LANGUAGE PIECE

YOUR LANGUAGE WILL CHANGE TOO

I want to say something about language.

Because language is one of the materials I work with.

I have spent a long time developing a particular way of seeing.

A way of noticing.

A way of making connections between things that don't always appear connected.

A way of finding the image inside the experience.

The metaphor.

The texture.

The strange little doorway.

Sometimes my language may give you a shortcut.

You may hear something I say and suddenly think:

Oh.

That's what I've been trying to describe.

Or:

I have never thought about it that way.

Or:

Wait. That's exactly what this feels like.

Good.

That is part of the experience.

I want my language to open something.

To point toward something.

Sometimes very specifically.

Sometimes sideways.

Sometimes nonlinearly.

Sometimes through an image rather than an explanation.

Sometimes through a question that keeps working on you three days later.

I may give you a word for something you have felt but couldn't name.

I may offer an image that reorganizes how you see an experience.

I may make a distinction that suddenly gives you somewhere to stand.

I may show you a door you didn't know was there.

And when that happens, I want you to notice something:

The intelligence that recognized it was yours.

I did not put the experience inside you.

I helped make it available.

TAKE THE SPARK. MAKE YOUR OWN FIRE.

You are welcome to be inspired by me.

Please.

Borrow a word.

Write down a phrase.

Let an image follow you around.

Use something I say to enter your own thinking.

Tell someone:

“Natalie said something that cracked this open for me.”

Remember the lineage.

Then keep going.

Because I don't want you to leave here speaking Natalie.

I want you to leave here speaking more fluently yourself.

The work is not imitation.

It is activation.

My perception meets your perception.

Something happens.

And then you make something from the collision.

A new metaphor.

A new question.

A new poem.

A new movement.

A new boundary.

A new ritual.

A new way of describing your mother.

Your lover.

Your body.

Your grief.

Your desire.

Your life.

Something I say may become the match.

But you are the one with the fire.

I WANT YOU TO BECOME AN ARTIST OF YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE.

Not necessarily an artist professionally.

An artist in the way you look.

An artist in the way you listen.

An artist in the way you describe.

An artist in the way you make meaning.

An artist in the way you notice relationship.

An artist in the way you create an afternoon.

An artist in the way you respond to change.

An artist in the way you choose a word.

An artist in the way you leave something unsaid.

An artist in the way you make a ritual.

An artist in the way you arrange your life around what matters.

Because artistry is not only what you make.

It is how specifically you are willing to perceive.

And I want to activate that in you.

Not give you my answers.

Not give you a new identity.

Not give you a collection of Natalie-isms to carry around.

I want to sharpen the instrument you already have.

REVERENCE FOR PERCEPTION

There is something I want us to practice here that feels very important to me:

reverence for perception.

Your perception is not automatically the truth.

But it is worth listening to.

It is information.

It is a beginning.

It is something to investigate.

We will practice getting more precise.

Instead of:

“I feel bad.”

What exactly?

Where?

How?

What texture?

What temperature?

What movement?

What image?

What changes when you say it differently?

Instead of:

“My relationship is difficult.”

What is actually happening?

Where does it become difficult?

What are you doing?

What are they doing?

What are you imagining?

What are you not saying?

What happens in your body when they enter the room?

Instead of:

“I am grieving.”

What kind of grief?

What has been lost?

What remains?

What is unfinished?

What is changing?

What wants privacy?

What wants witness?

What wants language?

What wants silence?

We will not necessarily find definitive answers.

We will become better at asking better questions.

That is intelligence too.

THE SHORTCUT IS NOT THE DESTINATION.

Sometimes another person's language gives us a shortcut into our own experience.

That is one of the gifts of art.

A poem can say something you've felt for twenty years.

A photograph can show you something you could not have explained.

A movement can reveal a relationship.

A metaphor can reorganize an entire experience.

A teacher can offer a distinction that saves you years of circling.

There is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, I think this is part of how human intelligence moves through culture:

we encounter something, recognize ourselves inside it, and then continue the experiment.

So if something I say unlocks something in you, take the unlock.

Follow it.

Use it.

Question it.

Argue with it.

Outgrow it.

Make it yours.

And remember where the door was.

Because there is beauty in lineage.

There is beauty in influence.

There is beauty in being able to say:

Someone showed me something I couldn't yet see.

And then:

I saw something else.

NOW BE AN ARTIST YOURSELF.

This is the invitation.

Don't just consume my perception.

Meet it with yours.

Don't just collect language.

Make language.

Don't just understand a metaphor.

Find your own.

Don't just learn my way of noticing.

Develop your own eye.

Don't just ask what I mean.

Ask:

What does this make possible for me to notice?

That's the real work.

My language is one doorway.

Your intelligence is the room.

Your imagination is what happens next.

And your life—

your particular, strange, complicated, beautiful, unfinished life—

is the material.

Now make something with it.