rewriting anxiety: an illustrated mind map of USA travels
this: a context
this is an illustrated mind map of my three weeks in the US - a trip I did shortly after three weeks of deep encounters in China. in May I took a small, 5 day rest stop in Istanbul (my chosen third home, midway between China, my birth home, and the US, my adopted home).
in retrospect, traveling for six weeks across five cities in three countries on the opposite sides of the world is a really bad idea if you’re trying to hold onto any kind of emotional center or ground. it’s too little time to settle into a routine, and too much time for it to be merely a fun getaway.
bad psyche days
before illustrating this mind map, I might’ve said that I didn’t have a great time in the US, because it was stressful and busy and over-stimulated, and I felt my mind morph into a carnivorous flower; sticky and obsessive, reactive and anxious. there were days in which I felt completely disembodied. I was spiral-y and pulled by psychic quicksand into the vortex of my own anxieties.
some days, my mind felt like a trap. these bad psyche days happened in the backdrop of good things — roadtrips with my father, evening walks in the forest, and cozy weekends with my closest, old female friends.
the thing about anxiety is that it dulls the colors and tastes of everything you experience in life. it makes you a spectator of your own life, pushing you into the back row of the auditorium, instead of allowing you to embody yourself as the main character.
drawing as an act of rewriting the story
initially I drew this mind map as a reflection of that anxiety, like a map of my inner landscape. then, somehow, it didn’t feel right.
so I searched inside myself and my memories for all the experiences and things I tasted and felt and did — all the small adventures I had. I made more space in this mind map: for my father’s seafood breakfasts, for 2am ice cream with H, for that last bowl of ramen in the east village, for cocktails and hotpot with old friends.
somehow, I look back on this mind map and I’m able to tell myself — rewrite, redraw — a different story.
yes, I was exhausted and overwhelmed, but also: life also gave me so many beautiful gifts, and precious time with people I love. I’m able to focus on the moments in which my mind felt like a spacious flower. I hold that and put it front and center. and when I see all these gifts and experiences on one page, I feel grateful to be alive.