Chodzą mi ostatnio po głowie robaczki zdumienia. Z podziwem patrzę na ostatnie dwa lata, na ilość ryzyka zaplątanego w każdą decyzje, na ilość gromadzących się lęków, i obaw, tylko nie tych wewnętrznych, dotyczących mojej osoby, tylko tych zewnętrznych, rządowych, planetarnych. Wszystko krzyczy żeby łapać się stabilności, żeby maleć i słuchać innych, nie ryzykować. Dzień w dzień słyszę okruchy instytucji uderzające o wytarty brukowany chodnik. Chodząc po miastach widzę dziwne szkielety, oklejone cukrem i plastikiem. Łapię się kampu jako wyjaśnienia lub opisu, czegoś czego staram się nie brać osobiście, odpowiadam humorem.
Z trudem przepycham powietrze przez moje zatkane katarem siennym zatoki i wychodzę z pokoju niepewności. On zawsze tam jest, ale mogę z niego wyjść. Wchodząc do pokoju pomysłów, uśmiecham się na widok chaotycznych stert, wytartych etykiet kategorii, które szybko tracą na znaczeniu - wszystko się przeplata. Pokój ten pachnie mokrą ziemią i cebulką smażoną z czosnkiem na patelni.
Uspokaja mnie widok tego bogactwa. Przypominam sobie, że dopiero tu zaczęłam, że to całe nagromadzenie potrzebuje czasu. Może wizyty innych pomogą?
Panties = protection = hiding = abstention = disassociation = discomfort
Standing by the stove dressed only in a loose t-shirt, being gently awakened by the sound of percolating coffee; coming home after a long day out and, together with the shoes, leaving my pants and underwear by the entrance door; doing a butterfly stretch or a headstand in the living room and feeling the air dance around my pubes - these rituals I consider sacred. I hold them in high esteem because they are some of the only moments when I can be panty-free. My hips sway with ease, high on the liberty of unconstrained crotch. I often get jealous of cats for their ability to freely spread and lick in public, not caring about being seen or exposed. In cat-world, nudity does not exist.
Underwear has always been weird. My child body mostly saw random 3 packs bought in H&M, pulled onto my lean body that, at the time, had no awareness of the loudness of hips or butts. The panties had flowers on them which is an entirely ridiculous pattern for underwear but somehow one that prevails across ages. Only their seams were laced, perhaps a trailer to the adult realm of full lace as sexy maturity. Some of them were simply baby blue, or light pink, always scant in fabric. Yet, despite the industry's attempts to make me correlate flowers and panties, my first memories of underwear are stained with delicate vaginal discharge which, when it first arrived, simply freaked me out. Somehow pooping was normal but stuff other than pee coming out from between my legs was entirely uncalled for. I suspected sickness for a while, but never dared asking anyone whether it's normal or necessary to stain your underwear on a daily basis. I wrote about it in my diary, proclaiming it my biggest secret, simultaneously yet another proof of my abnormality (add that to the hairy nipples.) I was brought back to this memory recently because of a text written by bell hooks which I found in her memoir 'Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood' published in 1996. She wrote about white discharge in her young girl's panties, and her mother finding out about it through the smell of laundry. Young bell was taken to the doctor and prescribed a 'vinegar-and-water douche' to cure an infection that developed not because of anything she did with boys (which is what her mama accused her of) but because infections happen to young girls too.
When the hormonal storm of teenagehood hit, my hips widened and my ass enlarged. Things got further complicated. No underwear can be comfortable when the middle of your body feels stretched by some foreign powers of the feminine within. Add period drama to it, with the bizarreness of pads resembling diapers and the fear of leak and stain. When you have to start looking for panties wide enough to accommodate a giant pad, you find me being a miserable teenager. Try wearing tight pants when you've got an ass split in four and a napkin stuffed in your crotch.
The only panties I remember buying as a teenager were from Nude label which doesn't seem to exist anymore, their last post is from 2022. They were made from ethically sourced cotton and I ordered a two-pack of solid briefs in earth tones. They looked better in the picture. They had seams that would pry into the skin and my ass would swallow them instantly. After a couple of wears, holes appeared in the exact spot my clit sticks out which actually made me proud. I pierced through them just how I pierce through most of the underwear made for female bodies. I happily concluded my clit is actually a tiny dick, and there's really no market for the needs of what's simultaneously the most misfitted and most delightful part of my body.
Fast forward ten years and you find me avoiding buying underwear all together. Luckily, I’ve been supplied by my mother with various shapes of thongs. Thong is a kind of panty (or is it?) which my younger self swore never to wear, precisely because that's what my mom wore and it didn't even seem like a piece of clothing in the first place. But so it happens that as you grow, you resemble your parents more and more and my mother kept on shoving her thongs at me, those that didn’t fit her, and why refuse when in need? They're good though, no lace, some cotton, some polyamide, mostly black or beige. They sit comfortably in the crevice of my butt crack and I don’t have to think twice when encasing myself in gently fitted fabric. The middle of my body seems so full of laps, plies, and folds that imagining a fabric caught between that makes me lose my shit. I have 4 pairs of period underwear that makes me touch my butt excessively and is a source of deep feelings of appreciation for whoever invented period cups.
I continue not buying panties for myself. I accumulate. I research new, non-binary underwear brands. I dream of buying Vivien Ramsay’s underwear although she recently updated her website which eased my excitement for the product. I steal my brother's boxers. I buy fabrics to make my own panties. When the days are warm, I walk to the grocery store in a dress or skirt and no panties on, and those are the moments I live for.
/the scene where Dorota speaks Polish in gossip girl/ There is this scene in Gossip Girl where Dorota, Blair's maid/best friend, gets upset with Blair's beau and rants at him in Polish. Her speech echoes a vastly different vibration than that of American speakers who surround her on a daily basis. There is something perverse about understanding her, knowing she cannot be understood by anyone around. Was she free to write her own lines for this scene? I highly doubt anyone close to a Polish script writer was consulted for the sake of two lines of annoyance. So it might have been the actress. But why then, when I hear her speak it seems as though words have been inserted into her mouth? Why doesn't it sound natural?
loving the world means practicing something - that's what Lucia said right now it feels like loving the world means eating truskawki, bób and szczawiowa.
Zmiana wymiaru. Tonę w rzeczach, a ty pytasz o coś sprzed lat. Nie wyssysajcie ze mnie wszystkiego. Przywiozę chleb i zapomnę o wszystkim jutro, do jutra, co jutro. Nikt tu nie poddaje się refleksji. Słowa w mojej buzi są jak kamyki, wysypują się i wiem, że nie da się ich nawet pozbierać, ułożyć na kupkę znaczeń. One nie mają wiele znaczenia, są puste wypowiedziane tylko z potrzeby wypełnienia powietrza. Czasem jest tak niewiele do powiedzenia. Jezu makaron o dziesiątej w nocy .
Spędziłem tydzień przesuwając się z miejsca na miejsce. Niewiele przechodziło przez skórę. Wyczekiwałem końca dni z leniwą cierpliwością. Chciałam żeby się kończyły, ale nie przeszkadzała mi ich ślamazarność. Oddech pojawił się dopiero jak zostaliśmy sami. ** Może jest to kwestia dostępnej i niedostępnej przestrzeni. To ile przestrzeni zabiorę zależy od tego ile mi jest jej dane. Takie krople oleju pływające w wodzie, ale cholernie nienamacalne. Wyłączyłam się, uśpiłam jakieś cząstki siebie w podróży i budzę je teraz powoli wracając do naszego zakątka. ** Cieszę się, że nie zmiażdżono mi nigdy żadnej kończyny. Czy zmienia się wszystko wystarczająco?