HALLO!
In my unplanned month of radio silence both of our semesters ended- Tavi’s in a flurry of papers and graduation, with honors, and then a roaring celebration to meet the occasion, and mine in the quiet, dust-settling calm that filters in once the school is drained of students. I’ve been sorting through piles of detritus, extracting usable notions from bits of yarn and scraps of fabric. Washing tables and pinning funny notes next to my desk. I’ve done very little writing and spent almost no time in the studio, but somehow a sweater came off my needles and I wove a small pile of cotton towels. We set up radios throughout the house for consistent listening, and as a result I’ve caught some or all of each afternoon Boogie Bang this Spring. Tavi read my favorite book for the first time, which was a real pleasure for us both, and I dug out some writing on it that I started a few years ago (below). Anyway- I’ve missed you! Here’s a small selection of things I’ve collected this last month.
The only thing I wrote in May:
It’s SPRING! Rain, hail and a sort of needling, sideways snow have all soaked into the ground and brought forth flowers and tender, new leaves in abundance. The dust storm just south of us manifested in wind and rain up here, knocking over the Bleeding Hearts and shaking Squirrel nests out of the Spruce. Big wet splats of wool and soaked leaves dotted the yard briefly in the morning, already gathered up and reinstalled by afternoon. It’s so cold right now, chilly enough at night that I hop into bed whooping and hollering and flop around like a fish to warm the frigid sheets. We debate the merits of bringing out another wool blanket and settle for socks. Still, we’re only two weeks behind SE Michigan in our Spring, rather than our usual four. The Orioles are back in the Box Elder and the slow Locust has started to burst.
Fall on Your Knees (started in September, 2022, finished June, 2025)
When I was 14 I went to the Ann Arbor District Library book sale and bought a $1 paperback copy of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s novel Fall on Your Knees because I liked the cover and the title. I don’t remember the day specifically- what I wore as I squatted by the book boxes under the folding tables, or where my plans carried me next (although, falafel would be a safe bet). I had no idea at the time that I had changed my own life.
I was a pretentious reader as a youth. Always one eye over the top of my book making sure my arduous choices and speed were being noticed. I liked the attention that reading got me, especially from older folks. Oh I loved being told how smart and clever I was. But when I cracked Fall on Your Knees all pretension dropped away. I fell in love, the way you can with a book. That was more than half of my life ago and I still remember reading the last page that first time and then immediately flipping back to the first page and starting again. It was on the second round that I noticed the illustrations, I remember that too, the mental gasp that they elicited as my brain parsed out hips and toes. I’ve read it once or twice a year since then, reaching for it in times of need and times of exuberance. I age and grow and the book remains the same, but I swear I read it for the first time with each pass.
Fall on Your Knees is what my book friends and my mom call a hard book. It introduced me to my favorite genre- Canadian Devastation. It’s written beautifully, with the sort of skill that dissolves the page in front of you. It’s the story that is hard to swallow and often painful. Or so I’ve been told. There is assault and violence and great tragedy- these are terribly hard things, yes. But above all else there are family secrets, straining in their shallow graves, yearning for the sun. That was the story that I needed to read and haven’t stopped needing in the 19 (21) years since.
I was so young when I first read Fall on Your Knees- at 14 I was still a child. But even then my mind did not strain to find room for this story. It walked into my cavernous awareness of such darkness and lit a match. As long as I can remember I have held stories that I was told too young and then asked to carry alone. Family secrets whose main characters were oceans away, or long dead. In my child mind they softened into fairy tales, dressed up with make believe and fantasy both to separate them from the day to day and to normalize them. As I got older and began to parse out the fact from fiction I staggered under the weight of what I’d hardly known I was carrying.
As an adult I find few people to be unburdened by such things. Even a careful life invites pain and heavy burdens- to pass through the years unscathed is to cling to other devastations: distance, isolation. With living, breathing humans offering up empathy I no longer crack Fall on Your Knees in desperation for solidarity, but I still turn to it once or twice a year out of habit, seeking comfort or insight. I read it as a writer, as a lover, as a mischief maker. I read it because I miss Frances, because I long for Rose. It is one of my most enduring relationships, familiar down to the punctuation on each page.
An update on the Transmissions Quilt Project:
Transmissions creates a channel through which trans people remind each other of our inherent belonging. We do this by making each other quilts. Quilts have been given as gifts to mark transition across time and cultures. They help us see ourselves on longer time scales, which is an experience that many trans people can't access. May these quilts keep us living. May they surround us with each other.
The first 23 quilts are being displayed at an exhibit at Berkeley Public Library in June 2025 before they are delivered to their recipients. We will then start the next round of 20 quilts. The project currently pays 134 trans artists and consists of oral histories and quilts, as well as a range of other mediums used to help inspire quilt design. We have plans for a traveling exhibit around the country to places our quilters and recipients live, and each show will be placing project photography and quilts next to local trans artists working in other mediums.
Some Links:
Also in Berkeley: QUILTS!
It’s always a good time to donate to Assata’s Daughters.
Happy pride month, queers. <3 <3 <3
That quilt show is so amazing!! I wish I could see it, I yearn for more quilts-as-art in my city
Fall On Your Knees is magnificent. I also loved The Way the Crow Flies. I'm now searching Canadian Devastationism as a genre.