Thank you all for the birthday acknowledgments this week.
Last Friday was Breonna Taylor’s birthday. I spent that day for the most part in silence - no constant music or podcasts or YouTube videos in the background. This doodly thought is one of the things that came to me that day (animated mostly on my bday/Monday morning). It was good to take a break from commissions and work to practice using art for my own mindfulness again. Remember, your movement art is valid even if it isn’t neat and hashtag-able. Make what makes you feel free, too.
On my actual bday, I started working on a small garden to feed myself and my building-mates. Some of my neighbors joined in and committed to help maintain the space.We didn’t get around to talking about alternatives to policing or defunding initiatives or some of the recent murders of our people (certainly those conversations will come with time). But we did teach the young children the names of various vegetables in English and Spanish and had a lengthy discussion about “where mangos come from” (Have you thought about where your food comes from today? Your clothing? The device you’re using to read this?).
For a moment, it felt like I was back at Freedom Square with my Let Us Breathe fam (miss y’all) having those curious side conversations with youth while playing with paint and other crafts together. That feeling was an incredible bday gift.
IF YOU ARE FEELING STUCK RIGHT NOW, consider starting with the people who are already right next to you and the free earth that is all around you. It’s no coincidence that as the owning class burns, many of us are growing things together and connecting with our planet in new ways. Our world’s ecosystem will always move in solidarity with the marginalized because it, too, suffers from the same exploitation, disregard, and mass death at the hands of greed and racial ego that we do. And just like us, it will tear this WHOLE shit down if muhfuckas don’t get their shit together ASAP.
Again, thank you to everyone who’s reached out to me to share love and concern through covid recovery, our more recent struggles, aging up, etc. It might hurt my brain to respond to you all (I will tho... eventually... y’all know I will respond to some year-old shit like it’s nothing lol) but as a bday gift to me, I implore you all to have some silence (even just 15 mins) today or any day and really take in whatever comes to you fully. Really experience those moments.