Ana Kuzmic-Garant (DTATI Cand.)
Toronto, ON

Ana Kuzmic-Garant is a Yugoslav settler on what is currently called Canada. These identities (among many) shape how she views, moves, exists, and responds in the world, actively seeking to understand the impacts of war and separation alongside sustaining relations with the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. These imperfect thoughts are attempts at externalization rooted in these learnings and neurodiverse imaginings.

The lapses are as important as the motions. A sentient being-in-process in a constant state of flux is how I’ve come to understand myself over the past few years, and now I’m attempting to move forward with this understanding. I’ve personally been fraught against myself, seeking wholeness while navigating entangled systems. And yet I desire to coil with the natural world and its inhabitants while trusting the process of my being. Undue messiness is the equation of this indignant time for many: I often have to remind myself that it’s enough just to exist.

I’ve recently begun a practice of capturing transitory ‘self portraits’ within my days as a way to return to self and self-in-relation. When I’m feeling anxious, stuck, overwhelmed or misaligned from my values, I’ve learned to trust that something is always resting — against all odds, I’m moving along with the motions. I intentionally sketch out these doodles within a span of 5-10 minutes as a gift to myself to curb the perfectionist ideals that seep into my awareness from time to time (that dreadful, unattainable perfection I’m trying to unlearn). The reflected doodles represent more of a gestural response to a moment than anything absolute. Faces have always taken up space in my artwork in some way, shape, or form, as they capture a moment, an essence — whether to circumvent tactfully or allow room for the shift. When I begin to add up the moments that lead to eventual action, something is always resting in-between: the mundane, the seemingly trivial, the sentimental.

I’ve found myself in the wallows of my sadness, in the pits of my joy, in the recesses of my avoidance. Dancing in the kitchen, playing a game of rummikub, breaking a ceramic bowl (a sudden lapse) - all of this adds up to an awareness of self in the moment. I’ve tried to translate that into words, images, sounds, and gestures. I’ve carried this into therapeutic practice as a training art therapist: the simple act of checking in with oneself through a quick sketch or gesture pre- or post- session. This discordant time has allowed me to find the ties to my resourcefulness, to reconnect to my values, and to ultimately trust the process of my being. And there is no better time to trust the process than now. There is digression and there is repetition, yet more importantly, there is a fruitful allowance that responds to one’s calls for healing. Through the hollows of my reluctance, I’ve found myself. I’m refusing to separate myself into parts as this time so often catapults us back into fragmented versions of ourselves.

When I question my own meaning and feel inclined to grapple with the meaning of the other, I know something is resting. Something is being picked enough to allow for a second skin. Everything besides what we hold inside can feel abstract and absurd. At the same time, it’s difficult to ignore that this vast world is coiled within systems that atomize the individual into parts and deprive us of being our whole selves. I have to remind myself that my sensory reality is valid. I aim to seek a resolution to find myself within the pulleys of outside forces. And yet if I trust that the external world is also always ‘in process’ just as I am… then there is no catching up to be done. I begin to feel instantaneous relief when I realize the outer world is just another pure vessel at its core. There is no adjustment needed — it’s there for you to join at your own pace. Arbitrary forces don’t shape or define it. There is a rhythm. From there, the ‘other’ is present as yet another whole: beings, objects, the planes we currently exist on, and the landscapes we occupy.

The process of writing this reflection has been its own test of personal trust. Does it make sense outside of my head? Does it match the mark of unattainable ‘perfection’ I place on myself and am actively trying to unlearn? I’m pausing long enough to contemplate the meanings behind multiple truths, in accordance, in harmony, with one another. I’m allowing ‘contradictory’ truths to exist because there is no such thing. I’m allowing myself to exist just as I am in any given moment — for a fragmented whole is still a whole. I want to welcome this lapsing time by spending my days whistling into the wind and catching a shift in response. I only want to pull the blinds down enough to see the shadows make playful attempts at art. To survive in this very world, we have to learn to live with ourselves and to inhabit the bodies that make this possible, whatever shape or form they presently occupy. Wholeness is not perfection. It’s an endlessly disposable vessel that nourishes itself through time and place. Something is always resting that might need (or lead to) expression. Art is but just one form. I’m allowing myself to take it all in. A mutual exchange of moments, both tender and lucid in the wake of daily demands. This is what a ‘return to self and self-in-relation’ means to me, and this is what I will attempt to carry forward in all its messiness. After all, life is a paradox — so I’ll learn to embrace it in all its totality — the mundane, the absurdity, the pain, the joy, the sadness, and of course, the humour.