Sea Swallow Me (Seven Sugars and a Madman)

The name and concept of this work originate from this pivotal experience that occurred on March 11th, 2021 in Arizona. In my teenage years battling mental illness, I can confidently say that I cried enough to overflow an above-average-sized bathtub with my tears. Interestingly, it was the act of allowing a large tub to overflow that urged me to become proactive regarding my mental health. Each container holds a memory frozen in time; specifically, moments fueled by emotion and teary eyes. Furthermore, a mixture of jasmine and blue lotus tea engulfs and drowns the physical images; just as I in those moments drown in my tears. Each vessel is accompanied by a label, cataloging the date of the captured memory. The wet specimen feel of these items in this collection is done so to emphasize the act of preserving, bottling, storing, and honoring these memories and past versions of myself. I aim to remember these moments with compassion, acknowledging the tears that could have drowned me but did not as well as the burnt tongues and wounds that do heal. The story goes: In March 2021, during spring break of my junior year of high school; my mom and I traveled to Arizona yearning to see the West. I was only 17 years old, a month away from turning 18. The best way I can describe my state of mind while on this trip is as if mania and anxiety had attempted to reproduce and then laid an egg in my brain; festering and plotting my downward spiral into chaos. I had never felt more anxious and out of control in my entire life. I was convinced something horrible was going to happen and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could not relax in any sense of the word. On one of our very last nights in Sedona, I decided to run myself a bath in an attempt to calm myself. I do not remember exactly what happened between stopping up the tub and the climax of this story, but the next thing I knew, there was water coming out from under the bathroom door. I had completely overflowed the bathtub. Flooding the bathroom and part of the hotel room. With hardwood floors mind you… What I felt in my body, in my bones, was indescribable. This was THE crash out of my teen years. Also, the first time I ever smoked a cigarette. I unstop the tub and let the water drain, try to soak up the water that covered the bathroom floor, and profusely sob. My mom, obviously concerned for my well-being, was helping out, steeping a cup of jasmine tea for me to drink. I ended up letting too much water out of the tub, but at that point, I did not care. I just sat down in the barely lukewarm water that did not even cover my body. I attempted to drink my tea, but it was too hot, and I burnt my tongue. I sat there, uncomfortable in almost every possible way, and the first song that played when I shuffled my playlist was none other than the song you hear now, Sea Swallow Me by The Cocteau Twins.