I felt as if I’d had a breakthrough.

So, I decided to step away from the portrait. I didn’t work on it for a couple of days. I didn’t even look at it. I played with my watercolours and didn’t require myself to do anything that was like a project.

There wasn’t really much time to dwell because I had the regular check-up which consists of a bloodwork and a CT scan. I didn’t have time to dwell on the CT-scan because my youngest son was leaving for the traditional end-of-school holiday (it’s a Dutch thing where young people go on holiday with their mates at the end of senior high). It’s kind of difficult to stress about a scan when you’re making sure that your son won’t miss his flight and it’s kind of difficult to stress about a portrait when you remember you have to go to the hospital.

After a busy couple of days, I decided I needed a break. I made a date to meet up with my eldest son in the city and we went shopping for some things (in my case it was art supplies).

The great thing about taking such a break is how there’s time to think while on the train ride to and from the big city. I thought about that little voice that makes tiny sounds of disapproval in the back of our heads. We don’t register it as disapproval because we’re so used to hearing it. It’s a voice that says: Oh, that’s not good enough. Oh, that nose doesn’t look right. Oh, are you sure you want to use that shade of red? Oh. Now you’ve done it. You’re overworking it. You’re doing it all wrong. You’ll never be good at this.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a painting or a story or a book report, our first and harshest critic is that tiny voice that causes us to tense up and become so focused on being perfect we end up helplessly throwing our hands up in the air and saying: I cannot.

There’s a great little clip I stumbled upon on youtube where a pianist is playing one of Chopin’s etudes (I forget the name but it’s one my mom played a lot). Over a section of the clip with the beautiful cascading tones of the piano, there’s a caption: What the audience hears when the pianist plays this piece. Right after this, there’s a section where the notes are clanging together in disharmony. The caption says: what the pianist hears when playing this piece.

It’s a funny clip, but it’s so apt. It doesn’t matter what art form we practice. Whether it’s making music or making art or writing, somehow we tend to hyperfocus on that one thing that just isn’t working. And it’s all that tiny little self-critical voice will let us focus on.

I laugh as I write this because it seems like this is a lesson that keeps returning to me. In the chase after an elusive perfection, we lose sight of what makes us love the things that we do.

Blessings and peace to you who read this. Thank you for dropping by.