my last newsletter didn’t get sent out correctly so feel free to read: my tombstone might say “y’all got me f*cked up”
My Granny & I unironically speak about the weather almost every time we get on the phone. Parables in the form of pleasantry. Sometimes her packages miss me but I always try to remember the last forecast she relayed. My mommy & I always talk shop. Our work is the easiest touchstone for mutual appreciation. I used to avoid her call when I felt especially worthless or incompetent. I used to miss her wholeness like I can obscure my grandmother’s & ultimately my own. I slip into unnecessary morality myths. Making undue tragedy out of lines learned not written. What maternal scripts are needing revival? I am the third run of this cowgirl production, first staged in Houston, then Los Angeles. In this send-up, I’m a different kind of young, Black, woman, trying to mother in a cinematically parallel dystopia. My kids look different but retain the same danger I had, leaving my mother’s chest, & her leaving her mother. What matrilineal beats will I take next?
I’m taking my family inside. As the world opens, I see an increased need to protect my family. I am becoming a single mother. The Haus is moving to an undisclosed location. The future will be fertile with new Tournaments but the present is a cultivation period. More literally, I’m shifting my work away from the regional ballroom scene & redirecting my efforts specifically to my children, my Black/Indigenous Trans siblings, & my own work. Like my mother & hers before, what began as a union must persist as a sole provider. I’ll have to unpack my fetish of nuclear-adjacent familial drag but I’ve seen single mothers succeed. My future still includes community action but presently I need to take that work offline. To recuperate from the almost year straight of crowdfunding. As I’ve mentioned there is so much hunger in this community, I’m blessed to still imagine our feasts.
Since my birthday, I been on a descent. Not an emotional spiral, but I’m keenly aware of the velocity at which I’m reentering the atmosphere of my planetary self. Solar return reflections located me at the apex of transformation. The Tower was present, as was Strength & Temptation. I’ve been keenly aware of my recent accumulations. My good has gotten better, my worst is waning. Still, I’ve been catapulted off perceived security. What was a euphoric escape became a freefall surveying what sticks to my core. I’ve fallen through countless quick-made safety nets fashioned from my friends’ generosity. Allegedly, I am to land in the power at the contact point of this perilous drop. This time is stripping of excess & destructive matter. Imagine space junk burning its way out of orbit.
My expectations sound unfair to me first. I’ve accepted I have this whole world wrong. I only want to be heard & told the truth with matching energies. This makes romance hard because I expect to be made a fool. My fantasy is not my favorite vacation spot anymore. I romanticize in real-time. History becomes colder unless it lives on honest flesh. Accounting is still a failed way to measure rational value. I don’t mean to be a bother but all this doesn’t inspire action?
I’m trying to keep my heart limber. Wish me luck. I tell every man I speak to I am a bitch so he can’t think calling me one will surprise me. My ex-love sends me a good morning Hot bitch text every so often still. I’m not committed to public vulnerability anymore but I want to make more jokes. I want to show more skin. I’m finally committing to entertaining myself.
watch: Meet Jazzelle by Chrishawn Julius West, a short film in honor of my birthday.
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