Rebecca Potts Aguirre (she/her/hers)
Breathing Together, 2021
Video, 42 seconds
This video is from my series, “It Comes In Waves” focused on water, which has been a recurring theme in my work. A decade ago, I collected rain water to freeze and melt, expressing emotions over the loss of glaciers and concern over this dwindling blue gold. Now, water’s meaning expands. During the pandemic, Water has been our haven, our refuge. I breathe in the calming smell of much-needed rain and laugh as my daughter jumps in puddles. I weep as I let the shower wash over me. In the city heat, our outdoor space is our building’s pool. As I watch my daughter go under the water, kick down, and come back up, gasping and laughing, I feel waves - waves of joy seeing her in these moments of fun, peace, and calm; waves of anger and grief over my own childhood.
Water has memory (or so Olaf tells us)… and we’re made up of 60% water. So what does the body remember? I wonder, "does her body remember floating in the water in my womb?" We kick and swim, intertwined, our bodies distorted by water, pulling and pushing together, then apart. We breathe as one, forever connected, then she drifts away slowly.
There’s a busy-ness, a blurring of movement during this pandemic while I simultaneously work and mother, draw and type and zoom and help with reading, buzzing back and forth from my studio desk to the kitchen table to my child’s desk to the living room floor. I spread myself as water spreads and flows. The water is a place of calm, but also a place of chaos and danger, splashing, threatening to swallow us up. I’m drowning in emotions that conflict and crash into each other like waves, cresting and pushing.
Do mothers/caregivers experience time in a new way because of the pandemic? What does this new experience of time look like, feel like in the body?
Yes, the construct of time has simultaneously cracked and become queen. Days blend together, always here, always staying home. Hours disappear. School schedules and a carefully constructed web of meetings and passing childcare duties between us make our clocks rule our lives.
Does it highlight/amplify previously existing structures of oppression and inequality? What does the accumulation of stresses (systemic racism, heteronormativity, ableism, poverty) look like?
Yes! A light is exposing all the grime of the existing patriarchal society built upon white supremacy. Like water, it seeps between our crevices, soaks into our bodies until we’re heavy. Maybe the light will evaporate some of it, but it will take a lot of wringing to get it all out.
Does it provide an opening to shift/tear down/ re-envision something different?
While this light is on, there is hope. There is potential. There is also the danger of returning to “normal” that so many voice longing for. How do we create new systems? How do we shift sustainably? How do we keep this light on the inequities?
What is the antidote to burnout? What does nourishment/care look like?
Is time the answer here? Or communication of needs? Setting boundaries with those in power, starting with our bosses or clients. Care for me looks like taking some pressure off - replying to that email tomorrow instead of rushing to do it today while doing all the things.
@pottsart