Lichen and grey skies.
The space formerly known as Ambrosia.
Hi Rosemary!
I love Joong Boo.
Meatballs and cones of wool for the solstice.
Never Rush!
SWAG
When I started writing this I intended to send it out before the New Year and yet here we are, already half a week into it. A Happy New Year to you and yours!
Most years I resolve to be kinder and drink more water, but this year I’ve found myself with a real flame for resolutions. One is to inhabit this platform a little more regularly, now that the shell shock of going full time is wearing off. Thank you for spending another year with my weird thoughts, sporadic as they have been!
When the alarm went off this morning I woke up in a panic, heart-a-thumpin’, because it had been days since I let the chickens out. I had already swung my legs out of bed before I remembered that I haven’t been responsible for a flock since I left my hometown over a decade ago. Chicken adrenaline saw me into the shower and out again in the span of time it usually takes me to stop tapping snooze. Now I find myself with a truly choice prize- early morning time to write as the kettle works hard on the power burner. The humidifier turns the flame orange and I put on Shells, quietly. I’m making our coffee: 33.3g of fragrant ground beans and little quarter sized circles with the gooseneck kettle like my sweetheart taught me all those years ago. I manage to pay attention to the bloom and the resulting coffee is very good.
Chicken sitting in my early 20’s was a transformative experience. Not because of the birds- I was well familiar with chickens by that point and I found this bunch to be particularly skeptical, prone to protesting mightily if you put them to bed a moment before sunset, regardless of your evening plans and the endlessness of the mid-summer days. Watching the chickens was transformative because each part of the experience was carried out in a setting where my queerness was both validated and entirely normal. Knowing that there was an oasis like that a few blocks over made me feel safe and calm walking the neighborhood, the way I had as a child. And all that from briefly negotiating chicken care and standing alone with the flock in the indifferent backyard garden. I was so desperate for moments of queer normativity and connection, hungry for them, and I couldn’t yet fathom how to conjure them up myself, so when I chanced into one I stood very still and tried not to miss a single word or gesture. I wanted to know everything but especially how do we live? The answer was always the same: together.
For some time I took togetherness literally. Each apartment that came up for rent in the small split bungalow where I lived was filled by a queer friend. The tiny studio. The converted garage. We had thin walls and big gaps in the floorboards and a summoning song that carried right through both. I had speakers so we danced in my living room, bumping hips and shaking the dust from the crumbling drop ceiling. We congregated nightly on the shared porch, packing friends and crushes onto cracked cement steps, bodies springing up periodically to somersault down the sloped lawn when our collective electricity surged. Half of us were farming that summer- we were insatiable and languid in the evenings. Sun doped and sprawling we tried on one another’s lives in endless, looping conversations, too tired to hesitate in vulnerability. We shouted, then whispered, staying up until the beer was gone and the stars were out and our eyelids drooped, often making up extra beds on the floor, extra coffee in the morning. It was a brutal time, because we were so young and raw that everything hurt, and it was a good time because we were together.
Although I’d still like to have everyone wedged in around the kitchen table- that’s no secret- as I’ve gotten older I’ve eased my proximal requirements for being together. Partially out of necessity, since my web of safe places and trusted people now spans many states, and partially because I no longer have to stumble into the relief of normativity. Years of observation, then practice has given me the ability to initiate queer connection and ease amongst strangers and acquaintances. I love to watch shoulders lower and brows smooth when it’s just us, alone together. It’s no small thing- while it is possible to survive for long periods of time without that practical, uncomplicated solidarity, it is crucial in order for us to thrive.
Maybe I dreamt of the chickens because last winter’s bird of prey has returned to the Norway Spruce out back and knowing that brings a brief, instinctual pang for all things small and earthbound. I track the white splatter on the garage roof and note the browning drops of blood in a line on the lawn furniture, trying to discern how often we’ve been visited and by whom. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle, but it’s not my way to be unnerved by a bird- it’s January 20th on the horizon that has me nervous and gnawing at my cuticles. I lean over the frost kissed herb bed and whisper how will we live? to the silvery sage and blackened nasturtiums. Together, they whisper back, their roots entangled with the Spruce and the raspberry canes.
This is beautifully written. I could feel my own shoulders lower and brow smooth as I read about connection in queer spaces. Connection is the tether that will guide us through this year.
Thank you! I love reading your writing.