08/27/2021
Here is my busted-ass phone. It turns out I have a lot to say about it, so settle in for some musings or scroll down to the bottom for a TLDR (too long, didn’t read) which is basically a little summary.
It’s old, it’s slow, the battery drains quickly, it has low camera quality, it’s reached its data storage limit, and the cracked glass is a minor hazard at times.
It keeps reminding me - “You’re dangerously low on space”. I know it’s talking about data, but it really feels like it’s talking about my brain.
Yet, it works. So I keep using it, despite the frustrations, knowing that it’s funky.
I really should get a new phone. But this one works... just like my old-ass laptop that I got as a bat mitzvah present ten years ago.
I suppose I’m unravelling how this little tool, which I use more frequently than almost any other tool, is tied to my life and my identities.
It certainly feels tied to my upbringing and current existence as a poor aka “working class” person. I’m real slow to toss something aside that still technically works - which like anything else can be a blessing and a curse. I adore mending things rather than trashing them whenever possible. But something like a phone isn’t quite the same as an old beloved sweater.
So why am I still attached to it if I don’t intend to repair it? It doesn’t fully meet my needs. I use it as an excuse for why I don’t post more on social media, or hell why I’m not more involved with my doula work. Surely that means I should get rid of it, right?
Perhaps a small piece of me identifies with this broken little conductor of electricity, or finds it difficult to part with the memories. Mostly I think of it as a minor yet constant pain in the ass, but damn do we love an underdog story around here.
A different angle occurs to me - I can and should do this work with whatever funky-ass skills and tools I have available to me. By using my weird wobbly car, my fractured phone, living in my leaky apartment, and taking my little discount-store snacks into this work with me I’m showing up as my fu**ed up beautiful self. I’m making this work more accessible by doing it authentically with the q***r, Jewish, neurodivergent, “working class” aspects of me that will always influence my work.
But is a broken phone really a part of those identities? I suppose I’m holding the duality that it’s just a tool with a purpose, and yet its brokenness is also a symbol of something deeper. I could just get a new phone and I’d still be me. In many ways, I dream of all new shiny reliable tools. I dream of a comfortable unshakable stability. I dream of a soft seamless aesthetic.
I dream of these things, and yet I’m unlearning which of these are genuinely desirable and which ones are silently smothering. I’m untangling which things are truly part of my identity and which are painful survival skills that won’t continue to serve me. I want to be safe. I don’t want to be seamless. I want to be soft, sometimes. I don’t want to be unshakeable.
I don’t need to be smooth and untextured to do this work. I’m just letting some internalized gatekeeping bu****it get to me if I keep telling myself I’m “not ready” to step into this work because I’m not “there yet”. That’s some coded language for I’m not good enough because I don’t fit the dominant-cultured image of this work.
I will start here. Where I am. I will use the tools I have, to the best of my abilities, in the clever and creative ways folks with limited resources have always done.
----
TLDR - My phone is kinda broken but it still works, kinda like me. It’s funky and I’m also funky, and I shouldn’t let any of that stop me from helping people. Just by showing up authentically as my intersectional-self I’m actively pushing against toxic dominant cultures/systems. I will grow into my own way of doing this work and it will look different than what other people do.
Image Description - all the pictures show various angles (some further way, some close up) of my smartphone on a white backdrop. The glass on the phone is scratched and full of cracks, especially on the bottom corner of the front screen and on the back. The shattering is quite dramatic with dramatic bright white lighting to show the details.
