Whispers of Movement

The last time I acted on a whim was the end of 2021, when I moved back to the east coast to help care for Mom. The adventure I’ve been on since then has been hellish, beautiful, healing and – sometimes – grindingly brutally quiet.

During the last week of October 2025, last minute – on a whim – I went to see a talk at Bard College featuring an artist and writer – Cannupa Hanska Luger.

I wrote this: Cannupa Hanska Luger had a conversation with creative writing professor @dinaw_mengestu about his book *Surviva* at Bard College last week.

It was a twisting turning journey (with at least one accidentally illegal wrong turn up a winding walking path that looked like a road) to find the building where the talk happened. I thought – “At least I’m having an adventure getting here.”

The talk was trippy and hilarious and beautiful. I wouldn’t say I experienced deja vu exactly, but certainly curls in the space time continuum.

I took notes and drew some doodles, too.

Something happened!

It’s not that nothing is happening. And I know – I write about this experience with my mom often – because the story is part of what’s been happening for me.

I also write a lot about the slowness of things. Even though things are slow – I’m still taking actions – and eventually those actions will result in finished art, and (a) finished book(s), and maybe even some songs. Some aspects of time are linear – but not all aspects. Perceiving time from all directions requires imagination and trust.

I’ve learned to create timelines for myself and my projects, and to revise the timelines and to let them go — over and over again. I’m still getting footing on what it is I can actually manage energetically.

I’m learning a lot, just by taking my time.

I’m learning how to ask for help, too.

Though the grip of grief is lessening – I keep this statement from the hospice brochure in mind: “Although it can be very intense, grief is not a mental illness.” Someone recently told me that it takes two years for things to start feeling “normal”. I confess I don’t know what normal means. I suspect with the United States exploding into full-blown fascism — I may not have an answer anytime soon.

There is no normality to go back to.

I maintain that being an artist in a world that values corporatism and slavery over humanity is the best way I can resist fascism.

Amid the slowness, over the past year, some creative endeavors have come to fruition.

Work completed in 2025:

• Five paintings
     – Embrace
       – Dweller Between the Waters
       – Beckett
       – The Source of Supergirl’s Power
       – King of the Parking Angels
• Participation in Art, Sales & Research 2025 Autumn Exhibition and Fundraiser for Red Hook Responds
• Voice acting for I N P A T I E N T or How I Spent My Summer Vacation
• Teaching the workshop, I am Divine Love: A Playful Affirmation of the True Nature of Self (a compressed version for the Kingston O+ Festival last October, and a comprehensive expanded version at Flagstaff’s Whole-Hearted Healing Center in June)
• Performance: vocals and Percussion for Bhānaka Kula at Hudson in Concert
• Print-only literary journal slips slips issue 2: Dialogues ~ “East Village Saturn Cycle I & II” poem in collaboration with Timothy McCown Reynolds. To be released in January 2026.
• Moon Draw: Weekly Tarot Readings based on the phase of the moon
• Culture. Going to the movies. This year I saw: Nasferatu, The Substance, Sinners, Superman, Thunderbolts*, Fantastic Four, Weapons, and, One Battle After Another.

Ongoing (expansive) projects:

• The Forbidden Word Project – Since March 13, 2025, I have defined a word a day from the Trump Administration’s banned word list. As of today, I have defined 186 words. Initially the list had 197 words on it, but by now, the list has doubled. This project has three parts, writing out the meaning of the words is Part One. Parts Two and Three are in the works.
• 10,000 Plum Doodles Project – Since January 2025, I have posted approximately 500 doodles and thumbnails. I will stop at 10,000.
• Big Star Project – There is so much to update on this project, and so much more to go. This was the beginning of my surrender into the long slow process of the work of making.
• Tarot research – more to come!
• Paintings on both canvas and cardboard
• Renovation of the little house I live in

Maybe normal for me is trusting that creativity, love, kindness, radical authenticity, and self-care are imperative for a just and sustainable world. It doesn’t matter how much I can do nor how quickly I can do it, what matters is that I live my life with these principals to guide me.

~ ~ ~

November 3rd, 2025
New England

image: getting to feeling better © holly troy 2025