I’ve been thinking a lot about art and content. I’ve been in a space where I’m letting go more and allowing—not trying to figure everything out all the time. Trusting where I am, what I’m doing, and where I’m being led. It’s led me to believe that living is its own art. Being in the moment and present is a skill. Being conscious enough to make your own clear decisions outside of what we are taught to believe and do is the radical artist at work.
Although my body wants to tell me to panic. I’m starting over. Thirty-three, living at home with my family. Not in the career I want, and the state of the world can bring its own anxieties. But I know deep down that I have no worries. I’ve been through this before; I’ve made it through the fire. I can trust myself and know that everything will be alright. I can sit in ease, breathe slowly, and take my time.
But that goes against how I’ve been programmed. This mindset is contradictory to the constant push and pull and pressure I apply to myself. To operate from a place of deep knowing—despite what is around you—is peace.
I follow my anxiety up with rest and slowness; my fears, I combat with movement; my confusion, sometimes with both rest and movement.
I listened to a quote from a lecture by Marimba Ani. She talks about the African perspective of time and how it is cyclical. She says it “transcends those lineal (or linear) categories of past, present, and future. Their concept is beyond those. We’re dealing with a reality that makes everything one.” To me, this means that if all time is present here and now—and our conception of time as linear is erroneous—then I can be attuned with the energies of the past, present, and future in this moment.
In other words, I’m in communion with my ancestors and my future when I allow myself to be in the present moment, in flow, in presence—regardless of what it is.
There is so much to gain from what seems mundane. Those moments where I wandered around the garden with my grandmother as she watered her flowers. Words didn’t have to be spoken, but we held space for each other and for those who came before us and walked the same lands. Those who imagined us as we remembered them. The hours of witnessing and listening to storytelling and performing and laughter as we gathered in the communal spaces of kitchens and living rooms, holding space and being present. Remembering. I knew that I was collecting and archiving for the future.
What about taking what we’ve been through and alchemizing it into something that transforms you and allows you to show up improved? Is that art? Taking my life experiences and learning and growing from them—being able to show up as the tattered but improved version of myself. Being so in love with and embodied in who you are that your mere presence becomes an art form. Being intentional. Not just surviving, but making something out of your survival. You are the artist and the medium. I’m showing up as the form, and with me, I carry all that was and is and will ever be. Every lesson I’ve overcome—and still continue to show up. I don’t have to force or paint it; the energy speaks for itself.
We are taught to “perform improvement, polish the brand, make it look easy.” But I want to show up as I am, as the work in progress. Accepting and loving myself fully for the embodiment that I am. You no longer need a stage because you become the living altar of truth. It’s in my doing and stillness, and my presence in both. Knowing and listening to when to shift between the two.
Slowing down and allowing myself to tune in—despite the pressures, algorithm, fear, and capitalist time that indoctrinates us with doing more and getting more done. When I slow down, I know that I am opening myself up to hear, to feel, to travel beyond form. Time is no longer about the to-do list, but sitting in it becomes a meditation, a ritual.
That’s why in my vlogs, I tend to want to capture the ordinary: me sitting on my bed, writing, driving, making food—times where my mind tends to leave me and dream of faraway lands. Holding space for others to sit in their stillness without worrying about what’s next. Being in flow then becomes about reconnection to the all. Being in the now allows me to remember when I think I don’t know. Reconnection. Your presence becomes a prayer. Your life is the art.
Nashema's Blog 