I'm reflecting on these things a little late, so it's a combined post about two moments in my work and personal life that has felt like remarkably similar. Perhaps it is because I am the same person living them.

The Bululs

Earlier this week I was helping deinstall a section of the permanent exhibition when the collections manager said: "what a weird life they've had, staring into a bright light all this time." I looked up at her, standing on the pedestals and staring out into the gallery from her corner. The objects we were moving were a mixture of jars, masks, ritualistic objects, things that were meant to be burned and not exist on this earth any longer. I didn't think much of them, because I didn't really know them, but later that week I began working with the bululs. The bululs came in pairs (woman and man), and there were six of them. Carved from wood, sitting, standing, staring and solemn. According to the Met, they are "ancestor figures that were placed in granaries to guard the rice crop. Bulul is both the name of a class of ancestor spirits, as well as the carvings that serve as vessels to house those ancestors." And no, I had not spoken to the other objects I worked on before, but the bodies compelled me to begin speaking. I had learned earlier last week that the first numbers of each object I.D. was the date of the acquisition and addition to the Fowler's collection. Most of the bululs were from 1986. I thought about all the time they had spent in the storage, staring, laying on their sides, at each other, at the wall, at the plastic surrounding them. So far from home and cold. I thought of their life before this, where they were and what they saw, if they missed the view of their rice silo. It felt so wicked and wretched to see these figures, splattered with lime stains, so clearly loved and used, in a conservation lab waiting to be displayed for a meager eight months. I think about a life unrealised, views unseen, words unspoken. I told them what I had been up to, what I was doing, taking their measurements to ensure they would not fall during their time outside, and what I was currently thinking about (perfecting my in and out order), I explained what in and out was to them. When I told this to my coworkers during lunch, they were just confused about what objects I was working on, and when I told my boss I had been chatting with them, she didn't have much to say. But when I went home to my mother, and told her about them and who they were, what their life was before, she understood me immediately. And for that, I am so grateful. It is pain and bliss to work at a cultural institution.

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The Hellp and Loving L.A.

An excerpt from my notes app written directly after the show: "fuck! i love you la. dancing to break apart your body trying to feel the point of no return where is it? my arms are reaching for something light and bright- to be light. driving back and the palm fronds are scattered on the highway the wind is strong and you feel the ache because you danced. there is a pain in dancing that burns through my chest and the only explanation is that i am leaving a part of myself here in this space" Perhaps a little angsty and dramatic but I am forgiving myself because life is too short to doubt your feelings and there is truth in my words for myself. Earlier that week I had gone to Santa Monica Airport to watch the sunset and I had written to myself: will everything continue to be beautiful and sad? I feel my life rapidly changing and that I have changed too unknowingly. I love to dance, because once you let go of the shame that rules your life, you realise you are free and alive. I could be anyone in this world, and I choose to be me- the me that lives for the sake of love- for love is the law- the love of others, myself, the whole fucking world.

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