NO. 1 : on ecologies of fugitivity

questions to pack for an escape.

escape | əˈskāp, eˈskāp | 

verb

1. [no object] break free from confinement or control; elude or get free from (someone); [with object] (of words or sounds) issue involuntarily or inadvertently from (someone or their lips;

2.  fail to be noticed or remembered by (someone);

noun

an act of breaking free from confinement or control; an act of successfully avoiding something dangerous, unpleasant, or unwelcome; a form of temporary distraction from reality or routine.

“Stories are a different kind of true.”

I thought about my German driving teacher this week because I thought a lot about Tina Turner this week. Because I thought about escape this week. Because I’ve been thinking about departures anyway. Because I can’t tell when arrivals arrive. Because I’m looking for a sound that fits or resolves. Because I am straining to hear free.

My antennae have been furiously searching, leaning out and beyond my body in search of the electric awareness they sense keenly just outside us. As the days lengthened this month, but not quite to fullness, we (my awareness + I) felt sure that succinctness, wholeness, some completed something was only on the horizon.

My limbs and longing stretched past me, honing into a frequency.

I want to argue an artist’s grandest weapon is attunement, not attention, and such channel surfing comes on the back of questions, not clarity.

Like you, I am one of a network, like moss, spread across hills and mountains and creeping around trees — an ecology of flight, of liberation, of escape, and yet, rooted.

I have so many questions.

Like, what if the thing we need from them is to be let be?

& what does love look like in practice?

& when does retaliation produce?

What is beyond what we know?

Who gets to imagine a future?

How do we heal from what we chose, found, and befell?

What sacrifices enliven artistry?