Tanya Leighton

Math Bass

To Name A Few

27 Apr - 22 Jun 2019

Installation view
MATH BASS
To Name A Few
27 April – 22 June 2019

I am sitting here with this feeling, and it is a familiar feeling, and it is my heart.

I am needing to reassure myself that I am not writing this letter to you, that I am
just writing it, simply writing it, simply letting it wander out.

I feel sad. My heart, my chest, what fills my chest, something like the taste of
copper, like sucking on a penny, like licking a 9 volt battery and getting a little
shock. It’s here, a little shock.

It has never been so apparent, the workings of shame embedded in my being so
old and outside, yet all the same my own deep thing to tend to, untangle, air out
and hold.

And I guess it’s true, now I am writing to you. I am writing to you from me and
also to myself.

But isn’t that a letter?

The linear scroll is scraping against the pavement.

In my delusions I am literally some kind of a hero and that is embarrassing.
What holds the reigns, I think of some force, nameless, shapeless within and
outside this bodily container. Sending signals into outer space and actually
hearing back.

I can tell you the joy of this spring day, the brightness of 4PM light, the spirits
that burst through at this time. It’s almost too much of a drunken feeling to
manage. It’s almost too much.

There is my heart again. You know, I haven’t been able to feel my heart in so
long.

And now I pause, and just stare at my hands, still on the board.

And in this moment I decided this letter is no longer for you, because I know
that you don’t want it.

This letter is for my heart, and I can say anything to my heart.

Right now, I am saying to my heart, I am sorry. I am sorry that I wrapped you up in cotton batting and put you away all tampered down and quiet. I am sorry that I hid you from myself, that I turned away from you while we were sleeping, and on purpose, many times.

I am sorry that I turned away from you, my heart. My beautiful, my tender, my sensitive, my loving, my strong, strong heart. And I am so sorry that I put you to rest so often as to no longer feel anything between my ribs and the sky.