Mind Diary 003- Tactility
Safety—Shared rhythm—Presence—Rest and digest—Tactility—Gentleness—Caress—Engage
Tactility—the quality of being perceived by touch
Our Nervous system should not be on survival mode
Mind Diary 002–disappearing into:
Longing— embrace— enfold— mutual vulverability— heartbeat—passion— regulating— noticing
“To love is to suffer, and there can be no love otherwise” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Love cannot be a source of simple happiness but a complex battlefield
An act that requires enduring pain, an act showing that human beings often sabotage their own happiness and love for the sake of free will and intense, sometimes chaotic emotions.
Mind Diary 001– stillness:motion
A process log, a thought journal. Images that personified what my brain thinks.
Stillness:motion— Repose— Bend— Curve— Slouch
Here again, momentarily
Is it silly to write in two or three different places? I posted a substack for the first time ever. Im not sure how consistent I’ll be, since im not as consistent as id like to be on my own website. But i cherish any space i get to create for myself.
I write from my couch, my bed, my desk, or staring out of a window somewhere. Brainstormed here, out there, and every space in between.
Being vulnerable with yourself is a scary thing to do. I am learning so much about myself in this new space that i am in. My mind is shifting back and forth from loneliness to happiness, I am coming down from the solitude ive felt for a long time, like weaning off of drugs. My mind is altered and transforming and although at times it has felt like im incapable of doing it, i know that I’ll come out on the other side proud that i did. It might feel like i am lost, but i know i will find pockets of myself on the journey through.
Con Amor,
Leeza
Someone made me their home
Someone made me their home and showed me just how easy it is to feel alone, like I’ve always been.
I spent so much of my relationship protecting someone from their nightmares, from their fears. I was consumed with care for another. I was a lioness for someone. I protected, I encouraged, I loved. I loved in every way i thought humanly possible. In every way I never saw. Because I believe they are deserving of it. I bared my soul to another, completely. Something i have always been willing and ready to do, always will be, with love. With every growing fear they had, i made sure they felt seen, secure. I made someone my home, or rather they made me theirs. Using me as a shield— guarded and sheltered from their storms.
Meanwhile I was drowning in a monsoon of my own life. Choked, unable to ever hold in air, to ever take a full breath. It was all consuming. At the same time feeling like the most undeserving of that love reciprocated.
I felt I was always too much. That my baggage carried weight that was too heavy for another to bear with me.
Who wants to love someone like me, i thought. A scattered mind, a heavy familiar past and present. Someone who gets bored of stagnant thoughts, too easily. Someone who wants to yell the lyrics of all the music of their childhood, words of songs where they felt the least heavy in life. Someone who is prone to emptiness, who craves absurdity. Someone who wants passion and lust and love. Who knows how to give it but not receive it, or doesn’t feel worthy of it. Someone who feels lost if they are not constantly stimulated or moving. Someone who has endured violence, who has seen abuse, felt it, and been forced to carry it.
Who wants to love someone with a million emotions, a million thoughts racing each other for space in their own mind. Reaching for solace that has always felt unattainable to them.
Someone abandoned.
I carry that weight alone. Every fear, every nightmare, every panic, every angst. I carry it alone, I carry it for others.
I move through the world holding a smile of hope, if only as a mask, without it I am dead. Putting that mask on to carry on.
Ive been to the darkest depths of my own soul, and still i am searching. Ive searched for happiness my entire life.
I’ve been consumed with not feeling. Ive done things to numb all the pain i carry. Ive felt like I couldn’t go on. Ive used drugs to detach from reality, sex to feel indifferent. Ive done things to completely immobilize my thoughts. All while craving to feel real.
Endlessly baring the weight of others.
Blood family has shown me what addiction is like, what emotional detachment looks like, what being consumed by the wrong things feels like, and what its like to try and escape the world.
I’ve felt used and abandoned. Someone made me their home and showed me just how easy it is to feel alone, like ive always been. How undeserving ive felt of having my own home. I was shown that this weight is mine alone to carry. I am not someone who will ever need anyone to carry this weight, i am not someone who will throw it on anyone. I know now that if they do not feel able to, they cant, they wont. I should not stay hoping one day they see i truly cant, that i am constantly drowning.
Starting over, once again
Starting over, again.
Ive had this website since I was 23, I wanted a space that was just mine. If someone stumbled upon it, it would be because they were meant to. I turn 30 at the end of this month. In my now deleted posts, I spoke from the heart. I wanted a place I could look back on and be reminded of my struggles, my achievements, and the little moments in between. I feel as if i’ve lived many lives in the last decade. Looking back, I don’t think I knew myself well enough to articulate my thoughts properly. Ive been shaped by my past and my present and that has guided me. I speak now as an almost 30 year old version of Leeza.
A Leeza who has been engaged, has signed two leases with her ex-partner, a Leeza that constantly craves change. A Leeza that listens to albums all the way through again, one that paints her childhood because it was painful, not one that shies away from her pain. A Leeza that stopped needing to feel understood and has started to look into herself again.
FOTM: February Primrose
Wrapped up another month of floral studies for February. Primrose (primula vulgaris)— an early spring perennial, among one of the first to bloom in a new year.
fun fact In the Middle Ages, they were used in making love potions. Which i thought was fitting for the “month of love”, Valentine’s Day, etc..
Illustrated on different mixed media papers, using Prismacolor colored pencils, Kuretake Gambai watercolors, microns, and wax pastels
FOTM: January Snowdrops
a research series on flowers throughout the year— starting with snowdrops.
Illustrated on newspaper, mixed media paper, and black pastel paper
Querido México, tienes parte de mi corazón
I am eternally grateful for Mexico City. I feel an instant pull and connection to this place. I was born and raised in LA. I grew up in West Adams and went to schools across the city. My life has been full of Latin American people because that’s who I am. Spanish is my first language but I had never gone to another country before. It felt like home.
I met some sweet people at the shops I visited. From small interactions with locals to chatting up people at the food joints we visited. It felt like something my heart had always known.
Admittedly, i was sick for the first few days because of the altitude change but that didnt stop me from exploring and just taking the city in. Going to the corner store to buy drinks and snacks to smoking a cig or two outside in the humid night.
I went for my birthday in 2024, we went exploring to local shops, following the scents and sights of the beautiful city. We saw Liam, a friend from back home on the day my birthday, grabbed a fancy dinner, went to our local ice cream shops and searched the thrifts nearby. I never feel like its enough time there but I enjoy it always. I leave a piece of myself, my heart, in CDMX.
Notes on: They Called me a Lioness
They called me a Lioness— a Palestinian Girl’s fight for freedom
by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri (Just hover and click over the previous words and it’ll take you to a new tab where you can download the word document) easy, simple, and readily accessible for your learning needs.
I took the liberty of digitizing the article links in the back of the book. There’s no reason to keep saying you “dont know enough on the subject” and there’s no reason for not raising your awareness.
its always going to be #FreePalestine till’ all my people are free
thanks for coming to my talk.
-Leeza
Clay/canvas/words/ stills/video— life
I am simply existing
Starting over, again.