the projection room above the auditorium

How many times has life been compared to a balancing act? It certainly isn’t a new metaphor, but it seems to grow more relevant every day.

I’ve been lucky enough not to work a restaurant serving job (I’ve worked food service though, don’t worry) – but I’ve often felt that navigating every expectation and need of life is like a server carrying a tray of drinks to a table with some obscene number of patrons. You have to consider each glass, their size and weight, what’s in them, how full each one is, the risk of spillage — etc…

Except, instead of a tray of cocktails, it’s work, home, exercise, self care, social considerations, relationships, pets, bills, and so on, filling this poor plastic tray to capacity – the chance of overflow a matter of “when” not “if.”

On a good day, I am straining my arm, my core, my capacity, trying to keep this tray, and every glass, upright. On a good day, this already feels like an impossible task.

Then add the current administration (national, local, work—take your pick, but you can’t opt out), and suddenly I’m the waiter balancing a drink tray but I’m on a tightrope between two skyscrapers; the government is the breeze, swaying me – unsteady, nothing to grasp to keep from plummeting to the earth below, drenched in the commitments I failed to maintain.

Look, I’m not trying to be dramatic – it just comes so naturally. But that is the truth! I go to work everyday and I struggle through it just to get home where I try so desperately to forget the realities of a world that is currently working so hard to erase my humanity and that of those I love most.

I guess, in summation, what I’m trying to say is that I am tired. I’m just really tired and I am scared and all I can do is just say that and try to continue balancing on this tightrope.

In other, slightly less dramatic, news, as mentioned in a previous note, I’ve gained renewed interest in old hobbies. With that, I want to share these crochet monstera leaves I hung in our living room this week. Pattern by @KristinesDay on TikTok/YouTube, adapted by me for chunkier yarn.

Stay safe, hotties –

Emery