All posts filed under: Creativity

Art as Meditation

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I live in a near constant state of restlessness. Always occupied with something, anything, but unable to focus on any one activity for too long. Only a few idle seconds pass by before I’m on my phone, tumbling down a social media rabbit hole. Some nights, I find myself scrolling until the wee hours, soaking my face in blue light until I pass out from screen exhaustion, because lying there in the still, quiet darkness is too unnerving. I used to look forward to that sweet spot between lights out and slumber, time that I once used for ideating, daydreaming. These days, I feel overpowered by my own mind, as it relives past trauma or rehearses future devastation, refusing to anchor in the present moment.  The other week, I drew for the first time in months. I felt called to it that day, almost like a craving: an instinct deep in my gut told me that an art session would make me feel better. “Better” as in calm, relaxed, and present. I could best describe my mood …

I’m Taking This Problematic Book Off My Shelf

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I visited my parents’ house recently, where my teenaged bedroom is still, for the most part, intact. The Green Day and Fall Out Boy posters no longer stretch across the walls, but the bookcase is filled with my favorites from middle school and high school. I devoured young adult books by authors like Sarah Dessen and Meg Cabot throughout my adolescence. I connected to the coming-of-age stories about girls like me, struggling to figure out who they are and where they fit in. Before I discovered these treasures, I didn’t care for reading that much. Now, I can’t imagine not having a love for books.   As I reminisced, thumbing through the book spines, I noticed how virtually all these books were written by white women about white women, entangled in heterosexual romances with white men, in middle class suburbia. I pulled out the few books that featured characters of color (usually love interests or sidekicks) and flipped through the pages. Rereading passages, it was obvious to me that these characters were written from a white perspective, too. One in …