A Peek into my Week

There were moments packed aplenty, moments I wanted more, and some when I looked for less. Through my week I traversed peaks and valleys, but that’s just how my moments came and went, amalgamating into time spent and life lived. I only needed to live them as they kept coming, keeping my feet planted and prepared, braced for toil and ready to embrace the grace from above.

Now in a budding relationship, Jasmine and Daniel get comfy in his new apartment for a night in, Berkeley, CA, 2020. Just moments prior, I had dropped a bottle of soda that exploded and tragically covered the entire room as we were just about ready to have a homemade spaghetti dinner. Cue 20 minutes of vigorous cleaning, at some point my date was mopping the walls to try and get rid of a sticky coat of sugar that had dried over most of the surface area of the room. Easily frustrated, I thought about how lucky I was to have some spilled soda and soaked sheets be my biggest worry at the moment, as so much concentrated existential angst lashed out through the streets outside. We enjoyed a movie over our reheated microwave spaghetti, and finally got to bed when the laundry finished at 2 am.

After a sleepless night, Daniel Solakian took an early morning run to Cragmont Rock park in the Berkeley hills, 2020. Sat atop the park I ran to, rising 600 ft in elevation through suburbia, to join the birds’ eye view. Still, it was early in the morning, the sky was gray and the bay air was biting. Not many people lined the streets to avoid that day, but as I ran around a construction worker, as I would anyone else, I couldn’t help but look him in the eyes. Perhaps I projected some level of the pained guilt that kept me up at night, but I think I saw what he felt. I know the state of the world I chose to run through, chose to focus on my education in, chose to make some sacrifices in, but not sacrifice all for the lives of people that the state would want to be in chains or caskets. The least I could do was look this black man in the eye, grasp perhaps an inkling of how he felt about me for the second I passed him by, and understand his disdain as I averted myself from his way as I did everyone else. I crawled to the very top of the park that day, sobbing for the life of dirt and grime which becomes all there is and all there was for some. On my knees, I felt helpless, but I looked for my next step forward as I planted my feet then, and watched over the idle bay as it began to awaken, searching for the way forward in the rising rays of the sun that showered the cities.

An evil eye necklace and hamsa earrings on my desk, Berkeley apartment, CA, 2020. At home, safe inside from the raging pandemic, the adornment at its dawn and undress at its sunset of my jewelry each day gives me some sense of control. The extra step engages my circadian rhythm in some material way, and catalyzes dressing in “outside” and “inside” clothing, and it’s become part of my ritual each day as I established a routine. When I wear them, it gives me some strength to act with agency in a tumultuous world, a visual form of self-expression that I can feel on me, that is free from the judgement of others, that gives me a reminder that I can do the things that feel true to me without having to follow anything but my own heart.

Getting ready to meditate, self, Berkeley, CA, 2020. I am never quite sure what it is my heart is saying, so I practice meditation for clarity in my day-to-day. I like to feel liberated as I disconnect from my body, as I listen to “the feeling” of being alive. I understand my place on Earth in a larger perspective, and parse through my ever-changing thoughts and feelings as they come and go. I make decisions more objectively, without feeling clouding my judgements as much, if only for a few moments. My desire, my need to meditate, it increases with the intensity of my internal narrative, as the world storms and my anxiety peaks.

Daniel Solakian, Meditating in my room, Berkeley, CA, 2020. My sessions start off with deep, intense, exasperated breathing where I focus on the purposeful in and out of my breath to change how I feel. It is in this section where my emotions are heightened, and my response can be vigorous to certain thoughts as I give them space to fully enter my body and impact me at my core. In an episode of anxiety, I recalled the recent video of George Floyd’s lynching that had been shared online many times and sparked the protests that continue to fill the streets. I cannot count how many videos of this sort I had seen, but I knew I was always numb, unsurprised at another occurrence of racially charged police brutality, and always expecting another. Yet, I had not fully processed them, I had not fully empathized with my brother that lay forced into the asphalt, begging and pleading to nothing until he drew his last breath. My body rejected this pain, over the years a defense mechanism cut off my emotional attachment to the graphic videos I had been barraged with. In my meditating, I allowed this pain to enter me, and pierce my heart as deeply as it should, and I broke down into violent tears. The global inaction for centuries as this has occurred, my part and complicity over my short lifetime, the feelings of inevitably more suffering to come, and the fear of my inability to change any of it. I sat with this feeling, and I watched as it changed. I rationalized action, anything I could do to help, to be a part of dismantling white supremacy, to be smart and have the most impact by starting in my communities where my voice is heard, where my presence is seen beside those that march for justice. Slowly, and still, the despair and anger turned to something tangible, and will continue to do so. Nothing else is would give me more meaning than our global fight to save ourselves: it cannot be done by any one of us, it must be done by all of us.

A protest in support of Black Lives Matter, MLK Jr. Civic Center Park, Berkeley, CA, 2020. I took Jasmine with me to a nearby protest, with supplies and signs in tow. We stuck around for a bit after handing out water to the protesters, and listened to some powerful voices as they stood and called for justice, for revolutionary change, for history to be made as hundreds gathered and cheered in support. I could feel each ear fiendishly listening to every impassioned word that came from their mouths, eager for the rest of the world to listen and act. It was a small gesture, but I felt fired up and excited to pursue this work out of love for our family that needed change the most.

Jasmine Fuller on a lunch date at Memorial Pool on UC Berkeley’s campus, ready to eat but waiting for her date to finish this slew of pictures to finally famishly feed on some local sandwiches, 2020. We wanted to escape for a short while and make do without restaurants for the time being. The takeout food, essential workers, responsible community, and great weather was a godsend. We enjoyed our sandwiches before touring campus to see all its architecture and tucked-in natural beauty together.

Daniel Solakian, working at my desk in the evening glow of the setting sun, Berkeley, CA, 2020. At the end of each day, it usually has entailed anywhere from some to many, many, hours of work at this space. I make it comfy, cool, with visuals to get lost in for a short break, and a nice soundtrack to guide the movement of my fingers across the keyboards in front of me. For a few minutes, the sun shines extraordinarily luminous on a building directly into my room, one of the niceties of my new apartment. Lucky to be here, graced by my work, home, and modern comforts, I can only believe in the work I am doing. The work that my family immigrated to America to afford to me, that I spent my whole life toiling towards, that will give a voice to people that need to be heard, that will fill me with meaning and a sense of a day’s work well done as I crawl, tired, into my sheets each night.