Series & Selections
George Shiras, White-Tailed Deer (1898)
Series & Selections
(or, about the work)
So, you decided to stay: I’m so pleased. I hope the home of my heart is equal parts warm hearth and delightful surprise –– always more rooms to explore. Always more doors.
I wish you could smell the scent of this place: fresh oranges, strong coffee, my neighbor’s jasmine bush. Hear the soft stretch of my cats lazing about in front of the window, the cacophony of birdsong from the nature reserve behind the house.
Hot water poured over lavender and bergamot.
Mornings are my church –– my delightful solitudes. It feels odd and exciting to welcome you in.
What I’ve shared in this blog, I’ve shared thoughtfully –– carefully. So please, keep that in mind. At 33, I’ve only recently become strong enough to share my soul in a more public way.
Because I trust you, I choose to believe you’ll forgive the misplaced yoga mat, the ever-present cat hair, the never-ending collection of around-the-house teaspoons.
Because I’ve chosen to welcome you, you’ll see me at my most unfussy –– barefaced, sweaty, chaotic, with loose waves of my hair barely bound. Sometimes, often, there’ll be jazz –– and smells you can't quite name, emanating from the small kitchen I make constant use of.
I will be clumsy in my unveiling.
I’ve spent the vast majority of my life intensely private –– comforted by the ease of a kind of floating, aspirational anonymity. Unseen. Unscathed –– at least to the untrained eye.
An internalization of maladaptive models and modes of being from parents both immersed in the world of the clandestine –– a vestigial way of living that no longer suits.
Still, I’ve clung to structure –– and a certain kind of adaptable androgyny. For years, my uniform has been a black shirt, flare jeans, and black boots. My friends often joke that I own no other clothes.
My hyper-vigilance bred hyper-competence –– most of all, an ability to roll with anything. A certain kind of sprezzatura, and an ever-sharpening intellect –– have opened doors I’d never imagined for myself.
But in the last five years, there has been a softening in me. A reemergence of my inner child. A feminine bloom. Where once I was a creature of competition, I now feel that beyond everything I had built, everything I had earned –– the singular quality that defined my interactions with others was love.
I was not welcomed because of the skills I’d honed – but the open, honest, flaming, pure-hearted love I brought into the room.
This realization stunned me into silence and spurred a protracted period of integration.
So much of my work is about the deconstruction of my previous life –– desperate, desolate, duplicitous. Dissecting and discussing the how, the why –– and what I’ve built in its place. For so long, the desire not to be actively seen stymied me. I was suffocated –– by fear, by self-censure. The reflection of a previous fragmentation so deeply rooted that it seemingly altered my soul’s shape.
At last, until it didn’t.
I’d prided myself on a life rigorously planned. Every possible eventuality accounted for. Every variable dutifully determined, and subsequently, vociferously, checked. I took a global view, continually adjusting course. Go bag ready at a moment’s notice –– hidden in the drawer only I knew about. Cash, laptop backups, passport. Other unmentionables.
My life was equal parts terror, bitterness, and a distasteful, distant kind of resignation. Like falling through a dark elevator shaft. I was resolute in my loss.
But now, a new recognition has warmed my eyes.
In the opening of the last half-decade, I have begun to return to a softer version of myself –– the intuitive, the woman. The one who knows how to play –– the power of space and silence.
The one who honors ritual.
Who laughs loud and kisses long.
Who sings around the house.
Visibility is never something I thought I would allow myself –– either by design, or by the limitations of a short life. But I realize, now, the gratitude that comes with breathing, with being alive –– the pleasure and joy of being someone’s daughter.
This blog is the beginning of my unmasking.
Letting you into my life, my heart, my eyes, and my home –– which are really the same thing.
And because I do not do anything halfway, I’m going to let you see it all.
Like a lover.
Like friendship.
Like the intimacy between parent and child.
Things no one else sees.
I ask you to hold them in your heart –– as I hold you –– as a precious, unexpected gift.
My hope is that the more I write, and share, the braver I will become. Finally able to translate the vulnerability I regularly practice. Sometimes, I feel terrified and small. Imprisoned by perfectionism and an obsessive desire for illusory “completeness”. Other times, when I surrender –– when I am me and not me –– I remember that I know God.
When I’m lost, I feel into my favorite poem by David Wagoner.
And I look. And I wait. And then I begin again.
Within this blog, you’ll find three categories: poetry, prose, and photography.
I’m particularly proud of the prose series –– an asynchronous set of stories, released monthly, about my lived experiences.
All of the things I wish I had known when I was younger.
I hope you enjoy them. I’m so happy you’re here.
David Whyte: On Preserving the Soul –– Reading “Lost” by David Wagoner (1994)
Prefer audio to the written word? Listen here:
*Written work by Christina Mokwa – © Christina Mokwa/Mokwa LLC/Mokwa Creative Company
