002. My very weird day

Today I was supposed to go to a very cool conference/science fair type event in Canada. It was a fully optional work trip -- I was the only one going as a representative of the company. I was tired from doing a lot at work and at home the past few weeks, but I decided to push for going because I felt like it was one of those things that would really invigorate me. This is the meeting people and getting inspired kind of trip I've been missing. GDC fomo is hot on my heels, and the very beginning of Spring is a fragile time that needs some external rehabilitation. I've realized this year that a trip to a place that is just a little more spacious in March feels necessary to me, If I'm ever going to crawl out of hibernation and heal my solidified brain that's currently cowering in a corner.

I arrived 2 hours early to LGA, as usual. I walked into the building with so much confidence. (Arriving this early is a habit that other people have actually made fun of me for.) I like to get one Wendy's burger in LGA terminal B, and then sit at the high tops overlooking the runway and the water, the ones that are hidden from sight behind a large pillar, so they're always available. I like to never have to run in the airport. I like to get a drink or a diet coke and listen to music, and if I take a call or two, or work on my computer, it makes me feel all the cooler.

But today was weird! Completely unbeknownst to me, TSA workers have been caught in a government shutdown and are now walking off the job. I arrived, approached the entrance to the security line, and then realized that it stretched out into the terminal check in zone, near the building entrance... then then farther... and farther... until we hit the other end of the length of the terminal, and then doubled back. We were in line for close to three hours. No one in the line made their flights.

My flight came and went.

I spent a while going back and forth with customer service, and booking a new flight from a different airline and thus a different terminal, and then I realized that terminal isn't connected, and therefore I would have to go through security again, which would mean I would miss the new flight, too. At this rate, I would need to spend 5-6 hours in a security line, book a mid-afternoon flight, and get in late, missing about a quarter of the conference... anyway, I just decided to cut my losses, get my flights refunded, and... go home?

I wasted some money and time, but maybe not too much money and time, yet. I was pushing on burnout this week and decided not to keep pushing. I cannot tell you how unintuitive and weird of a decision this was for me. I guess I've never taken a flight like this where if I don't go on this trip at all, it's sort of ok. And I am usually very prone to sunk cost fallacy. The whole ride home, I thought, "Is this ok? Did I... fail?"

When I got home, my mom called me. Her cousin, my Auntie Terry, had just passed away. I guess I should say that part of why I was feeling burnt out was hosting my mom over the weekend, seeing my aunts and uncles and cousins, and visiting Terry in hospice. So today her death wasn't unexpected. We were grateful that it didn't take too long. When we saw her last, she was in pain, and said, "I want to go. I'm ready. There's nothing more to do."

What to say? I already have an entry in my physical journal about what she did for our family and how it changed me. She was the social glue: she's the reason I know almost 100 of my extended family members. She ran biannual family reunions for 26 years, and I never missed one -- my first one was when I was one month old. The setting of these beautiful family reunions in upstate NY, with music, and singing, and dancing, and playing, and talking, left such a mark on me. I hadn't realized it until now, but they gave me the blueprint for community. They're the reason I ever got taught even a little bit of Tagalog. They're the reason I know my Lola's siblings. They're the site of so much fantastic dreaming I had, swimming in the pond, watching shooting stars, listening to stories by the fire, being inspired by the adults I wanted to grow up to be more like. As an adult, when I first arrived at the Bread and Puppet farm in VT, it felt immediately like home. I felt how I did when I was a kid, camping out at the reunions and falling asleep in my tent to laughing voices floating down the hill. There's an anchor feeling here that guides me still.

The shape of my grief for Auntie Terry is profound gratitude.

So, with little sleep, and a series of phone calls to receive and deliver a death notice, and the messy apartment all to myself (Max is on a work trip), and a big change of plans (that I might have failed at?), I felt a little weird. Wuh oh.

Earlier this week, I had been identifying the early stages of being a little burnt out and overwhelmed. I am still trying to understand what that means for me, how it happens, and of course how to prevent it, or reverse it once it starts. Collecting data has been helpful. If you ignore my horribly formatted vibecoded website, you can see how I've been streaming in my Oura ring data plus a few days of self reported mood:

I also collected a tally/list of how many random requests from people I received in 24 hours, and it was a lot-- and they were hilarious, and all very different. I won't share that here, because I would never want to shame people for asking me for help. And I wouldn't want any one of them to not reach out to me. But the aggregate is feeling... unbalanced. To be fair, I put myself here, in these positions, where people ask me for help. I do sign up for it. But that's maybe something I have to manage a bit better for myself.

The data is in: overwhelming!

I am a bit more blessed than younger Eva because now, when I see the Sad Stars aligning like this, alarm bells and fire sprinklers automatically go off and the FDNY of my own emotional management gets on the scene pretty quickly. It feels calm. I decided, I really need a break. So I took a break from my own anxiety today.

When I feel a little bit wounded I choose my art and media carefully like I'm choosing a medicinal salve. What will hold my little heart right now, and treat it well? I spent a while at my bookshelf, packing my bag for the day (again, unpacking my carry on and loading up a tote). I rejected the more informational picks I had been working on and chose to start Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Well, start again, because I had read a chapter or two a few years ago and then forgotten it. I guess I'm already doing it right.

This was a good choice, and reminded me of some very good things. Particularly, the idea that the best way to "control someone" (therefore yourself) is to let them roam, and do their thing, but simply really watch. So I did that.

I politely declined any social invitation for the day and packed my bag to walk, and draw, and read. I decided to treat myself very kindly, like I would if my friend was going through the same thing. I went to Qahwah House and had a very nice coffee, sitting at a table on the sidewalk. I sat and drew in the sun and enjoyed eavesdropping and looking at the people walking by, but I didn't really like what I had made there. It was too public and exposed, too busy.

I ate an achari paneer kati roll (a favorite Eva food, now we're getting really luxurious), and then headed uptown to draw at the Met. I take the C up to 86th, and walk across Central Park to get to the museum. That's my favorite way to get there. I spent a while with the trees and the birds that I had been missing very much this winter, and drew in the big, spacious air:

I was so happy to have the silence, and the silence in my own brain, as I walked east.

When I came to the Met, I decided to watch myself go where I wanted, instead of my typical nervous over-planning. I stopped to draw the things that captured me. The painted Greek amphoras are somehow so modern to me, and in drawing them trying to mimic every stroke of the brush, I got into the mind of the original painter. Whoever they were, they were very well-practiced. Their strokes are in muscle memory, and their shorthands are well-formed. Their swirls going clockwise look a little bit different from their swirls going the other direction. I felt so in company with the brushstrokes of a person from a really long time ago.

Halfway through, entering the African and Oceanic art section, I felt my old childlike excitement bubbling up as I walked through the hall, slowly, and great masks and figures peeked into view. I saw Papuan carvings of boats for the recently deceased family and ancestors. I thought of Aunt Terry. I thought about how spirits go West. I thought about how art can be a form of closure, and an extension of someone's spirit and mind in the world. I thought about continuation. I thought about water.

Darkness fell, and I was drawn to a certain coziness in the Medieval European art section. I was thinking about the peasant characters I had grown to love in the game, Pentiment (and wished there was a a peasant art/craft section). I was thinking about growing up learning about the saints, and them feeling all like old friends, in the storybooks. I was looking at their selection of stone and wood statues of saints and stories: icons, archetypes. I love archetypes and myths more and more. Theater has helped me appreciate this now.

It was night now in the museum, and now the sculptures have sharp spotlights shining down on them. The air is cooler. I stopped to draw a stone carving of a saint that loved riches but was converted when he heard a sermon -- I love how cartoonish, and simple the forms are, and expressive he is, the caricature of him, and what this story meant to the people who maybe saw this imperfect archetype in themselves and the people they love.

I had accidentally positioned myself drawing right in the main exit path as the museum was beginning to close. A few people stopped to look over my shoulder and say a few nice words. A couple came up to me to ask me about my work, and talk about art for a little moment. They asked me where I went to school, and what I do. They were so encouraging, and interested -- the woman said, "keep doing puppetry, it will make your work dynamic." The man introduced himself. I went back to trying to finish my drawing.

On the train home I googled them: I guess they are famous contemporary art collectors that focus on the work of emerging artists. Not that I really have anything to show, or sell. Or that I've ever shown or sold anything before. But that's nice, isn't it?

Being approached by someone whose job it is to sniff out talent or potential is an old fantasy that I had completely forgotten about. It's in all the children's books I used to read. The wise old man notices just the barest whisper of magic in the young protagonist, and then the story begins. It's a fantasy of mentorship, and guidance, and specialness, and potential. That there are people with power looking out for you, and that this little sprout inside yourself matters -- will be protected and nourished -- and that you can relax, because you can devote yourself to it now with this support. You are allowed to be young and clumsy because you have the feeling and the energy that those more entrenched in the world find precious. It's a nice fantasy. The fantasy doesn't include any of the idea that the mentor could also be a bad person, or have their own motives. The bad guys are the other guys. It's nice like that. I'll try to think about it more.

Ok, now I'm tired. Goodnight everyone.