Orlando
The photo above is of a scene of an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's play, Orlando, taken and posted on the New York Times. The article is titled: "Review: In 'Orlando,' Emma Corrin Straddles Genders and Centuries."
“Through the same world, we see it in different eyes.”
– Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas;
inspired by a 2023 adaptation of Orlando– a play by Virginia Woolf, and the Women’s Library Archive (LSE)
The billowing inside of me had
never ceased to stop,
not until the end, where I found myself
in blinding light, unable to see;
which gave me the truth that
bliss is ignorance and
ignorance is bliss– that even
after all of these years,
with different bodies, and
different minds– in
different times and in
different loves,
the same world that had
been so eager to confuse me,
was all just a distraction, in the
game I played of:
who am I, and what do I love?
Aaron Asparin
Inspired by Orlando (as well as the Women's Library in London-- LSE), I attempted to embody a confused and perplexed nature-- something I observed in the play Orlando. An experience of different bodies, different minds, different times, and different loves (and types of love), all of which culminated in satisfaction of confusion. To answer the question of "who am I," and "what do I love," is a question for the ages-- something so incredibly difficult to answer that most people today cannot.