what shows through

we had just parked under a tree outside a tavern here in cyprus. my husband opened the car door and the heat came in. for a moment i stayed in my seat, reading a message sent through my website under someone else's name.

another followed later. different name, same gesture.

the messages were not written in good faith. they were meant to hurt. much of what was said could be dismissed for that reason, but not all of it.

the criticism was about the work. about what was being held back, what was being filtered. it bothered me because there was something in it i recognised.

at first, my attention stayed with the person hiding behind the message. the false name, the authority they tried to give themselves, and the unconvincing effort not to be seen.

even the language felt concealed. polished, organised and strangely impersonal. it had the quality of writing shaped by ai, where something direct had been cleaned up before it reached me.

that felt familiar too.

much of my own life has been spent editing what is seen.

reading a room comes easily. adjusting comes easily. so does making myself acceptable, avoiding offence, disappointment, or giving someone a reason to turn against me. after doing this for so long, it is sometimes difficult to know where consideration ends and appeasement begins.

art was supposed to be the place where this stopped.

i am not sure it did.

the work is often more direct before i start interfering with it. i begin to tidy it up, make choices safer, think too much about how it might be received.

the same has happened with my writing. i use ai as part of the editing process and have often accepted its tendency to tidy things, soften them and remove some of the discomfort. the thoughts were still mine. what changed was how carefully they were presented.

there is an uncomfortable difference between the two uses. the messages directed at me seemed to use that distance to make hostility look controlled and authoritative. i used it to make myself easier to accept.

i don't want to make something deliberately rough just to prove a point either. that would be dishonest in a different way.

i don't really know yet what the work looks like without all that control.

this is the next step.