still writing, I promise

the shifting currents of a creative practice

Hello, friends!

I haven’t been writing my newsletter on the schedule I’d like, for which I’m apologetic—though my therapist (and my partner) have told me to try to focus on progress instead of perfection. And I know they’re right. I might not like it, but they’re right.

But my lack of newsletter-ing doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. In fact, quite the opposite: I’m writing more than I have in months. I don’t think that the two things are related; my newsletter isn’t a practice that hinders my ability to write in other ways. No, it’s just that the writing I’ve been feeling called to do isn’t particularly newsletter-y fare.

I’ve been writing, for example, more poetry. I like sharing my poetry with you all, though I know it doesn’t “perform as well” in this format. Still, I will continue to share that work when I feel called to do so in this space, on Instagram, and elsewhere. I will think less about metrics in relation to my creative practice, at least for now. (I get enough of metrics at work anyway.)

That being said, far more of the writing I’m doing at the moment is not work I’m feeling called to share. Not yet.

Image Description: One of Stanley Whitney’s sketchbooks, under the glass at his career retrospective. The page has the words “private thoughts” written in black crayon above the outline of a square (also in black crayon) with nothing—everything?—in it.

I have been feeling so many small sprouts beginning to poke through the dirt’s surface, which is another way of saying, it’s almost spring and my current combination of meds is working well and the sunlight is slowly returning—bringing with it the vibrancy of our cozy apartment, which has been obscured by the heavy blanket of winter. Every year, I try to convince myself that I don’t have seasonal affective disorder, and every year I am proven wrong. The changing weather is not a cure-all, but it does remove the thick coating of dust that settles over the other manifestations of mental illness with which I grapple daily.

So, spring is almost here, and with it comes a budding of ideas.

I have been doing my best (though I often fail) to spend an hour each morning working on a novel. Even if I’m just writing a sentence a day, that stumbling progress is still progress. I am taking a weekly writing class right now; as I do my free writing in response to our prompts, I can sense the seeds of something among the words. Something bigger, something better. These two practices combined have grounded me in the knowledge that I have something important to say—and that saying it the way I want to will take time.

Perhaps that mentality is why I have found myself sketching out the beginnings of a poetry project unlike anything else I’ve tried to do before. It feels ambitious, challenging, intimidating. Yet those feelings aren’t deterring me, not like they usually do. I am—unexpectedly—most excited about the attempt.

So, there are words. I am writing. They are just, for now, private thoughts.

But I would like there to be public thoughts—because I long for that sort of connection, long for us to be in community, meditating together on ideas about art and liberation and the future we want to build. Even if my newsletter is shorter than usual it has been in the past, I will keep reaching out to you all, and I hope you will reach out to me.

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of tech companies who depend on cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for their products. That decision ruled against former child miners. Two-thirds of the world’s cobalt comes from the DRC, where the use of forced child labor—enslavement—is widespread in mining. I cannot express my horror, grief, and rage at this decision. Let this court decision serve as a reminder of Audre Lorde’s words: the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

• Biden’s State of the Union address was unsurprisingly awful. Trans rights, climate change, protections for undocumented immigrants, an end to genocide and genocidal states—these are not the concerns of Biden, his administration, or his party. This administration does not protect us. It will not protect us. We will protect one another.

• If you are a registered Democrat in New York state, there is no blank space for a write-in on the primary ballot. To protest Biden’s genocidal policies at the ballot box during the primaries, there is a call to submit a blank ballot.

  

  Image Description: Jo at an art museum, looking at a series of paintings by Stanley Whitney. He is wearing a dark fuchsia-colored mask, a deep blue ankle-length skirt, brown boots, and a keffiyeh.