LOVER

Checklist/back where there's nowhere to stay

"A Girl Reflects" ©EAU

1. "You said you'd be back"
2. A circle or a bounce
3. New worlds erupting
4. In the belly of hopelessness
5. All the rage and grief
6. Linger in the trouble
7. You might hear music
8. Bay, mint, sea salt, coconut oil, rosewater
9. Longing for a stranger's body
10. Birds, fallen flowers in the dirt
11. Sillage from the ions
12. How to talk about the body
13. Increasingly delicate and absurd
14. Separations dissolve into ripeness, intimate
15. Nooks and crannies
16. Deep origins of molecules
17. Always be my calling
18. When the soil becomes a fine mist 
19. Does life become perceptible
20. To which I belong
21. I am an instrument for wonder
22. What I need do say
23. Perform prophecy
24. Scandalous emancipation
25. Luminous vision
26. Sacred thread
27. Seed of joy
28. Treasure from my ancestors
29. Beckoning
30. Stay lost
31. In the imagination of Bakhita
32. Touched the sacred
33. Degrees

we write the book

some great news: my heart is in EXCELLENT shape both my parents, & their parents on down, died of heart attacks/disease. But despite genetics, other health issues, and having Covid, my Calcium Scan showed ZERO damage my doctor said they never see that! wow

 

I LOVE my heart, and have obsessively done heart work my entire life, visualizing/hugging/praising my heart - working for and from my heart. And I've been mostly vegetarian for decades, eat lots of omegas, garlic & onions, don't drink or smoke. I've also been in devoted trauma recovery psychotherapy for years, and meditate, exercise, pray. Not saying doing all these things will fix heart disease, or even that I won't maybe get heart disease, but so far - this is what it is. My dr said I've been able to "transcend genetics" in this way which as a survivor of childhood abuse, sexual assault and domestic violence is extremely emotional and moving, symbolic, validating.

 

So my chronic central nervous & autoimmune disabilities - the proven impact of trauma (ie: their "bad hearts" on me) - is the deck of cards I inherited - but my heart IS MINE.

 

Also I do feel this is deep ancestral healing at work, I dedicate any wellness I have to all my relations who endured, kept love alive, dreams. They're so happy for me! Their hearts sing in mine, I FEEL IT. good morning. What a blessing it is to be alive

*also need to say, I believe any wellness I have belongs to my community, who've loved, taught, guided, carried, pushed, empowered, worked me into a way of being authentic in the world that's connected and inter-dependent. This doesn't happen in a vacuum and I don't do it alone, it's yours as much as it's mine, 100%

we will wear
new bones again.
we will leave
these rainy days,
break out through
another mouth
into sun and honey time.
worlds buzz over us like bees,
we be splendid in new bones.
other people think they know
how long life is.
how strong life is.
we know.

— Lucille Clifton, from "an ordinary woman"

what it's like

AUBREY HIRSCH

flight pattern

24yrs ago today, I found my beautiful Arun dead, and lost something so precious. He was brilliant, a scholar, rascal, giant in my life. He was the only person here for me then. After him, a solitude I'd never imagined - the depths, the vast emptiness where he'd been. I'm blessed to have loved him, been loved by him, to have survived, gifts. This pic of me is from the morning of that day - Mardi Gras, I found him that night. I was Amelia Earhart, back when you didn't have to be a master crafter to costume, you could just throw on goggles and say you were Amelia Earhart and it was true. It was really really true

 

 

 

The weakening (weeknd

Watched the Weeknd's halftime show & I don't think the critics really got what it was: a story about being/living in a deadly pandemic - the isolation, weirdness, disconnect. There weren't any guest artists, or a traditional audience, for Covid safety, so it was inherently off-kilter, and that set was designed in harmony with that, making it a real-time illustration/performance of this time. He's always been unabashedly unsettling, unsettled, "other'd", anyhow - with lyrics about how he's outside and can't get in, or inside and can't get out. All of this combined made a really authentic performance of "now" - more art than entertainment, making a spectacle of the spectacle.

 

The dancers' face masks creeped me out, then I remembered: airborne virus. I was irked when he went inside that gold interior space, thinking, way to cut off the audience, dude. Then I remembered there was no audience - everyone far away - it was a performance that was for the camera, could only be experienced via the camera/screen, second-hand. Slick. Also did you notice that choir/string orchestra was all black men who began as "aliens" who unmasked to become powerful musicians? That's a political choice. He's hyper conceptual, nothing he does is an accident, and that can feel cerebral but it's passionate. I mean, what he lacks in physicality he makes up for in creative vision. And if people weren't so conditioned to be uncomfortable with anything less than sweaty assertions of confidence from men (Springsteen, Bruno Mars, etc), they'd get it. His is an anxious masculinity - not unproblematic but true, of the moment, and entertaining, and it's all predicated on subverting expectations. Watch his Colbert performance of Heartless if you don't believe me.

 

Also can't ignore the fact that Blinding Lights is a MASSIVE hit, he's writing hits, he's tapped in. So am I a fan? Yes? I do admire his ... mirroring of the shadow stuff we don't like to see or admit, and that was a compelling performance I wish weren't so accurate, it got under my skin. He was such an odd choice! I wonder if they knew what they were getting cuz despite the guy's popularity, it doesn't seem like America did. Watch it again with this framing - I posit, it will deepn - (also it's subversive & hilarious that he sang all those songs about coke binges at an event sponsored by Pepsi (also if you don't know his story, I seem to recall he was basically homeless, a metal head, and his mixtape with "I Can't Feel My Face" just hit big. He came from nothing and has been open about his struggles with depression and addiction, and now he's a star in control of his vision and savvy about manipulating the medium. And that, my friends, is a 21st century artist -

never not happening

Guess what? Mardi Gras is still happening. I'm not talking about businesses forced to open, or entitled assholes descending on our city. I'm talking about the calendar and the ritual. It has to perform differently this year, but every year is always different - impermanence is the ground Carnival is rooted in. Always the same, always changed - it's the calendar, it's time, baby. It's never how it was, it's always how it is.

 

I'm not born here, and native locals carry more of this than I'll ever know, and also I've lived and died and been reborn hundreds of times in Carnival. My first time to New Orleans was during the last week of Carnival - the most prophetic experience of my life, it showed me everything. Then 26yrs ago, my 1st Mardi Gras day as a resident, costumed as Amelia Earhart, I found my soulmate dead. Then there was the first Gras after Katrina, y'all remember that, how heavy? And through it all, the ritual remained: express your truths to bear who we are. Outsiders might think it's just a party but we know - it's deep ceremony to process trauma and loss, to keep living. It's realer than real - grief, rebirth, catharsis, play, community! They can appropriate it but they can't replicate it, it can't be bought or sold - it has to be experienced within this cultural context, and can never be fully known. It's the only public, cultural ritual of its kind not completely repressed. Remember, the U.S. government made the Sun Dance illegal, practicing it would land my kin in prison, but the Sun Dance never stopped.

 

Nobody can cancel Mardi Gras - it evolves and transcends conditions - we make it however we can: kingcake left on a neighbor's stoop, decorating houses, costuming for our pets, bbqing for the family, WWOZ on the radio, secondline the living room, raise a glass, sob, laugh. It's who we are. Nothing we see of tourists has ever been Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is us - after hurricanes, violence, tragedy, winter, death. It's a radical act of joy and resistance, laughing with death, an offering for all the culture bearers and community we've lost, for all we've lost - sew, costume, singing for that. This pandemic has ripped the world in two, dance, drink that - we're still here, a blessing. The spirits hear, always listening, it's the earth and air. That's what's up, y'all know you know, if I know anything I know that