Pancakes That I Didn't Make
Part of the Invisible Diaries series:
Week 10 / Day 5
Part of me wishes I wrote these entries by hand first rather than typing from scratch. I’ve deleted my first sentence half a dozen times, not really sure of how to frame today’s happenings. And I laugh at myself desperately trying to find a theme or an arc to trace. Sometimes I wish I could turn the dramaturgy part of my brain off, as it easily seeps into my every day. Sometimes there is no amount of ‘aha!’s or ‘I wonder if…’s that can pose satisfying solutions.
This is a time where there are fewer answers than questions. As I move and make, as artist, scholar and organizer, I feel myself at odds: questioning how and where I show up, being pulled between what I should be doing and what I want to be doing. The ‘now more than ever’s are weighing on me. These thoughts swirl harder today, as all these liminalities collide in a single day of meetings, advocacy, research and more.
Context is queen for dramaturgs, but I wonder what breath and newness we can find in resisting analysis as our default ‘must do.’
I can sit and work and push my way through the to-dos that a past Yasmin committed to (usually with pretty good reason); but, in taking a pause, I feel the tingles of burnout. Pain sits low in my back. I’m grumpy. I haven’t washed my hair for a hot minute.
So, I try another new thing, and decide to tally my day – task by task, as they happened. I’m leaning into the laundry list.
Editorializing will be reserved for the DMs (yes, they’re open):
up
leftover pancakes (that I didn’t make)
two cups of coffee, owl mug
first theatre history column editorial meeting
stretch
emails
washed produce
chopped produce
sautéed produce
Hoodoisie Teach-In logistics meeting 1
snack
language justice in the digital age research
texting the boo
Hoodoisie Teach-In technical director call
emails
social media sharing of #InvisibleDiaries (hi)
sent tweet, first time mini-mini-viral on theatre Twitter
Hoodoisie Teach-In logistics meeting 2
checked physical mail
opened packages (thanks, mom)
hung up new art prints
call with dad
text with mom
snack
Hoodoisie Teach-In logistics meeting 3
pasta sauce
housing discrimination research
pasta
dishes
new play development Zoom
emails
washed hair (finally)
texting the boo
pasta
quick call with a mentor
trauma-informed journalism research
snack
quick text with a mentor
prep for morning call on writing for an anthology
checked on a pending arts journo pitch
more curly hair care
diary
down.
Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel (she/they) is a Chicago/Austin-based dramaturg, journalist, and oral hxstorian. Their multi-disciplinary work as a queer, fat, brown, femme endeavours to amplify and archive stories that go lost/stolen/forgotten. Select bylines include essays and arts criticism with American Theatre, Chicago Reader, Windy City Times, Rescripted, The Austin Chronicle, and Sightlines. They are currently pursuing an MA in Performance as Public Practice at the University of Texas at Austin.
Learn more at www.yasminzacaria.com and follow them on Twitter/IG @yasminzacaria.
Photography is courtesy of the author.