making changes: vultures, magnolias, and ancestors

dear readers, 

this morning i woke up late- around 11:30, from a dream in which i was getting married to my childhood friend. the dream ended with me in a taxi with axelle, driving through downtown boston, not unlike the opening (or final) scenes of lost in translation. i’m not sure how to analyze this. 

by the time i had gotten up and showered, it was time for me to log onto a webinar i had registered for the week before called “afrofuturism in birds”. the first half of the webinar was four project presentations from the afrofuturism in birds fellowship. the featured projects included a kids book about noticing birds, an essay on community involvement in ecology, an art exhibit in homage to George Washington Carver, and a collection of stories from Black elders in the bayous of Alabama. 

i wasn’t sure what to expect from the webinar going in, but i cannot emphasize the wisdom i feel i’ve gained within the hour. i’ll share a few things that stood out to me. one of the presenters, Dr. Mel, talked about her book Biomythology Bayou, and how birds are ancestral technologies and connectors. they gave the example of the laughing gull, who always seems to know something we don’t, or the brown pelican that can inspire us with it's salt-water desalinization glands. my favorite was the blue heron, who’s telescopic eyes watch over us- watching how we move, seeing all of what we did last night, projecting our actions through to the ancestors. hear Dr. Mel read her brief piece about the heron here (33:19). 

what stood out to me most was one of the last questions the moderator asked the panelists. at this point i had caught a bus downtown and was walking to a cafe to get some work done and write (per the advise of a grad-student coworker, i’ve been trying to write without judgement for a few hours per day). the moderator asked: “what is your biggest dream for the future of black people and afrofuturism in conservation?” in response, panelist Binta said “i haven’t dreamed my biggest dream yet”. i began thinking of all of my dreams, and was filled with a rush of excitement for the dreams i have yet to realize. i hope i have a long life filled with beauty, love, humility, and ever evolving dreams. 

i have been giving a lot of thought to my dreams recently, a practice that has been a great source of joy, grounding, and serenity for me. as a child, i would spend hours in my room watching nature documentaries, making art and decorating my space, and dreaming in my head. although i wish i had written more of my dreams down for posterity, i remember a few. i wanted to be a marine biologist, i wanted to live in california, i wanted dyed hair and cool style, and i wanted boobs. the last one always makes me laugh a little, but 3/4 dreams come true is pretty good. 

it sounds very intense (and possibly a little self-absorbed) to admit, but i think i have always been a visionary. i loved making physical collages of my dreams and desired futures, i loved worshipping people i felt i could learn from, i loved practicing new things and imagining vivid scenarios of the future every night before bed. i have always found solace in my own imagination, and my own dreams of the future. i was a genuine hoarder, an obsessive list-maker and budding archivist. i think that from a young age i understood the ephemerality of life, the fleetingness of memory and emotion, and the importance of posterity. i hated deleting old playlists or pinterest boards, throwing out receipts or ticket stubs that reminded me of a special memory, or forgetting. a lot of my obsessions focused on forgetting, something that would throw me into an impenetrable state of anxiety or full-blown emotional meltdown. i think hoarding and documentation was the compulsion that eased this fear. 

since then, i have obviously been heavily therapized and medicated, and the obsession has shifted from a world-ending paranoia to a mild discomfort. i still make lists, scrapbook, and collect, but it’s out of love and devotion more than a feeling of scarcity. i like to think that my childhood prepared me to be a lifelong archivist (one of my ongoing dreams). i archive for my job, i archive my relationships and my time in california. i am currently archiving lesser-known boston history, lesbianism, and religion. my blogging is part of my archive. part of the mark i’m making on the world, the space i’m carving out within the infinity of the internet. 

as i continued listening to the webinar, i was walking down one of the most beautiful streets in santa cruz, a street my dear friend rafa used to live on. the sidewalk was lined on both sides with montbretia flowers, sundappled and the air warm. it was at this moment that i saw a monarch butterfly flitting around in the street, weaving throughout the low hanging branches or arbors in front of affluent mid-century homes. i was reminded of something Evelyn- my childhood caretaker/art teacher/chosen grandmother had told me last summer. she lost her brother at a young age, and had processed it through art. she had told me that butterflies are often seen as ancestors visiting, and that every time she sees a butterfly she is reminded of her brother. i have been so privileged in my life as to not have lost anyone close to me, so i don’t necessarily view this butterfly as a visit from a specific ancestor, but perhaps many of my distant ancestors. there had been a lot of mention of ancestors in the webinar, mostly in regards to black and indigenous ancestral knowledge, generational connection to land, and the connection black people have to birds in their resemblance of flight and freedom. 

i was reminded of Abigail and Dennie, former bosses and mentors, calling people ancestors in training. i feel the need to devote myself more to my dreams, more to my community and loved ones, and more to spirituality in order to become the best ancestor in training i can be. on my walk, i pass a magnolia tree in full bloom, its smell filling the air around me. i pick up a pristine petal, feeling its softness and admiring it’s beautiful magenta coloration. i’m reminded of the magnolia in the front yard of my childhood home. the magnolia, to me, is an ancestor and guiding spirit. i know how to cook it’s blossoms, how delicate the petals are, and when it blooms (at least in an east coast climate). 

i spend a lot of time thinking about connection to land, belonging, and spirituality in terms of whiteness, indigeneity, and settler identity. i have a lot of complicated thoughts that might be best for a future blog post aided by supplemental research, but i’ll give you the elevator pitch. for my whole life, despite my love for and connection to my childhood home and lands in massachusetts, there’s been an underlying sense of dissonance. undoubtedly, this is a symptom of the settler identity. a lack of connection to any “native” land- not in the “united states”, surely not anywhere in europe where my ancestors are from. there’s a reckoning that is ongoing, a feeling of grief over the loss that whiteness and colonialism have inflicted on white people. this is obviously not to discredit the impacts of colonialism on people of color, specifically indigenous people in this case. however, i take it as a fundamental principle of my work as a white person committed to liberation and ancestral work to grapple with this truth.

from a human level, i do resonate with the idea of land and animals as ancestors. but simultaneously within that connection, there is an acknowledgement of the hollowness that whiteness has created within myself, and evidently, many other white people. one way i hope to reconcile with this hollowness is to dive into devotion, spirituality, and the creation of new belonging. not through appropriation (the method many white people take in the effort to belong), but through hard work, creation, and honesty. i want to create a space between the lack of belonging to turtle island lands and to european lands. i want to reconnect with my blood ancestors and metabolize the legacies that proceed me (good and bad). i want to create new spaces of wholeness for myself and other white loved ones, and in the process connect deeper to the people of color i hold close. 

a dream that has been emerging recently has been the work of a death doula, in addition to the dream of being a birth doula or midwife. in the webinar, one of the panelists named Mykah had mentioned how her mom always knows when something has died because she notices the turkey vultures in the sky. this anecdote, along with the talk of ancestors (in training), reminds me of the beautiful sanctity of death. it reminds me of the many problems with the death practices in our western society, particularly among white people (and most especially; non-religious, long term “american” white people). i deeply admire the work of Äni, a community member who runs Ancestors Embrace death doula services. although we have only met once a year ago, i look up to Äni with such reverence and devotion. i dream of being a healer who is honored and trusted enough to bring life into this world, as well as helping ancestors pass with peace, dignity, and culturally relevant healing practices. i look to my ancestors in training, Äni, Dennie, Evelyn, Abigail, the panelists from today’s webinar, the birds. 

i am throwing this post into the void as an oath to my childhood self and my ancestors. it is a reaffirmation of my seriousness about this work. it is a promise to commit deeper to decolonizing my mindset and my communities, to build new connections through friendships and loving mutual aid, to regain my spirituality. it is a betrayal of the assimilation i used to strive for- into empire, capital, and whiteness. i began this post by talking about my literal dreams, of marriage and life in the city, and i end it by illustrating my goals and visions for the future. i am taking after the vultures, the magnolia tree, and throwing my heart into the good, messy, hard, and beautiful work that awaits me. i am frequently reminded of a poem by w.b. yeats, called Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, that i’ll leave you with:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

in love and cosmic reverence,

- ek

on chicago, Leda, and alexander

dear readers, 

    i want to introduce you to someone. Leda is a pseudonym created out of the names of movie characters from funeral parade of roses. this blog will be my thoughts as i try to process why i have been so hung up on the girl who i've nicknamed Leda. i doubt she would ever find this blog - particularly because she doesn't actually have any idea of my existence. frankly, i give enough description in this blog that it would be obvious to her if she ever did. however, out of respect, i don't want her real name on my blog, so we will keep Leda.


    it was not that chicago was the interest, at least not at first. because if so, i might be equally as hung up on some other figure, like bernardine dorhn, the panthers, nuscua, or countless other artists. and it’s interesting because I’ve had so many other fascinations (parasocial relationships) in my life; grace, sahara, isis, iz, or maya. it's not just about an aspiration. something about Leda stuck. maybe that she had had been alexander's first love. maybe because she has been the artist of my ex boyfriend's only tattoo. maybe because she was likely looked up to by people like sahara and carmen. but i have a third theory:

     i’ll reiterate that she has no clue of my existence. it's for precisely that reason thought this adoration is not logical. we went to school together three years apart. she was the same grade as my brother, but they ran in very different circles. in fact, i sometimes imagined that she transcended even the coolest high school cliques. i didn't know anything about her while we were in school together, and i hadn't even ever heard her name. 

    

    but after she graduated, when i was in sophomore year, i was introduced to her name by a friend. alexander (a psedonym from the sacrifice) was definitely a friend of hers, and i like to think he was a friend of mine, but he was a senior and probably didn't give it the same weight i did. interestingly, in sophomore year i was completely obsessed with him. i studied him however i could- his instagram, band camp, soundcloud, letterboxd, spotify, facebook, anything i could find within the public domain. when he wrote me a note at the end of the year saying he felt like a brother to me, my heart had exploded with joy and reaffirmation. 

    my friends were convinced that i had a crush on him, because i had admitted he was kind of cute if you tilted your head, but it really wasn't like that. i looked up to him so immensely- artistically, aesthetically, socially, academically. everyone else seemed to have mixed reviews about him, but anytime we got to interact my heart would swell. i even tried to mimic how he acted and dressed to try to grasp at the unique form of masculinity he displayed. after learning he liked the band sunn, i started routinely wearing my dad’s shirt from the group. i reference him in my art and listen to his albums, as well as the voice memos i have of him playing at open mics.

    

    i started watching alexander religiously throughout our classes. i took notes on the back of my hands to memorize his thoughts or references. i wanted to be just like him in every way, besides the drug addiction. i told my parents about him, tried to convince my friends it wasn't romantic affection. in some ways i think it was, just not in the way that is lustful. this is somewhat related to my love of highly romantic platonic friendships, which i could talk about at a later date. admittedly, a lot of my fascination coincided with my burgeoning interest in punk. i went to his shows, i watched his movie recommendations, i started smoking more weed in search of whatever it gave him, and tried to memorize everything it was that he liked.

    

    he was disturbed, manic depressive and unmedicated. he is perhaps the most interesting psychological and philosophical case study i've ever witnessed in my life. he had bouts of extreme extroversion and brazen self-confidence bordering on self-obsession and a god complex- truly a kind of self-assurance i've rarely seen in anyone sense. but then it would come crashing down in the form of instagram story rants and obvious hangovers the next day in class. he hated himself, thought he was deeply fucked up and shameful.  he had at least four different recognizable personalities. looking back on it, he was probably suicidal. although it was hard to witness, i felt he was one of the few people that understood what i had gone through up until that point. he understood the kind of art that is made when you truly can’t stand yourself, and i spoke that language. 

    

    he loved that i listened to the same weird music he did, although most of it was me stealing my dad's song recommendations and overemphasizing my coolness. he would recommend me movies and books, excited to share them with someone finally. i guess i thought that he must have felt the exact same way that i felt about him, in that he was the only person in the world to understood me to such a close extent. in hindsight, i realize he probably had that feeling with countless other people who knew and could resonate with deeper parts of him than i did. Leda was very likely one of them.

    

    when i first listened to his album, the song called chicago was immediately my favorite. the title parenthetically notes that it's a song for a good friend. at the time i was doing fbi level research to figure out who this good friend was. it was only until later in the year when he told me about her for the first time. i forget the context, or how he even put it. but he brought you up so casually like it was something he thought about every day. my ex was actually the one to tell me he was in love with her. he had gotten a beautiful butterfly tattoo that looked professional, apparently hand poked by Leda (one of her many admirable skills). my ex was the one who told me that alexander was secretly and unrequitedly in love with her, and about the song connection. from this point onward, my obsession shifted.

    

    alexander and i stayed close throughout the rest of that year, but it wasn't like those first three months. his reputation and school attendance plummeted after a certain xanax-induced public meltdown. but i hugged him at graduation, and i continued his love for Leda. my adoration shifting west from north hampton to chicago. it has since matured into a more complex love, but with Leda it had started the same way. with instagram accounts that linked to spotifys that linked to websites and art exhibitions. she lives and went to school in chicago, recently graduated from an art school studying fashion and "new media”. i have memorized her multiple instagrams, her friends faces, her sense of humor and music taste, her tattoos, her writing, her tumblr, her website. i am profoundly moved by her art. among the pieces are memes, 2010 throwbacks, tattoo pictures, edgy photographs, and work-in-progress snapshots. old fashioned book sketches or a published magazine or hatchets lined in a row. projects i wish i had thought to make, but that i feel speak to my senses in a spiritual way.

   

    i think there is something psychological about hearing someone i was quasi in love with talk about the person they were real in love with. i became fascinated with Leda, not out of an effort to win his affection, but in striking clarity of my true self. i imagine myself in chicago, the weather, my neighbors. i imagine myself in the halls of her university, running late to a studio of shadow photography. 

    

    i don’t know if i imagine being friends with her, or being her, but she became as much an aspiration as an apparition. she embodied a dream of someone i felt like i could never be, but yet deeply yearned for.

    

    midway through high school, smack in between when she would have been in my life and where i am now, i faced a cross roads. i could run off to the warm embrace of california, to a place that felt like a shallow pool where I could safely learn to swim as an adult. or, i could jump into new york and try my best to survive. i had gotten to nyu, and although it wasn't barnard, it sufficed to meet my academic dreams. in the end it came down to the obscene cost of nyu, and the fact that my mom hates the city. i always told myself that new york would harden me, and california would nurture me further into my tenderness. i still believe this, and i think it has come true- in some good ways and some detrimental ways. however, i’m constantly grateful for my tenderness, not to mention the beautiful life and profound relationships i’ve discovered in california. i don’t regret my choice, but i wonder. 

    

    i feel like Leda is living the life i could’ve had, and my ability to be witness to it from afar is haunting me. just today, i typed her name in when trying to look up a parisian eyewear designer with the same first name. she is a knee jerk reaction for me. 

    in many ways, she represents things about myself i wish were different. i wish i had her haircut or her style, her confidence, her technical skills. i wish i had the feeling of disposable time to be able to entertain things like art school. despite these disparities, fundamentally, i feel like we are similar. we seem to have similar interests, tattoo and music tastes, similar dreams and visions (even if i struggle to bring them to life). i like to think we’d be friends in another life, if we were closer in age. i like to think there’s someone out there who has a parasocial relationship with me like i do for her. 

    

    to end my rambling, i doubt i’ll ever see her again, let alone have a conversation face to face. but i continue to dream of what she represents to me. she represents a life of leisure, of art, of nude photoshoots and adornment. of physical media, of digital media, of chicago, of making a mark on the world before we’re gone. i try to do her justice in my emulation. i try my best to scream out into the void, fill it with mediocre art and writing, and leave behind a trail of proof of my existence. through Leda, i explore myself deeper. i find solace with my awkwardness, softness, and occasional shame. i find stillness in my lack of tattoos and my frizzy hair. i find divinity everywhere. i sleep with my computer and i dream of other dimensions. i study and i archive, i am obsessed with art and devotion. she lives in chicago in a tiny apartment inside my rib cage, living though me, and i see through her eyes.

in love in chicago,

- ek

equine updates and a recovering identity crisis

dear readers, 

    i resist the scroll and thus i come to you. i had been scrolling for an embarrassingly long time, until i reached a post in pinterest that said “i blog therefore i am”. after saving it to my voluptuous ‘2026 vision board’, i take its advice and return to the origin: the blog. i’ve been feeling bad about how long it’s been since my last blog post, but i have never once committed to consistency here and would much rather it remain the reflective, pressure-free void that i love it for being. so in addition to the scroll, i resist the shame and compulsion to be productive.

    i don’t have anything in particular that i want to blog about today, but i find that some of my best writing comes in these moments. i am reminded of a recent conversation i had with my (millennial) boss and my (gen z) coworker. we were researching software and tools for our project- scanners, microphones, website domains. we got talking about instagram and facebook, myspace and pinterest. i mentioned that i blog, and my boss was tickled by the fact that i used blogspot. she didn’t say whether or not she ever had a blog, but i’m determined to find it. ever since my origins on myspace, i have been devoted to The Blog. a few i have found recently that i have been enjoying are Let’s Begin Nails, Through the Arts and Beauty, web design museum (admittedly less of a blog), just seeds blog, and more i hope to explore and share soon. one day i’ll throw out more of my niche internet finds, but that will be a list for a later date.

    in other news, a few weeks ago, i went on a horse trail ride in the sandy hills of monterey to celebrate my one year anniversary with axelle. i had been in contact with the owner of the riding service, saved as “steve horse guy” in my contacts, for a few weeks and we had arranged for this rural rendezvous. he was australian (from “the bush”) and quite spirited about biodynamic agriculture (we learned this after he asked us what we both study). it was a really wonderful experience, even though my horse (snowflake) and axelle’s horse (sally) seemed to have beef. i’ll include some photos here:

             

    in other news, i am dreaming of the future and i am contemplating minimalism. i don’t know if it’s for me, but i’ve been exploring and trying not to limit myself. i’ll elaborate on this more in an upcoming post about my parasocial relationship with someone who embodies a lot the style and traits i’m pondering. i had a recent conversation with a friend about what i call my identity crisis, which is more just me feeling like i need to explore myself more. i feel conflicted because i have visions of who i could be; the style i could have and the music i could listen to, but i don’t think it comes naturally. does that mean i should give up on these dreams? should i give up on art as a serious hobby, seeing as i have more pressing career options? i’m considering getting colored eyelash extensions or dying my hair again, but i feel like i also need to explore this through art. i have many new projects in the works and in mind, and i’m excited to share them. 

    a lot of this is related to my last post. i wrote it when i was in boston and pretty sad, as boston often makes me. this is not to mention i was coming off what was probably the worst quarter of my college career to date. i think it’ll take a long time before boston doesn’t make me sad. i’ll need to be secure in myself, otherwise it'll always scramble my brain. a lot of that post doesn’t reflect my day to day feelings. i feel very content and usually very stimulated. i do love what i study, and i’m happy to be back doing what i care about. i do need to create more art, and i remain open to dreaming about lives in other cities. but i try not to let myself be consumed by realities that aren’t mine. i have such an active imagination that it becomes difficult to pull myself out of a delusion that isn’t real. chicago isn’t real, at least not yet. 

    even harder is pulling myself out of a delusion about who i am. who i would be if i had moved there or to new york city isn’t real, at least not yet. i’ve always heard “your true self is who you are when no one is watching”. if so, i might have some problems with who i am. but then again, most of those problems come from the fact that i’m not who i think i should be. i’m tender and corny, not cool and esoteric. i remind myself that my fantasies don’t accurately summarize who i would be in those lifetimes, and it’s unhealthy to try to live there. what i might need to accept is that i am tender and corny in every lifetime, regardless of how much cool art i make, or how stylish i dress, how many tattoos i get or what color i paint my nails. i am conflicted, i am pondering and exploring. but i have a long life, and i’m choosing to be excited rather than jealous or scared. i’m going to trust in my own ability to make meaning, and to find my true self. 

    as a final parting gift, i wanted to share a serendipity i witnessed the other day. i saw a girl with a very visible shoulder/chest tattoo that said “continue”. about 2-3 hours later on the bus, i saw a girl holding a book with a completely plain blue cover, looking like a book of poetry. the only word on it was “continue”. the signs are everywhere, if you open your mind and heart.

in love and tenderness, 

- ek

    p.s., sometimes you just have to stop whatever intellectual brainrot you’ve been grinding on for hours, and just look at pictures of birds online for a few minutes. sometimes i feel like a man who has to sulk away to the office bathroom to look at titty pics or something, but for me its hummingbirds or doves. be well loves