What if I can?

Medicine and dandelions

I have approximately nine hundred things due on Wednesday, hopeful things that could send me to residencies or get me some financial backing for my harebrained schemes. Ok maybe more like three things, but they’re BIG and require significant focus. The logical next step was to drive to Naarm from Castlemaine and draw dandelions in my friend’s studio.

Hear me out. Nothing comes from nothing. When you’re stuck, when the loud asshole in your head is saying SO MANY PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN YOU, that’s the time to relocate and be playful. Lucky for me, I’ve been listening to audiobooks Alice Wong’s Year of the Tiger, Holly Ringland’s The House that Joy Built, and the Hamilton soundtrack (cos it fires me up). It’s all great medicine. Ringland poses the question “what if I can?” in response to all the “you can’t”s. (Pronounce that how you will). It’s stuck in my head and I’m now embodying the “how you like me now?” stance.

Not everything can be a case of me against the world, so I’m shuffling toward I like me now, being playful and working with it all.

I have a fanciful dream about my current work in progress, of visuals and diagrams and things I drew and wrote on. “But I can’t draw” says the sad person in my head, who is me, and now I have a retort. A chocolate torte of a retort, because it isn’t combative as much as invitational. Come on, buddy, let’s have a playful go of this together.

I started with a dandelion. They’re a whole thing for me, a deeply rooted connection and affinity and admiration. When I drew the dandelion on Wednesday I understood that I am the dandelion.

Let me wind it back a bit: if I don’t know how to draw, it’s ok because I only need to make marks on a page and see what happens. There’s no outcome I’m hoping for. There’s no deadline or selection criteria or panel of assessors.

I overprepared, of course, and printed out reams of artwork involving dandelions and the Wikipedia page about them and botanical drawings and photographs. But when I arrived at Texta’s house, they plucked one from their garden and put it in a jar with some water. Clearing a desk that sat beneath a beautiful buttery light streaming through their frosted glass window, they plonked the jar on the table and wordlessly communicated that I didn’t need all that stuff. The real thing is right here.

I used pencils and metallic paintbrush textas, coming to understand the shapes and colours. There were so many more colours than I knew I’d be adding to the page! The veins of the leaves have a colour I have no idea how to replicate, and I love the mystery of it. Their pointy barbed looking leaves that are all softness and curls, the stages of life. Lives, really.

Here is my first dandelion study:

Dandelion Study #1 - an illustration on A3 paper of a dandelion in a glass jar and water. Words surround the illustration such as “Taraxacum Officinale”, silver tufted fruit, when I’m adrift and don’t know what to do - > Dandy tea. Makes me stronger and grounds me. Transgender bisexual shapeshifter. At the bottom of the page in green pencil reads 25/2/26 Texta’s Studio Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country. JP.

Did you know that dandelions are bisexual? It said so on Wikipedia. I think they’re trans too, they have their white fluffy ball-y presentation, then they transition into rioting yellow joy flowers. They’re tough as nails, surviving with minimal soil and water, thrive wherever they are and make the soil around them healthier, as well as insects and birds. They need time to rest in the cave, but when they come back they’re extremely camp about it.

I have held so much shame and fear in my body about being an introduced species on Aboriginal land. It has stopped me in my tracks more times than I care to mention. How can I be here? This is not my light or my medicine or my Country. The colonial project perpetuates shame and homogeneity and we go on to police and shame each other. It’s violent and crushing, and I learned this week that Country knows who I am. She has introduced herself to me so many times, and I have been terrified to respond in case I fucked it up. In case I hurt someone or participated in harming any entity or human that I live in community with.

When I was drawing I held my body so taut because I was afraid of getting it wrong. I fell into a trance (I believe the normies call it “focusing”) and when I looked up, I noticed two things: I was not in the midst of a life threatening emergency, and Boba my chihuahua friend was in their bed just behind me. Chihuahua’s are Mexican in origin, and never for one moment have I thought that Boba was a bad dog for living on this continent.

(To be clear, Boba is a very good dog. She’s ready for her close up. Look at that intensity! Star quality, prominent eyeball capacity, glossy coat.)

Hi Boba! A black, cream and tan chihuahua is alert in a fluffy donut shaped bed. The bed is on floorboards and beside it are some notebooks, a reference book, a tote bag and a pencil case that says PEACHY! on it.

If I buy into the hierarchies and adopt the opinion that my bog Irish lineage is bad for most likely being arrested for doing something they needed to do to survive, and being yoinked over here, then I’m still perpetuating that colonial message. So I’ve been releasing my stranglehold on whether I’m allowed to exist here, in increments when I remember.

I have been welcomed to Country more times than I can count by those who have the right to do so. For me to decide that I’m unworthy or not accepting of that welcome is so insulting and stops a generously offered flow of healing energy and wisdom. So I’m going to try and not do that anymore. I’m going to try and remember what I’ve learned.

With the dandelions, my hopeful plan is to be in spaces with people known and beloved by me who are very good at doing what I’d like to be good at doing. I’m not going to ask them to teach me but I’ll sit near them and we’ll both work on whatever we’re working on. I feel like sometimes skill comes through osmosis, but maybe that’s just giving yourself permission to belong.

One million years ago I met the late great Mirka Mora at an artists talk and she flashed her undies at me and several other folks. She was a riot. She asked us all if we were artists, and I didn’t know what to say. I felt shy about saying I wrote, because was that even true and am I allowed to respond to a question like that from an artist I admire? I thought that it meant responding wasn’t required because I wasn’t good enough. The question was for everyone but me. People asked me questions to be polite but didn’t mean it. People told me they loved me to be polite but didn’t mean it. Stopping that loving invitation to exchange stories, to hold one another… it’s a violent act. I had no idea I was being this way but now that I do, it has to change. It really, absolutely must. In so many ways it already has.

Mirka didn’t let it go, didn’t allow me to fade into the background. This is something I’m adept at doing whenever I feel exposed and afraid. She asked me again until I met her gaze and said yes, I am a writer. A strong nod joined the smile spreading across her face. I’ll never forget it.

So it felt important to get this down even though school is over for the week very soon, and these proposals are due on Wednesday. I didn’t want the fairy part of the dandelion to blow away without capturing it in my images and words. I didn’t want to not make the wish because I’d deemed it less important than other more serious things.

Sometimes being playful and silly is the most important thing of all.

Big love from JP xo

p.s. Thank you once again to folks who support my work on Substack with subscriptions. It’s deeply moving to see you pop up in my garden here. You are always welcome to send me a message if there’s something in particular you’d like me to write about. Your backing keeps fruit in the bowl which is no mean feat with two little fruitbat kids!