I've been studying the gut. But only vaguely, somewhat half-heartedly, with a bit of a screen between my searching and the root. I know we are bombarded these days by promising probiotics, pretty kombuchas, and leaky-gut videos on social media, warning us of the longterm health effects of damaged, low-bacteria-count intestines.

So I just keep drawing my own intestines, in hopes of bringing them some comfort, some ease.

Since childhood my stomach has both served me and tortured me: I have memories of spoonfuls of mineral oil, having my stomach prodded by the doctor, and lots of time in the bathroom. My stomach and its conversations have taken different forms at each phase of my life, and my awareness of the interconnectivity of my internal and external systems has expanded.

I oscillate between using poetry to understand my own physical undertakings/reactions; and published, spoken, or googled information drops. This has led to a lifelong commitment to focusing in on the nervous system and its dealings in my eating, digestion, metabolism. And yet the poetry of it often gets in the way of all the directives. I know how certain foods make me feel. And yet I know how certain situations make me feel even more intimately. Is it the intake, or the INTAKE?

I remember a film maker, at a film festival, musing on his need to maintain a diet of specific visual material: he compared art to food. It seems as though each of our presences is also food for one another - we intake, and outtake - each other. We digest whole moments, and our stomachs buzz with anticipatory joy; anxious clenching; ease-filled air; bubbly curiosity. (too cheesy? like cheese pizza? which, btw, I can digest quite well in the company of teen artists, celebrating... but not in a moment of stress-filled solo eating)

more to come on this... thanks for reading about one of my (many) obsessions.

lovely anatomy below, from an old textbook, fffound at the gem that is mostly books.