by Chantal Tseng

Ambivalence in Doorways, a near April tiding

Chaos is a good story, if you can wield it.

Sometimes my mind is all over the place. In the low places, tiny tasks seems excruciating. In the middle places, myriads of conversations and articles are all fascinating and distracting. In the high places, the feeling of accomplishment is tied to even the most mundane of rituals. One year ago on March 14th, I tended bar on a Saturday and haven’t since. One year ago on March 21st was my last shift selling wine and beer at The Girl & the Vine. One year ago I had big plans that are no longer.

“The worse thing you can do in a fight is stop moving. When someone attacks, they create force, movement, momentum, but you’ll be okay as long as you can see and feel the direction of that force and travel with it.”― Victoria Schwab, The Unbound

MOMENTUM SHIFT

When one settles into a stillness, momentum is derailed. I remember our car idling before getting started in the cold winter months in our snowy Buffalo suburb. You had to warm it up and let it sit there rumbling before you drove anywhere. To begin from nothing was an impossible outing. Engines and all. And if you stayed idling for too long…well, that’s just eventual death.

I’m trying real hard to not lose momentum. Sometimes it feels like walking in the snow. You’re warm while you keep moving. The world is so cold and so pretty. It does not take long at all to feel the chill creep down one’s cheeks to spine and feet. Stopping is a mutiny of spirit.

“People will pay any price for motion. They will even work for it. Look at bicycles.”
― William Faulkner, The Reivers

READING MYTHS, a tangent becomes a tale to practice our pronouns:

Ambivalente is an amazing empath. When interacting with others, she knows just what lights the fires and chills the bones in our minds, hearts and souls. She loves a good Scotch, but he also enjoys a layered fruity cocktail, on fire. And of course, they never turn down a spicy Margarita. On the flipside, Ambivalente particularly enjoys reading in near-secret libraries rich in scents of vellichor, where only tea and Sherry and Madeira are available. 

They have many names. He/she/they is intentionally hard to nail down, spirit of all and lover to none but then again, perhaps also to most. Shadow to wild and wonderful Oya, foot soldier to a thunderous multi-tasking Kali, kin of transformative and sage Circe, builder of secret doorways to two-headed Janus.

Marcio Heider, “ORIXÁ OYÁ,” 2019
John Waterhouse, “Circe Invidiosa,” 1892
Maa Durga, (Kali) from Wood Emporium
Deep Ellum Janus Mural
1.25 oz. Espolon Reposado, .75 oz. Palo Cortado, .25 oz. Braulio Amaro, .25 oz. Apple Cardamom Shrub, lemon oil

Ambivalente might catch your interest with a surprising topical conversation about human rights or a shared appreciation of staring at waterfalls under starry skies. He may ignite your curiosity over a land rights dispute or over an appreciation of an exquisite operatic tenor. They might get your nerves charged regarding an absurdly personal controversy involving a sports franchise or perhaps whether or not bears have rights in less than 1% human populated natural areas. Or perhaps pronouns and topics are all just another guise for Ambivalente because the moment she senses you are on to them, they swiftly change channels, modes, forms. When youth teaches love, shared memories transform swiftly. Impressions leave footprints in various shoe sizes. An older tutor blindly catalogs the bitter with the savory, the sweet with the acid and relishes each changing sip.

COUNTERPARTS AND COUNTENANCES

I.

I once knew a lass

Amber shining hair flowed like cherry juice in blossom spring

Only once, maybe twice, did I catch her eye

And on the moment I heaved the breath of courage

She became a whisper of a friend from lost lives ago

A kin of a sister long passed.

II.

He would haunt my dreams in want

A ready nod could destroy my soul

I stole a moment alone with brash ill intent

Like a dervish from ancient myths, he turned on me

And I found waiting, a mild sermon of chaste.

III.

They cannot all love the same

They cannot all feel the heat

They proved themselves one day

Amidst a bonfire when resolve melted like a marshmallow.

IV.

And so like the wind scattering scents on trails

A notion in a crowded cafeteria

A single tear in a rainstorm

One’s tiny beauty leaves no trace

Except in a poem

Perhaps in a long lost memory triggered by scent

Or simply buried deep, overladen in ivy and moss.

A person becomes an idea

An idea becomes a plant

A plant becomes a friend

A friend grows distant

Distance becomes a ship in a storm

And life becomes dangerous.

by Chantal Tseng

Boundaries, Shapelessness (+ male nudity)

“That people, even more than things, lost their boundaries and overflowed into shapelessness is what most frightened Lila in the course of her life.” – “The Story of a New Name” by Elena Ferrante (P.355)

I ate tuna for dinner four times this week. I am officially a cat now. I might also be in danger of mercury poisoning so if COVID doesn’t get me…

Why do we binge? Be it eating, drinking, watching Netflix or any other medium, sometimes it’s real darn hard to stop. The latter being casually evil since they just keep playing episode after episode expecting you to be the assertive one and make a move of pause or rejection. I mean, like many of my people, (you know who you are) we are always open to suggestions. If someone says here I brought you this roast duck or piece of cake, I don’t usually turn them down. Just call me Sure-ly. Often when I’m particularly hungry and I eat something, (and no one is watching) I pretty much wolf down my food and sometimes hurry back to make seconds. Nacho-nite is a stellar example. With food, bingeing might be simply a physical desire to fill the void. With the miserable ache of hunger, like a grand lion pining away in complaint, food is a holy gift of fresh kill. Emptiness in our bellies, hearts and minds are the voids that we fight as a daily ritual. The true terror is when the void turns out to be a black hole or when we have no means to sate our hunger.

Have you ever taught or disciplined a youth because they refused to stop doing something? It’s usually not because the kid is ignorant of what they are supposed to be doing or not doing. They just cannot or will not stop. Whether you’re setting limits on how many servings of juice one is allowed, or protecting a defenseless but adorable house pet from being overly adored, self-control is a skill that must be learned and practiced to master. If you don’t set these limits or monitor these impulses, I don’t envy your social dynamic with the teen-to-be someday. And always, there is the oft-heard promise that someday when you’re old enough and on your own, you can make your own decisions about meals and other adult things. And still. Guess what happens to many of us who adult? We binge behind close doors and sometimes drink too much in bars, or vice versa, or really any combo thereof.

I remember finishing my bowl of rice as a child. Every bite I took seemed to go nowhere, as if there were some kind of infinite anti-void in the bottom of my bowl fighting my efforts at every second. Like a surreal fountain of seemingly never-ending rice. And when you grow up in a house where cleaning your plate is law, the frustration is real. I would imagine Atlas pushing a giant rice bowl up a great hill. To this day, I force myself to clean my plate even when I’m full. We get programmed as kids. Deprogramming is hard even when aware of one’s coding.

In the 2005 film “Constantine,” a priest, named Father Hennessy,* is cursed into thinking he is unable to drink alcohol when in actuality, he is simply being manipulated by a cruel & conniving demon. His mind can’t register his bodily action of imbibing and his cravings lead to extreme overdose and death soaked in liquid obliteration.

Perhaps when we binge the link between mind and body is simply broken or interrupted. Or perhaps the mind tells stories, like small fictions and the body just goes along with it. Akin to a demon telling stories or the manipulative affections of Cain and Abel forever intertwined to distract us from reality, as one hurts the other over and over. Tangent: I wonder if the so-named phantom limb perhaps haunts the mind out of revenge rather than routine.

“Cain & Abel” 1911, Marc Chagall

There’s a four book binge-worthy series by the author known as Elena Ferrante that begins with “My Brilliant Friend.” It’s a mesmerizing exploration of two girls from a violent and impoverished Napoli neighborhood and how their friendship over their lifetime is both inspiring and cruel. Ferrante challenges our raw relationships with honesty, testing the boundaries of what one feels and shares. How we hold onto our lies and how it shapes us. How we form relationships because of this shapelessness is like crafting shifting DNA into our shifty souls. How sometimes we cannot get enough of another and how sometimes we cannot stop hurting one another…

I cannot recommend the series enough.

“Forget it, it was the Devil who invented the world, not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” – My Brilliant Friend” (P.391) 1 oz. each of Fabriquero Sotol, Contratto Rosso Vermouth & Campari with .5 oz. beet juice and a floating dehydrated lime shell lit on fire.

* When clicking on the Father Hennessey link, on the bottom right of the video, click the small GIF tab next to the MP4 tab to see what I was referring to.