Questions and Concerns
By Mason Gehring
January 15th
Preview image: The Abyss Stares Back, Acrylic on canvas, 10″ x 10″, 2020
Image below: Portrait of an Illness, Acrylic on canvas, 10″ x 10″, 2020
How do you heal with a chronic illness? Do they ever stop being chronic?
What do you do about something you were born with?
Acceptance I suppose and oftentimes by forgetting about it. Not to say I’m suppressing things but if it’s not consistently in front of my face, I forget about a lot of things. So the best possible outcome is to have a chronic illness that is managed enough that you can forget about it.
But how do you forget about something that you’re managing? I suppose that’s what assistants are for? (My imaginary assistant is rolling her eyes at me.)
I return to the thoughts that my illness is not my identity. My body is not who I am. How do you extract yourself from out of your body to allow that spirit to carry you from day to day rather than the actual thing that does carry you? (I make art)
What is healing the un-healable?
Management.
These questions haunt me and I’m sure others in similar situations may have similar questions and feelings.
Is life the acceptance of the limits managed? Acceptance of the structure that has been worn and weathered but steadily holding?
And then, so I don’t continuously drown my heart in the mud, the use of magic in my spirit to have the guts to believe that I am healing the un-healable inside me everyday. I am an outlier and not part of their statistics. I am not the data that can be reproduced. I am immeasurable.
Meditation Space, iPhone photograph, 2020
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