time

your annual reminder of the inexorable passage of time, as delivered by notifications from apps you thought you’d uninstalled and newsletters you thought long dead

a year ago tonight, i was at a noise demo in front of a florida jail. the goal of a noise demo is to make as much noise as possible so the people in the jail can hear you and know they are not alone. always these noises are jubilant, even when they are also terrible or grating or un poquito mucho. joy is simply the essential flavor of waves which seek to break through prison walls, the only frequency profound enough to pass through stone.

that night feels so long ago. this year is extremely dilated and contracted. it’s giving birth. feels like eternity ago. (breathe) can’t believe it’s already over (breathe). i don’t know what it’s giving birth to. but who ever does? we just hope for the best and commit to love whatever comes out, sight unseen, like crazy people.

in the spirit of the year end wrap up and of honoring my journey this year, i will be giving myself a variety of emoji stickers for a job well done.

this is the first year of my adult life i haven’t worked 🌟. like, at a job, for money 🤑 honestly, it’s been fucking great. i haven’t felt this creatively engaged in my entire adult life. it took me several months of not giving my brain to the vibrations of the machine before i really started developing a writing practice. ✍🏾  it’s still not all the way there, not by a long shot. but i have half… well, let’s say a quarter of a novel written, given the quantity of aimless words which will probably end up on the cutting room floor. i’m really excited about it though, even the pieces which will end up dead. i feel like i’ve been trying to tell this story for a decade and now, finally, i can begin to feel it kicking. the ink is flowing drip by drip. sometimes like blood from a stone. but sometimes like blood from a pig—copious, flowing so easy from a nice type O- jersey boy who pleads his family and kids and wife’s belly before devolving into spittle-mouthed epithets as the last drops drain away 🩸 and then the quiet: a little lonely, but also so satisfying.

my sense of humor remains intact.

funemployment has also been disorienting & stressful. it has taxed my sense of worth as few other things have. all this has been good for me. builds character. 💪🏾  it’s really easy to think very highly of yourself when someone is paying you a lot for your brain. (honestly explains a lot). it is much harder when you find yourself asking your friends for various kinds of resources, constantly relying on the generosity of your community. it’s not easy to receive. it’s especially not easy to receive when you really need what’s being offered, when your respectable upbringing tells you to politely refuse or get them back bigger. not fighting for the check has been so much harder than fighting for the check ever was. and this is just the slightest brush with scarcity, protected as i am by both family home whose door i can always show up at and a skillset which for better or worse means that i can quickly get a lot of resources if i choose to. choosing not to feels particularly loaded, given the context of tremendous need which so many people find themselves in, and without any easy means of escape.

i think about skaye a lot ☁️ always but especially now. they lived so much of their life in this exact position: poor, but with resourced friends. trying to be seen and acknowledged as useful while providing nothing that the ~free market~ says is worth more than minimum wage. trying to live while making yourself as small and inconsequential as possible. i’ve noticed in myself quirks and neuroses which i’d previously seen in them. there were times when i wanted to shake them and say i’m here to help you, just accept the help! or, even trickier: i’m having feelings, but you are still safe. i didn’t not get it before, but i also didn’t get it

💗 this is the first year since they were killed that it has felt possible for me to begin a conversation with any other fact

💔 my heart feels broken like all the time. but not just about them anymore. it has grown around the grief as promised, and now there are so many more sorrows to fill it with. i cry a lot. i miss the people i love who are not here or are not close. i cry for the lives we might have had if i were not so fucked up, and then i feel stupid for crying over trivial things in a world so defined by genocide and extinction. the sorrows press so close that i can’t really tell them apart anymore, can’t separate them from the grief of losing dear loves and possible futures. i think skaye would like that.

❤️‍🔥 i’ve really had a lot of great sex, and i think skaye would like that too.

🐍 i’ve changed my name so many times that i can now truly say that whatever you call me is probably ok

🌸 this is the first year i’ve been able to give myself really fully to the communities i’m a part of. last february, i helped organize a work gathering at passionvine. i’ve spent the year doing actions ✊🏽, jail support, mutual aid, play parties 💦 writing letters to incarcerated folks. as much as not having a “job” has stressed my sense of self-worth, it really has opened more space for me to feel strong and useful in other ways.. i do really feel a lot more capable than a year ago, able to show up in a new place with a new crew and do what’s needed—cook, organize, make spreadsheets, make fliers, scream, bang drums. i feel like i can finish things, like i have finally figured out the strange alchemy of community and commitment required to get my brain to settle enough to call something done. i feel stronger 💪🏾 in a way that i did not acknowledge until writing these here words.

🍑 i am also literally stronger and also my butt is looking pretty great due to a consistent lifting practice and a great coach (thanks tilde)

and this coming year? we’re finally building the memorial. this will involve moving or more likely disassembling a school bus, and i am very excited. i’m finishing the (first draft of the) book. i am setting down some roots in SF, though my time and heart will continue to be smeared all over the place. i’m building an AI and getting a job, possibly not in that order. we’re going to erase the borders and stop the wars, or failing that, plant some basil and tomatoes and make a hearty sauce. and if none of that happens, we’re just going to breathe through it and love whatever comes out

xoxo
ash