When you reach midlife and are made to truly pause, frozen in horror by a tidal wave of grief of lives ended, personal loss and our Earth relentlessly harmed….when you look inside for surety and solace and all you see is a multitude of selves… how do you know who you are?
REBECCA @ Issue no. 291My muses have left me and I have lost all motivation to create as a film and music maker. Have you ever felt alien to yourself and your identity as an artist?
TAM @ Issue no. 274I don’t know who I am. My childhood with a father who was a clever multi-instrumentalist but in his heart was sad and angry at what had happened to him in his own childhood, led me to feel as if I had to be a protector of my mum and sister. Also it was a case of me becoming a chronic people pleaser and to have never developed properly as an adult. I feel like I have so much to offer as I’m very creative and I love to help people but I feel unable to move forward. I want to make so much music and art but I’m stuck still and I don’t know why. I guess I’m asking how I can find my own identity.
KELLIE @ Issue no. 240My oldest child just turned 19. When they were born, she was called Maisie. They are now calling themself Claude and using male pronouns. I struggle with it out of habit. I understand intellectually, but something has me resist calling the person who was once my daughter “him”. And as for Claude, well – I just don’t like the sound of it. I use nicknames. I work around pronouns. It is complicated. They have told me that it is like armor – a mask that makes them stronger in public – that they are a proud woman but feel more comfortable as “he”. with the state of traditional gender roles, it makes sense that this generation would rebel against them the same way that we rejected all manner of norms and mores. but this is not the point. The point is that I have introduced my child to your work, and it has become a topic that we bond over. It started with Curse of Millhaven (which she began illustrating) and progressed. She texted me from the city bus today to tell me that Jubilee Street came on her playlist during her ride today, and she wept. I received a text shortly after that which read “O Children” is on now – I think it is my third favorite. To be fair, I really dismissed Lyre of Orpheus. I have mentioned why before. I couldn’t afford to buy records, I took it out of the library, it wasn’t where I was at, etc.. But my kid loved it, so I put the song on. And I wept. I had actual goosebumps. That my child loves that song is beautiful. And that I can say to my child – this is something that I deeply understand as a parent and as a child – is something that I am so grateful for. I was going to bother you to play all manner of old songs that I like when you play here in fall. Things that you will probably not play that I will feel clever for requesting. A Box For Black Paul. Knocking on Joe. Good piano songs. But instead, I will ask you to please play “O Children” in Minnesota, and if you think of it, please say that it is for Claude.
Damon @ Issue no. 239How to find yourself again when you feel like you have strayed so far from who you used to be?
SARAH @ Issue no. 150I feel that our identity is a patchwork of desires, choices, affiliation, eccentricity. [ ] I found that, sometimes, those identities that inhabit me are in conflict and it is hard to cope with this lack of coherence. Do you have any thoughts on how to make our inner selves “coherent” or how to let all the bits fit together? Do you think that is necessary?
ELEONORA @ Issue no. 99