damn, look how it’s grown
damn, look how it’s grown
(ps TODAY: last day of New Art & Sliding Scale)
I spent a lot of time with people whose bodies were experiencing huge changes when I worked as a physical therapist in the hospital and ICU. We are made of malleable and mutable stuff. We can wake up on the other side of an accident or illness in a body that feels and functions very differently than before.
Finding the part of ourselves that was never injured is a necessary step — however imperceptible, however inconsequential it may seem.
The first conversation I have with someone who loses function of a leg is how to become their other leg’s closest ally — how to stay connected to it, protect & strengthen it, enjoy it even. Because it is the part that is not injured that is going to adapt and care for the parts that have changed as we get to know them as they are now.
When we live with overwhelming chronic pain, it is profoundly important to notice and really FEEL that the skin on our elbow or our earlobe actually feels neutral, even safe. We practice feeling the other sensations, the quieter ones, so we stay connected to our complexity instead of become a homogenous ball of pain.
I made this piece for my September patrons with a more psychological bent in mind, as I’ve been finding a thread in me that I didn’t know existed, a part of me I somehow kept safe from everything from the moment I was born, perhaps before. It isn't a before-trauma self, but a deeply protected self that almost cannot be injured, as wild as this sounds. It was tiny when I found it, but damn, look how it’s grown.
I’m not one who tends to see the world in a golden light. I know how thoroughly hurt we can be. And still, the older I get the more clearly I can see in myself and in others that there is always a glimmer of something: an elbow or an earlobe, a good tooth, a belly laugh, a streak of playfulness, a strong grip. There is something in each of us that is not injured. And it is the part that will be able to begin caring for, healing or adapting with the rest of us.
Sending love -
Brit
NEWS: today is the LAST DAY for lots of stuff
Today is the last day for this month’s New Art: “Never Injured” and our new sticker, “Strangely Okay.”
Join us on Patreon before midnight if you’d like us to send you these. (It’s the most affordable way to collect my work (by like 40%) and shipping is free, even international. Plus, it’s fun to get art in the mail everything month!)
Today is also the last day of the Student and Educator Sliding Scale Sale and the September Sale.
SEPTEMBER SALE ends today!
Patrons picked up almost all the original art from last week’s drop, but there are three of these little studies left as well the stickers and prints. Patrons of any tier can access the password here.
