My Dear Galateas by Nadir Nadhirah M.R.
A celebration of one’s art—the finished pieces and the works-in-progress.
First published in Pandan Weekly in July 2024.
From the author:
When this piece was written, I felt an overwhelming love for all of the unfinished work in progress (WIPs) that I have never shown anyone—the hundreds of drafts in my laptop’s folders, the unfinished sketches and poems hidden somewhere on my tablet and phone. As an artist/writer, I too have fallen victim to the unfortunate mentality that I needed to always produce a finished piece in order to be called one, time and time again overlooking the WIPs. Too often, they lack appreciation, even from myself! (Thank you, imposter syndrome!) Though they’re unfinished, I still think they are valid and legit fruits of labor in their own right and deserve to be celebrated. (Even some of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpieces are speculated to be unfinished!) They deserve as much love as my finished pieces, not only because of the hard work I put into them, but also of the fleeting memories, feelings or fragments of an idea that spurred in the moment of their creation.
They are also proof of all the struggles behind the scenes—the art/writing blocks, the sleepless nights where there would only be one written line of concepts and ideas, the times I spent meticulously studying to perfect the art/writing. The piece also addresses the uglier side of things where our most celebrated pieces are sometimes not what we wanted them to be—either we tailored them for a certain audience, or made them to appear likable, in a way untrue to our own self. Even so, these pieces are still ours, though imperfect and unrecognizable.
At the end of the day, I hope after reading this piece, any artists/writers would be moved to feel the same amount of love for all of their works—WIPs and finished ones all the same.
an obsession with ineptness, imperfection— my many crafts lay in my vault hidden, and unseen. the ones on display in my halls, full of flaws. rosy lips unkissable, freckles like ashes and stardust, eyes empty like dying embers, fingertips cold, and lifeless, their faces, loveless. yet they are celebrated—tragedies. but the world might never know of the others, the failures, but my loves, they are—all of them. devoid of color, words trailed off, abruptly ended, unfinished. doodles and scribblings without a name, tattered sketchbooks shoved under the bed, keysmash .docx, .txt titles hidden in an unnamed folder, an earth-shattering, heart-wrenching novel written for a muse, vomit-inducing late-night cringe fest in the Notes app— my countless Galateas. and I embrace them every night, putting them to rest in their mausoleum— eternally a work in progress. but when the muse awakens, these hands will continue to mold them, over and over and over, till they become a beast of my own pride, and I no longer recognize them— food for the masses, with no trace of my own fingerprints left on them. but my loves, they are—all of them, the ghosts of what they once were, their secret imperfections, the could-bes, would-bes that come after, the misconceptions from others, they are mine, all mine, all of them.
Nadir Nadhirah M.R. is a ghost. She appears, and then she doesn’t. If you are lucky, once a year, you may catch her in disguise as a member of the Bruneian creative scene, either mingling among a sea of poets and artists, or staring quietly at an ominous painting in an art gallery. Sometimes, she throws her writing into the black hole of the internet, donning other names that shall never be heard in the light of day. Her works are mostly poetry and contemporary fiction. At the moment, she is strangely obsessed with oranges.
Instagram: @nadirnadhirah
Thank you for reading!
Pandan Weekly is a bi-annual zine and weekly email series produced by SEA Lit Circle, a community of writers and readers from Southeast Asia and the diaspora. At SEA Lit Circle, we inspire each other to write fresh, compelling work that’s true to ourselves, and we encourage each other to read and be more open to new works, stories, and perspectives within and beyond the region.
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