melissa mascarenhas(she/her)//
soft places to land

had i had the choice, this is the vessel i might have picked for myself. the weight of it, the smooth edges, the space within feeling like it went on forever and yet contained, held. my vessel had a lid. of course it did.


if grief is proof of love, my grief feels like the sun in my sky. warm, all encompassing and destructive, giving life to new desire, old pain, coming and going, forcing me to build and destroy and scaffold and protect. i wear my grief like shackles, working twice as hard to exist to breathe to be, torn and forced apart but together and normal and functional. grief rattling like rocks in your chest, like a coronal mass ejection, hollowing and emptying, angry and burning. where did it start? when did i change?


changing this vessel to reflect my own was an uneasy exploration. there was a shameless pity at having to break and mutilate this beautiful thing, made with intention and skill and care. there was guilt at seeing my intentions for it. there was damage control and desire to make it all mean something, make it pretty. a scramble to fill that space with all the death and the loss and the pain, finding it impossible. the materials that i was drawn to have strength and the capacity to change. smooth gampi japanese paper, translucent and resilient, simple clay that hardens in the air, elements grown and dried in my garden, metal, paint.


in notes on grief, chimamanda ngozi adichie says there may be something to the outward performance of grief in some cultures; the crying, the expression, the telling and retelling. having your sorrow be witnessed by your community has power. i am not yet sure how to present the loss of a dream, the loss of identity, the taking away of a possibility. what happens to the versions of yourself that cannot be realised? do they continue to live inside you, like ghosts? do you shatter yourself and let them out? what becomes of what that person was capable of? what does that vessel look like?



melissa mascarenhas(she/her)//
soft places to land

had i had the choice, this is the vessel i might have picked for myself. the weight of it, the smooth edges, the space within feeling like it went on forever and yet contained, held. my vessel had a lid. of course it did.


if grief is proof of love, my grief feels like the sun in my sky. warm, all encompassing and destructive, giving life to new desire, old pain, coming and going, forcing me to build and destroy and scaffold and protect. i wear my grief like shackles, working twice as hard to exist to breathe to be, torn and forced apart but together and normal and functional. grief rattling like rocks in your chest, like a coronal mass ejection, hollowing and emptying, angry and burning. where did it start? when did i change?


changing this vessel to reflect my own was an uneasy exploration. there was a shameless pity at having to break and mutilate this beautiful thing, made with intention and skill and care. there was guilt at seeing my intentions for it. there was damage control and desire to make it all mean something, make it pretty. a scramble to fill that space with all the death and the loss and the pain, finding it impossible. the materials that i was drawn to have strength and the capacity to change. smooth gampi japanese paper, translucent and resilient, simple clay that hardens in the air, elements grown and dried in my garden, metal, paint.


in notes on grief, chimamanda ngozi adichie says there may be something to the outward performance of grief in some cultures; the crying, the expression, the telling and retelling. having your sorrow be witnessed by your community has power. i am not yet sure how to present the loss of a dream, the loss of identity, the taking away of a possibility. what happens to the versions of yourself that cannot be realised? do they continue to live inside you, like ghosts? do you shatter yourself and let them out? what becomes of what that person was capable of? what does that vessel look like?

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