I’d starting writing another piece on here earlier this week, fear & loathing as America burns, after all. I was only a few lines into it when the writing compelled me to pause. It wasn’t that very familiar and often occurring writerly procrastination, though I’m not really sure what it was, exactly, either.
I’d been reading James Baldwin’s “Another Country” - one of my Pride reads this month. I put it down after a hundred and change. I’d read it before, it had been quite a few years, though. I don’t know, a decade or more and I’d forgotten how incredibly stark of a work it is. Resolved to trudge through it, at first. Despair is a very real part of life, after all. But then after three nights of restless sleep and vivid dreams, I thought maybe I ought to just give it a rest for a bit. Pick up something lighter. Bill Cunningham’s memoir on fashion, it is, then.
I was at the will call window at work the other day. I remarked to this little old lady as I gave her her tickets that she has the same last name as one of my favorite writers. So, she asked me to write the author’s name down for her, along with her books and I asked her to write down her recommendations for me. My budget’s tighter now, working at a theatre than it was when I was still waiting tables. My mental health, though, has never been better.
I love the response someone left for the writer of the sticker. Folks are willing to connect with one another. Desperate, even? Still. After everything.
I’m listening to Janelle Monae as I write this, started with her first EP, I’m on Neon Valley Street at the moment, walking through her catalog until I land at The Age of Pleasure. Feeling not unlike the first time I ever heard Freddie Mercury. Reminds me, too, of a girl I once knew. A story for another time, I am sure.
I’d had the idea last year for Pride month, still reeling from a double whammy of grief, first a break-up, then the death of my little dog, Edgar, I just didn’t get it together and, of course, kicked myself for it for months on end. I didn’t have the heart to keep them after Joanne went all TERF on us and didn’t have the heart to keep the books. I didn’t have the heart to trash them or to give them away, either. This after much, probably too much, deliberation. You know, for what it is in the scheme of, like, everything. And then just one day, into my head it popped. Guerilla art with my HP Funko Pops as the stars. Nine of them. Installed around the Bay, here and there, here and there they’ll appear. Without permission and without notice. Bannered with messages, PROTECT TRANS YOUTH, TRANS IS BEAUTIFUL.
I’ve installed two so far, I’m a little behind, admittedly. How exhilarating it’s been! Dashing in, first at the library, then at a bookstore, finding my spot, snapping the photo on silent, and then dashing right back out again. At the bookstore, Ms. Lovegood as my charge, there were three people around me. One perusing a bookshelf, right there, right there next to me. The other two just walking up, they surged the energy for me. I kept my eyes focused, but sensed them looking around and maybe even smiling.
I’ve spent the last year, well. More than year. It’s just that I’ve had the time and the space and the silence the last year to actually practice my practice, thank you, Master Hanh. Which isn’t to say that I don’t feel the feelings. Because, believe me, I do. It’s just that now I calmly acknowledge them without, you know, totally freaking out about it. Easier said than done, to be sure. Just like finding your bliss amongst the chaos - it is possible.