Language Intimate

"language is so intimate" & ideas changing form

I love letting an idea unravel. I’ve had this name picked out for a creation for about 5 years. It’s funny because the meaning of it to me has changed a handful of times. When I have a big idea I usually get the name for it first I’ve noticed. The big picture comes in and then all the little cracks fill in with ideas around it as time goes on.

Years ago, I wanted to start an underwear company. I started coming up with names for “intimates”. Intimates made me think of love, which brought me to love languages, bringing it all together as: Language Intimates.

As time went on - I lost the juice on that old idea, or at least recognized I didn’t have the production strength I would need for it and let it slide out of my psyche but I held onto the name because it meant something to me. It still had juice behind it. My interests changed. Though maybe I will make underwear one day who knows.

I heavily rely on the intuition I get around ideas - how long they stay with me, how much charge they have, how easily I can let go of them, etc. and the ones that stick I usually have no choice but to get around to.

That was back in New York and feels like a lifetime ago. I barely recognize that version of myself but still feel parts of her. Since then, I’ve been making more art, writing more, shown more curiosity on what happens inside of my mind, learning to articulate it and the Language part of Intimates took on a new shape. Then, one day I dropped the “s” in my mind and it felt good. Language Intimate, took hold as not only the intimacy of language as we know it, but on forming a language of the intimate for myself, often wordless. I would describe myself as someone who thinks in feelings so getting to the point of putting things into words can, ironically, be hard for me at times. The name came together in a way that now encapsulated something entirely different than what I had initially started with.

The place for it was all carved out but I sat with it for a long time. If some of you have been around - I made the first zine under this same umbrella nearly… oops… 2 years ago now. Okay 1.5, I’ll give myself a little credit. I’m glad I made the first one then - it pushed me to create outside of my comfort zone but I wasn’t ready to show up for it. I made one issue then stopped. I banged my head against a wall every day. The unreadiness caused a lot of suffering, unnecessary suffering perhaps, but also perhaps I needed to feel the pain of the restriction of not being able to get my ideas out and let that pain eventually feel worse than the action of stepping into the next phase. Doesn’t have to go that way but it did. It hurts to restrict the ideas.

That middle ground of pregnancy of ideas is the most uncomfortable but similar to what I imagine being pregnant is like - extremely exciting at first, a little nerve wracking, and as time goes on super uncomfortable to a point you want it to be over but the actual turning point of giving birth is something much scarier and a whole new world you can never go back from. Obviously, that’s a bit more extreme version than just putting thoughts out into the world. I am deeply afraid of being pregnant one day mostly for those reasons… an ultimate test of commitment to yourself and another. So much to face in knowing you’ve made a decision and you will ride the wave of it for the rest of your life. Just thinking about how so many mothers take that on gives me courage to go on as I think about it.

Along the way there were signs that kept me going - I think of this one often. I was in my old apartment in Los Angeles, in the thick of the internal chaos of “stuckness”. While attempting to read a random book I had picked out of the occult section of a used bookstore, anxiety so high I couldn’t focus on the words before me, I paused and cried out to the universe for a sign. Tears welling, my throat feeling so tight I was choking out the words, looking up to my bedroom ceiling as if God was in the room with me: “please show me where to put my energy next, please show me where I should go.”

The book was titled: Perceiving Ordinary Magic. I finished my prayer, took a long breath, calmer now, I flip to the very next page, I’m reading… then, as if all time was synced in this moment these words popped out on the page:

Layout of book for your enjoyment

My heart stops, my jaw drops, and I’m laughing my ass off, now in a feeling akin to ecstasy alone in my little room wishing someone could have witnessed what just went down. It’s funny - I had picked out the name before I had ever seen those two words together in a sentence and now here they were concrete on the page. This was my sign, confirmation I was moving in the right direction.

I don’t have the answers to how the universe works, though I’ve slowly developed my own theories over the years the minutia escapes me as it always will… Was I always going to cry out in that exact moment, with that specific book in my hand, to open to that page so the words could find me? Did the book itself give me the itch to pick it up in the bookstore for that exact moment to take place months later? Had I read it at the exact pace I needed to - only to then see the words when they’d mean the most to me? Or did an angel come down in that moment and scramble around the words on the page to spell it out for me ??? That’s less likely but I don’t count much out. OVERALL, I DON’T KNOW. If I had read it at any other time, I’d probably taken it as a small wink, instead of what felt like the heavens whacking me over the head with clarity. I guess that’s what makes it all feel so intricately magical and that brings me so much joy in this life. These are questions I want to keep asking and answering here as they come to me. I already have all of the answers and I also have none.

I’m happy you’re here. I’m happy to break into something new for myself and to share in a new way, new format. Hopefully, more honest, less engulfed by algorithms, ads and stats. I feel more interested these days in sharing how I’ve gotten through this life, the magic I feel, and how we can do it all together. A lot of this will be my take on spirituality, magic, navigating mental health, sharing fun tidbits of life, and learning. I’ve never been much for particulars, needing things to be polished, so I’m not sure you can expect that here. But I think what I have to offer will feel more pure for myself the less I succumb to that pressure. I’ll try to find a balance.

I have ideas for where it all goes and how it comes together. Eventually, I’ll make games, that excites me too - as a form of language. I find that it’s so easy to connect with others over games even when you’re not saying much. That something unspoken happens and I feel closer to everyone afterwards. It feels so special to me. I guess weaving together all the ways I feel the language of the intimate moments. The process of that language being spoken without words often times.

I’ll also be introducing the Language Intimate Lottery!!! (because I have a gamblers archetype tbh) once I get this going, which will be a portion of paid subscriber funds to give back to… perhaps anyone who needs it? probably something/someone different each month that I’ll play by ear but that excites me as well. I’ll eventually turn on paid for some added features but today, we start with one post. Thanks for joining along in this little world of mine. Open to ideas you may have too to make this a more exciting place for all :)

Much LOVE xxx

Jenny