NO MAGNUM OPUS TODAY

and the shapes of our creations

Dancing with shapes against the sky with Ariel Bader Shamai

I place each idea into a container. The container of an essay, the container of a poem, the container of a workshop or class, the container of a painting or song. They each start to take shape shifting into themselves. As if I were god and cast them down from the sky, their idea souls to land into their idea vessels. Their shapes taking form.

I’ve been trying to write a book for the last year, or I guess I have written a book in the last year but it feels less and less like a book the more I write. I can only call it a Dunning–Kruger effect where the more I write the less I know. The less of a shape it takes. And although I know a book has a couple hundred pages a few thousand words and is rectangle and heavy in my lap. My books feels oblong, shapeless against a word processor sky. It feels unstructured and flat and each time I type a word I feel closer to something but I cannot tell you what that final form is. Not because of a secret I keep with my ideas, but because it has not told me what it is yet. I feel what it might be like to chip away at marble a figure emerging from stone. Its rough edge only hitting at a form underneath.

I wrote a sticky note to place under my computer.

NO MAGNUM OPUS TODAY.

I open my computer and feel floaded with everyone else’s greatness. Their own magnum opus on display. I am so behind. I didn’t know there was a behind to fall back into but here I am, this is the abyss surely. An ad telling me the new wrong thing I am doing to my teeth, skin, hair, business, dog, relationship, bathroom towels. I am over being told there is a right and wrong way. I want to exists somewhere in the middle. Being Autistic is an inherently lonely experience. There is not imposter syndrome when it’s constant. When you are an imposter in the world thats built around you. Outside of you. I never feel like I know whats going on, I miss the beat or the meeting at brunch where we all decided we interrupt freely and make plans on the fly. I am so behind.

NO MAGNUM OPUS TODAY.

None of my good ideas come to be when I am searching for a good idea. I know writing doesn’t really happen at my desk, but in the long walk I take to a cafe. Peeling myself away from my desk feels like an act of god. A practise in showing up for what I am actually committed to.

The idea doesn’t come to me because it is an idea. It comes in the conversations I have with friends. The conversations I wished I had with friends. The missing piece I see in the world. An idea or shape of something to fill the void.

NO MAGNUM OPUS TODAY.

Too much pressure to be good. Or be funny. Or the next great writer. No overnight viral success is overnight (and if it is, it usually isn’t interesting). Too much pressure to make others like you or what you think it good. I write for Jacque, I think of what would make her bend down spitting oat milk onto the floor. I write for my sister and I, tucked into our bedroom drawing chest hair on on ourselves in eyeliner pencil and laughing under water in the apartment pool. I write for Heidi and Sierra leaned back hands over our belly’s full of food and conversation where we’ve been saying goodbye for the last hour.

NO MAGNUM OPUS TODAY.

Just showing up. Trying. Because thats all we actually have.

My roommate and LOML

Simon Peng

has been working on his manifesto of sorts. I love it, It makes me cry. A call for all the shit that says we’re wrong/bad/too much and most offensively “not creative”.

 Everyone is Creative

You're a human. You can't opt out of this. You can't take it away from others

Everyone's Creative

thanks for being here

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 🤸‍♀️(and also like, don’t be an ableist freak🥰)

Thanks for reading the Weird Girl.Here I write about being an artist, human, angry woman on the internet and breaking up with the wellness industrial complex. 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 👼