Here Is Where the Hole Begins
Here is where the hole begins.
I spent a day manually copy-pasting every single post, video and photo from the last year from Instagram to Substack… because it wouldn’t input them directly…
And then my stupid fake-neck-disc got out of whack from trying to set everything up laying down.
I had to set everything up laying down because it’s even worse to type sitting up right now, so I inevitably made this video (please see footage) and wished I could be staring upwards into a mirror of defiance and self agency like Frida Kahlo in her articulately detailed bed.
I wish I could articulately detail this.
This feeling of wishing I was as capable as a Kahlo or even just as confident as a Hayek or anything cast between.. but the casting of my personal movie is a person, as seen here, in a shirt with holes who can’t seem to copy-paste without loosing feeling in her fingers.
There won’t just be holes in my shirt, by the way…
There will be in anything you might have hoped to read retroactively… even just in the last year alone.
“Gemma hasn’t even died yet,” I text my eldest daughter earlier that day, as I was copying and pasting and downloading footage long since deleted from my phone and screen-shotting photos organized into a cumulus abyss.
Will anyone care that much? I shouldn’t assume so. About a 15-year-old we called Tiny Dancer for sort-of anonymity online dying of cancer she was once told she had a 97-something percent chance of “beating”? They sure as shit should have.
But of reading all of these dismantled essays in any linear order? Or rather… backwards order? I didn’t even go to the beginning of anything at all. My goal was purely one year’s worth of words and there so many words (or so little spinal capacity ?) that I didn’t even complete a month of word-re-reporting.
I wanted to archive enough to complete the following kind request from a digital friend who I share both Deafness, dancing and dreaming with: “It would be nice to have a place of [all your writing] together outside of Instagram.”
But I made it through less than 30 damn days.. So now there is this hole. In the plotline of one teeny tiny life (mine) and giantly beautiful one that was lost (Tiny Dancer) and the loss of a great many other things too.
You’ll have to read them elsewhere or ask for collections in another day, time, life… or, I guess, accept - like me - that the shit that matters the most will never be provided in the form of neat and tidy timeline answers (like human life being lost, for example. A “second daughter”, in her words. A velveteen’d love that made me beautiful in my ugliness at trying to be real enough for her. The knowing that I didn’t do enough, was not enough, was a rabbit who failed but can’t ever let any of us forget how real she really was).
Here forward, the archive holds no holes…
Except for the great many stomas and missing parts of my person…
The Gemma shaped person forever missing from my heart.
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I am so appreciative of your writings. Your concern about the timing with all that you are going through is mind boggling to me but I also do the same thing so I do understand. Pushing through numb fingers, not being able to write while sitting up, grief, so many things that you are going through but you are still concerned about others. Please please take care of yourself and your family and know that those of us that enjoy your beautiful words don’t mind about the timing or if things are out of order, we are just happy to read and that you share.
That was an excellent video Bailey. Have you thought of using talk to text to manually repost your IG posts onto here? That would help your poor abused arms and hands take a lot less of the load, and perhaps keep them from hurting and going numb so badly. I understand goals not being able to be met, and holes in the linear plot line of our lives. Sometimes we simply do not have the spoons to post every minute detail. You shouldn't worry about how you, your shirt, your bed, or even your body looks. What really matters here is your words, and they are beautiful (just as you are imo). I'm so sorry to hear this story about Tiny Dancer. She sounds like she was an absolute sweetheart, and a person who could just naturally make people happy. Your writing is a beacon of light, and a source of inspiration in this world (just as you are) that I don't want to see you ever stop doing. Lastly I think you should do an occasional podcast just a light hearted addition to your stack. I would certainly watch it, and if it's done occasionally it doesn't detract from the written word, but rather it's the icing on the proverbial cake.