The greatest word to ever exist

Four letters. Not that one.

Here.

A small word that holds multitudes of existence and truth, all wrapped up in its little self. I think about words even in the spaces where I’m not writing them, or speaking them. A while ago, I asked myself if there’s a word that I have befriended to the point that it has become a part of me. Somewhere in the midst of flesh, bones, and growing fingernails; a word lives. I toyed with many words, but immediately knew there was only one it could be.

Here.

That word. Wow, that word.

Here.

When I sit with it, I am silenced by its enormity. It speaks sentences within its four letters. I shared some time with the word, letting more than its syllables come to speak to me, this is what came:

Stay Here

There’s many a meaning in this phrase. When we say, “stay here” it’s often thrown into a conversation. A directive for someone to just stay where they are. When we emphasise each of these two words, a shift happens, something moves in the chrysalis as we pause into each word. Stay here. That’s it. Stay here in all of this life. This moment. This time. A klaxon of presence. A reminder in all of its simplicity to not be teased into leaving this moment and moving into another. Perhaps the beckoning of the future, or the lingering past. It always brings me back when I find myself elsewhere. When I’m tempted to flee from myself or from the discomfort that comes to a boil, I know not to put life on do not disturb. I just let the words, “stay here” knead me into doing just that.

Another way that I use this phrase, is in reference to our stay here on Earth. I often say, “savour your stay here”. So much so, I turned it into a textile sculpture (below). That’s what we’re doing. That’s the whole point, right? That we are experiencing our stay here. We all know that the here speaks to all that is, this life, this planet, all of it. We mistake life for this permanent, ever-lasting thing, instead of seeing it as a stay. We’re not staying here forever. How would we shift and adjust if we treated it as a stay here? Nothing guaranteed. Just life in honour of its fleetingness.

Here, Giselle La Pompe-Moore, 2024

What are you here for?

What is it that makes you take a full inhale upon waking each morning? What is it that causes your skin to blush in pleasure? Who does your mind hasten to think of in between kettles boiling and train doors closing? What causes you such rage that your vessels threaten to collide into a fist? What do you read about, converse about and journal for so long about that you are the master of the topic?

What makes you feel alive? What are you here for? It’s within this question that the tumbling thoughts and messy inner dialogues, find some semblance of meaning. It’s not about bursting open the pressurised package labelled purpose. It’s inquiry. The seemingly philosophical inquiry that asks us to explore what we’re here for. Not another thing to mentally ruminate on, but to be embodied, explored, and lived in.

I wish you were here

Sent in honeyed texts to those we’ve spent too many days apart from. Whispered into sapphire skies at those we wish still resided in bodies, not just in soul. Those whose hands once slithered into ours, but now remain absent. Gazing out into sights so splendid that we’re catapulted into thoughts of someone, the someone who reminds us of beauty, the only someone who could make what is already too impressive to comprehend, even more so; if only they were by our side.

“People are really here” - Chance Marshall, Founding Partner at Self Space.

A new addition to the roster of, things-I-love-about-the-word-"here”, popped in a couple of weeks ago. At an event with Self Space, we watched a screening of their new film by Thea Gajić, followed by a moving panel talk. Real people. Real stories. People speaking about grief, heartbreak, anxiety, love, and well, all there is to life. With such bold vulnerability and brave tenderness, Chance remarked on this and the stew of plentiful emotions in the room, by saying, “people are really here”. I immediately jotted it down.

People are really here. They were. All parts of them. Not leaving anything unspoken or unshared. Bringing their full, unfiltered selves. And what a privilege it was for all of us to witness and be immersed in it. Feeling all that it muddled around within us too. It made me think about how we connect and commune with each other. Not only in therapeutic spaces, but in bus stops, local community centres, with next door neighbours, in hospital waiting rooms, with friends in bakeries.

Are we really here? Are we really with each other, totally laid bare? Feeling safe enough to do so. Are we giving ourselves the opportunity to thaw into each other, by simply being available to properly be here with each other?

I want to exist in spaces where I don’t have to tense up tendons of shame or silence the voices of fear. I want to exist in spaces where I can really be here. I want that from the people I sit with, eat with, walk with, and make love with. I want that from people I may never see again apart from that one night where we connected over stories and a few packets of crisps.

Being together in all of our humanness.

Being here.