soft animal time

hello! welcome to soft animal time.

this is a container that is suspended from the thrum of daily life. this is an attempt to slow my heart down. this is a palm placed on my chest, reminding me to breathe. in july 2023, i wrote a piece, inspired by mary oliver's wild geese called, “soft animal time.”

from that day forward, i realized this is the scale of time i want to continue to ebb and float. i want to spiral up and down and in and around my body. i want to investigate the bodily sensations of moving through my world. i want to dilate and compress time and play with the surrender of its passing that makes itself known in my joints and skin and muscles and bones. perhaps the only real thing i know and see and must converse with every day. i am beginning to form a more robust dialogue with it. i want to continue to explore.

maybe it's why i feel sleepy when i'm around my loved ones. maybe it's a foray into polyvagal theory and somatics. maybe it's staring at my hand until it is no longer a hand. maybe it's the anxiety i feel behind my sternum, expanding in my lungs and buzzing in my finger tips. maybe it's the soreness of my abdomen after three hours of dance. maybe it's the salty need to sweat and cry and swim in the sea.

a bit about me: i have spent, so far, eight out of ten years on a project called, 16til26*, where i have investigated time, aging, and adolescence in real-time since i was a teenager. as i plan my transition out of this project and imagine what my creative and contemplative practices look like moving forward, and past 26 years old, i cannot imagine a more worthwhile subject and muse than my own body, my dear friend all this time.

i am informed by many things: dance, martial arts, singing, songwriting, musical theatre, astrology, tarot, weightlifting, yoga, reading, the facebook account i made at 12 years old, a b.a. in american studies, fan culture, korean entertainment, talk therapy, event planning, bars filled with haze, foreign languages, body language, and much more.

i hope you join me :) thank you for sharing this time with me.