I’m grateful to know the type of drive that creative practice has shown me. When I’m deep in creative process — particularly when I’m in the process of choreographing a dance and setting it on aligned dancer-collaborators — I feel so grounded, focused, purposeful, and productive in the ways that matter to me most. I feel a sense of self-efficacy that keeps me connected to potential and possibility. Accountability to those investing in my work guides me to embody my vision of a more liberated and loving world. I feel like the work is literally in the driver’s seat, and I’m happily along for the ride, building my muscle around putting my purpose in action and living my values.

When I’m without creative work to drive me, I feel quite different from what I describe above.

It seems that those of us who know the power of art in this way — not simply in the sense of observing art as powerful or even of feeling moved and transformed by witnessing another’s art, but in the humbling, teaching, embodied sense — are prone to understanding that art can be a tool that remedies isolation and resolves some of the wreckage of oppression. If we allow it to, art can heal individuals, communities, and systems. (I have a sense that the people who cut arts budgets understand this to some degree, too.)

The Liberating Power of Literature

Before I understood that my creative practices could provide me the spaces I needed to feel free, literature had already gotten a start on situating me. By the time I was three, I regularly tucked myself away into the cozy books-and-blankets closet in the apartment I grew up in. I honed my reading ability in that closet, and proceeded to devour most all the literature I could get my little paws on. In addition to expanding my world and enhancing my imagination, reading offered me a space that felt closer to home than the immediate world around me. As I navigated my way through novels that transported me to other environments and realities, I reaped the rippling benefits that come when people commit themselves to their work and share that work with the world.

Coming of age in a place where I didn’t see much of myself reflected in the world around me, the expansiveness that I could access through books was a saving grace in my journey to stay grounded in my truest self. Reading ultimately inspired my revolutionary spirit. But not before I took some detours along the way.

Context Matters.

The detours deserve a full conversation of their own, but for a bit of context: I was born in 1984 in Woburn, Massachusetts, a small suburban city about 10 miles north of Boston. At the time, Woburn’s population was upwards of 95% White^1,2. It was the kind of place where anything that sounded non-White or non-American was grounds for mockery. Anything perceived as not “normal” was a target. Signature suburbia.

My mom is White and my dad is Black. I was born with very fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. My complexion eventually inched toward caramel, my eyes landed at hazel, and my hair at a unique combination of shades of brown. On a nearly daily basis throughout the first half of my life, I was asked, “What are you?”, “Where are you from?”, and/or, “Where are you really from?” by strangers.

Both of my parents have dark brown eyes and black-brown hair. My only sibling is my older sister, who’s brown-skinned with dark brown eyes and black-brown hair. I grew to 5’9”, taller than both of my parents and my sister. I not only felt unreflected in the people outside of my home, but I also carried a sense of optical disorientation within my immediate family. All of this informed the way I experience the world, and led me to finding a home within myself, mostly nurtured by my creative practices, where I’ve experienced freedom in the fullest sense I’ve known it yet.

If Anything Was Different, Everything Would Be Different.

Coming from a working class background as a first-generation college student, I was guided toward prestigious private higher education institutions as a means to “make it,” if you will. And I’m grateful to have learned at a college that connected me to influential teachers and friends; gave me space to discover and deepen my love for learning and choreographing; and illuminated a lot about the ways of the world and the wealthy.

Yet at the same time, the experience came with a lot of complexity. I had a pretty easy time coasting through my less-than-stellar public high school, but I never really had to learn how to be a diligent student. Between a lack of academic preparation and a different familial/cultural background than the vast majority of students at my school, I struggled academically and socially. In one sense, I feel that I deferred the process of really landing in my purpose by pursuing a path that wasn’t necessarily mine to pursue. But I also often remind myself that, if anything was different, everything would be different. I wouldn’t be me and might not hold these perspectives if not for every step along the way — good, bad, and indifferent.

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Despite a serious close call that threatened my ability to graduate on time, I made it out of there by the skin of my teeth with a degree in urban studies. At a very different time in the world, I got the first job I applied for and began winding my way through roles in and adjacent to education and social justice, roles I thought would aid my mission to fight! the! system! ✊🏽😅 After a decade of disenchantment and frustration, I realized that I wasn’t going to find the sense of purpose and impact I was seeking by banging my head against the stubborn walls of the system. I was only going to hurt my head (and my spirit!) if I kept trying.

So, when I couldn’t find any manageable ways to be true to myself as a radical creative nepantlera³ employed by an institution, I found my way by working from the margins. Through the power of community, mutual aid, reciprocity, and good juju, I managed to sustain this way of living and work in ways that feel true, aligned, and meaningful for nearly a decade. And there’s no doubt that this path has created more powerful, palpable, positive impact in the world than anything I was doing with less integrity from inside of institutions. And it’s also allowed me to stay closer to my spiritual nature, which means staying more grounded, more purposeful, and more productive within my community and beyond.

But none of it’s been without significant sacrifices, tradeoffs, and challenges. And while living in my purpose has generated meaningful returns in so many ways, it hasn’t allowed me to also build myself a financial safety net. So even though I was sustaining, it wasn’t sustainable within the constructs and confinement of late-stage capitalism. And I think I can safely say that this is true for many artists across practices, especially Black and Brown artists.

The sad, unfair, and discouraging pattern from my perspective is that — even though artists are vital to the well-being of our society, often sacrificing financially and otherwise to offer creative medicine to the world — capitalist systems and policies make it difficult to sustain a life devoted to creative purpose while also undermining art as a “practical”⁴ life path. This creates conditions that dissuade average Americans from regarding or perceiving art as worthy of serious, institutionalized, financially backed consideration, even when they are patrons of the arts or lovers of music or films.

A Fatal Financial System

I recently heard that financial stress can do more damage than heart disease. My personal situation has made me see more clearly that the less inclined one is to think and plan in a straight line, the less likely one is to “succeed” within the capitalist paradigm. Linear thinking is often a weak spot for me (though people who get a peek inside my choreographic process tend to think otherwise 😅). I’m a natural girl, and I see far more spirals and circles occurring in nature than I do straight lines. It feels a little wacky and very vulnerable to put this in writing, but, for most of my life, it really didn’t occur to me to think strategically about money as a tool for making dreams happen, or at minimum as a lubricant that can significantly cut down on the friction that a life with working class origins is certain to come with.

I find it deeply frustrating and insidiously strategic that financial literacy is not taught in public schools in the U.S. I feel the impacts of that lack of education persist to this day, and given my newfound understanding of the depths of the damage caused by financial stress, I’m once again horrified by the lengths to which those in positions of power will go to in order to maintain their chokehold on systemic conditions that preserve their unfair access to wealth and other resources. This financial system is literally killing us.

I’m not the most vulnerable to the fallout of the system by far, but I am situated in the not-so-sweet spot of: was just making it, now what to do? As a writer and choreographer whose work has mostly been grounded in and supported by pro-Black initiatives, the intersection of AI taking work that people like me would’ve previously been paid to do and the implications of anti-Black Chump-era policies, almost all of my pre-existing work has dissipated.

Getting Out of My Own Way

For years, I’ve been putting off getting my work out into the world in a serious and consistent way. And it wasn’t drive that got me to finally do it. It was necessity, surrender, and support.

I saw a reel a little while back of a woman recounting how her therapist had asked her what’s in the way of her being the version of herself she’s aspiring to. The therapist then told her that whatever she’s letting get in the way of that higher self is her current god. Oof. That stayed with me, and I’ve been more present to the things I’ve been allowing to obstruct my ability to activate all that I want to be and do.

I’m in deep consideration of my existence and the dissonant relationship between my spirit, my nature, and the context I’m living in. I’m feeling exceedingly incompatible with the dying death system I’m living in… existing in… being in. I’ve heard myself tell my people over and over again lately that my capacity for adapting to this system is diminishing. All but gone. It feels less and less possible, spiritually and materially.

Finding Home Inside the Beat of My Own Drum

My sense of disorientation seems more intense than ever, but it’s certainly not new. I’ve long felt like a mermaid or fairy or alien visiting a foreign land, living among the humans as a lifelong research fellow, striving to make sense of humanity. This dissonance has often left me feeling distant from the truest expression of me.

What I’ve learned along my journey is that, the more closely I move to the rhythm of my own drumbeat, the more impact my work seems to create, and the more space I seem to extend to others to stand in their own centers as well. My vision of revolution is a world in which we all grow into the truest expression of our selves, rather than clinging to the limited options that have been presented to us — and in some cases forced on us — as viable. The real work seems to lie in striking a balance between critical consideration of/for others and the vital importance of standing in my own center, without either getting too far gone in the former and sacrificing myself or too far gone in the latter and negatively impacting the people around me.

I’ve built too much muscle memory making it work in a system that feels in direct violation to the vibrations of my spirit, and much of my personal work as an adult continues to be centered around building muscle memory in the opposite direction in order to honor and remain in my own vibration. Given my perception of life, I think it’s this vibration that I’m here to resonate at, and this vibration that can offer the most to the collective while also keeping me grounded along the way. I’m considering how I be, and how I get from how I’ve been and how I’m being to how I’d like to be, now and moving forward. (How I act like I know what all I know.)

And so many of my people — mostly brilliant, skillful, hardworking Black creatives who’ve been weaving and bobbing between the seams of mainstream systems and institutions, staying afloat for years, blessing their communities with creative contributions — are experiencing major changes, instability, loss of work, financial struggles. Seeing this pattern of my current experience being reflected back in the lives of the people around me has me questioning the value of adapting. I’m thinking that instead of continuing to adapt to a system that’s in direct violation of our spiritual truths, it’s time to adapt our systems and the ways we sustain ourselves to our spirits. If more of us operate in this way as opposed to accommodating the status quo, we stand more of a chance of ushering in the world we know is possible.

Maybe if I was inclined to resist the idea of adapting the first or second or 500th time I encountered reasons to adapt, my resistance could be perceived as stubbornness, laziness, arrogance, or any number of possibilities that make me the problem. And to be real, maybe I am the problem. But I’ve spent a lifetime adapting. What’s different now? Something has either tangibly changed in the ecosystem around me, and/or I’ve maxed out my capacity for adapting to a system that violates the songs of my spirit.

I was reminded recently that, when nothing is certain, anything is possible, and that it’s a healthy habit to believe in the possibility of sudden positive shifts. So in a moment of personal disorientation and instability, I’m deciding every day to find my way back to trusting in divine detours and continue living in the way that’s brought me and those around me the most: surrendering and following the path. Let’s walk toward freedom together. 💫

Reflection Questions

I’m reflecting on these questions and sharing them in case you want to do the same:

• Where in my life can I make shifts to be in service of mutual aid?

• What artist can I ask to create a thing I might be inclined to buy from Amazon or another corporation?

• How do I need to better support myself so that I can be more free within the constraints of the system?

• How can I support the people in my communities to do the same?

What I’m Listening To 🔊

If you know me, you know I stay listening to music. Sharing musical gifts with each Substack piece. Enjoy!

In the spirit of trusting that we are the solutions we’re seeking, a song I never tire of and often turn to when I need a little boost in the self-determination department, “Me,” by OSHUN.

Notes

¹Some years back, I shifted from always using a lowercase “w” when writing about White people and/or Whiteness and/or White culture to always using a capital “W” instead. This choice seems to not sit well with many people, and I can understand why. But I feel strongly about making clear that the system of power I’m talking about isn’t a lowercase “w” situation. And lowercasing the “w” ain’t gonna break the system of power. I want to represent the imposing significance of Whiteness and all that comes along with it, and I find it important to distinguish between that and the innocuous naming of the color white. In my view, capitalizing “Black” while making “White” lowercase feels more like a reactionary act that’s ultimately over-concerned with putting Whiteness down in response to anti-Blackness than it does like a move toward linguistic liberation, which I’m always striving for. Got thoughts and feelings? Let’s talk about it! :)

²In my 30s, while starting to get into genealogical research, I learned more about my family’s history in Woburn than I ever knew growing up. Not only has my dad’s family been in Woburn since at least 1870, but multiple family members were on the founding board of a popular Baptist church that’s still a hub of Black community in the Greater Boston area. This learning shifted something in my psyche after having grown up feeling like an outsider in a city that I didn’t know my family actually played a role in building.

³“Nepantlera” is an identity seeded and inspired by Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s writing on nepantla. From the Nahuatl language (which can be traced back to at least 7th century AD in Central Mexico), nepantla means, “in the middle of it,” and is described by Anzaldúa as “the overlapping space between different perceptions and belief systems” (from Anzaldúa’s must-read essay, “now let us shift… the path of conocimiento… inner work, public service”). I see nepantla as reflective of a central truth: contrasting coexistence. The simultaneous presence of elements seen as separate and/or competing or contradictory. As a person of Black African and White European descent, this conceptual frame feels familiar to me, and consciously occupying this complex racial/cultural space has granted me countless opportunities to deepen my understanding of myself and the world around me.

⁴I’m not here to be practical. I’m here to be me. 🧚🏽‍♀️

When I was little, I spent a lot of time walking around Boston with my mom, people watching, window shopping, and just generally enjoying the city. I remember feeling curious whenever I saw people on the street talking to no one in particular — clear, convicted, and present in whatever it was they were going on about. My tendency to tune in when I see someone who fits this description continues to this day, opening my ears a little more in their direction to hear what they’re saying. Enough times, what I hear is coherent, and sometimes I hear resonant wisdom that stays with me.

So many times, though, the people I’m talking about are written off, ran away from, deemed to be delusional. (And I know and acknowledge that there are people who might both fit this description and also be legitimately threatening. I’m not talkin bout them.)

It’s that word I’ve been thinking and talking about a lot lately: delusion. For a while, it seemed to be competing for most frequently brought-up topic with my more long-term signature conversational punch line: “Capitalism ruins everything.” 🙃 Before I go on, I just want to invite you to consider what the word means to you. Like Saul Williams first inspired me to do as a teenager, and Gale Jackson brought me back to during my time in grad school, I interrogate words and aspire to avoid taking them for granted. I’ve been asking myself: When I hear “delusion,” what does the word make me think about? Or maybe who does it make me think about? How do I define it? What’s its opposite?

For me, the answers to these questions have changed over time. In my younger years, I might’ve said delusion was about an individual’s inability to see outside of their own version of things — their commitment to will a narrative into existence. As I’ve become more politicized and radicalized, my associations with the word are less about people’s unhinged behavior and more about the delusional nature of life in the contemporary U.S. And as I write this, I realize that my younger understanding of delusion on an individual level holds up with my older understanding of it on a large-scale, systemic, institutional level: the system is committed to willing its narrative into existence. And therein lies the problem.

“Every accusation is a confession.”

One of the most conspicuous examples of delusion that grinds my gears is the dominant narrative of illegal immigration. I saw someone’s comment on an Instagram thread a few months back that said, “Every accusation is a confession.” Mmhm. That.

I suspect that if you’re here reading my writing, I likely don’t have to do much framing of how I see the history of the U.S. relative to immigration, but let me not be presumptuous. The people who are driving the illegal immigrant narrative are mostly descended from the original illegal immigrants: European colonizers who violently stole the land from its existing inhabitants. On top of that, the illegal immigrant narrative is not only wildly hypocritical from a historical perspective, but also further distorted by its disproportionate discrimination against darker-skinned immigrants, many of whom may or may not have ever made the choice to be in this country if the original illegal immigrants hadn’t stolen their people and forcibly imported them to the here. If it’s truly about illegal immigration and not anti-Blackness, why are we only seeing Black and Brown immigrants encroached upon en masse? If they don’t like illegal immigration, why do they turn a blind eye to that of their ancestors?

Colonialism is nothing if not projection. (You’ll hear this theme resounding if you stick around these parts.)

Another deeply delusional narrative that manages to somehow continue to be upheld while the powers that be (and their minions) actively and aggressively play in our faces is the U.S. Constitution. I’m by no means a constitutional scholar, but it doesn’t take more than an elementary understanding of the document to know that its premise is not reflected in the system it established. “All men are created equal,” it says. But also, enslaved people were literally, legally counted as three-fifths of a person. Within the same document. How does that math add up? The sum is delusion at best. Lies and manipulation seem more likely to me.

What can we expect of a so-called justice system born of this contaminated soil?

Exactly what we’ve gotten.

But underneath this fundamental American delusion, I see some others: the delusion of humans acting like we know what we’re doing here on Earth, and alongside that, the delusion that this insanely inequitable, imbalanced, dissonant, and destructive state of things is the only way the world can be.

Leaps of Faith

Enter my current relationship to delusion. So this actually dates back to at least 2014, when I decided to move away from my Northeastern life to the other side of the country. I didn’t have a job or a program or a relationship or housing lined up when I made the decision. I had two things:

1. reflections from people who know me well, letting me know that Oakland was a place that might make me feel at home, and

2. a feeling — namely, a feeling that proved #1 right.

To some (the “failing to plan is planning to fail” contingency, in particular), this might appear to be a delusional move. But I moved on faith. I trusted the inputs I was getting. I went with my gut instead of my logical brain. I leapt, and the universe caught me. And I’ve learned that there’s only one way to build an embodied trust that the universe can and will catch me when I leap, and that there are ways to live outside of the prescribed box that dominant narratives impose on us: leap, and live!

Once I committed to the move, housing and work magically materialized with remarkable ease. Dream collaborators and friends followed suit. It was the beginning of some of my happiest, most creative, most grounding years yet. Despite very much still living inside of the limited imagination of contemporary American life, I was also managing to live a different way. Existing in my purpose with the support and investment of aligned community. Learning to live into a mutual aid-driven life. Trusting that my contributions carry value beyond money alone, and that investing in them with discipline, devotion, and a pure heart can generate more meaningful and sustainable returns.

An enormous part of the universal force that caught me was community. My people have invested in my work with their money, time, and other resources. So many of my loved ones have opened their homes to me to better facilitate my lifestyle and ability to do my work. When I started teaching Groovement after the pandemic, my now dear friend, Jonathon Fong, who I didn’t know at the time, was sent by the universe to provide AV support for my donation-based community class, free of charge. He continues to do so to this day. He and I have built a strong connection, primarily around our shared vision of what revolutionary, mutual support-driven ecosystems can look like.

When I started making class more explicitly pay-what-you-can / pay-what-you-will, a woman I had built a casual but meaningful connection with through my final 9-to-5 job started contributing $200 every time I taught. She did this because she valued my intentions to center Black and Brown folks and to make class accessible for those it might not otherwise be accessible to. Her donations have helped cover travel fees for groovers who live far from class but want to be there, and have helped me cover expenses when I’m at a deficit after traveling from coast to coast. I feel blessed and inspired by the fact that the dynamic I started to experience back then has maintained and multiplied over the years.

Trusting the Between

This particular moment in time is testing my imagination personally, and seems to be testing our collective capacity to continue accepting the status quo. I’ve noticed lately that a lot of folks in my extended network are being vocal and public about their struggles with depression. While I find it sad to see people suffering, I’m also encouraged by their willingness to say it out loud and I’m curious if this might be a moment when more people come together to shape a different reality. This system is not only delusional but also undeniably unsustainable. I believe we need more of us to not just agree on this but to also (wait for it.) act like we know it. And then we need a critical mass to do something about it.

This time feels to me like the space between the era of delusion and whatever next era is on its way. I feel my personal sense of stability reflecting the instability of the system, crumbling away as I opt into what might be seen as delusion, but what I choose to see as faith (or maybe more honestly a mix of both): I’m trusting that what’s coming is going to be more expansive than what’s been, and that, on a personal level, the universe will wrap its arms around me when I remain in the purity of what my spirit senses and seeks, even and especially when it doesn’t fit within the limitations of colonial and capitalistic projections.

In moments, it feels uncertain and uncomfortable and unhinged. But I – and I suspect many other artists and nepantleras¹ and queers² – have some muscle built for navigating the in-between. It doesn’t resolve the wreckage, but embracing the hazards as well as the blessings of the unknown is a kind of freedom in itself. I go in and out of that freedom, and have a clear embodied understanding of its value, given my contrasting experiences of living within it versus not.

At the end of the day, I still allow fear of repercussion or judgment or other people’s projections to limit my self-expression. When I reflect honestly, I realize that I am so often holding back. (Astounding to those of you who know me well, I know. 🙃) I temper the raw nature of my responses. I share only a fraction of the realities of my radical visions in most cases. Despite all of my theoretical understanding of the dangers of containing and/or contriving oneself for the comfort of others — and the trauma I hold in my body as a result of doing so much more of that in my earlier years — I continue to contain myself to some degree. And I’m in a long study about where to draw the line when it comes to moving through the world as an unfiltered version of myself. (Subtext: so-called “neurodivergent” issues.³)

Interrogating Impulse

When I consider this question, Jean Toomer comes to mind. If we be in conversation about topics like this one, you might have heard me talk about Toomer before. I find his perspectives on identity and his personal journey fascinating and provocative. Most known for his 1923 novel, Cane, Toomer gained attention as an African American Harlem Renaissance writer. He was light-skinned with sharp features and, in my perhaps unobjective opinion, looked less perceivably Black than me. Given this, he was understandably curious about and skeptical of racial binaries. He questioned being categorized as Black from a young age, and eventually came to refuse any racial labels aside from being labeled a member of the human race. I’ll have to write more about this idea at some point, cause I have thoughts and feelings. This isn’t the reason I bring him up, but I do think this context is relevant.

It’s his views on impulse that wove themselves into this web of thoughts, his inquiry into the merits of allowing ourselves to indulge our impulses rather than suppressing them. He celebrated the authenticity that could come about by doing so and critiqued the practice of contorting according to social conventions. And while I consider some practicalities of this perspective in action, I find myself coming back to this provocative and also deeply relatable reflection.

“Restore everything back to yourself.”

My curiosity about the peril versus the value of this kind of contorting has transformed into an embodied understanding that I’ve reached my limit. I’m here to stand in my full being, and my spirit and my spirit guides seem to be saying: It’s time to stop getting in the way. I’ve had a certain sense of disorientation with the ways of the world since as far back as I can remember, so it makes a certain sense to me that I might find myself experiencing fatigue at this point.

During my most recent Oakland trip, as I was walking down Telegraph around 25th one day, I noticed a man in that state that I described at the opening of this piece — speaking deliberately to an audience I couldn’t perceive, or maybe just to himself. I tuned in. “First things first,” is the first thing I heard him say as I passed. “Restore everything back to yourself, then let things settle.”

Sage and timely advice I’m glad I was listening in to receive. In my case, I know that what it looks like to restore everything back to myself is in direct opposition with the current systems of intertwined capitalism, anti-Blackness, and patriarchy⁴ we’re living in. The journey of figuring out how to live more truthfully, divest from these current systems, and invest in a present that allows us experience all that colonialism set out to deny us while still managing to survive continues.

Reflection Questions

I’m reflecting on these questions and sharing them in case you want to do the same:

• How do you relate to the idea that the dominant American narrative is delusional? Do you allow yourself to consider this question? If yes, where does it take you? If no, why not?

• Refelecting on your current reality alongside the nature and desires of your spirit, where are there conflicts or tensions? Are there any small, achievable tweaks you can make to your status quo that could close the gap between your spiritual state and your being/existing?

What I’m Listening To 🔊

If you know me, you know I stay listening to music. Sharing musical gifts with each Substack piece. Enjoy!

While I was looking to find some of Toomer’s work on impulse, there was a happy accident that led to the music accompanying this piece. Google thought I was searching for jazz saxophonist Marion Brown’s work. I then shared with Marion Brown’s son and producer and DJ, Djinji Brown, that I’d come across his father’s Toomer-inspired work. Djinji encouraged me to check out the beautiful Marion̲ B̲r̲o̲w̲n̲ ̲‎– G̲e̲e̲c̲h̲e̲e̲ R̲e̲c̲o̲l̲l̲e̲c̲t̲i̲o̲n̲s̲ ̲(̲1̲9̲7̲3̲)̲ and Mario̲n̲ B̲r̲o̲w̲n̲ ̲– S̲w̲e̲e̲t̲ E̲a̲r̲t̲h̲ F̲l̲yi̲n̲g ̲(1̲9̲7̲4̲)̲ For a little added fun, I’m also sharing a track from one of Djinji’s albums, with some words from his dad.

Notes

1: “Nepantlera” is an identity seeded and inspired by Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s writing on nepantla. From the Nahuatl language (which can be traced back to at least 7th century AD in Central Mexico), nepantla means, “in the middle of it,” and is described by Anzaldúa as “the overlapping space between different perceptions and belief systems” (from Anzaldúa’s must-read essay, “now let us shift… the path of conocimiento… inner work, public service”). I see nepantla as reflective of a central truth: contrasting coexistence. The simultaneous presence of elements seen as separate and/or competing or contradictory. As a person of Black African and White European descent, this conceptual frame feels familiar to me, and consciously occupying this complex racial/cultural space has provided countless opportunities to deepen my understanding of myself and the world around me.

2: When articulating my understanding of queerness, I always find myself turning to this bell hooks quote from a 2014 interview: “As the essence of queer, I think of Tim Dean’s work on being queer and queer not as being about who you’re having sex with — that can be a dimension of it — but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it, and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”

3: While I do think I fit the bill of what people are signaling when they say, “neurodivergent,” I grapple with the term itself. I perceive it as operating from an assumption that there is a such thing as “neurotypical,” which I believe is more about social shaping than the idea that anyone is innately “typical.” I suppose I think we’d all be “neurodivergent” if our social programming weren’t so powerful and limiting, but then, none of us would be diverging from a norm; we’d just all be ourselves :)

4: “Racialized capitalism” is the idea that racism is not an outcome of capitalism but rather pre-dates it and is used as a tool for justifying and maintaining a capitalist state. For some core writing on the concept that Cedric Robinson termed “racial capitalism,” check out this 2017 Robin D.G. Kelley essay.

Since my childhood, I’ve heard people matter of factly say, “If you knew better, you’d do better.” Sounds so simple and so straightforward. But for nearly as long as I’ve been hearing it, I’ve been skeptical of it.

I don’t have to look further than my own life and missteps and bullshit to see that that’s not always the case. Knowing better never felt like the main barrier between me and doing better. There had to be something else keeping me from closing the gap between my ideas and my actions. I now see that something as becoming. Embodying knowledge. Acting like I know. Moving from theory to practice. Muscle memory and implementation over intellect and blabber.

“Act like you know!” was a common refrain among folks on the East Coast when I was growing up. While I was never confused about what it was a call for — to come correct — it wasn’t until very recently that I came to understand it as being about embodiment. A call to act according to the knowledge we supposedly possess.

I’m not someone who aspires to hyper-productivity. I believe in and prioritize rest, and I value time to idle and let my busy, creative, analytical, pattern-tracking mind synergize and settle. What I don’t value is getting in my own way and hesitating to do my work for any number of supposed reasons. Lately I’m being consistently reminded of the need for movement — for action — if the goal is change. No matter how much thinking and theorizing and intellectualizing we do, embodiment is the only way we can actually step into different realities.

“These are the things that reach me, and whatever else happens happens.” - Octavia E. Butler ✨

This is the end of one of the so many Octavia Butler quotes I find resonant. In the longer quote, Octavia explains, “I have to do the thing that it’s important for me to do. I’m basically a storyteller, and I have things that seem important to me… These are the things that reach me, and whatever else happens happens.” Throughout my creative journey, I’ve felt called and driven to share insights that I land on as a result of the sensemaking and webweaving I do to situate myself within the mystery of this curious world. I’ve responded to this call in mostly informal ways — a practice of sending reflective snail mail to my people, curated reflections on my (or is it their? 🤔) social media feed, and, maybe most importantly, in my everyday interactions.

Over the past decade, since leaving the 9-to-5 world, I’ve dedicated the better part of my career to telling other people’s stories, helping people close gaps in their ability to tell them on their own. I’ve seen and heard reflected back to me the ways that my perspective and manner of engaging people have facilitated and strengthened storytelling efforts, while also making people feel heard in ways that make a difference.

And yet I’ve let my stories recede into the background. Despite my deep belief in the power of stories and storytelling, for both the teller and the listener, and my understanding that my personal story is what led to the insights that are valuable enough for people to pay decent money to access them, I’ve relegated my voice to the background while continuing to see my care with language being celebrated and rewarded (financially and otherwise) in other people’s names.

So I’m getting out of my own way, with a little (lotta) help from my friends.

A Space for Integration 🕸️

Enter Act Like You Know, the space I intend to use to integrate and disseminate the vast web of inputs that inform and inspire my thinking. I know there’s value in investing in this venue for sharing. And now it’s time for me to act like I know. The amount of time I’ve spent thinking about and halfheartedly working toward and agonizing over the right structure or platform or title or theme or tone for a newsletter-esque communication is wild. I can’t bear to keep putting it off, to keep almost doing the thing. So here I am. Writing. Taking a step. Seizing the moment.

Because I, like Octavia, am basically a storyteller. My core existence is wrapped up in the practice and power of stories. From leveraging what I learn through literature to processing the patterns that make themselves clear to me as I observe the people, interactions, and world around me, I make sense by weaving.

And so it should make sense that I don’t believe my ideas are mine alone. They’re the alchemical output of the many and varied inputs I’ve devoured and/or absorbed over the years, for better, worse, and everything in between. Just like dance styles, accents, and dialects, my ideas are shaped by particular experiences and particular people in particular contexts, perceived through my particular lens. What makes anything distinct, in my opinion, is simply the unique way an individual sees, experiences, contextualizes, and communicates a thing. The thing is eternal, universal, collective. The vessel is unique. Act Like You Know is an archive of the patterns and connections I notice across the one-of-a-kind mix of inputs I’ve taken in throughout my life. My sensemaking, my webweaving.

Reflection Questions 💡

I’m reflecting on these questions and sharing them in case you want to do the same:

• Think of a personal value you hold that you feel you truly embody. What’s an example of how you embody this value? Does that embodiment come naturally or do you have to work at it?

• Think of a value you aspire to but haven’t quite consistently embodied yet. What’s one thing you can do this week to bring yourself closer to your aspiration? How do you balance giving yourself grace and holding yourself accountable?

What I’m Listening To 🔊

If you know me, you know I stay listening to music. Here’s a little something I have in rotation lately. Enjoy!