"Who they came to see?"
Tuesday trifles and some photos
Hey, you. I hope upon our meeting that your heart is feeling exuberant and full of joy and warmth and desire. If not, then I hope you can take a deep breath wherever you are, right now. I hope you can pull air into your lungs and remember that no matter where you are, you are a vibrant human being who is very, very loved.
My thoughts today come to you in what feels accessible—a list:
I think I am going to take the rest of the month off from writing *for* anything. Outside of this weekly newsletter, journaling (both for myself and my babies), sorta-kinda-essays littered across my Google Docs, and writing and editing technical stuff at work, I feel like I am always writing for an application or a fellowship or a maybe this could be a thing thing. I am a bit burnt out, of the figuring out which thing feels like my best thing, of whether it should be fiction or nonfiction, of trying to sum up what my statement on my writing practice is, editing editing editing, and sending and paying and waiting… I need a break. There’s a great quote in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, that I don’t have written down because the book was due back on hold for someone at the library, and I took too many notes to transcribe, but the quote was about writer’s block, and how block indicates that there’s a bunch of shit preventing the expression of your creativity when really, it’s that you’re empty. Writing lately feels empty of play, despite it still being enjoyable, and this is what I need to sort out.
The cosmos has a very dry sense of humor. I just thought you should know that.
I finished Britney’s The Woman in Me this weekend and honey. Lord. I truly pray for her well-being.
If you’re Hive, I expect you’re likely on your second showing of Renaissance. (I will be seeing it for the third time this weekend, and this time with my sister.)
I had never seen a real movie until I saw one in Dolby. The SOUND! The picture QUALITY! I fear I have now been made screen bougie. (November 30, 2023) I attempted to explain all of my feelings in two earlier newsletter drafts, but I don’t even have the right words, and don’t even want to try. It’s like explaining magic, or how the sun painting the clouds at dusk makes you feel. What a (UNIQUE!) woman. I was so deeply grateful to catch the Tampa leg of the tour, and I’m even more grateful that she immortalized not only the tour but the process on film. She is a gift and that film is a work of art, not just for those of us who love her, but for anyone who appreciates art and grit and fashion and sangin’ and ballroom and visuals and movements. (Believe it or not, someone in the first showing actually spoke during the Mute Challenge. It was dark, so we forgave them and still cheered when Bey dropped the beat.)
The best concert I’ve been to in 20 years of concerting. Eternally grateful to be Hive. (August 16, 2023, Tampa, FL) I went to a farm for retired horses with my family and we had such a sweet time feeding them and walking up and down the acres of pastures. Did you know horses like apples, bananas, and carrots?
My favorite humans on Earth. (December 2023, Alachua County, FL) I spoke to every single horse I saw and my sweet Cancerian daughter did the same thing. I wanted to pet them very much but did not. The hairs on their mouths tickled as they pulled carrots out of my palm with their lips and teeth. My heart is still so full.
Is this my baby, or is this my baby? (December 2023, Alachua County, FL) Do you know how aggravating it is to decide to do something like leave Instagram and realize, much to your chagrin, that you kind of can’t? Not out of lack of willpower, but because it’s just too much in a life that already feels like it has too much going on. I don’t have hours to sit and extricate and organize my stories, of which basically served as a quasi-diary for a number of years. Yes, I downloaded all my data, but surprise surprise, it is not only not organized, but I’m not sure that everything is there. Not to mention the fact that, though I don’t want to use IG mindlessly or daily again, I also don’t want to become completely isolated. *sigh*
Ooooooh, who they came to see? Me / Who rep like me? Don’t make me get up out my seat… (I have had Beyoncé’s “My House” playing on loop in my soul since the moment I heard it. Thank God for The Mother of the House of Renaissance.)
The Queen Mother tossing her hair in a clip from the film; this clip (in IMAX) is from the Tampa show, which means I saw her do this in real time, though it is all one big pure/honey blur. Y’all, I have visited Gainesville about three times in as many years, which may not seem significant until I tell you that I probably visited that same number of times in the 12 years (pre-COVID) that it had been since I graduated. If Gainesville and I’d had a relationship status on Facebook, it would have been it’s complicated. Visiting in little spurts (and taking my family along) has been surprisingly healing. The wild thing about healing is that it absolutely feels like shit in the beginning… and often continues to feel like shit. But those moments get smaller, and you learn how to deal with them differently. And as you keep going, the world around you looks and feels and then becomes different, and you become different, deeper. I can try to explain this too, but I fear it’s like trying to explain how the twinkle of a star above your head is both in the inky black sky and inside of your heart. I’ll trust you can understand.
Young Mal is very, very proud of how far we’ve come. (December 2023, Museum Road and SW 13th Street, Gainesville, FL)
