Dear friends,
Last time I wrote, I was in a period of near-crisis and trying to figure out how to take care of myself while my father, a stressful presence, was home for the 4th of July week. I managed to get through, but there were unexpected obstacles, in particular my mother’s differing perception of my needs. I wanted to stay over at a friend’s house for a few days, or at least hang out with them during the day. But my mother allowed neither of those while my father was still at home. First she claimed that I was safer with her than with my friend. I can see why she would say that, for I normally am more subdued at home since I do not feel the freedom to be my fullest, wackiest self, but in this case, feeling suppressed at home was making my depression worse. Then, she insisted that I should accompany her to places during the day so that she herself could also avoid being stuck with my quarrelous father.
I know that some young adults would just do what they want to do and disregard what their parents say, but it has become difficult for me to do so. I could do whatever, be whatever when I was in college. But since coming back home after my last hospitalization due to a manic episode triggered by autistic burnout, I have gradually become more dependent on my mother again and not really wanting to assert myself or to rebel. For example, initially I would drive myself to places, but after a panic attack during a choir rehearsal left me unable to safely drive myself home, my mother started driving me instead — and I let her.
It is kind of strange and uncharacteristic of me to not insist on independence. My parents have always been extremely protective of me, their delicate-seeming “daughter.” As a kid, I fought against their restrictions on my freedoms, knowing that I could face any challenges that came before me. What pains me, what panics me now is the dread that I may be just as delicate as I look. I start to be afraid for myself, knowing the difficulties I have faced especially when in public, and I lose confidence in myself.
After my father left, I finally was able to hang out with my friend one day. And then, I was able to stay at The Ferns peer support respite last weekend. It took a lot of work to convince my mother to let me go. I thought a no-cost, non-carceral alternative to a psych hospital was clearly a great option, but she expressed fears that I might be abducted or even killed. She made a comparison to how in China, tragedies happen when young people go to hospitals for relatively minor issues and then are forced into comas and their parents are told that they are brain dead so that their organs can be harvested. I have no idea how she made that far-fetched connection. She’s not even a generally anxious person; she’s extremely emotionally stable, seemingly in all circumstances except for parenting. She said it wasn’t about the specific place, but rather that she is anxious for me whenever I am not with her. We agreed that I would text her immediately after I arrived there, but I forgot to do so until four hours after I arrived, and during those four hours, my mother worried that someone had abducted me or done something else bad to me.
The peer respite was a nice place, although I probably should not have socialized as much as I did while there. There was one other guest for the weekend, and there was always at least one staff member present, and we chatted, played games, and watched videos. At one point, after we played a game, someone asked me a question, and I found myself unable to answer, as I was starting to shut down from all the social interaction. So I grabbed my weighted blanket and took a long nap on the couch, only afterwards explaining what had happened. Yet they were very understanding about my needs. Even if they didn’t know why I stopped speaking, they knew that I should be given space to do what I needed. I became more energized and hopeful during my time there, and I also wrote out a plan for how to manage distress or crisis in the future.
What I also realized while there is that I need to move out sooner than later. It is nice that my mother and I can support each other, but I think we’ve both become a bit too dependent on the other. She uses me like a therapist, and when I neglect household chores, she is too willing to do them for me. (My parents never gave my brother and me chores when we were children.) But I will need to figure out my support system in order to move out, creating plans for how to respond to various challenges that may come up. It’s possible that I will live with a friend who is also disabled in various ways and with whom I’ve had a mutually supportive relationship. I find that relationships with other disabled and neurodivergent people are easier for me to manage, not just because of similarities in how we approach social skills, but also because if we both have support needs, we are less likely to end up in an imbalanced situation where one person is always supporting the other.
Playing for church
I have started playing for a small Methodist church in Philly. It is indeed very small, as we meet in the chapel rather than the sanctuary and still don’t really fill up the room, but they thought that hiring a musician might help their congregation to grow. I play on a digital keyboard and also sing a solo song each service.
Additionally, I have been taking lessons on organ, in preparation for playing on that instrument for churches. It is a bit of a sacrifice for me to take on a church job, as that means I cannot attend Sunday Quaker meeting anymore (though I could attend meetings for worship on other days, such as the daily Zoom-accessible morning worship at Pendle Hill). But I think it is worth it, partly for the money, but also because of the opportunity for spiritual learning and growth. Even though I am not a Christian and do not imagine myself becoming one, I do feel a connection to the Spirit that I can share with others. And it is also interesting for me to learn how Christianity works and what draws people to it. As I hope to offer spiritual counseling to people in the future, it is helpful to get to know various religions from the inside. Regarding church rituals, I pick and choose what I want to participate in: I’ll join in Communion (if that is permitted), but I won’t recite the Creed.
But about learning the organ: it has been an enjoyable and sometimes frustrating journey so far. My experience with harpsichord somewhat transfers to playing on the manuals (i.e. the keyboards played by the hands), in the sense that for both instruments, expressive technique requires greater focus on articulation and phrasing than it does for piano. One key difference is that I have to play notes on the organ for exactly the right length of time, whereas that is mostly irrelevant for harpsichord and not as exceedingly important on the piano. And I am getting used to playing with my feet on the pedal keyboard, although there are two annoying obstacles that I face with that because I am short and have small feet! The organ at my teacher’s studio does not have an adjustable bench, and I find myself straining to stay balanced on the bench and not fall onto the pedals. Organ shoes, which have a high heel, sort of help with that, but I made things harder than they needed to be by not getting exactly the right shoes.
The thing is, most organists seem to get their shoes from Organmaster Shoes, but when I browsed the website, they only had Mary Jane style shoes available in my size, and I don’t like Mary Janes. So I pre-ordered size 4 women’s Oxfords, which will be restocked in — January — and decided to get cheaper jazz (?) shoes that had a similar-shaped heel, since some people do wear dance shoes as an alternative to the more expensive organ shoes. But now I’m wondering if I should have just gotten the Mary Janes, as the slightly tapered heels of the dance shoes somehow keep falling in between some of the pedals, although improving my precision on the pedal keyboard should help prevent that. My teacher, who is a cis man with closer-to-average-sized feet, just wears socks, which some sticklers for technique say is a no-no, but it works for him.
Announcing…The Legend of Yuliang, a Philly Fringe Performance!
In September, as part of the Cannonball Festival (which happens within the Philadelphia Fringe Festival), I will be performing my solo show The Legend of Yuliang. Taking as a point of departure my father’s family’s folk religion, which lasted 100 years until Chinese Communism eliminated many folk religions, it is an interactive, interdisciplinary show in which the audience and I together work together to figure out who is Yuliang, the deity of the religion, and participate in a collective spiritual and creative ritual. Because the audience plays a big role in determining the content of the show, each of the three performances will be unique.
I was feeling overwhelmed for some time about preparing for this show, as I felt that I — yet again — dove into a really challenging project unlike anything I’ve done before, but knowing that I have successfully made huge creative leaps before helps me to trust myself and the process. My mother was telling me not to do something like this ever again, emphasizing that I am a musician and not a theatre artist or something like that. But I can do theatre, or dance, or performance art, when I want to, and besides I also do have some amount of training in each of those, even though the bulk of my artistic training is in music. And my musical work increasingly has mixed with other disciplines and has involved things like chance elements and performer participation in the creative process, so a show based on collectively-created spiritual ritual does have some similarities with work I have done before.
If you’re interested in experimental performance and creative participation, this is definitely the show for you. If you feel more hesitant or anxious about the interactive process, this show accommodates you as well. You can always choose to sit and observe and only join when you feel ready.
The Legend of Yuliang will have three performances: Sep. 4th at 8:00pm, Sep. 6th at 3:30pm, and Sep. 7th at 7:30pm. They will be at the Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake. Tickets are on sale now through FringeArts here. More info about the show can be found here. I encourage you to buy tickets earlier if you can, as it will help me get a sense of how large of an audience to expect, which will impact how the interactive process works. There are Standard, Supporter/Subsidizing, and Pay-what-you-can/Subsidized ticket fee levels available.
Posts from June
I didn’t share these in the last newsletter, so I’m sharing them now.
The "psychic"
Given that I am a sensitive person myself and was feeling overwhelmed in the mall, I wondered if interacting with this “psychic” could feel supportive, like we could connect concerning our sensitivities. But immediately after we commenced the session, I realized she was an obvious fake.
Enough
I wrote this song for an assignment in my Arts in Context class, for which we had to explore artists of cultures contrasting to our own and then create something that is inspired by a different culture. I looked into Palestinian music and chose to write a song in solidarity with Palestinians.
A Contemplative Offering
Two principles that The Ferns peer respite is founded on is that distress is a common human experience and crisis opens up to opportunity. When has crisis led to opportunity for you in the past? And how can you prepare yourself to grow through distress or crisis in the future?
What would your experience of the world be like if you were of a different height?
your persistence delights me. I'm finding so many easy challenges so hard to face it's just burn out but you're doing so very much!! I'm happy to hear the peer respite went well. usually I socialize way less than I should but even then it's great when people can just be accepting of what you're bringing in that moment.