‘Found,’ oil on wood panel, Isabel Romero, 2025
Welcome to the inner scrambling of a stranger’s mind.
If you enjoy art, politics, social justice, people, and books, you are in the right place. To share one’s own perspective and create a platform for the other to be heard is precisely why we are here.
Found
May 12, 2024
There is often discourse on what it means to find who you are, what you are. Is this a solvable equation? I reflect upon the history before me, the long tradition of women asking this question, earnestly searching for said answer, yet never arriving. Is this an issue of non-evolution, that as a woman I don’t have the software to address such a dilemma? It is hard to argue, yet persists. Rather, I think it is this elegant and messy natural phenomena of women seeing the trajectory of their journey in the women around them and before them, yet the communal expression of being found is not tied. We are intrinsically connected, yet, we struggle to draw commonality between ourselves and other women in turmoil, waiting to be found.
It is unquantifiable to place time as experience in this journey; I have experienced more developmental peaks than some do in a lifetime. I think fondly of my time in transitory placement, always adjusting, always reflecting outwardly to fit rather than reflect inwardly towards my own discovery. Emotions well up at the thought of the person I suppressed, in an attempt at survival. Honoring that version of my journey, while feeling tremendous unease at the idea. I see a shell of divinity, forced to inherit the set societal flesh. The defensive response to change is not stagnation, rather, commitment to change being status quo. It is a loving, non-forgiving relationship, me and change.
I often find solace in the connection between the hero's journey and a woman's becoming. It feels redundant but how special that an ordinary girl becomes something more, only in their own livelihood. I think at any pace, in any circumstance, it is never too late to wake towards the birth of self.
The making of something with one’s hands is an intimate, sensational experience that is in line with the divine. It is a display of alchemy to put one’s hands to something, a set of ingredients and pieces, to form a new outcome. I consider this experience sacred, an invaluable experience of self and other. When it comes to the making of one’s self, the birth of self, it is difficult to articulate. It is not as magical in practice, it is often non-linear, no clear path forward. And yet, it is the greatest desire.
What a joy to be found.