I have been thinking a lot about Shirin Neshat: “Passage” (2001) recently, a short film/video installation that I saw many years ago at SFMoma. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the artwork, no complete video of it exists on the internet, just this video that shows snippets of the film, to convey the atmosphere.
It’s a 3-part narrative on an Islamic funeral ceremony. The first shows a group of men carrying a body, the second, a group of oscillating women digging into the ground in unison with their hands for the burial, and the third, a young girl playing alone while the burial ground burns. The film is scored by Philip Glass, and I can still hear its repetitious sounds. The film at its core is about the cycle of life and death. Not having discussed this film with anyone for probably a decade, I asked Sam if he remembers and he immediately said that yes, he recalls it vividly. It’s a powerful film to say the least and if ever you get a chance to see it, I urge you to.
As I near the end of my pregnancy (37 weeks at the time of writing), the visual movement of the women oscillating and digging into the earth with their bare hands plays repeatedly in my head accompanied by their otherworldly chanting. In many ways it’s an apt depiction of birth, which oddly feels like a form of death. The painful waves of arresting contractions, which in any other situation would be considered dire, are necessary in order to bring forth new life. I’ve been thinking about this as I prepare for my second birth.
What I have not been doing this pregnancy is buying into the insidiousness of diet culture masqueraded as “health for your body and baby”. It generally consists of prenatal yoga/stretches, pelvic floor exercises (which I honestly hated. I had no idea a pelvic floor physio appointment involved someone with a hand in your vagina shouting at you to relax for an hour. Sorry this is TMI but I have to warn everyone this is what a pelvic floor physio is), the right diet to boost your baby’s IQ by 5 points.
What I did do instead is make this baby quilt, a much better use of my sanity and time. It actually began during my first pregnancy when I embarked on my natural dye journey. I’ve been saving these swatches of fabrics all these years not knowing where it will go. And if I’m being honest, feeling a little guilty because I had no idea what any of it meant or amounted to. So it felt especially satisfying to finally find a focus/landing for all of the experiments. It wasn’t a waste after all! I also got to learn how to quilt, something I’ve always wanted to learn, throughout this process.
I’ve been clutching onto a bag of expired oolong tea that my family gifted me many years ago when I visited them in China. They were specially ordered from my grandpa’s hometown, as they knew that was the specific taste I craved. (Naturally I saved it in my pantry until they had gone stale.) When I think of oolong teas, I think of quiet afternoons drinking tea with my grandpa. He always prepared it gongfu style. He passed away last year, followed by my grandma a few months later, and I’m still grappling with this loss. Midway through constructing this quilt, it occurred to me that I should dye a piece of fabric with this tea and it resulted in a rich peachy colour.
My happiest memories growing up were between the ages of 4 to 7, when I lived with my grandparents in China after my mother’s death. They were filled with swallows, cicadas (the baby ones that we foraged and fried), floating poplar seeds, sweltering afternoons making origami stars with my grandma, running semi-feral with my pack of friends in the village completely unsupervised, finding dead rats, fire crackers, sneaking into abandoned buildings, crashing on my bike, stitches on my chin and forehead, snails every rainfall, catching dragonflies at sunset, finding all sorts of crawling creatures on my body at the end of the day, sleeping under mosquito nets, of families and friends coming and going throughout the day, being surrounded by my grandparents’ paintings which covered every inch of their walls that I took for granted at the time, of the 7 parrots my grandma kept on her balcony, of the 2 bunnies we adored before they escaped, my grandma’s sewing machine, and my grandparents’ three wheel bike which I sat in the back of to accompany them to the market. Those years are a wealth of inspiration for me. To be able to place a small part of that spirit onto this quilt is to say the least very meaningful.
Here’s another view of the baby room. I have a weakness for nostalgia and whimsy and this shutter speaks to both. The little moon casts a soft glow into the room when the shutter is closed.
Naomi has officially entered her why phase and so far it’s been entertaining. I can’t help but also wonder why and when this phase ends. Is it because over time we learn that our curiosity is an inconvenience to those around us? Or perhaps someone at some point told us it was a stupid question? I admire her and every child her age’s courageous whys and make a note to emulate it more in my life.
Talk to you on the other side.