#shalamiller

[listening2images]

👁 #ShalaMiller “Asking About Desire” (2015) Gum bichromate prints and kallitypes —— #ListeningToImages #Archives #SonicFrequency #Moodboard #HapticImages #ArchiveOfArchives #BlackVisuals #BlackGaze #BlackArchives #BlackAndWhitePhotos #Afrofuturism #DigitalArchives #AfricanArchives #Listening2Images #CathodeRay #CathodeRayStudio #BlackCollagists #BlackArtists #BlackVisuality #FreddieJune https://www.instagram.com/p/CPQDt59JtFp/?utm_medium=tumblr

[in-the-blue-notebook]

I recently found this clip on my phone from the digital scan of super 8 footage from summer or maybe fall 2020. I completely forgot that I filmed this and maybe forgot on purpose because of embarrassment. I remember the moment well, however. I had cried and cried and cried until I felt like a shell, or like Nelson writes, "until I aged myself". It was an intense and heavy wave of grief that hit me out of nowhere. I wanted my dad back.

I felt compelled to film my eyes to document the aftermath. When I rediscovered this little clip I was first, horrified. Again, because it seemed embarrassing and akin to the metaphorical tiny violin playing. But then I really watched again.

Exactly how Nelson's friend put it about weeping in front of the mirror. I didn't film that moment out of a spurt of creativity or aesthetic intrigue. I simply felt, at the time, some unexplained obligation to record it. Now I understand that it was an attempt to feel witnessed in that despair. But why? Do I somehow feel the pain isn't real?

TW: mention of death.

This passage reminds me of two things: my new orange coat and something I wrote in 2021 about my father's birthday and the anniversary of his death.

My dad on his 70th birthday, August 16, 2014. We threw a surprise  party for him and over those last years he would often talk about how it was the best day of his life. 

•••••

Journal entry on August 16, 2021:

I woke up today feeling anxious for what I thought was for no reason, or perhaps because of recent shifts and changes in my life, or perhaps the anniversary of my dad’s death coming up, or my messy house and neglected to-do list and the dog that keeps barking next door. And then something came over me to check today’s date. I saw the 16 and remembered that the number was special, and particularly special for this month. And then it dawned on me. And then riddled with guilt I thought, how could I remember the day of my dad’s death before the day of his birth? Is it a twisted commitment to sorrow? The darkness? Blueness? 

But then the anxiety eased. My chest opened and I no longer felt like I had forgotten how to breathe. Something about the memory of the heart over the memory of the mind. My heart woke me up and reminded me today needed to be celebrated. My father is indeed still with me. 

••••••

Today, September 5th, marks two years without my dad and there is probably nothing I hate more than having affirmation that time has somehow continued on after that day. I’ve had birthdays, new apartments, cut my hair and then grew it back. I’ve met strangers, they’ve become friends. I’ve failed at making my dad’s rice pudding recipe, perfected it and then completely made a whole new recipe. I’ve swam in different waters. I’ve cried softly and hysterically. I’ve laughed, corrected people on how to say my name and then gave myself a new one. I’ve had what’s felt like a whole life. But it has just been two years. 

But to wake up each day without my dad feels like I must be living a completely different life. How could I be who I am without my dad to call me doll baby? 

But then there’s my heart and it’s memory. In other words, there’s my dad. I pray I learn to accept this as his current residence instead of waiting for him to come home. Until then. 

-Shala