The Commons

Poppies In October

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly —

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

(Poem by Sylvia Plath)

Daddy Long Legs treks through the snow

Preface

The story of this project began somewhat unceremoniously. Last October I found myself feeling quite isolated. Through a combination of circumstances in my personal life I had for the first time in years found myself with an over abundance of time spent alone. Being by myself is not something I handle very well. I have struggled with disassociation most of life, and it happens the most when I’m alone. Like any other difficult moment in my life, I rallied behind my movement as a source of solace.

Meloncholoholic

As outlined and explored in my previous project “Tether” I have long viewed movement as a tool to combat these feelings of detachment. I have always recognized my movement as being a coping mechanism, but I generally viewed it to be a purely healthy one. However this year I found this dynamic to be a bit more nuanced than I previously considered it to be. I began to feel as though my movement was becoming a form of escapism. A method to distract from being forced to actually face how strained my relationship with myself had become. Movement was definitely still a necessary reprieve, yet the more I payed attention to the role it was playing, the more I realized it wasn’t really bringing a sense of presence to my day to day existence. It was more of a retreat. In some ways it was a means to continue to disassociate without clocking it as being so.

An early working title for this project was “Meloncholoholic” a word I had coined in a poem I wrote that October. A combination of the word melancholy, meaning a pensive sadness, and the suffix holic denoting an addictive relationship. To me the word described the somewhat intoxicating allure of this gloomy mental state. There is a strange sort of comforting nostalgia I have for this detachment. It’s familiar, and certainly easier to drift around half-there than to put in the work to address the roots of my problems. Early filming centered around attempting to chronicle and express this dynamic. The static angles began not as an artistic choice, but out of necessity. I had previously explored this in “Tether” yet I think I hadn’t truly honed in on the visual style the last time around. Typically I, like many of us, prioritize showcasing the movement as descriptively and objectively as possible through camera work. As a means to convey a lack of focus on the self, I strived to compose shots that felt like photos to me. The subject was the space, not my movement. Spot choice also quickly became integral to the project. I started to seek spots not for what they offered movement wise, but solely for the emotional tone I felt the space evoked. The spaces became a place for me to project my feelings on to. 

exterior/interior landscape

Self Love / Self Worth

As fall turned to winter, the unsustainability of this “meloncholoholic” dynamic was bubbling to the surface. I truly couldn’t keep burying my discomfort any longer. Strained, and under resourced I tried (and failed) to connect more directly with myself in this time spent alone. One of the things my disassociation attempts to protect me from is how low my self esteem is. It is hard to want to be with yourself if you don’t like yourself. Unconditional self love is a difficult thing to foster directly. At the very least I figured I could attempt to shift my training habits in a manor that could maybe help kickstart some proto-selflove. Over the past few years I have grown critical of how my self worth can be attached to my success in parkour. In an attempt to tear that down and start fresh, I tried to mute my self criticism by purposely choosing not to push myself too much in my movement. This felt thematically related to the visual style I had been filming with. I tried not to focus too hard on whether I deemed my movements to be “good”. Instead I decided to put my focus toward the film making. I created tricks or lines that weren’t particularly taxing so I could repeat them successfully over and over again. Not with any goal of perfection, but so I could try out different framing and angles. Fixating over the shots and not the tricks helped me start to value my movement a bit more unconditionally. 

Comfort through simplicity

Space as Friend

Another dynamic central to the past year of life as well as this project is the use of space as a comforting presence. The way in which I can experience camaraderie through inanimate objects and settings. I spent a lot of time this year just walking around downtown Colorado Springs. Often not even training, just actively observing the world around me and feeling at ease through its presence. This year I was working a job where it didn’t feel safe to be out as trans. Being there everyday weighed me down, and separated me. These walks helped me feel the abundance of beauty that I could connect to. It was around this time I started thinking deeper about the b-roll / art roll for this project. To contrast the static movement shots, I wanted to express a different connection to space through handheld shots of details I’d notice exploring the city. I had lived in Colorado Springs for seven years at this point, and often viewed the place and its population a bit pessimistically. A car centric late stage capitalist hellscape of sorts, filled with a strong military presence and evangelical christians. My identify could often feel at odds with the spaces I occupied. I began to make an active effort to dismiss this narrative and seek the beauty in what could easily be seen as ugly. Both in visual and in character. Nothing is ever so clean cut and simple. I strived to navigate this ambiguity and appreciate its complexity. 

Pops of color

To Feel

I think the story of this video’s ender perfectly encapsulates what I feel is present in this video. For a while I had the basketball hoop clip as the ender, but it never quite felt right. The focus still felt too heavy on the movement. I was having a particularly bad day when I got the ender. It was a gray rainy day, and I had a pretty shitty day at work. I tried going to a spot I had been excited about but got kicked out within minutes. I was in an area of the city I rarely trained in so I started scouring my spot map for somewhere else to go. I noticed a spot pin I had added years ago but had never been to. It was on the edge of a gated community in the wealthiest neighborhood in the city, and about a half mile walk from the closest parking. With low expectations for the session at this point I decided I might as well check it out. The spot ended up being incredibly beautiful. It was one of the largest drainage systems I had ever seen. Massive walls of concrete. It was raining quite hard once I got there, but I quickly realized that I somehow still had great grip on all of the concrete. This was really exciting to me, because the feeling of moving in such a wet environment was perfect to pull focus away from whatever tricks I decided to do. After a bit of playing around I decided I wanted to do some sort of flip pre between two of the angled ledges. I mainly picked this because it would involve my run up being in the pool of rain that had accumulated at the bottom. On maybe me second or third attempt I missed completely and fell into the water, completely drenching me. This only added to my joy, and my sense of presence. As I worked at it more, I couldn’t decide how to exit from the pre because you can’t exactly stick on such an angled ledge. Since I was already wet, I decided it would be fun to launch into a backroll in the water. The longer I attempted the challenge it started getting harder and harder because my clothes started to weigh so much more carrying all that water. After getting a few takes I was stoked with, I packed it up to walk back to the car. It was at this point that I realized just how cold I was. I was shaking and couldn’t feel my fingers. Frigid and dripping, I laughed out loud the whole walk back. A moment of immense joy in my isolation. I felt alive. 

soaked and alive