Bored

The voices… boy do they got a lot to say. “I can’t do it. I don’t know how. I’m tired. I’m no good anyway, so why waste my time? No one will care. I should be doing something. I should BE something. If I was one of the cool kids I’d buy a 1994 T-top Camaro, get it running, reupholster the seats with teal velvet and spiff it up with a gold metal-flake paint job. Then I’d really be living.”

Until then, though, I’ll be here on this sofa mindlessly stuck in a loop between checking email, Insta, twitter, email, then Insta again. I can’t allow myself to get bored. Something terrible might happen. I don’t know what, but the unease of that keeps me planted here like a sea squirt who absorbed its brain when it found a spot on the seafloor and set down roots once and for all.”

Yes, sea squirts really do digest their brain after they’ve planted themselves. That’s about what I fear will happen to me if I stop moving even for a moment. I’m not allowed to be bored ever.

But that’s just me. Do you fear boredom? What prevents you from being present to the immensely rich detail and possibility of each moment? Because… it’s there.

It's very grounding just to see things as they are. I will read what I just wrote because it has brought me to this point.

The bright red hibiscus and honey tea spilled onto the bed. I saw the blood it represented immediately. It seemed almost pointless to "clean it up." Aren't we just transferring the dirt from one piece of cloth to another? But then I saw the mold and the mildew that would surely happen if I didn't quickly I hasten to clear off the stuff to get the towel beside my bed. I hadn't touched it yet in these three days of misery. So many tears yet none, none of them moved into the waiting towel. I hadn't even taken a shower with it.

What I kept hearing repeated over and over in my head was “you can wash a towel” – that's why it's not pointless to move the dirt in the water from one piece of cloth to another. You can wash it out.

I saw myself, the healer. Sometimes people are afraid that their energy is gonna stay in me, and that their tears will stick to me. I'm a towel. You're not hurting me. This is what I'm here to do. This is why we have towels. They're not special.

You can wash a towel.

You can throw it away. You can make it into a dirty rag. When it's finally done you say “thank you,” and you let it go.

You can wash a towel… that's why they exist. For a minute though, I didn't see any difference between the sacred cloth and a towel.

I have this very dear piece of silk that I carry with me that's very sacred to me. It's been on my altar. It was made at the beginning of this seven-year journey that I realized I'm just completing.

I took a photo that's printed on this piece of silk in Thailand. It's of a ladyboy at a drag show. I remember sitting alone in Chiang Mai drinking a very sugary, terrible, overpriced cocktail. I was so happy I was crying tears of joy to be there. I was so grateful to find myself setting myself free from the last stable paycheck that I was going to have in a really long time, for seven years or maybe forever. I took that photo and later I made it into art in another very beautiful sacred moment of creation.

I had the faith in myself to say “this is worthy of being printed on silk. This is my art and it's worthy of being printed on silk.” I had it done in London, and they did a beautiful job.

It scares people when I actually show the scarf to them unfurled. When it's all wrapped up around my neck, it's just beautiful colors and patterns.

I love that it has a duality, though. I know it's scary to behold it if I turn it towards you. I know which direction is up — I know which direction you will see the eyes staring back at you where it'll snap into recognition and you'll never not know what that scarf means again. Always going forward you’ll carry the presence of that beautiful expression of the Lady Boy with all the sorrow that it took to live into their truth of who they are to bring that joy.

I understood then that a towel and a sacred cloth are not the same.

There's part of me that thinks I should clean up a mess with that silk. It's just never gonna happen, I don't think. It would have to be a very special mess for me to take that silk cloth and say "I wish to inhabit whatever stains you impart because they will add to the beauty of this sacred cloth."

But, it will never be a towel.

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