July and now August

forgot how to write again

In June, I decided I had had enough of Instagram and what it was doing to me so I deleted it and I stayed off for a month. Towards the end of that month, I went to Hunza with Sahar. She and I manifested this trip - from an idea thrown at each other on a morning walk in March in a park we trespassed into near McDonald’s, to the months I had to drag my butt through until I finished my degree, to July, when I almost didn’t go, and we almost didn’t have a place to stay until we did, and then there we were at the airport on the 4th of July.

The initial plan was a month, and then by the time we left it became two weeks. By our second week it became three weeks, and by our third it became four. So the month that we dreamed of ended up being exactly that. And what a time it was. I experienced so very much, so many realities, so much presence, so much eternity that contributed to my dimaghi time warp. In so many moments I felt I was floating, that someone else was witnessing this, and then I brought myself back, and every single time I did so by repeating in my head ‘I am here’.

When you are living with full hereness you don’t imagine that you might be undergoing some kind of transformation.

I have wanted to write, but I haven’t quite known what to say. I experience nuggets of profound thought gleaned not directly from but definitely as some cumulative effect of the last few weeks, perhaps more.

I got back on Instagram, too. Within a week or so of being there. I realized that there are some connections that can only be somewhat solidified on an online platform, for which I am grateful. I think I started to feel like less of a Negative Naina about everything. There is good to be found everywhere. Even in the things that bother me sometimes.

I made so many friends. Ridiculously many. I’m not sure how many of them will stay friends but they will stay with me forever. Memory is weird - everything feels like a dream. Pictures are proof but they’re so grounded in chronological time that they feel almost false.

I painted. I also drew. I drew people when I forgot how to speak. Then they became my friends. I painted on the street and at breakfast. I gifted some of my paintings - later I felt sad about perhaps never seeing them again, but in those moments it was expansive. Pieces of heart everywhere. One is hung up in one of the cafes we went to regularly, and friends have visited and tagged me in their stories. Only possible via Instagram of course.

There is also overstimulation. The spending so much time alone and then suddenly not at all. Instead of slowly coming down I have hurled myself with full force into life again in ways I never have before. Maybe I have, but right now it feels new. Then in moments of stillness memory comes back, and I feel something in my heart I may have been avoiding since the 4th of August.

But it’s coming out in my dreams - something is definitely happening there. Driving in buses through places I didn’t know two months ago; meals with people who were once strangers; fears - reservations - forgetfulnesses - insecurity. These things exist too.

I also haven’t known how to write - how do I explain to you these tiny shifts that are changing everything? I can hardly explain them to myself. They also don’t need explaining.

I started this Substack in August last year, at the tail end of a hard time and during a burst of a new sense of expansion. I realized that there is a multidimensionality to things, and me, and that there is so much to be created in this world. It is now August again, so I suppose I’d like to at least acknowledge the first anniversary of this little thing.

I think that’s all I have to say for now. I just read this back and I sound so needlessly intense. But perhaps this is an unnecessary judgment. I’m doing quite well, thank you very much.