kiki

Sometimes the universe will put something in front of me that’s so insanely on the nose, I have to wonder if I am spiritually attuned but hopelessly remedial at it – much in the way that Kiki in the Ghibli movie has the witchy super power of flight, but has the broomstick equivalent of two left feet. That movie has been one of, if not my favorite movie since I saw it as a kid, and certainly my favorite Ghibli film.  Just a month ago I got a particle board version of her bakery sign from Boxed Lunch for my front door, to celebrate finally moving out of my parent’s place.

Each time I’ve rewatched it at different points in my life, there’s a new layer of relatability. The skeptic in me says, well yes, that’s why Ghibli movies are so adored. They speak to universal experiences while feeling intimate and specific. The 8 year old girl inside me, running up and down the halls of my mind with a home depot broom between her legs, wants to believe the lyrics of the credit’s song – “all that appears before me is a message.”

The message in question is CJ the X’s recent video about Kiki’s. It was such a potent concoction of coincidences: That specific film, how especially relevant it is as I am both re-flying the nest and having an exploratory spiritual moment, who the creator is, and most critically – the fact that I started this blog. 

Well, also the Drew Gooden mention. And Drew Gooden mentioning back in the comments. That was personal to me too. 

Since I started this blog a week or so ago, I have been FLOODING my notes app. I’ve had to sit on my hands and make the boundary of only making one post a day. I’ve realized the more mental health and trauma healing I do, the more my Hermione – like need to yap is being freed from the shame chains. I’ve been in a double bind, though. For whatever reason – probably ego – just writing in a journal and then putting it away in a drawer felt soul crushing. Showing my work on a social media app and getting the digital equivalent of the “that’s nice, dear” Kiki experienced at first, is similarly pulverizing.

And so I’ve been vomiting rainbows into a paper bag and yeeting them out onto the side of the road. I have to assume part of me thinks someone will pull over and read it … .a closed paper bag that for all intents and purposes looks like a random piece of garbage…when people don’t even pick up hitch-hickers!!! This is the pep-talk I’m giving myself.

I have reason to expect that rejection – it’s been my experience with my art the last year and a half at least. “You can certainly draw well, it’s impressive, I just don’t give a fuck about whatever you’re drawing or trying to say.” I have an audience of two. (and God Bless that poor Australian soul, tasked with standing between me and total artistic nihilism.)  I had resigned to the fact that these similarly self indulgent musings would garner the same apathy. As far as I can tell, even Fox Szn’s creator is over that project at this point, so who is this really for?

And here comes CJ the X, going straight for the jugular. “You think niche can’t work? You think people don’t care about hyper specific rants? It’s all about presentation, and authenticity, and connecting it to something broader just like they do in the Ghibli movies, idiot!” (sorry CJ the idiot was gratuitous but it sounded punchier). 

And so I say to the universe, message received. Message, mostly decoded. Actionables taken from message? …pending. But the resignation is giving way to a little more hope, and what other purpose could a message from the universe really have?