In September of 2001, just after 9/11 and a late teenage confrontation with my father, I started having panic attacks. The world had changed, I had changed and, like many of those around me, I didn’t have the coping mechanisms to handle it at the time. The panic caused such anxiety that the one form of creative expression I had always had, acting, no longer came easily to me. It was devastating. I felt isolated, alone, and hopeless. I knew I wasn’t the only one, but we were all existing in our own bubbles of despair. The original version of Canvaswas born out of the first steps in that journey, long before I was anywhere close to what I would now consider okay.
Like Ani, I sought help. And like Ani, some of the help was more detrimental than healing. In many ways, I laid waste to much of what I had built in my youth and wandered around seeking purpose and my place for many years after. I have beenlucky to have as much support from my partner, friends, and family as I have, but it wasn’t until I could find my voice again in my writing and creative expression that I could finally reconnect with those around me.
Life is not neat and pretty, so neither is Canvas. Panic attacks, anxiety, depression, and trauma permanently change those afflicted. Often, we find ourselves in a hell loop of our greatest fears, haunting memories, and our worst moments and thoughts about ourselves. We scream endlessly into the void until someone, or something, helps us reconnect and begin our journey forward.
Twenty years later, we find ourselves in an even more turbulent landscape: global pandemics, political unrest, war, a destabilized economy, for many it has been too much to bear. Canvas is my love letter to those suffering, it is a plea to their loved ones to have compassion and empathy, and a staged manifestation of the prayer for better things to come.
And, in my experience, better things will come.
Conci Nelson
