#54: a collection of 12am notes
collected from the depths of my Notes app
I’m proud of how much creative work I’ve been sharing this year. Each one has felt a little less of a risk than the last, with less questions about “oh god what will people think”. I guess that’s the risk and reward of art haha. It’s gotta be the real thing to mean anything.
Anyway, here are some things I’ve written late at night on my phone. Maybe they’ll mean something to you too.
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I think attention and magic are linked.
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I don’t want to be changed. I fought so hard to get to know myself.
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The great program, the universal code - as it speaks, so it creates.
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Me at midnight in a spacious apartment in downtown Toronto, laying in bed in a white t-shirt, legs thrown over my dog who’s sleeping in my bed. She’s on top of a thin beige blanket that’s meant to keep her hair off the duvet, which has been wildly unsuccessful. I can feel her breathing beneath me, moving from shallow to rapid, following whatever feverish dreams are flying through her head. Have you ever noticed how dogs dream with their whole bodies? So alive.
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You’ll want to throw yourself into the ocean of life with careless abandon, trusting that you’ll survive. That you’ll survive in the great thrashing, that you’ll panic in the water til you hear someone yelling Sink or swim! from the shore.
Sink or swim! They’ll yell again. Sink or swim! Like a lifeline.
A chorus of voices, hopeful, eager, cheering.
(It used to sound like a threat and now it feels like a promise)
And that’s how you’ll discover that the water is air and you move by dancing through it. You breathe it in and take no hurt. Up can be down and down can be up and it’s all up to you.
Sink or swim! The water’s just fine here.
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You know when you say a word so many times it loses meaning? Have you ever stared at your face for so long it loses meaning?
Am I beautiful? Am I ugly? Am I young? Am I old? Am I happy? Am I wise?
Each one flashing before my eyes, a total transformation as my face stays unchanged.
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There’s a language which your body knows, and a language which your mind understands. Each thinks the other a fool for not listening to the genius of its tongue.
✨
Warmly yours,
Nina