“I AM, I AM, I AM”
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
-Sylvia Plath “The Bell Jar” (1963)
I started re-reading “The Bell Jar” recently, a book that I’ve only read once previously as a (probably too) young girl while hanging out at the library where my grandmother worked. Somehow even though life hadn’t fully got to me yet, I felt a deep sense of compassion for Esther but I didn’t know why it felt so personal.
If you’ve read the novel (please do.), you know Esther’s struggle with societal pressures on women. She didn’t fit the mold, and that disillusionment drove her into despair. Stay with me…
Reading it again nearly 30 (is that right!?) years later after life has thrown all sorts of wrenches at me, I expected to re-read Esther’s struggles more literally- the unfairness of it all, the difference in between men and women.
What surprised me, though, is that deeper than the obvious message of unfairness, Esther is ultimately a woman searching for authenticity in a world of falseness. THAT. HIT. HOME.
This unshakable sense of self has always been a driving value pulling me along like an industrial magnet, sometimes stubbornly. I’m grateful for it, even when it’s a pain in the ass.
Professionally (which, as an artist, always mirrors the personal), my work and my mission evolves in sync with me. “I AM, I AM, I AM”- a rebellion against performative existence. It’s a mantra of self-ownership.
“I AM, I AM, I AM”.
For a woman who is comfortable in her skin, this line echoes the sentiment that she doesn’t need to perform or conform to anyone else’s gaze- male or otherwise. She exists, and her existence alone is enough.
This idea resonates with how my work is evolving— freeing clients and muses from the demand to contort. To pretend. To fit in. To wear certain clothes. To smile or not smile. It means that my sessions have gotten more…confronting. I ask questions— lots of questions— about how one sees themself, how they want to be seen. I guide and direct, but I watch for natural movements, the in-between moments, the blinks and blurs. Because THERE.YOU.ARE!
Like Esther, we are invited to breathe deeply, to listen to our own hearts- and trust that the simple act of being is an act of power in itself.
