Kumakapa Kapa

States of Searching

I often find myself in states of searching. There was a time maybe that I would have said yearning, but it is not exactly wanting that underpins that which has me grasping at the unknown.

I do not even know what it is exactly that I seek to know. I do not even know if it is knowing exactly that I seek.

Kapa is a Tagalog word that conjures up the image of feeling with arms and hands outstretched, often in the dark, when touch is the sense you must rely upon to understand the space you are in, where the walls and ceilings might be, what is in front and what is behind you. Kapa does not directly translate to searching to my knowledge, but it does point to, as I’d mentioned, a state of searching.

These days, and especially this year, I feel that I have been moving in nights devoid of light. Lost and walking. Truthfully, I am usually comfortable in states of uncertainty. The horizon yields mystery and a beyond that feels deeply exciting to me. I like to be in what it is that I do not know. I like to explore and to see new things. I am usually happiest when the world feels vast and largely unexplored.

I’m calling this general pursuit and practice of writing and of making Kumakapa Kapa, because it speaks for the position I operate from—a state of searching. We are human beings in states of flux, before we are anything else, I think. These days, it seems as though we are implored to abandon that fundamental aspect of ourselves in favor of presenting a sort of faux-completion and performing easily digestible optics for ease of consumption.

But who of us isn’t always in an in-between? The future promises no rigid finality, and the present constantly relegates to the past what has been as it steps forward.

Perhaps haphazardly, I have written this straight into the rich-text editor and not first in any sort of a word processor to start with as a draft. Much of the writing I’ve done in the past three years has been by way of typing away on my Instagram stories, superimposing words on top of images. Typos galore, with little to no editing. There is merit to this method. I’ve been able to capture and publish raw thoughts and observations in real time as they are thought, as many social media platforms encourage. It’s yielded plenty.

But there is also merit in longer-form, more disciplined approaches to the craft. This has been the default for the longest time. There is romance in the work of refinement and I would do well to do more of it.

Kakapa Kapa, in this iteration or whatever iteration it might evolve into is an exercise of operating in the constant in-between, of feeling it out and searching. The in-between of the poles of spontaneity and discipline. Seeing where the wind and the tides take it. To fully immerse in the constant effort of becoming. It is a journey I’d like to invite anybody to who would be willing to take part and witness. Stumbles, warts, typos and all.

In previous, younger bios, I often wrote that I was “Figuring it out as I go along.” I am still figuring it out as I go along, and I imagine I will be for the rest of my life. And I’m happy to be.

Ako’y kumakapa-kapa. // I am grasping in a state of searching.