My routine is different today. I am writing to you from an airplane. Travelling alone for work and living the proverbial dream. The seeds I strategically planted, pinched, nurtured and grew are blooming. Its extremely uncomfortable to grow. I had terrible growing pains at night as a kid. My mum would sit with me while I cried – cold towel on my forehead – just anything to feel sensation somewhere else other than my calves burning while my bones stretched. I loved being the tallest girl in third grade.
I wonder what that cold compress is for the growing pains we have as adults. The moments we’re asked to step up, be big, trust, jump, leap, fall, leap right into the net we Spiderman *thwiped* out below us to catch our fall. The moments we are given exactly what we set out to do. Why does it still feel so fucking hard?
Sometimes I feel like its my fault, like I am not “good enough” for my dreams, or maybe what I want is not what I want at all. Both are untrue I know this, a seed planted not by me but a weed I need to pull. I feel like an alien, set down in the wrong body, one mission but the road feels wrong. I know I am not an alien, just autistic.
I have been on what I have been calling another neurodivergence diagnosis for the last 7 months. I’ve been in doctors offices, waiting lists after waiting list, therapists, self evaluation sheet after fucking self evaluation sheet.
So many parts of me is scared to share this. Scared to talk about something without the badge of formal diagnosis (there really isn’t some glossy badge to collect) or to have some big knowledge, or deep learning or nicely packaged way to present this thing. Scared I am not autistic enough or whatever the world wants to package up and do with neurodivergent woman. Scared I am not healed or healing or healed enough for some version of let me help people understand this disability they can check off. Scared because white people clamour for any thread of marginalized oppression and badges to signal to others “hey I am not like the rest, I suffer too”. The cool alt kids oppression.
When I think of art, I think of being seen. And that’s what I think I want in this moment. I waffled if I wanted to share this part of myself on the internet like this. Judged myself for even waffling because this is what my brain thinks with life events but then stopped judging myself because 1. I put myself here 2. I like it. I like it a lot. I like being seen.
I like that I can show up to the page and share part of me with the world. I think that’s all we’re ever trying to do with our art, be seen in some tiny way. The being seen is the most terrifying park. But being seen is what makes it just from idea seed you and I can have, into the art. The sharing, the connection, the making of the ripple. The part that sees parts of me in you. What is art but not just a series of mirrors?
I have been thinking about the role of art and autism – what parts of me want to be seen in my art? What do I want to share? My friend Carly (a Toronto based therapist) reminded me that while self diagnosis is valid in an increasingly difficult lack of health care crisis – community diagnosis is something I can access. To be seen by your people, finding a community and coping in that. To not just be seen but be held, too.
Diagnosis is the weirdest word to be using in this scenario too. I keep coming back to it. Its not cancer, nothing about me is defective, there is nothing to cut out, wrong, in need of healing or even really changed. Its not new, its part of me that’s always been there and we can (I have) yell about what stops autistic woman from getting diagnosed. But to call it life changing feels really only life changing to me. An understanding of myself that finally feels like yah that’s me. To everyone else, it really is just same old alien Phoebe.
So Hi, I am Phoebe. I am not an alien – though I feel like one – just autistic. I think eye contact is for serial killers, I’m going to have a conniption if there is a change in my routine (say, travel), unclear instructions or expectations of me feel like a knife, and I am wildly imaginative and literal with my words.
But I really hand this back to you. If we are here to create, together. What part of you wants to be seen today? What part is crying out for attention? Or maybe for art? I’d love to hear from you in below 🌸
NEW Substack Community Offering // Open Studio Nov 16th
Is this a weird transition? I don’t think so honestly – if the goal of this essay is being seen in my art – I am gonna be seen 🪞
Monthly Open Studio! Time for creatives to gather! A space to soak in!
I am so pleased to gather this way. It makes so much sense to me to consolidate my work in this place where I actually have a back and forth with you. The mirroring of our art back and forth. Our first monthly creative check in AKA Open studio will be on Nov 16th at 7pm EST
We will be talking about perfectionism in art! How to “overcome it” how it shows up for us, maybe how it stops us from writing the essay we’ve had in the drafts folder for 7 months 🙃) We’ll be starting with 15 min of journaling, a short lesson with me (Phoebe!) and then open discussion + group coaching. 60 min total. 60 minutes of being together. 60 min of being seen.
Monthly subscribers get access to locked essays, community events and new incoming feedback thread. A subscribers only chat 📱
Or can join us for $15 CAD/ month or if you commit to a year I am running a 15% off promo 💃🏻
Thanks for reading the Creators Dispatch. A weekly essay about the creative journey! Here I write about being an artist, human, angry woman on the internet and living in the dumpster fire of a world that says not to make your art. If what I say here inspires you (or pisses you off 🥰) share my work with the group chat, or your best friends neighbour. Word of mouth is the most special and radical way of sharing – plus it helps put the Zuck 🏄♂️ out of business 👼
FINDINGS 🗺️
- latest on Media literacy + the news + sharing + learning
This from Lexi aT Pretty Decent. Like I am trying to do THIS
Seeing your friends art in the world! So proud of pal Stylo Starr for brightening up my mall trip 💎
I was on Thinking About Podcast a couple weeks ago and forgot to tell you! We chatted being a human on the internet, making moeny from art, getting over ourselves, kinda 🙃
xx
Phoebe 💕
*typos are left to reflect the fury passion and 3D humaness of being a passionate freak in the world – and you know not a robot *beep boop* I am just a human girlie living on earth with a mortal brain 🤸♀️
Thirsty for more? I deeply believe in paying artists for their work and the work art/content we consume (think modern day patron!). To be cohesive with my values I allow readers to pay for the work I create here. If you love my writing, get value and resource from it consider becoming a paid subscriber! Paid subscribers get access to more of my writing and *new* monthly community events!
The part of us that just wants to *be seen* I think is why we make our art. What part of you wants to be seen today? What are you creating with that? 🖌️