how to become a butterfly
Monday Updates 039: struggling with making art in mexico
A few months ago, I was walking through a supermarket in New York with a friend. We drifted from aisle to aisle, our conversation meandering the way conversations do; one thought dissolving into another. Then, without warning, she asked me, “Do you know how a butterfly actually becomes a butterfly?”
I told her I thought I did. But the truth was, I hadn’t really thought about it. Not seriously. Not the way you think about something that might undo you.
“It’s an awful process,” she said. “At one point, when they’re inside the chrysalis, their whole body turns into goo. They aren’t even themselves anymore.”
That image struck me; visceral, strange, and beautiful. I felt a twinge of discomfort, was maybe even a bit repulsed. But more than anything, I was absorbed. I kept thinking about it throughout the day. This inevitable transmutation. The absolute surrender of form. Somehow, it felt familiar.
It felt like what had happened to me since I left Japan. A slow unraveling. A liquefaction of self. Being out in the world on my own for the first time, navigating the blurry edge between connection and distance, between the identity I inherited and the one I’m trying to build. I didn’t know it when it started, but something in me was melting down.
It’s been a wild ride; more intense, and more unpredictable than I ever expected.
Lately, I’ve been sketching, gathering fragments, sourcing pieces for something I haven’t quite named yet. I haven’t stepped into a store, not really. In the past I’d rush, grabbing whatever was near, trying to make something out of the scraps. But now, I’m mapping things. Drawing slow, careful lines.
Art hasn’t come easy since I left. The impulse is there, but the clarity—less so. It’s hard to make when you’re uncertain of the ground you’re standing on. But something’s shifting. I’m beginning to understand that what I need isn’t some flash of inspiration, but focus. Deliberate, consistent focus. A return to structure. Lucid thoughts. Clean boundaries. A joyful heart. (I don’t have these things, not yet.)
Back home, making was automatic, but joyless. In some way, I resented most of what I created. I may have even hated it a bit. I tore it down before it had time to live. Maybe that was the part of me shaped too deeply by the culture I came from: the constant pressure to be better, the refusal to recognize when something was already good. Now I’m sorting through that, asking myself: what do I want to carry forward, and what am I ready to let go?
I have a few shoots in mind. Nothing grand, not yet. But I’m piecing them together. Trying to make something whole. Something I can love.
FIND ME ON
Monday Updates is a section of this blog where I’m letting my hair down, figuratively. I am often preoccupied with getting things perfect, rather than simply sharing and enjoying the process while talking about life. Instead of the tradition of hating Mondays, I’m going to try to associate them with creative freedom and allow myself to speak my mind without the worry that a perfectionist usually has. Things here may be a bit disjointed, incomplete, and occasionally nonsensical, but they may also be playful, curious, and whimsical. I will do my best to make it more of the latter.
Ohhh I'm writing something right now where I discuss, as you say, "the liquefaction of self." We cling to identity so strongly when it's really such a fragile thing. I hope you find the focus and structure you're looking for.