On Mending: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

The seed we plant, in the soil we water, anticipates growth. It doesn’t doubt for one second that a flower, herb, vegetable, or spice will burst through. This is what I like to believe is faith. Through my journey of grieving, I have held onto my faith by believing that we are for a reason and nothing has detoured me from this. When I reflect on my grief and pain, my ancestor's grief and pain, and our collective grief and pain, it wasn’t, it isn’t all for nothing. With each battle, we’ve been granted a scar, a wound. It wasn’t until reading All About Love by Bells Hooks that I learned about the shame associated with admitting woundedness. She writes, “We need to speak of our shame and our pain courageously in order to recover” and how “Constructive confrontation aids our healing.” If we are not willing to have the hard conversations they’ll remain hard forever and we may never experience the softness of acceptance and serenity. Through floral arrangements, photography, family archives, poetry, collage, and performance, I invite you into my home to witness what has come of the courage I hold, to know that my wounds are attached to a body with life. A body with joy, pain, happiness, grief, guilt, sadness, forgiveness, laughter, honesty, and most importantly love. I mend myself with language and gaining a deeper understanding of my language of love within myself has been my healing component. I’ve titled this series The Stories We Tell Ourselves because when it comes to grieving, you will be met with the truth and untruths and the stories we tell ourselves to continue our lives. To heal. To mend.