Last year I wrote about solastalgia, the psychic pain of climate change. I interpreted human emotional spikes as Earth’s way of communicating with the organisms that live upon it.
I compare the nature of the planetary dialogue with the transmissions that run our human bodies. Take, for example, white blood cells’ activation when there is an infection in our body. It’s automatic, fast, effective, coded in our biology. A similar mechanism should work between Earth Body and human bodies. But there is a disconnect. Humans seem to have forgotten how to act like white blood cells. I think we can…
Solastalgia: A form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home.
_ Glenn Albrecht
Earth is a living body.
Artist is a translator.
The artist’s body is the first to converse with Earth’s body through the language of turbulence, making their ailments one and the same. This encrypted language is as old as the very first exhalation. It’s transmitted for the artist to receive, and decrypt.
Human communication aided by sounds, signs, and symbols has reached peak sophistication. It’s not enough. We continue to invent new devices to enhance our connectivity. …
She was having both sides of a heated argument.
She muttered something.
She snapped at that.
She locked in on a sentence to repeat it over and over again.
She interrupted that thought.
She went from being two people to one person to more than a few by the time I was done putting money in the meter.
Her camp was set outside the USPS parking lot on Cherokee. You could barely call that a camp though. Some of them at least have a proper tent. Under the bridges, I’ve seen handwashing stations, proper sofas, sometimes even bookshelves and decorations…
To other people, parents or non-parents, your baby is either too hot or too cold. No one ever comes up to you to say your baby seems very well adjusted…
You have to be or at least seem happy all the time.
If you’re about to go out wearing a solemn face, don’t. Stay in. Especially on a sunny day when everyone else is smiling, flirting, catching muses, soaking the light in and you’re about to bring your attitude and kill this vibe, the city will stop you at your tracks. It will either get you a parking ticket, or drive you to a road closure, or get you into a fender bender, or sprain your ankle at your own doorstep. You got it bad? It will make it worse. It will conspire to eject you out of here. …
Caroline said, “Do you realize the carbon footprint of that?”
Standing at Bristol Farm's drink aisle, I was reeling off about my new hobby of sampling electrolyte waters when her remark shocked my system. I had never, can you believe it, never thought about that.
This was nearly ten years ago before I developed any conscious consumer muscles. My partner and I were working hard and earning more. We didn’t have big luxuries. Spending our money on little things, like fancy new water bottles promising healthier PH levels made us feel like we were living it up. …
You know what this means. A ton of single-use plastic.
A low point for me.
On a good day, I buy produce sold out in the open. I put everything directly in my cloth bag at checkout. If I must use a plastic bag, I bundle, for example, lettuce, dill, parsley, and turnips. When I get home I reuse that bag in the bathroom bin. I do other little things like this to avoid more plastic or extend the life of the material for as long as possible. This takes up headspace. I strategize, organize, take the inconvenient route to reduce my carbon footprint. I do this work. Normally.
But…
Türkçe. Santa Monica pazarına girmeden çıktık.
Önce dediler burası exit şuradan girin. Oraya gittik. Tam giricez, el kol, hareketler. Bir baktık kuyruk. Gidiyor. Oooo dedik, aynen geri döndük.
15 küsür yıldır Amerika’da yaşayıp, iyi asimile olmamıza rağmen, şu uzun kuyruklara girip kös kös bekleme aşkını henüz hissedebilmiş değiliz. Hatta uzun kuyrukların önünden arabayla geçerken iki omuzumuzla birden dönüp, sanki hayvanat bahçesinde acayip bir aksiyon yaşanıyormuş gibi bakıp, insanların o kuyruktaki hallerini inceler, ‘sandalyesiyle gelmiş, sabahın köründe girmiş, çadır kurmuşlar,’ gibi gözlemlerimizi dillendirip, azıcık dalgalarını geçmeden bırakmayız.
Bu sefer fonda bir tık ciddiyet vardı gerçi. Çok rüzgar esiyordu, sersem etmişti bir…
ASLI SONCELEY
Artist. Environmentalist. Immigrant. Mother. Investigating the links between environmental health and mental health.
