Last November, I had a major surgery which, though absolutely helpful to correct a major misalignment in my teeth, led to a nightmare situation: diminished taste and altered sensation in the lower jaw. To say I was devastated would be to make light of the circumstances. I was completely and utterly gutted. I adored conversations over food and knowing my servings of both would be inexorably altered felt paralyzing. If left in that state, dwelling on the deficiences I had no way of preventing, I can say for near certain I would have spiraled into a depression.
Then, something curious happened: a writer and local organizer I respect highly asked me to perform work for a local Lunar New Year event. While I initially felt doubt eek out a “I’m sorry, I can’t” email template, something within me instead typed out a hesitant yes. For the weeks leading up to the ask, I had primarily only The Artist’s Way as a companion for that lonely, isolated winter I spent on healing. That daily practice of sitting down and reflecting for however long I could led to me filling out over two hundred pages. Moreover, journaling forced me to reckon with myself, someone I had willfully and mercilessly short-changed for the better half of three decades. I stopped antagonizing myself and revised all the questions I internalized. Instead of Why is this happening to me?, I began to wonder Why not give it a shot, at least once?
Please don’t hear what I’m not saying: this journey was still excruciating to endure, but what made it all bearable wasn’t the looming performance (which gave me endless bursts of panic) but the many beta-performanced I needed to go through. My voice wavered less over a booth reading at the climbing gym, over a dining table laden with food I couldn’t taste, and over a dimly lit Queens sunset with a dear friend. It wasn’t the performance that helped me envision a different version of me, it was the practice of showing up every day and building myself up to step onto a stage.
I struggle often. I fail often. What I will not do is forget what plenty these many months of stitching myself together has brought to me: the mentality to realize that both can be true. I can be in the midst of the worst circumstances, and I can be the most present I’ve ever been with myself. I can be crying and laughing about my situation, because listen: I changed careers to spend more time on culinary and writing pursuits, and it’s pretty hilarious that a few months in, a surgery changes those dreams entirely. I have faced bizarre gatekeeping by the literati, and I have found my tribe of some of the best writing friends I’ve ever had. This time has been full of paradoxes, full of life.
Do I wish this complication from my surgery didn’t arise? Sometimes, yes. I do wonder if I would have invested the same in my hunger for the arts. When threatened with the finite nature of life, that anything can disappear at a moment’s notice, I shoved fear to the corners of my mind. It still lingers, but Suleika Jaouad, The Book of Alchemy, often reminds people that one percent more curiosity than fear in life changes everything. I’ve found this to be true.
What has this revision, of choosing to show up daily, brought me? I performed two poems in front of strangers and friends at a major city landmark during a cultural festival that is near to my heart. I’ve filled up several notebooks that once sat prettily but emptily on my shelves. Projects have been started, in process, and finished. Classes taken, struggled over, and reflected upon. I’ve been published, and I’ve been rejected often. I have welcomed art across my coffee table and onto my walls, created it by brush strokes and digital pens. I have not given up on this life. I do not plan to anytime soon.