under the inner-fluence no.1

me and my bitch got a complicated relationship: exposing the ego with mary jane

Last year I didn’t drink. What I did do, however, was begin to dabble in some gardening with Mary Jane. I’ve never been much of a gardener, I’ve historically butt-heads with MJ. A few icky, disconcerting experiences when I was in university convinced me it was an innate, chemical incompatibility - perhaps something to do with the ADHD ting. I’d freak out and get really paranoid and nauseous. Back then I was also diving headfirst into gardening with whatever tools were supplied by my fellow senior gardeners - and that wasn’t always a gentle fertiliser. I once had something that I’m fairly certain was synthetic and laced with hallucinogens and the ensuing 8 hours felt like a comically bad trip.

After that - it was a firm no thank you.

Several years passed and I had no real desire to try it again. It was summer, I was on holidays, staying at a quintessentially quaint coastal farm property; I was the most relaxed I’d been in a while. I was next in the blunt rotation and I decided not to pass. The resident certified organic gardener (RCOG) assured me it was the mellower kind.

I had a beautiful night.

I ate a significant portion of a Coles mud cake and danced to Fela Kuti in a charming living room you’d find pictures of on a Pinterest board called ‘mid-century moroccan dream house’. The RCOG was a classically trained jazz guitarist, happily plucking away, creating the soundtrack to an evening filled with giggling and card games and the space to slow down and observe.

This - I liked. My body also felt different. Like wax melting. All my tension and pain points had evaporated.

I shelved the experience fondly as a one-off; a good-time fluke.

Months passed and my best friend expressed that her chronic pain was flaring up in an ugly way - could MJ help? It had alleviated her suffering that night on the farm. I’d been sober for a few months at this point. I hadn’t thought much beyond cutting out alcohol given my straight-edge habits - that’s when I first heard the phrase California Sober. It’s a misnomer really. Cutting everything out except the sweet green has been recorded as a method for harm reduction in cases of drug addiction. It argues that the mental health benefits and relief from physical ailments outweigh the potential negative repercussions; a subjective discussion.

I’ve witnessed people I love become tethered by the pull of their poison - and that scares me. Addiction scares me. Those people became versions of themselves I fell out of love with. That’s why I blocked MJ specifically, for so long. It can dull you. I’ve seen people dig big holes and lose sight of the light. I’ve seen them numb, run, hide and roll over to life. I’ve seen them becomes shells incapable of doing anything unless that comes first. I do not want to develop a limp so that I must carry crutches.

I never want to lose sight of the ‘why’. Why I choose to do or not do something, take something, be something.

Which brings me to the process of understanding my ‘why’.

The last few years have been laden with themes of healing. Last year a spotlight was directed at healing my relationship to and perception of certain substances - it illuminated that consuming with intention was a big priority.

Part of cutting out booze was to get really fucking clear on how I was feeling in my body and my mind.

Mark Groves, often quoted here, said in this podcast episode ‘your medicine isn’t medicinal if it isn’t serving you.’

Further slabs of wisdom during that solo-episode planted the seeds for my sobriety that commenced a few months later. Going back through my journal around this time, I found a mini-manifesto collated from the insights I’d collected:

How to Heal

Stop drinking: your life is composed of pain and pleasure. Do not rob yourself of that.

Close the door: you cannot say ‘goodbye for now’ and leave the door ajar.

Identify your coping mechanisms to feel significant: remove them. Embody the new individual you become. Do not let your insecurities take over.

That’s the simplest way to start healing: let it change you.

Healing is non-linear, yet its constant is the way it compounds no matter the pace.
You can park things and pick them up again later. Sometimes that’s essential.

I’d locked Mary Jane in the boot of my car and attempted to suffocate her, afraid to examine her influence in my long-term hesitance and suspicion of mind-altering substances. The path of the non-linear asked me to put the keys in the ignition again.

Through seeking to understand and disassembling my experiences, I now know that I have incredible control and agency; I don’t seek substances to escape reality, to avoid my responsibilities or numb my emotions. I know when that could be an option and consciously choose not to.

I’ve discovered that, on occasion, in the right setting with the right people, MJ eases a lot of physical pain and inspires my creative flow. I’m not sure if it’s because I take medication that I didn’t when I was younger, or it’s because my brain is biologically fully developed now or if it’s because of so many hard-to-define tendrils of nature vs nurture, but I’ve been having a bloody great time.

Mary Jane increases my focus and memory retention depending on the activity. I love to read but I can struggle to get in the flow of it. With MJ, I can lock in to uninterrupted hours of reading where I’m absorbing the words and the world I’m in ten-fold. It enriches my experience of music and films. It acutely heightens my senses.

After reading this, I think the chemical reaction happening with my ADHD brain is not an incompatibility, but an intensity that I didn’t know how to handle or harness as a youngin’. A pre-exisiting sensory hypersensitivity to music becomes a frenetic, head-to-toe frisson after the sweet green.

The phenomenon of chills or goosebumps that come from a piece of music (or from any other aesthetic experience) is called frisson, and it's been one of the big mysteries of human nature since it was first described.

That's because even if we know the actual mechanism that causes frisson — a close connection to the emotional processing center — we don't know what purpose it could serve us. But other studies have suggested some potential benefits of this kind of behavior.

One report from 2007 found that individuals who experience frisson are more open to new experiences than others, and other studies described higher levels of creativity and intellectual curiosity. In other words, the appreciation of beauty is central to what makes us human, and frisson is just a super-charged version of that appreciation.

The emotional processing centre of an ADHD brain is a fucking mosh pit to start with so this makes SENSE. I’ve got a dedicated playlist comprised of songs, regardless of genre, that scratch an itch in my brain.

I digress. I’ve begun to understand why artists are drawn to it when working on their craft - and why they get hooked on it.

Which brings me to the crescendo of this piece: shortly after Kendrick’s new album came out, on a Friday night, I hung out with MJ and listened to Gloria on repeat for 2 hours as I cleaned my room. K.dot cleverly personifies a pen as an analogy for his tense relationship with writing, self-expression and creativity. A coincidence? I think not. After taking way too long to change my sheets in between theatrical renditions of air-violin, I fervently scribbled what I believed to be the most lit poem that’s ever graced a page.

Writing was something I’d do as a young scallywag getting too zooted as a measure to ground myself. I talked a bit about it in first thought, best thought. Doing it again some eight years later in much calmer circumstances - fuck, it was so satisfying. Words were pouring out of me. I could switch off my inner critic with ease.
Now hear me out. I know this is so deeply and utterly wanky! I do! But listen! On a more recent Friday night it gave me an idea for an experiment. I burst into my best friend’s room with an untameable energy bellowing ‘DUDE, I’m fucking ONTO something, this is gonna be SICK’. She was also zooted and couldn’t do anything but nod repeatedly and say ‘write this down Hol, just write it down and don’t forget it.’

I was surprised at how coherent this note capturing my idea was when I re-read it the following morning lol

So, here’s my plan: to protect a sliver of my dignity (98% of this has been disposed of already) and because I will undoubtedly write some wacky/embarrassing/exposing shit I’m going to make it a paid series.
I’ve made it the cheapest Substack will let me: $5 a month OR $30 for the year (which is half price, quick maths). You can have this first one for free. If you become a paid subscriber, you’ll get access to the multiple other paid series’ I’ve got planned for this year.

It’s all happening. There are excel spreadsheets involved. I think it’s going to be really fun.

Sometimes when I write, I disassociate from the vulnerability of what I’m yeeting out into the universe. This right here however, is a new threshold because: hey mum! I know you read this - thank you for being my biggest fan. I’m sorry! I promise I’m not a junky! You raised an independent, calculated risk-taking daughter! This is kind of on you!

I’m wanting to lift the veil and examine my creative ego. I’m inviting the world to judge it, laugh at it, hate it, love it. Whatever it is - I’m curious. I want to see what happens. I have no qualms self-sacrificing to satiate my curiosity. Maybe it’ll kill me like it killed the cat. (I’m being dramatic here - maybe people I sort-of know will talk behind my back and think I’m being insufferably obnoxious and I will experience a para-social death. At least you’re talking about it. That’s the point). Heirloom exists so I can write about things that are personal, a little bit spicy, and that catalyse conversation. Let’s talk about interesting shit. I’ll show you my cards if you show me yours.

Welcome to the series: under the inner-fluence.

8 December 2024

I’m so dexterous when I’m high
Gloria is the song I will remember
Kendrick has made every layer of her melt into my vertebrae
My tendons yearn for a SZA verse
It pours over me like liquid honey, relaxing the angst from my tight muscles
The melody massages the fascia that wraps around my body, hydrating

I’VE FELT THIS SONG IN EVERY LIMB AND EVERY BONE [SENSITIVE]

I was spontaneous
a firecracker

I can hear a flute
strings — violins
light bongo (???) adjacent percussion
a pitched-up synth

Fuck, the production in this song is genius

Sentado
Anita y tu

I’ve been dancing in my room all night. I’ve never heard music this way before. My senses are like a soft rubber band
s t r e tc h i n g

I FLOW

Colour
Smell
Music
Texture
Taste
Malleability abounds