My tears are the sweat of trying to write

or I fear not giving justice to the sweat you all shared with me.

So, I left the field, then I became a yoga teacher, after that I moved to Brussels and now?

I sit in front of fragmented pages and when I write sentences, they feel and read incomplete. They feel and read shallow. They feel and read so far away from anything that I imagined writing during my PhD. And it sucks.

Tears became my new accessory. I bring them everywhere, well to be fair they invite themselves. Assembling silently into the corner of my eyes until their full bodies comfortably travel down my cheeks leaving myself and the people observing me uncomfortable. The tears are silent proof of some sort of suffering. I see compassion and concern reflected in their faces asking, how can we help her? And I feel fear and hopelessness in my gut asking, will it ever stop? They nod knowingly and with certainty say “yes it will”, “this too shall pass”, “maybe you need professional help”, “we will get there”, “I am here to help, read, whatever you need”, “have you tried …“, “writer’s blocks are common”.

And there are those two words, I never gave much attention to. They feel so far from me.

Me? A block in writing?

Impossible, I love writing.

Me? A fear of an empty page? No, my pages are not empty, they are just crappy.

Me? Not able to write academically?

It’s more that I lost my confidence.

There is some truth in the words of the people surrounding me with listening ears and benevolent words. It took me time to understand, but many tears later I finally got what they mean by writer’s block. I am blocked by the fear of the crappy page, the fear of the wrong words, the fear of the fragmented narrative, the fear of cryptic word assemblages, the fear of grammatically wrong English, the fear of non-aesthetic sentences, the fear of letting everyone down whose words I admire and whose knowledge I cherish and most importantly the fear of not giving justice to the sweat you all shared with me.

Possibly the biggest virtue in the gym is trying. The consistency of not giving up. The discipline of crafting. Present in the endless repetition of the same movements. Day after day after day.

My friends, my mentor in Switzerland, and my supervisor here in Belgium say, “you need to keep writing”, “writing is like a muscle that needs to be trained”, “you write, and rewrite until it becomes a chapter you like”. Hence, academic writing and training in the gym are not far from each other. The commonality is in the countless hours we repeat the same thing to come as close to perfection as possible. So, every time we re-do it, the voices of fear are a bit less loud. A bit less overwhelming. And at its best even joyful and cathartic.

I write and I cry in the search for meaning on the canvas of a page

although, empty comes with many rules and regulations.

I try so I cry

I want to speak struggling as the forms are not mine.

I cry because I try,

Repeat.

My tears are the sweat of trying to write.

Surthriving explored through shape and taste.

As I barely use social media these days I did not share anything regarding the hell we're witnessing daily all over the world. On the following lines I share some thoughts about safety on a global and local scale.

But first there are resources out there carefully provided by thoughtful and mourning collectives and individuals, see for example GEM collective: Palestine solidarity statement & resources list (gemcollective.org)

Has the privilege of being safe a taste?

Has the privilege of being safe a shape?

It has no weight – that I know.

I moved to Bruxelles a few weeks ago. Weeks during which part of the world decided genocides are the answer to terror. Read that again. Weeks during which part of the world decided genocides are the answer to terror.

Fear hugs me tighter than the corsets in Bridgerton.

Words blocked somewhere – the whole body a big fat question mark.

Questions painful to formulate because the answer lived by brown and black bodies their entire life. It’s whispered framing it more cruel, “actually we don’t care”.

It was in these weeks during which part of the world decided genocides are the answer to terror I felt safety.

In my everyday I felt safe. I enjoyed Bruxelles. Getting to know it in the light and in the dark - during days and during nights.

3 weeks I had the privilege of tasting nothing.

3 weeks I had the privilege of safety’s shapelessness.

3 weeks I felt no weight.

It was Saturday night of the third week and I had a man following me for solid 10 minutes.

Not leaving..

Insisting..

Following..

Creeping..  

To cut the painful story short, in the end I ran home. I made it inside, heart beating, breath fast. An unfinished traumatic reaction now stored somewhere in my body.

Safety gone.

Taken away without any dialogue, without any consent.

Are there any witnesses? What does the one do that witnesses?

So, what next? I realised I see that man everyday in the park when I walk my dog. Every day he is present. Maybe not even recognising me, but I do.

So, what next? Kickboxing, Muay Thai to regain a sense of strength. A sense of autonomy over my body, over my sweat, over my heart beat. Because although, I struggled making it through the doors of a new gym after the past 18 months in Leicester the fear of Bruxelles streets is now bigger than the doors of a new gym.

SURTHRVING

Surviving + Thriving

And what if you do not have a gym to go to?

What if you have nowhere to go to?

What if the fear eats you alive?

What if parts of the world watch you while fear eats you alive?

Claiming their Zionist actions are there to protect. To make things safe. But safe for whom? Safe to bodies that look and pray alike. I still have that man hovering over me cloud-like. I still have the acid taste of fear every day darkness hugs Bruxelles. And beyond all that bodies become cold in the shadow of the Zionist cloud. Can cold bodies still taste fear?

There are many witnesses. What does the one do that witnesses?

Has hope a taste?

Has hope a shape?

It is heavy – that I know.

Until things become tasteless and shapeless. Hopefully we surthrive.

thank you Joelle and Bridget for holding space.

Summer, Yoga and Ethical Inspiration

This summer I went to Portugal for my 200-hour yoga teacher training (ytt). The coach brought me to the airport, the plane to Porto, the bus to Coimbra, where I met four out of the ten other women that joined for this journey. We had a shared minibus that brought us to the off-grid location becoming our home for the next three weeks. In the bus we got to know each other a little bit and one of the women asked, “who will we be on the way back?”. The air was filled with silent hope.

Yoga – well the practice of Asanas (postures) - was part of my journey since the very beginning of my PhD. Even before I had a rough idea of my research project and before I got to see my office in the department. It was the one hour that helped me cleanse and reconnect with my body. Both through the highs and the lows of the path. Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, however, always present.

In this past two years the wish of becoming a yoga teacher started to grow within myself. Firstly, because I wanted to share something that does me so much good. Secondly, without knowing knowing I had this intuition that there is more to it. Something, that goes beyond the words I had to describe what it does to my whole being.

The whole being: body, mind, soul, energy all undifferentiable mushed together

Like the kneading of bread

a two-hand job

something whole

something beyond the binary.

In academia the binary is the norm. Sure, there is a lot of critique being voiced, raised and reinforced but we are still far away from a shift in paradigm. And in this dichotomy breaths the hierarchy that needs to be overthrown.

As I spent majority of the last 18 months in a martial arts gym doing ethnography as a woman in a masculine dominated space that was far from anything I knew before ethics was a big topic to me. Of course, I got ethical approval before I started but then the questions came pouring…

How is ethics lived?

How is ethics performed? Can it be performed?

Who carries the responsibility of ethics?

With whom do I speak about ethics?

Is there ever enough ethics?

How does ethics/ethical/unethical feel?

Where is the ego in ethics?

Where does ethics live in the whole being?

Being on my mat practicing Asanas during this time allowed for a check-in beyond the reflections of my mind. I figured that the questions and demands of ethical behaviour are something that can not be only a mind thing. While moving my body I felt that I stored encounters and responses in my shoulders and my hips. I realised that my soul is as much entangled in this research as my body and my mind. And my energy will influence my research and my research influences my energy.

What a concoction.

The standards of ethical behaviour – as so much in academia – is outlined on the prototype of a white, middle aged or elderly man that is respected because he is an academic. But the reality is I am young, brown and perceived as attractive. Clearly, that gives me access to certain interactions meanwhile not guaranteeing me much protection within these interactions, which puts more layers into the navigation of the field in the everyday. Especially, when combined with a feminist perspective of care towards the research participants. Hence, it makes everything a bit more exhausting - everything a bit more vulnerable - everything a bit messier.

In the ytt we learned about yoga being the stillness of the fluctuations of the mind. The surrendering of the ego, the voices in your head. A daily practice to be the human you are destined to be – unapologetically you. Because you are so balanced within yourself that there is nothing to apologise for. Allowing you to be fully present at all times your feet touching the ground.

During the 21 days of ytt I had a glimpse of what it could mean to live with a deeply rooted practice of reflection. And I could not stop wondering, what happens if we bring these guidelines into academia as practical guidelines for any fieldwork?

Ethics becomes solidarity.

Considering that researcher and research participants are whole beings sharing space and time together this would be a desirable take on ethics. A form of solidarity that is concerned with the thrown togetherness of everything. An ethics that goes beyond all dichotomies. A form of solidarity that holds hands with the world instead of the researcher’s ego. One that does not respond directly to individuals but centres everyone and nobody. Leading to holding space for knowledge that has the ability to disrupt. Simply, by not responding to anything else than the idea of oneness. In that space where interactions become naked, stripped of all expectations:

Solidarity is ethics.

Being back on my mat far away from Portugal and the rural location these strings of thoughts continue growing. I will develop these thoughts further and enrich them with examples. Either as part of my PhD or in some other form that I yet have to think of. Definitely a project of passion and one I believe in.

And last but not least - this woman is a yoga teacher now - sooooo.... stay tuned for sessions!

credits of all photographs go to Helen Carter Photography. Not only a great photographer, also a heart warming soul making my whole being at ease in front of her lens.