Iso in Melbourne & Mongolia
I lived alone during Melbourne's lockdown. It reminded me of the winter I spent in Mongolia. When I arrived in Ulaanbaatar it was -20 degrees outside and I didn't know anyone. I stayed in a lot.
At least in Mongolia, I could go out. I was there to work on a community arts project, so when I rugged up to brave the cold, it was to connect with the queer community to collaborate on a performance. We climbed mountains, drank vodka, got haircuts, ate buuz, and danced amongst the rubble of a semi-demolished gay bar. We also made a multi-site show across the city featuring stories, songs, a protest, a vigil, a bus for the audience, and a birthday cake for a six year old with two mums.
My new friends and I used the art project as an excuse to meet, spend time together, and we (or at least I) experienced aesthetic enrichment - joy, wonder, awe, fascination, and sadness in response to experiences involving other people, the body, the mind, and the senses. Outside the warm apartment, I was having what I'll call holistic experiences - they were socially, culturally, and spiritually enriching - while being connected to place and nature - all at once.
Locked down in Melbourne, leaving home for this kind of holistic experience was off the cards. Unconsciously, I separated my needs and attempted to address them individually. To stay physical, I worked out on a yoga mat in my bedroom. To stay social, I'd chat to friends and family on messenger and meet on zoom from the couch. Occasionally I’d say “hey” to a stranger on Grindr, but since meeting up wasn’t an option, conversations fizzled out quickly like a firework without the bang. To engage with culture, I streamed entertainment - watching Schitt's Creek and listening to Electric Fields, and Granny Bingo podcasts in bed, which provided some escapism. I maintained an income, working from my laptop at the kitchen table. To connect with nature, I'd walk to a gum tree or take my shoes off in the park to feel grass on my bare feet. I was grateful to be safe, sheltered, and fed. I was COVID19 negative, but not feeling especially well.
2020 selfie.
Netflix and chill from afar
As the lockdown dragged on, I was looking for something more. I was missing shared experiences, but not only that, I was missing shared experiences that were beautiful, sensory, embodied, emotional, or poetic. I was looking for social experiences with more culture - and cultural experiences that were more social. I was looking for holistic experiences like the ones I enjoyed in Mongolia… From a lonely lockdowned apartment in Melbourne, I wondered if it was possible.
My friends and I used Netflix Party to watch movies together on Friday nights from our separate homes. For me, this was more about the chats than the films. It was a moment to do something with others, and a welcome variation from isolation. It added a social dimension to netflix and chilling alone.
On my iso walking route.
I started to "walk and talk" - arranging phone calls with friends while I walked through quiet suburbia, past a paused construction site, to a creek that ran through weeping willows. Talking while moving relaxed the conversation, and helped me be more present, and more myself. Frogs and birds underscored the voice on the other end of the line.
On my birthday, my friend Lauren delivered cocktails in jars to my doorstep. A group of us got on zoom where I got tipsy, half naked, and read original iso poetry. That hit the spot, even though I woke up the next day with a Brene Brown vulnerability hangover. Since there was self expression, sensory, and embodied elements, it was a little more holistic than your usual conference call.
My friend Libby reminded me of the importance of fun, and how interrupting the boardroom vibes of video calls is needed if we're hoping to meaningfully connect through those platforms. These interruptions can be intentional or not - in addition to cocktails, ridiculous face filters can help, as can embarrassing screen sharing mistakes, or the arrival of various pets or children into zoom windows.
Video call but make it fun.
Aesthetically enriching shared experiences at a distance
Initially, I wasn't conscious that I was looking for more holistic experiences as a result of living quite a fragmented and detached life. I was interested in how artists were adapting to the restrictions and started to talk to others about how they were finding ways for "aesthetically enriching shared experiences at a distance". My dear friend M'ck and I reflected on how our own friendship began online - as two young Queensland queers from separate country towns. Back in the era of online forums, we experienced joy, awe, and wonder as part of an online community, curating ideas and poetry for each other from afar.
Artist friends were facilitating workshops online, and sending art materials across the country to extend shared experience beyond the screen. Workshop participants could connect on zoom, and create, sculpt, or weave together. Dance and movement classes had people moving beyond the zoom window in their lounge rooms. These added an embodied, tactile, or sensory element to online activity. Many people were experimenting with how to make remote experiences less fragmented and separated, and more holistic and shared.
I watched the live stream of my Uncle's funeral, and cried with my family, who were 2000km away. I taught mum how I do my slow poached eggs over facebook messenger. Friends and I cooked and ate together, from our separate kitchens, sharing our lives in different ways. My friend Jamie took the experience of sharing food alone to the next level. She produced a project in Singapore wherein "a curated group of ten intergenerational audience participants savour a meal with headphones on, tuning in to an intercultural conversation between children and seniors in Australia and Singapore" (www.jamielewis.com.au).
In my own work, I was co-facilitating a community arts workshop series with 10 participants in Korea, many of whom experience disability. We're used to being in the same room together, sharing stories from our everyday life and making theatre. From our separate devices, across oceans, we shared the highs and lows of lockdowns, and collected writing and photos and ideas. We carved out a space where everyone was encouraged to bring their whole self to the conversation. We stretched our bodies together. We cried listening to music together. At times, we were having holistic experiences from a distance.
Quarantine
Quarantine sunset
When my Dad passed away, I flew home to Queensland and spent two weeks in hotel quarantine. Holistic experiences like the ones in Mongolia were definitely not possible then, nor were the walk and talks or the gum tree visits. I separated mental health from everything else, and took targeted medication to address it. Grief, combined with an uncompassionate quarantine regime designed to protect me and others from COVID19 was not great for my well being. But I understood why it was required.
In quarantine, friends waved to me from the street below and sent up fresh fruit. I received personalised activities from friends, and a care package complete with a separate letter for every day of quarantine, each written by a different friend. Every morning, I'd open up the curtains to reveal the view of Mt. Cootha, sit on the floor with my forehead pressed against the window, and read letters, poems, and memories. My mum reminded me that you only need the tiniest glimpse of nature to feel connected to it. Luckily I had an entire mountain in the distance. I realised that the most meaningful and healing moments seem to be when there is less separation - not just of people - but of all the parts of myself. Those close to me facilitated shared experiences from a distance for me, and I am so grateful.
It should be mentioned that holism within health - “the inter-related, reciprocal, and unified state of connection within and across individual, familial, social, community, cultural, and ecological systems” is nothing new. It is sometimes ignored by whiteness, which tends to value the individual, the human, and the constructed boundaries within and around us. Many Indigenous writers from around the world explain that holism and interdependence are at the heart of their Indigenous worldviews. For me as a white person, there is an opportunity for further decolonisation of myself and my work by appreciating holism, and at the same time, a risk of cultural appropriation if not approached humbly and respectfully. The Western notion of holism can at times ignore structural inequalities, placing the responsibility on to individuals to restore balance in their own, separate lives.
Critical Holism
This year, plenty of days blurred together, where I didn't go outside, didn't connect with others, and didn't experience anything particularly moving. Amongst this though, there were small moments that felt special - moments that were outside the everyday and experienced through the senses, body, and mind. They were different because they didn't just offer entertainment or escapism - actually they offered the opposite - a chance to confront reality and be more present with others, despite the physical separation. Sadness was a relief from numbness and anxiety. In these special moments, the aesthetic was not separated from the social. There were glimpses towards holism during a fragmented year. Often, these moments were only possible due to the generosity and thoughtfulness of others. It reminded me that while we can take some responsibility for our own wellbeing, we play a major role in the wellbeing of others - not just through care, generosity, and thoughtfulness, but through offering stories, music, poetry, imagery, emotions, and ideas.
I’m not saying we shouldn't separate our needs and desires and address them separately - I think it's often important and helpful to do so, and this year, doing just that helped me get through some tough times. I also acknowledge the important treatments and therapies that directly and successfully address specific issues. At the same time, thinking about prevention instead of cures, I wonder if there would be less need for fragmented fixes if the world around us offered more holistic experiences - where we're enriched socially, mentally, physically, culturally, and spiritually - while expressing our generosity to each other and nature.
Realising that I'm looking to engage in and offer more holistic experiences, I'll practice resisting some forms of separation. This is a radical act, since the separation of our needs and desires, and our efforts to satiate them independently results in siloed products and services that are better suited to capitalism and more profitable for the rich.
Heteronormativity encourages the separation of our professional, public, and private lives, and there is not always cohesion between them, which fractures our lives further. For safety, I hide and reveal my own queerness as I move between contexts. Queer ways of thinking remind us that our individual needs and desires do not need to be met from a single source. For me, holism may be about seeing my body and mind as one, in relationship to others and my environment - including oppressive structures - and accepting that this system is interconnected and in flux. For me, holism is not about putting my fractured life back together in a way that conforms to heteronormativity or white supremacy - but in a way where I receive and offer holistic experiences, with others, without ignoring or damaging our environments. This approach also threatens neoliberalism's "every person for themself" myth.
Crises and Hope
We have a crisis this year that’s separating us more than usual. During this time, I realised that separation and fragmentation is a characteristic of my life - not just when I'm locked down or in hotel quarantine. As restrictions ease, and we meet again face to face, I'm going to work on bringing together some parts of myself that have been separated internally over a lifetime. Not because I am broken, and not just to avoid disease, but because I hope for a richer human experience for myself and others.
Online learning.
If COVID19 passes, we are not crisis free. Environmental, social, economic, and political crises are all on the horizon, largely because of ongoing colonisation and its devastating impact on the planet. Other pandemics will overlap with bushfires and rising seas and floods, as the poor get poorer, the planet heats, people move, and wars break out. We should not be approaching the future with hope that there will be no more crises. The hope I have, is that we may be able to prepare for, confront, and endure the waves of crises - together. In a future where the destructive and oppressive systems we know either keep growing or collapse, it may not be possible to address our needs and desires separately anymore - or rely on single sources for fixes.
I hope our future is less about soothing the symptoms, and more about stepping away from the causes - replacing the current failing systems with critical and holistic alternatives. Since individual circumstances are largely beyond individual control, will we stand together to support each other as we trial alternatives? Will we work in solidarity, acknowledging that because wealth is not distributed fairly, suffering too is unfairly distributed? Or will we continue to try and get back to a normal that benefits some while the rest, and the place we live, are ignored?
I want to engage in and offer more holistic experiences during our ongoing crises, where interdependence and imagination are encouraged, nature (including us) is cared for, and we express from deep within, our joy, our hope, our generosity, and our sadness.
“Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.”
Bertrand Russell
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.