Three titles for what to name our gallery + a bonus of the Gmitter title exploration (because lord knows I need it)
1. watashiato
n. curiosity about the impact you’ve had on the lives of the people you know, wondering which of your harmless actions or long-forgotten words might have altered the plot of their stories in ways you’ll never get to see.
2. midding
v. intr. feeling the tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it — hovering on the perimeter of a campfire, chatting outside a party while others dance inside, resting your head in the backseat of a car listening to your friends chatting up front — feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included, safe in the knowledge that everyone is together and everyone is okay, with all the thrill of being there without the burden of having to be.
3. vemödalen
n. the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist — the same sunset, the same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an eye — which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself.
More to come. Here’s so far.
Gmitter: aftersome
adj. astonished to think back on the bizarre sequence of accidents that brought you to where you are today — as if you’d spent years bouncing down a Plinko pegboard, passing through a million harmless decision points, any one of which might’ve changed everything — which makes your long and winding path feel fated from the start, yet so unlikely as to be virtually impossible.
I live a very “arthur morgan” life, so this would be perfect. My reacquired existence even at the school was unprecedented merely just before the pandemic.
