A month ago I attended just one day of the Ubud Writers And Readers Festival and it was in-fucking-credible. If you want to have a lit AF time next year, pls come with me?!
At 5AM I got into my cutest “I’m a writer” outfit and jumped on my scooter and drove 2 hours to get to Ubud (I live near Uluwatu).
— For those interested it was black bike shorts, a linen open shirt, a pink nike cap and my cons. I was going for “hi I’m gay, cool and creative” and I NAILED it.
Whats your writers outfit? —
I took myself out for a coffee and people watched for a hot second while I waited for the first speakers event for the day which was: The Potency of Political Art, with Edel Rodriguez and Goenawan Mohamad. I found my place amongst the cool writers - you know in the middle but two rows from the front so no one could see me literally crying my eyes out.
Why was I crying my eyes out? Great question. One I asked myself many times. No matter how many times I wondered why my eyes leaked at the beginning of every single presentation I attended, my eyes refused to be dry.
They were profusely dripping.
I’ve been to events before - but none of them made me feel like this.
I’ve seen millionaires and business owners speak on how “I could be just like them if i followed this or did that” and none of them moved me. There were no other events that I sat on the chair and felt like I was meant to be there. That this was a crucial next step for me.
NO ONE told me I could be just like them on the panels in Ubud, but it was the first time in my whole life I felt like I’d found my people.
I watched Tika (from Tika and The Dissidents), Grace Tame (Australian of the Year), Tanaïs (a Queer Muslim who mixes the art of perfumery with the voices of Bangladeshi femmes fighting for freedom) and Kathryn Heymans speak about their creative practices within their feminist memoirs. I listened as they spoke about the laws they had changed and the impact they had when it comes to sexual assault of children and women.
I sat in awe through “Shaping justice through eco feminism and activism” with Vandana Shiva, Helena Gualinga and Farwiza Farhan. An incredible panel of environmental activists who spoke to the power of women and how deeply they understand the land. How greatly we need the intelligence and voice of the earths keepers. How we can learn more and improve agriculture and avoid the complete destruction of our world.
I listened and connected through “queerness in poetry”. And if im really honest with you, this is where my heart ached a little. It was the place I thought I would find my home. I have been aching for queer friends in Bali, and to think I’d be able to be around other poets? Amazing.
But, I didn’t find my home there. I loved listening to their poetry and their process but it popped a dream for me - I am more activist than artist. More writer than poet. More change the damn laws than change one person.
I was aching for community and thought I’d find them amongst the queer poets, but as I looked around I couldn’t feel that yummy, my whole body is alive feeling.
Here is the kicker: I really thought I would. I thought of myself as queer poet, it was even in my Instagram bio. I was using it as a calling card to find “my people” and coming up with crickets internally.
But being in that room, with people hungry to have a big impact through their writing? I was hooked. Since then, I’ve been exploring all the ways I could use writing for activism that goes beyond writing my story and into who I am writing to and why. It’s been eye opening to say the least, but I never would have known that was the life blood in me if I just sat alone at home trying to figure it out.
Heck, I haven’t even figured it out at workshops that were designed for that.
I had to go out into the world and taste it. I had to go out and feel my way through it. I had to go out and let the world act as a giant mirror and wait to see my reflection in it.
Something similar happened when I got on sub stack — I saw myself here. Amongst the writers and the creators. I’ve made it so I stay on the side of substack that is people creating, not just talking about creating. Otherwise I lose myself in that tide of advice AKA my mirror starts to get murky.
I see myself here. Among the writers. But it took going to this festival to call myself one. EVEN THOUGH I wrote a whole book 3 years ago that’s getting professionally published as we speak. It took me being in the world of writers to feel it.
It’s so easy to get stuck in a slip stream of habitual living. Where we get the same information fed back to us, the same guidance systems, the same beliefs, the same algorithms, the same us. So we start to think we are something we stopped being a long time ago, or we think there is something wrong with us for not “fitting in” anymore.
I started to bully myself into staying in the slip stream of a particular type of person, rather than get curious as to why I didn’t feel like I belonged there. Instead of letting myself grow I started to see everything wrong with that industry or lifestyle and couldn’t stop sharing my appalled feelings. Instead of feeling a no in my body and packing my bags to go and find a yes, I assumed there was something wrong with me (or with it).
Until I went to this event and remembered what it felt like to belong. To find myself in a room. To feel like there was a huge number of us with similar dreams making an impact.
It made me realise how deeply I don’t want to do it alone. How special it is to chase your dreams along side like minded people. To not feel like you are stumbling along in the dark having mini break ups with your community every time you take a step towards who you are now.
I could feel the creative buzz in the room, the hum of dreams and the soul singing moment of activation that says something needs to be done now.
It was the first time post COVID that I had admitted to myself that I had changed. I had blossomed and bloomed and my roots not only went deeper, but I had changed gardens completely.
I wouldn’t have known this in my bones unless I went to this event.
It feels like the messages I have received about finding myself are all about getting quiet in my room or meditating at a self love event or being guided by an expert that I missed all the ones that told me if I just lived, really lived, I would see myself by being in the world.
The best way to find out if something is really a part of you, is to immerse yourself in the world of those people. If you come alive, you have found your people. If you don’t, you get to keep moving and living until you do. Don’t stop, don’t stagnant your life thinking that the real you is going to find you in a dream and that will be the end of it. Keep going. Be that version of you in the world. Find places and people that make you pour out like you’re an overflowing waterfall of truth.
The world needs you, so find the places that make you feel like you.
I loved reading this SO MUCH and so there with you. LIFE ITSELF and being IN IT always has me feeling most myself and also has me most inspired to create. I need to be in response to life.
You know what makes me happy? That you wrote about finding yourself in that room. That you went there in your writers outfit (of which I totally want to see a photo of) despite feeling unsure and that you sat down and slowly, slot for slot felt closer to who you are and what you’re wanting to do. I think people forget these days that we NEED the connection, need to be in it, step out of our comfort zone to really FEEL whether something is right for us. And I love that you found yourself that day because in my eyes you so are a writer and I’m beyond grateful that Substack brought us together.