for Queer Ecologies
Mutability
Nicolas Baird, Lichen Painting, color photograph, 2014–present © Nicolas Baird. Lichens grow from the entwining of two distant branches on the tree of life; they can live in this mutualism for centuries
I’m trying to be more tidal. To embrace change. It’s a thought I have as I curl up, marooned at the bottom of this tide pool. The water is calm, and as I move it through the siphon on my mantle I realize my breath has synced with the waves. [see SUBMERGE]
Shattering my breathwork, a shadow consumes the tide pool and a hand plunges in! I spot a blob of sargassum, and frantically become it, painting its color and texture onto my skin. The hand reaches for me and I jet away, throwing myself over the edge of the tide pool and running up the shoreline. I try to balance as my suction cups hit the asphalt and contort into clumsy feet. I feel my eight limbs merge into four, and split into digits at the ends. My head has deflated, and my mouth slides up my face. I realize I am fully nude and I alter my pigmentation again to give the illusion of a shirt and pants. Nothing crazy: a gray vintage tee and jeans.
I wonder when humans and my species split. In a strange, timeless memory, I see two aquatic flatworms crawling along the Proterozoic shore. As the tide went out, one dove deep in the cool waters; the other remained near the rocky shallows, eventually coming out terrestrial.
I look backwards at the woman who scorned me and I become her. I take her form but not her anger, and the next person I pass greets me with a smile. I am getting good at giving human. I will continue to mimic, to learn slowly and closely, before I reveal my true form, which is formlessness made flesh. A cephalopodic code switch, I will walk among people until I can teach them the beauty of mutation, and trust that they’ll listen.
Lee Pivnik with QuERC, 2023