LOVER

new year same numbers

while nothing will change, it does matter - the change. The act may be a construction and arbitrary, but ritual matters. Feeling all the emotions and also, like, yawn. This wasn't the worst year of my life. That would be the year I was raped, homeless in Detroit winter, with no resources and no protectors. Now THAT was a year. Not saying this year wasn't horrific, exhausting, revealing, powerful, historic. Just saying, well - I'm not dead yet. A lot of people are - so many it's criminal, with this completely preventable pandemic - and I grieve for them and with their people. And I celebrate the fact of community and mutual aid that is really the same as it ever was and also explosive, expanding. Here we are, here to go, here to grow, yo 

Just Got Over At Last

Detroit/alley; ©EAU

bowl of porridge, cup of coffee, all their decorations (hemp/chia/flax seed, cinnamon, currants, drizzle of maple syrup, ashwaganda, cacao), company of the company I keep (all the animals and creatures, plants, lights, altar, incense, spirits, small rooms, big outside, trees, trains, days and nights, this body, body of it all and the falling apart). This is life. Rest as inquiry, rest as transformative sleep, rest as making sanctuary. Does it count if it's all dreams? Winter chill and winter roses, a feather falling from a bird's wing. I love that I have community with people who don't seize up when I speak of DECOMPOSITION and SURRENDER. Put it together take it apart, collect and gather, fall apart, eternal ebb flow, rise set, eternal rise and sink, rise fall, embrace/release. Held/hold/holding let go

Black Gospel

dream a little dream

Took WEEKS to make these, "something easy to do when I can't do anything" haha, turned into piles of failed attempts & blistered fingers but felt like a NASA genius when I got any  my brain is scrambled eggs wrapped in twine. It's so uncomfortable, not being able to THINK - humbling, funny. Covid wrecked my brain! But look, pretty!

winter

The seminar I'm doing with Bayo Akomolafe is magical & demanding - my walls dissolve and I pretty much weep non-stop. Afterwards I just wanna sink into earth, woods. The Bear of me called to cave, to commune with the ecologies of hibernation frothing at the edges of these days

It is time to rest. To be dormant, allow for decomposition, and give our bodies the precious gift of not needing to strive toward anything

 

 

goes on

Look Down/Up; EAU

 

What's happening in America is very much attempted coup vibes. It can be dramatic, funny, boring. We're the hostage. Who's in charge? Life hums along. We keep working. We make fun of these fools because they're so bad. We do some Christmas shopping. We make dinner. We do all the same things but with more dread, white noise chewing at the wires. The volume just keeps threading up, up -

* We're enduring an attempted coup *  And it doesn't bode well for the future - how voracious & relentless they are, to hold onto power. They'll keep coming. And their biggest weapon now is this pandemic they unleashed upon us. They want us hungry, unhoused, poor - they want to keep us down, heads filled with noise. We get angry, sad. I lay under a weighted blanket to rest but my eyes won't close. 

I don’t have anything smart to say. Just stay alive, keep together, keep showing up - my daily mantra in the mirror. We're all managing so much dissonance. Thank god for the helpers, the makers, for what we have when we have it. I want to drink more water. Today the pain & fatigue are deep estuaries cutting up my body like we did to Lousiana wetlands - but we're both still here. Today -

It's 24yrs since Tobey took his life. He was so important to me, and not just for how his death ravaged my world (I was with his corpse and dealt with the aftermath - telling his parents, cops, morgue, cleanup, his dog & apt & stuff, etc). He was an ex-lover from Detroit and a dear friend, and his death initiated a long season of winter for me, that echoed the deaths of my parents when I was 18. 

When Tobey's best friend and my boyfriend Arun also died 2 months later, (I found his corpse on Mardi Gras Day while I was costumed as Amelia Earhart. I had to tell his parents, too - the most awful responsibility), I was left in a solitude and grief so immense I could only surrender. I did what I could to take care of them and their families because I could, but nobody took care of me. These 2 young, fascinating, glorious men were my anchors in New Orleans - I'd just left my home & career in Detroit to be here & they put me up & we were inseparable. Oddballs, hilarious, magnetic, a triumvirate, family. Snap, they were gone, and I was the only one left standing.

When they died, I became an outcast - people told me to my face they were afraid of me - for being so close to death? Yep. People told me I was "too much", told me "smile" "think positive" and endless types of un-evolved nonsense. People made high drama, gossiped, slandered, disappeared. Nobody back home came down to care for me. I was The Strong One nobody wanted to see. My true relations of Earth, moon, trees, bird kin, dog & cats, books, and New Orleans herself, kept me company, LOVED ME, told me, "stay present, keep going, we see you." A few humans surprised me with kindness. The police sergeant & an EMS guy who were "randomly" at both death scenes kept tabs on me, would come to my work (waitress at the Bluebird) to give me big hugs. A few new friends stood by me, Alcena Rogan, Lee, taking me out for coffee while I wasn't able to be much at all. I'd come to New Orleans to write & record my 3rd album but I couldn't sing anymore. I was sober, and entirely grieving. I made a conscious decision to stay with it, and it was brutal, profound. This isn't self pity, it's the truth.

And the thing is, I did survive. I managed it all - I kept a roof over my head, my animals healthy, got some grief counseling, got into college (cuz it was the last thing I hadn't done that scared me a little), built a new life. I never made that 3rd album but I did sing a lot, wrote & wrote & still write, made photographs, paintings, drawings, installations, events, costumes, ritual, community, business, home, love. I lost most of it in Katrina and made it all over again, and again. As it was making me. This is a story of grit and grace and I'm telling it so others know - you can be the heroine. 

And the flame of love and gratitude I have for Tobey & Arun will never burn out. They walk with me. I was meant to be with them then, I honored our fateful pact, they honor me still. I carry our story in my heart, they are in every altar I make. What they taught me is eternal; the compassion, insight, vision and self knowledge I earned defines me. I remain in gratitude.

And here we are, in line at the Bluebird, before I got my job there, they were showing me their favorite things in the city. A memory that brings me wonder and joy - we were so beautiful, and time is fluid- memory a fissure 🕊💙🕊 anniversaries of trauma hit different always. This year I'm feeling it with some softness. Breathing, I honor them and myself and all survivors today 🕊💙🕊