IsoCreate – Jessica Knight

This is a project supported by The City of Melbourne Covid Quick Response Grant. I have interviewed disabled and Deaf artists about how their creative practice has been impacted by Covid-19. Jessica Knight (she/her) is a writer and conflicted heathen based in Naarm (Melbourne). Jessica’s response to how she’s made art during Covid is below, as well as a recording of her reciting poetry. Text of the poems is at the end of this post, as well as a video description. 

“I am a writer that lives on the stolen land of Naarm and I pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the land, the Boon Wurrung and Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri) peoples of the Kulin Nation. “I have been writing since I was a little kid living on the farm with my family. My Mother made me my first journal when I was 5. She covered a lined notebook she picked up for me from the supermarket and covered it with cute koala contact paper. She encouraged me to keep a record of my life. Growing up in The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints which has a heavy interest in family history, the idea was that if you kept a journal it would be something you could pass down to your children. It took me years to realize you could actually write how you felt and write down all the ugly things that frustrate and anger you. When I discovered that writing was not just something a religion could control, that I could write as a way to regain a sense of power over my own life. A power that seemed held by doctors and parents and a patriarchal religion, there was no going back for me. I wrote to make sense of things that seemed senseless and I wrote to live things over again. I didn’t start out with an aim for what to do with writing. The love came first and foremost. I did try to study writing after high school but I didn’t find it inspiring. I think it was because back then at eighteen I felt so insecure about my own ability (rightly so. I was terrible) and didn’t think that my voice mattered. I was not even aware I had a writing voice and if I did it was not fully formed. Of course now I know that a writing degree would have helped me find my writing voice but I guess I will never know if the degree developed voice would have been better than the one I developed on my own. There was also a lot of talk about money in the degree and how little money you made by being a writer. This worried me as I did not come from a family of money. I needed to focus on something that that had a better chance of paying my way.I remember sitting in that class and having heart palpitations at the thought of actually getting people to pay me for writing. I had no talent enough for paid writing? I thought. I studied psychology and then a grad dip in education instead and it was a good decision. I am fascinated by human nature and I think that degree helped me more than a writing one could have.This is my own personal feelings and thoughts and they change all the time. I am not saying writing courses are terrible.I am just saying that I wrote more for myself and with more pleasure, once I started studying something else. Working full time did not leave me with energy to pursue writing as a career so I kept quietly writing for myself. It was not until I finally got my third application for NDIS accepted that I started showing my writing and putting myself out there. I was 32.I started another writing course in 2012 that I had to quit due to illness but before that I was lucky to have a teacher of writing non fiction: Amy Espeseth who wrote very nice things on my assignments and I will never forget the feeling of hearing for the first time that my work is of a publishable standard.I felt all warm and a bit drunk on such unexpected praise, whuch indicates that I have a deep need to feel special. The kind of special not associated with my medical and mental health issues. One of the first stories about me that my parents tell, is about when I was born. I was found medically interesting within two days of my birth. During many appointments with specialists, one doctor picked me up in front of my bewildered first time parents, saying, ‘’You are a puzzle,’’ while looking right into my infant face. It could be argued that my desire to write is born of an innate compulsion to untangle that feeling of being misunderstood or perceived as a puzzle.I like being a puzzle. I don’t like being a puzzle. My feelings change day to day. Now I think one of my hopes/aims is to have a book published. It is my dream and has been since I was a little book nerd staying up late to read until I couldn’t hold the book up with my tiny tired arms. Books are life rafts to me and always have been. They are an escape a reprieve and also a learning curve. I try to read widely and love poetry, non -fiction, fiction, zines. I like seeing writers read their writing or perform it. I love how you can see yourself in some books and not feel so alone, reading can help you see you are not as big a freak as you feel. I love reading reflections of people nothing like me. I like reading books that are hard and even books that I may not understand straight away. I love how reading a book that I have read before feels like slipping into step with a good friend. A weird friend or a friend you didn’t know you missed. I would love to be able to make music as my chosen art form but that is simply beyond my ability and patience to learn.I did buy a guitar after a break up once but I never really put the work in to get any good. I like not knowing how to play music. It seems like a secret magical act performed by people who did not give up on their first attempt because it hurt their fingers.I did live with a friend once that asked me to give him poems that he would turn into songs and I would sing them. That was fun.We even performed them at some places around Melbourne. Places where the stage was small and so was the crowd. I got to have all the fun of being a front person without having to learn an instrument. It never came to anything like fame or recognition. I enjoyed the staying up late and working on the song in the living room near Haymarket train station. I relished being on stage and being the centre of attention while singing into a microphone the words I had written with a melody made by someone who knew how to play what I couldn’t and didn’t have the patience. My friend did try to teach me but I didn’t have enough focus. One time a woman who lived in the town house next door same out as I was walking to the car with a guitar. The woman asked if I was the one singing inside all the time. My face went red with embarrassment and I was apologetic. ‘’No. I love it.’’ She said.I must say I enjoy making and singing music a lot. I don’t have the energy to spend on being in a band. That is one hell of a hard thing to be a part of. Especially if you’re a girl, womam,POC, non binary, trans, chronically ill or disabled.I would like to take this moment to sarcastically thank white cis men for making the music industry such a nightmare. Writing matters so much to me. But I understand how precarious it is. I love the idea of people reading something of mine and feeling something, learning something but mostly it’s the feelings I want. I am all about the feelings. The thump thump thump of a heart as it beats blood and helps fuel your brain and guts. I could be wrong I don’t know exactly how the heart mind connection works. I know that there seems to be a thread connecting my sense of humour to my desire for sex. I do still know the main parts of the brain of by heart. I hate these types of questions [What are some of the barriers you face as a Deaf/disabled artist?]. I think it is because even though I know it’s internalised ableism. I hate to whinge. I still feel like to point out anything that I might find a bit difficult is my fault for not having the right attitude.I also feel that others have it more difficult than I so who am I to complain? I also am at a stage now in my mental health where I don’t even feel strong enough emotionally to tackle this question. I do know I have white privilege. I have skinny privilege.I do not have a family rich in wealth or education. My parents did not finish high school but they are curious and instilled in me a love of books and a desire to learn and never stop. They taught me how to be resilient. All things that are quite useful to trying to withstand the barriers I face with writing. They do not make those barriers dissolve in saliva like my salable antidepressants. The fact is that my body is difficult to be in sometimes that is the problem. That has always been the problem. I have inoperable cataracts and no peripheral vision. Something I did not really know till I was about 22. Till then I was just confused as to why I could not keep a job. It turns out if you can’t see good even while wearing glasses employers think you are lazy and incompetent. It made teaching PE at primary schools really difficult. My depression and anxiety are things that I have also always had to deal with.I deal with them on a variety of levels. Just like heaps of other people. That’s all I will say as I don’t want to give a full medical history here it would take too long and make me too sad. Which I know means I’m depressed because it should make me feel bad-ass and strong to know how much I have been through and can laugh at. I take medication that suppresses my immune system because I had a kidney transplant in 2015 after having a lifetime of sub par kidney function. This means I get sick easily and for longer than most people. A real inconvenience. But no matter what I do or say here it wont quell the tiny voice that I have in my head that responds to this question of what are some of the barriers you face as a disabled artist? With the one word muscle reflex response that I cant stop. I can try and talk it from the window ledge but it will come back it always comes back. It’s not the fact I can’t see or that I have had some truly fascinating and scary medical emergencies. It’s not that I’m depressed or traumatized by my various medical emergencies. It’s not because my family is not wealthy or connected to any arts industry circles. I don’t feel I can blame the fact I’m small and people underestimate me constantly. I don’t have imposter syndrome I’m not famous or successful enough to garner the descriptor of someone with imposter syndrome.But I look forward to it. It’s me. I’m the biggest barrier. I feel that way during my show run at Fringe when I see so many young white people doing shows. They are still at uni or just finished. How do they afford it? I kept thinking. How can they have the time and energy and resources in addition to their extreme youth? When I was at uni it was time consuming simply surviving and studying while living on next to no money because I did not have the capacity to work and study while at Ballarat University.What devil has their soul in exchange? I feel like I have arrived at the party too late in the night. I fight this feeling. Even though I work at self-acceptance and try and discontinue negative self talk.I can’t get rid of the innate response that always comes to my mind when I’m asked about barriers. The self-blame runs deep. And sometimes it’s warranted. I am just not trying hard enough. I think that this helps in some ways and eats away at me in others? The last social engagement I had before Corona lock down and self isolating, was at a dinner at a friends house. I had just got the news that the melbourne International comedy festival had been cancelled and in addition my first ever appearance in such a festival had been cancelled. I did not take it on the chin. Even though it was the right decision. I am on immune suppressant medication and already get sick easy and for longer than other people. I was still blind sided with disappointment and grief to the point of being unable to do anything except watch episodes of Golden Girls, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, The Nanny, Buffy and The Simpsons. I order books from local bookstores via the internet. I order a red boilersuit that arrives only to prove to be way to big for me. I buy skincare products and order my fav iced chocolate drink in bulk. Getting packages delivered briefly fills the void and sparks joy. I try to write every day but fail. I start drawing pictures and it helps to distract me from the horrors of social media for a increments of time. There are people doing far better than I. Taking the disappointment and uncertainty and moving forward creatively regardless. They are not laying on the couch on Saturday night listening to the 1985 original London cast recording of Le Miserables and crying. I do not reach out to friends because one afternoon I pluck up courage and try four different friends that don’t answer the calls and this makes me so uncomfortable and feel so rejected that cannot stomach trying that again. When a friend does call I don’t answer. Covid- 19 has impacted the way I make art. It has impacted my art in a big way and it’s not even as big as the ways it has affected friends who also write things that are meant for the stage and to be watched by a collective group of people all sitting together in the dark and feeling something from what they witness on the stage. It has made me return to making art for the hell of it and with no end game in sight. It is like the writer Freya Daly Sagrove tweeted I ‘ve made ginger kisses. also I predict that the art movement during and after covid-19 will just be: crap art. like the crappest art. If you guys aren’t making crap art then…. then… what the fuck do you think you are doing? Iit’s our duty to make crap art. I find this comforting. It makes me feel better about drawing pictures while music is playing or a movie that has a minimum of loud noises and obnoxious sounding voices. The pandemic has put a stop to one of the biggest oppurtunities I had ever been lucky enough to achieve. Before everything got cancelled I was going to do my first ever show at The Malthouse theatre as part of their program for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2020. I was going to be doing my show Mormon Girl that I premiered at Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2019.It was a career curve I didn’t see coming or ever envisioned as something I could do. I was lucky to have people that believed in me enough. I got to that point through taking risks and saying yes to things, it was being free to be able to accept those opportunities through not having a nine to five job or children to support, and I was very excited. I never wanted to be a comedian even though every time someone said I should be it made me feel like they had literally picked me up and shook me while saying over and over ‘you are a good and funny genius.’ I prefer that term that’s what I want to be. I love live storytelling and reading my poetry out loud.. Winning The Moth live story telling night in November 2018 made me happy that my impulsive behavior gets me places sometimes. I did not plan on going or taking part until a couple of hours before the show. I had not written anything down or planned it. I wanted it to be spoken out loud without me needing to hold a piece of paper inches from my face as I try to read my words. That night I truly did feel like a good and funny genius. Writing the show Mormon Girl and performing it for the first time at Melbourne Fringe last year, was a huge great learning curve that I was thrilled to be able to go on thanks to the help of my director Bridget Balodis and Dramaturge Mark Pritchard, and my friend and fellow co conspirator Ra Chapman. It’s a stage I would not be at in my creative career had it not been for people believing in me enough to give me a chance. I did not get there all by myself. The loss of the comedy festival opportunity due to covid was a huge blow that I am ashamed to say I am still grieving. I am also grieving for all the people I was so excited to be sharing a stage with over the festival. It is not just the fact that I put all that work in to share something with people, it’s also the friends I was excited to make while doing what I love. I know I love writing but performing at Fringe reminded me how much I love being on stage and sharing embarrassing, hilarious and sad personal stories on stage in front of a live audience.I am devastated that Covid- 19 stopped me being able to get up on stage again and tell my stories.Hopefully, not forever. The plot twist has definitely changed my opportunities. I am not busier than ever. Sometimes that’s all right with me and sometimes it makes me panic.I am busy being ok if that makes sense. I am busy taking care and trying not to fall apart with self-indulgent misery. I take my morning meds every morning and my nighttime ones before bed every night. I try to keep from taking my depression and sadness out on my partner. The years of being groomed by society, family, religious indoctrination and being a bottomless well of need for validation, to put on a happy face and project positivity has helped. Being raised in an environment of hard work and little money may have something to do with my rather strict idea of what busy means. I keep forgetting that busy does not only mean getting up at the crack of dawn to do farm work or get your younger siblings ready for school, like it used to. I feel like unless I have been working as hard as my parents do, in the same way as them, I am not ever going to be really busy. Now, I know when my arts worker friends ask they mean something different. This question is about arts work and during COVID the only creative stuff I have been doing has been for me. I would have been performing at the launch of the anthology Growing Up Disabled In Australia in June this year but that was cancelled. The other night I finally felt such a huge desperate desire to perform that I read out loud a poem I had been working on during isolation. I was desperate to perform in front of a living, breathing crowd and so took what I could get: performing in front of my partner. Oh god it was such a rush. I listen to the birds singing outside my window and everyday one random bird, will nearly concuss themselves by flying straight into one of my windows. I understand the pain of that I think as I sip my cold instant coffee. I did actually run straight into a glass door while drunk in a friend’s backyard one time. You don’t know how fast you are until something suddenly stops you in your tracks and nearly knocks you unconscious. Has the digitalisation of art, due to COVID-19, made things more accessible for you as an artist and audience member?What types of events, shows, exhibitions have you attended? I have not been to any internet events they are depressing and I hate them. I am so glad that they are being made because there are people who desperately need and deserve to experience things from the safety of their home or bed. I love that COVID has made the digitization of art forms more widespread and I hope it continues, after COVID. They cause me so much anxiety and stress and I know that makes me sound so defeatist and stubborn. I know its made things more accessible for lots of people and that’s wonderful. I am just one of those people who would rather chat on a phone to one person than try and look at a bunch of face boxes on a screen that makes it too difficult for me to see faces and the cognitive dissonance at seeing people but not physically being with people is super exhausting and makes me more sad. Of course I am in no position where I have to do internet things for teaching or job purposes. I know there are people doing amazing things on instagram live that are wonderful. I have actually done a recording of my show Mormon Girl in my living room that my partner filmed. But I have no intention of sharing it as I just cannot bring myself to put it out into the world knowing people may only be half watching me talk about truly personal things while scrolling on their phones. I know that its so easy to do. I watched a few Netflix comedy specials the other night. I turned of the lights, put my phone out of reach and a wine glass of beer in my hand to try and make the experience more like a theatre. It just felt to strange for me to be doing my performance with no live audience to laugh when I am being funny and have that exchange of energy. I feed of that energy and I am sure I may change my mind about my feelings surrounding streaming performances but for now I am really hoping that I don’t have to.I know what it is. I don’t get to hear people laugh at my punch lines and this is incredibly important to me feeling like a good and funny genius. It is the feeling I chase like a dragon hunter yet, if people just started calling me that all the time it would lose all weight and meaning. But, you know the saying anything for the right price. I am happy at the moment to support other people’s art in any way I can.Buy buying books and small press zines online ( not through evil multi national corporations). I have actually just been reading my way through the pain. And trying not to be too sad on social media or too happy.I have discovered instagram art and that is giving me great joy. I am very grateful to all the wonderful comic artists and illustrators and tattoo artists that I have been obsessing over lately. One of my friends created a comic strip for The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts. But to clarify, the digitization of art in some contexts has not made things more accessible for me. I think this is because I really loved going to things and talking to people face to face. I never even skyped my family when I lived in the United Kingdom. I didn’t want them to see how depressed I was. It is the same thing during covid. I don’t want to have people see the defeat in my eyes or my panic.I may change my mind. I may do a zoom meeting in the next week or attend a live stream event. I have tried to do this. I have intended to attend a book launch online but then I get overwhelmed with anxiety and apathy and end up watching something or reading something. I have just started watching Steven Universe and it is such an adorable escape. Once again art has helped me pass the time. The perfect example of how the digitization of art has made things accessible. One night it happens. It is Thursday and I finally log on so I can watch a literary event online. I feel it was an excellent choice. It was Liminal magazine’s launch of their second series of digital writing, art and more called Glitch. The series was launched as part of The Emerging Writers Festival taking place completely online this year. The event went for one hour and I got to enjoy three very different nuanced, thought provoking and smart creative expressions by Hassan Abul, Ava Amedi, Cecile Richard and Michael Sun, from the comfort of my living room.Usually at 6pm events you are wondering whether to eat something quickly before hand or stay hungry and eat afterwards, only to get distracted by friends and drink too much free wine. That could just be me, though. I am happy to ignore stomach growls if there is good conversation to be had. Also usually I go without my partner. Experiencing this event at home meant it was on while my partner made something to eat. He got to finally see Leah Jing who I talk about gushingly all the time and also as I watched the event I was quietly presented with some soup dumplings in a bowl with a set of chopsticks. That right I got to eat while at the lit event. My favorite part was I did not need to be seen or heard as I watched. I loved Cecile Richard’s beautiful reading and one of my favorite lines from them is ‘’You know what I’m talking about, you’d laugh about this comparison too the deep fried meme of memory I think its funny too.’’ I have read some very smart things written by some very smart people about this and they have all said it better than I ever could.Off the top of my head I would say that grieving lost opportunities and income is a big one. People talk about the money side enough so I wont because I never relied on my art for money. I live within the means attributed to me by NDIS. I hear that comedy festival could have been more lucrative for me than previous creative projects, which would have been nice. It is the loss ofcommunity that is a huge challenge. I miss talking to other people about upcoming projects or sympathizing with people over that missed grant opportunity or that one. Dealing with the racism and ableism in the Australian Arts Industry is not new for a lot of artists it is a reality that lived every day. To have these challenfes AND on top of these lose artistic oppurtunities due to covid is a huge challenge for so many brilliant artists and is another layer on top of an already overwhelming layer of challenge. Dealing with the fear of getting sick and knowing that because I am on immune suppressents the disease would be more severe and life threatening to my system means that even though so many people seem to thing it’sstarting to get ‘’back to normal.’’For me and people in my position it is not back to normal and it wont be, for some it never was normal. The fear of getting a cold and having it turn serious has been some peoples every day. The challenge I see is the challenge to fight the idea that you have to be being your most productive self in the middle of these trying times. That you should be doing that project or finishing that manuscript.Oh god why have I not written two books by now? I must be so lazy and undisciplined. It is hard to feel inspired and be productive when you are swallowed up by grief.It is hard to be inspired and productive when everywhere around you the arts are being slashed of funding and you see how little the mainstream cares.Its hard to feel inspired or productive when you constantly see how myopic and unaware of their ignorance regarding diversity, so many white able bodied creative are. As I write this there is news of the government wanting to slash at the arts even more via arts degrees. They want you to pay double what it was already, to study anything creative at a tertiary level. This will make it even harder for people already starting from disadvantage due to being anything other than wealthy able bodied and white.It makes me think of all the ways I am perceived a ‘’drain on society’ and how that mentality to fed to people who simply were not born into the club of privilege. Can you imagine the kind of art that will come from people whose only reason for being in the room is that they could afford it? I studies psychology because I thought it would get me a job easier than studying the arts but then I could not afford complete all the years of study. I tried working jobs but it never worked then did a grad dip only to find that you are not considered employable if your small and blind, it makes you seem unobservant and lazy to employers. I tried to be a valid tax-paying member of society I really did and I failed. I have had so much medical care that had I lived in the US, I would be either incredibly poor or dead because my parents could not afford all my specialists. Art is the only thing I seem to be able to do with any competence. And it keeps being made more and more difficult for people even worse than I. People who have the kind of stories I want to hear. I don’t know. I’m too sad. I did see a lot of selfish people buy toilet paper in bulk and then try and sell it at an increased price over the internet. I suppose that was an example of some people trying to take advantage of an opportunity arising from Covid- 19. It was also an example of how awful capitalism is. I think that the COVID pandemic is simply one of the things that is giving the world a scary shake. Seeing how many lives it has claimed in America and how it has given some people an opportunity to justify their racism. This is an affect that will not disappear once COVID is under control. The racist after affects will continue to reverberate. One of the things that I am taking an opportunity to do more during this time is so read and listen more. Trying to be mindful of the things I watch and read which I was already doing but now since I am not as creative as I would like to be I am simply putting my money where my heart is as much as I can by buying books and zines by creators creating. By donating what little I can to foundations and causes related to indigenous legal and literacy foundations. I’m supposed to talk about opportunity while people are dying and police brutality continues to go unpunished? Its just I have trouble with seeing the word opportunity and COVID together without thinking about how important it is I don’t get it. Or how it is the reason I lost oppurtunities and so did a bunch of far more talented people than I.It has given me the opportunity to spend huge chunks of time agonizing over my relationships both romantic and friend related. I am uncomfortable with claiming that I know enough to share what I think about opportunities arising from this pandemic. Especially since I have been withdrawing deep into myself and trying to maintain my own mental health instead of trying to grab at or look for creative opportunities. It is only after self-isolating for nearly three months that I have started tentatively doing anything like submitting a poem to a lit mag. I was rejected but at least I tried. I even had a wonderful phone call that involved poetry feedback with an accomplished poet who was kind enough to help me make one of my poems tighter and better. Thank you Jennifer Compton. It was so good for my heart and head to embrace the pleasure of the process and not focus on an outcome. When I wrote in my journal every night as a child and teenager and then as a faith losing university student, I was not focusing on outcomes or likes, it was just for me. In an episode of Steven Universe Steven himself sings a song while marooned on a desert island that has the line. ‘’Why don’t you just let yourself be wherever you are.’’ Its advice that I would do well to follow in times when I am feeling overwhelmed by the opportunities I have lost instead of just trying to be happy where I am which is safe, warm, with enough food and a person I can hug when I need to.I have money (thanks to never going out ) to buy books and support the current causes that matter, not huge amounts of money but what I can afford. Recently I ordered a t-shirt from Clothing The Gap. Clothing The Gap is a Victorian Aboriginal owned and led social enterprise.  Clothing The Gap has two t-shirt designs available in kids sizes which is extra good for me. My face ages but my frame remains that of a 12 year old with breasts. During this time of self isolation and keeping indoors as much as possible I have embraced the opportunity to seek comfort in things from my childhood like writing all my hurt and sadness down in a notebook with a pen. Nobody wants to read that sad depressive ranting stuff even though sometimes I think I catch myself in a nice sentence but who can trust their own creative judgment after months spent almost completely alone inside their head? I started drawing and sharing some of them on instagram. I sometimes use the co_star app as inspiration. Sometimes the highlight of my day is when I have forgotten to check the tidbit of advice for the day.A couple of days ago it advised you are not required to sleep with everyone who wants to sleep with you This is information that would have been much more useful to me at university. Another time it told me Your body is sometimes a difficult place to be Here are some opportunities that COVID has gifted me: a constant thrum of unease regarding my health and my bodies ability to fight COVID. The worry and guilt I feel about my partner having to do all the shopping as well as go to their work because I cant go into shops full of people who don’t social distance. COVID has given me the time to reread Flowers in The Attic and the sequel Petals On The Wind by Virginia Andrews. These gothic tales of siblings locked away in an attic for nearly four years and how they escaped and tried to deal are just as shocking and enthralling as when I read them when 15. They were young adult books when published in the 70s. They were stuck in an attic I am housebound due to a world wide pandemic, you can see the similarities end there. Here are my top 3 tips to artists and arts organisations for making art digitally accessible: This question makes me realize how little I know about this area. I also get very uncomfortable at the concept of me giving advice as if I know things about stuff. Because I really don’t I am just doing my best most of the time and that is not a whole lot when I really think about it. For this and other reasons this question makes me feel a lot of anxiety. I don’t give tips and I certainly don’t have enough from which to pick a top 3. The thing is I am a writer ( arguable) not an advice giver. I also feel super fake and a total charlatan even considering this question after all my rant and rail against live streaming my one -woman show. It’s as if I could be perceived as being against digital accessibility, which I am not at all. It’s just not something I feel I can give tips to arts organisations and artists about.Any ‘tip’ I give has probably been said a heap of times before by people who know more about this subject. Make steps to ensure your art organization is not completely run by white able bodied cis gender people that only work with the same. There is a percentage of Australians that live in places without any internet access. My parents live rurally and do not have access to things like streaming services such as Netflix or Stan. They don’t have access to fast Internet connection that would allow access to live stream events or the like. This gets me thinking of any creative people living in such an environment and living with a disability. It would make them extra isolated and harder to reach or assist in getting their creative foot in the door.This is why I am no good at giving tips I only seem to see problems. When I do go see my parents I read a lot and its nice. I miss them. I have been trying to limit my use of The Internet due to my depression and inclination or rather compulsion to compare myself to others until I am a puddle of self-hatred. Here are three things I have done that do not involve the Internet while self isolating since March. I have gotten really good at making French toast. Nothing fancy I hate fancy French toast. This is simply sliced bread that is a little stale, soaked in a raw egg I have lightly whisked with a fork. You melt butter on a pan and then you fry up each side of the egg bread. I have become very good at frying each side of the egg bread perfectly and then pouring maple syrup over it. Ihave discovered the joy and wonder of ordering things I like to eat or drink in bulk over the internet. It makes me feel independent, something I don’t need to ask my partner to get me from the shops. So I can break into it late at night when I cant sleep. I can limit how many Nippy’s I have in a day and organize my whole day around the excitement and anticipation of having that treat. Oh this is related to The Internet and I got the inspiration from someone on twitter. Thank you, Internet and twitter. I recently purchased a 25 pack of Nippy’s iced chocolate drinks. There was a week or so where I thought I had drunk them all and then my partner found six in part of the fridge I had forgotten about. It was a pretty epic day. Making sure I shower everyday, even if it seems pointless. Even if it’s the only non-internet related thing I do that day. It is also a good idea for me personally to not take my phone to the toilet with me. It is good contemplation time. Singing along to music. I know I am in a bad way when even the idea of that just makes me feel tired. On good days it is pure joy. I really like when I find a song that is in an achievable register for me. It is not mandatory for mysinging enjoyment. I am not sure what I want in a post Covid world. My capacity for hope is strangled by depression these days. I’m not sure there is any use hoping that this is going to change humanity for the better in any way. It would be nice if it gave people a chance to reflect and assess what’s important.A friend tweeted today something about remembering your worth is not bound up in proving how clever you are over and over again. I spent the last days of Autumn walking amongst gravestones in sunlight and cloud and wind. My favourite gravestones are old and crumbling. I like imagining the lives of the names I read out loud. What they were like. How often they were happy and how often they felt overwhelmed and sad enough to cry. L says that its quite amazing to think that the people here who are dead are still getting their names said out loud by people who never knew or met them. Discussion turns to what would be written on our own tombstones and what offerings or little treats we would bring each other should one of us die before the other. I promise to bring danishes and coffee if L promises to bring me doughnuts and Nippys iced chocolate drinks. A sculpture of any books I got published while alive would also be cool. I would of course want something about how unforgettable I am to be written on my tombstone. Something like Once seen never forgotten or she was as furious as she was short and ever the earnest friend. I have enjoyed walking around graveyards ever since the first time my mother took me to one in the middle of nowhere. It was so quiet all you could hear was the wind through trees and birds singing. My Mother told us she wanted to be buried somewhere nice and quiet like where we were right then and there. I was 6 years old. A few days ago I walked to a friends place and chatted to them from a safe distance. The first friend I had seen in over two months and all I wanted to do was go inside and dit in their crowded living room like at one of his gin and tonic afternoons. After chatting and patting his cat and dog I walked home afterwards. My step count was over ten thousand steps at the end of that for the first time in ages and my legs felt wobbly. I was so tired that all I could do for the rest of the day was watch netflix and eat dinner, for dessert I ate four of the chocolate chip biscuits L made last night. Back to the subject of hope after COVID, I hope to sit in the dark and watch a play again. Hope to go see a live band again. Hope to go to the movies again.Hope to be able to go on long meandering walks that include ducking into a shop that looks interesting, loiter in bookshops again for hours, so many simple things. I hope to sit around at a bar at a lit event and chat and hug my friends again. I hope to get to perform Mormon Girl at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival like previously planned. I hope to get a book published. I hope to see my friends get their projects off the ground.I hope to have something to get excited about and work towards again. I want people to have a better understanding of what its like to be chronically ill or disabled in a way they didn’t before COVID made then get to experience something similar for a period of time. That would be great. If people understood that being out of work or sick is not a character flaw but circumstances beyond personal control. I don’t want these people to get the paid writing gigs to write about how but, I do want the wider population to grow in empathy and understanding. I want them to stop dehumanizing chronic ill and disabled peopled people as well as the unemployed. I want The Black Lives Matter movement to end racism and police brutality. This is more a wish than a hope. I guess what I am trying to say is that I am taking it one day at a time. It’s too overwhelming to my system to get stuck in the pile of things I hope for during the short fleeting moments that I have hope.Things are in flux. I am vision impaired and always have been. I have made a variety of poetry and essay zines with artist MC Drawn ( she is on instagram)and have sold them at Sticky institute and at zine fairs in Melbourne, Sydney and Alice Springs. That seems like another world ago in the day of coming and going. The last zine fair I attended was only back in Febuary. It was so much fun and I sold out my zines. The trick is to not bring or make too many so there is a sense of achievement by the end of the day. You should leave the zine faor having swapped and purchased almost as many as you brought along to sell. You can see my own art attempts that I have been doing over the last two months as a healthy coping strategy for my depression and sense of despair on my instagram attinywhirlwind_82 and @TheMess19 on twitter. I do have a blog that I must try and keep up to date is gremlinface82@wordpress.com A couple of weeks ago I write about the musical Le Miserables, memories and need for revolution. I started by scribbling messy notes in my notebook over a few nights before going to bed.I felt like it was silly and not at all relevant to the time in which we find ourselves. Who cares about Le Mis at a time like this? I think. I obviously do if I am listening to it on repeat and crying. It feels good to get the writing muscle flexed again even if it was to write something that I have no idea what to do with. I have lived in Melbourne a city built on stolen land, since 2005.I have lived in over ten share-houses. I cannot whistle. When I was little I used to tuck my t-shirts into my underwear. The only reason I got found out was when a doctor had to show my mother how to give me a growth hormone injection in my bottom. This required the doctor to get me to pull my jeans down. The baggy Minnie Mouse t shirt was sticking out in thick cotton wads out the leg holes of my knickers.It felt nice and secure that way, I didn’t want my t shirt to come un-tucked. When I wan in school I used to draw on everything. I mean even assignment sheets for group work, I got into trouble for it by classmates in my work group. They didn’t like my compulsive pen drawings of girls in dresses. It was understandable as they drawings were not great.I remember how nice my classmates were or seemed to be during the time I was in hospital in year 8. I mean the messages in the card made me think that when I got back to school I was going to have friends real friends and not be alone at lunchtimes anymore. I was wrong. It would not be the first time I would be mislead regarding this sort of thing. Last night I wake up at 2am and feel physically sick with anxiety. This happens. I get up and sit in the dark of the living room for a few moments trying to breath the anxiety away. I think I maybe hungry so I make myself a bowl of warm oats in a saucepan on the stove. I eat while listening to the nighttime. After that I decide to have a shower. A shower in the dead of night makes me feel like a character in a film.I had even lit some candles to give the bathroom some ambiance. Itr has been a rough few months. I think as I stand under the hot water. Its ok to feel overwhelmed and teary. I should be more grateful though. I am lucky I had my kidney transplant when I did. I am lucky I do not live in a busy share house with people who are not taking the pandemic seriously. When I go to bed I lay there feeling clean and almost euphoric with the lack of twisted up stomach anxiety. When I wake in the morning someone has made me pancakes.” Jessica’s performance:

Video description and poetry text to accompany video:  Jessica is standing in a room with pictures on the wall behind her, ans books stacked up on shelves. Jessica is wearing dark blue overalls over a black top. She is a fair skinned woman with shoulder length brown hair. She is reading the poems from her phone. Jessica introduces the poem by saying “Hello, I’m Jessica Knight and I’m going to be reading two poems that I’ve been working on during home isolation. The first one is called “I Am A True Angst Teen Poet At Heart. I’m Sorry.” Jessica recites this and then introduces the second poem. She says “the next poem I’m going to read for you is entitled Purple hair dye looks gruesome on a hospital pillowcase”. I Am A True Angst Teen Poet At Heart. I’m Sorry. By Jessica Knight If there were photos from all the way back then they would show us drunk and in a muddle. Or my head turned in your direction waiting for a sign you felt the same. Did you hear the rumours? I tell you it doesn’t matter one of us always chasing the attention of the other. I sleep with a photo of you under my pillow while home for summer still not enough of my sleep involves dreaming. Do you still have the letters from all the way back then? It was good practice I suppose for what I do now. Your birthday invite with you age 3 I walked around everywhere with an image of little you in my back pocket so I could take it out and stare in wonder anywhere I went. An avalanche of tears when it went through the wash your young face sodden dissolved Into nothing like it never was. Hoped it was more than just friendship and your trademark impatience we were nothing in particular it didn’t stop me though I have a good imagination. Hoped it was possibly love or even lust when you paid the rest so I could take that studded belt home and put it on. Made you poetic despite your limitations. Loud laughing to cover the confusion questions I know how to answer but wanted to hear you say anything  something anything something. Instead I’m at your house party in the bath with the beers and ice freezing cold and grabbing at your body to try and get out of another situation I let you put me in. They were zombies yes the flesh was hanging from their bones I helped them through a half open window they stood before me all unsteady. I got them to remove their torn and bloodied clothes cheerfully did their laundry they were the undead the undead became my friends. Wanted to tell you that dream when I woke up tell you the zombies are us without each other but you had left for work already so i wrote a love note on your pillow and cried on the tram from Brunswick to Southern Cross Station a concerned looking lady asked if I’m ok. I sniff and smile in reply before looking away. Least of it all is the fact that you got a good girl to turn her twisted little back on god for a taste of you. Took the drawing down posted your hat back with a three page letter proceeded to make you poetic in spite of all your limitations. I can’t stop reading my handwriting so much black ink oh god it was fun we put on quite a show. There are moments now while drinking with new friends my imagination flickers to vengeful if I had another chance my teeth press down hard on some ice as I consider other things I could have used my teeth for. Made you poetic despite all the limitations. Purple hair dye looks gruesome on a hospital pillowcase By Jessica Knight The next time i die I want to be happy and old Because the last time I was not and So confused thought I was at the bottoms of the ocean And so far from you I just can’t get over the image How cute and sad it would have been You arriving at the nurses station With a bag of things you know I like Being told by the nurse with the kraken tattoo That Ive been moved again That I’m in icu again That I might not pull through again How it was so selfish of me to leave the ward without saying goodbye It was her last day at six south west Wish you could explain To me how it felt to arrive that evening And find a nurse sitting in a chair watching me sleep. I don’t remember pulling the tube from my neck But I’m still pretty proud that even in the thick of it I found a way to rebel in a body roaring into a fight Anyway the nurse was watching me sleep for their entire shift. Such attention all eyes on me a performance unscripted yet compelling in its exquisite calamity. You took over so she could go to the toilet. What were you thinking ? As you sat with the coat I like hugging your shoulders your eyes on me watching me sleep. Some choice swears ? Or too tired for even thinking what a silly little bitch I am. I imagine it’s along those lines Now, here I am can dress myself and sit up straight know my name strong enough in the mind to give you a hard time such a hard time. I get so angry for no reason and cannot sleep sometimes get stomachs aches and chest pains like I’m dying. I feel as soon as I relax Its going to grab me again. I had such plans for what I’d be when I came home told you we should get a cat and I was going to be nicer. I thought it would all be left under the harsh hospital lighting. It came with me wounds within wounds some scars you can touch gently As you fall asleep and the rest are hidden They say it’s not my fault say it’s to be expected I’ve been through a lot I would not be surprised if some nights you look at me asleep and think some choice words Goddammit you silly little bitch. I deserve it Jessica’s bio: Jessica Knight is a writer, performer and comedian based in Melbourne. She has appeared in The Emerging Writers Festival, Red Dirt Poetry Festival. Her writing has appeared in Meanjin and Scum Mag. Jessica was a 2018 recipient of a Creative Victoria grant that funded her one woman show, Mormon Girl, about growing up Mormon and how she disentangled herself from that belief system to became the unapologetic feminist she is today. She performed Mormon Girl at the 2019 Melbourne Fringe Festival and was due to perform it at the 2020 Melbourne International Comedy Festival – but latter was cancelled due to COVID-19. Jess Knight is a contributor to the Growing Up Disabled in Australia – and its publication has been delayed until February 2021 due to COVID-19.  Jessica can be found on Twitter, Instagram and her blog. Mental health support: Lifeline: 131114 Arts Wellbeing Collective