For Dear Life,
“Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.” -Sylvia Plath
Like many, I found myself grappling with feelings of disconnection during the Covid pandemic. Unsure of my role as a partner and a mother, I found myself with little or no chance for personal growth, no voice, no control and bound by the everyday routine of domestic chores. I felt scared, unsafe and trapped in my story. I was slowly disappearing.
Feelings of emotional detachment and low self-esteem made me reluctant to turn the camera on myself, so I used Barbie as my muse and my voice. In my childhood, she represented the perfect girl in a perfect world. Barbie can be manipulated into different poses and positions which seemed very fitting as, at the time, I felt like I was constantly shape-shifting as I tried to find some sense of self, purpose and direction.
For Dear Life,
“Oh Hi!”
“I can hear you, can you hear me?”
So hard to pinpoint the beginning of the spread: the crippling, suffocating spread.
Fog descended upon a vibrant landscape. Joy was covered over, compacted down into a hard, dense, sadness.
I can’t breathe
It seeped into all the corners, a germ, a virus, a disease of the blood, there was no stopping it,
all consuming and pervasive.
“Are you ok, Mum? You seem a little down”
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking”
Now, back to emptiness - the hollowing loneliness of not belonging and never truly being seen.
“I can see you, can you see me?”
I am in the Chagall painting, floating in the clouds above the skyline,
untethered except for my one, small hand holding onto yours for dear life.
“I’m not strapped in properly”
“Can we stop?”
“I want to get off”
Embraced by the familiar everyday,
I am momentarily suspended but the creeping, cloying spread begins again.
It rises up from the foggy core of my self.
I cannot staunch it.
Spinning uncontrollably,
I find myself lost again.