How are you? There is something beautiful about spring. Not only in the magnolias that begin to bloom around my neighborhood of Brooklyn, but the slow awakening of a world larger than the one I see. On the walk while dropping O off at school this morning, we had this slow hug that could evoke levels of disgust. As if there was no 2:40 or 5pm pick-up promise. Or a clock that said he was already 20 minutes late. These moments of walking with him alone not only make up for the difficulty that he sometimes offers me, but also the inconsistencies (and possible difficulties) I offer back.
If I think too hard, spring means another public school year is nearly done. And if I stay with it as a tangible sentiment shared between us to carry us through our day, I am able to accept it as it beautifully is. We, as people, but also we who occupy this season. I can see the work of winter. And that alone allows for a reverence of what lays ahead. I made things. I loved people. I let go. Or at the very least, I learned where and how I could do it with more ease.
“For a long time I’ve felt drawn to explore ‘in-between’ spaces, a concept which seems to have been shared by ancient cultures since time immemorial. In Celtic mythology, these liminal spaces manifest as an awareness of the unnameable places, not to be found on any map. They can be sites of transition, neither one thing nor the other. A few examples include doorways, shorelines, the forest’s edge, or for this series, tide pools.” Writes photographer, Laurence Ellis in Atmos.
Seven years ago this month we hiked nearly an hour to Annaly Bay Tide Pools in St. Croix. We took photos, and I was afraid (as I often am) that I’d slip and hit my head on a rock and would never return home to my two young children. Other than that moment of morbidity, the hike and subsequently, the beautiful trip was the final confirmation I needed to say goodbye to that young love of children and struggling careers. For what it’s worth, I knew well before the tide pools, but swimming in that liminal space of sediment and sea, blissful and equally afraid, was feedback and a dose of bravery to make the call for us all. To be somewhere and not. To want to be with someone and know you cannot. To want something to work so bad that you’d risk drowning yourself in the beauty and intricacies of their personhood to make it true.
Tide pools, as Ellis mentions, are neither land, sea or sky.
“We tend to compartmentalize the world into land, sea, and sky; yet, tide pools cannot be constrained to this binary standard of thinking.” Ellis notes.
I have thought often of the tide pool and that afternoon, and how I had swam in it together and quite alone. More-so, how the tide pool gave room for an approach to a unique relationship to myself that must encompass exes, children, careers, New York City, personal will and failures to control gravitational forces. Tide pools. For seven years since, we have existed in a liminal space where only my best friends and sister know details.
On the way to school, before our hug and kisses, O and I spoke of his dad and the weekend ahead (I am well aware it is only Wednesday), “He’s so goofy!” I laughed. “He is really goofy!” Oak responded. And then in unison, we both laughed once more and spoke about their plans and our collective immeasurable and flawed love.
I remember the magnitude of the tide pool. I remember how the heel of my foot sunk into the bottom of it, only to acclimate with the other organisms I couldn’t name. I remember how I did not fall when I feared my foot would slip with my children over the last seven years of swimming in this space. There were days and weeks where my head was nearly covered in the sea of everyone and their needs. But I did not drown. Tide pools are what remain. And they are generous. As winter was and just as spring will be. Maybe, the way detaching with love is too. Something I was learning then, and am still learning now, albeit differently.
With love,
L
7 Things I Imagined
I am doing something different and quite fun. Art for art's sakes. Over the last four years I’ve haphazardly shot some film photographs as a way to contend with my relationship with visibility and erasure. My friend Rubi and I have curated a small show of the photographs and a Journal. You can read more on instagram. If you’re in New York City, I would love it if you stopped by our opening party! RSVP right here.
NYPL archive of peonies which reminds me of my wedding postcards.
“Divulging the intimate stories of others or repeating an unkind thing happens for a host of non-malicious reasons too: some people are just bad at keeping things to themselves, or (as the series seems to submit) feel fatally inadequate unless they are keeping the more powerful or socially secure entertained. It could even be more innocent than that — many of us have revealed intel that seemed too dated to adversely affect anyone, or let slip something that we thought the other party already knew (or just did it by accident). But what we inevitably learn from these experiences is that you almost never regret keeping your mouth shut, especially if a tale wasn’t yours to tell. So unless something major is at stake, we serve ourselves best when we resist the impulse to disclose everything we know. Even if it’s amusing or would feel good or net us points, giving up a secret is an impossible thing to undo — and nearly as hard to forgive.” Is It Okay to Gossip?
I had the guava roll every day when I went to CMDX. Elena Reygadas, the chef behind Rosetta shares her favorite dish. “The guava roll from our bakery has become Rosetta’s signature dish. Though it’s unusual to consider bread a dish, this is what we’re most associated with. It’s a puff pastry bread filled with guava jam, a fruit adored in Mexico and across Latin America. The caramelized jam is paired with soft cheese in the pastry, a twist on the traditional Mexican dessert of ate con queso.”
I went to Snapchat’s offices and listened to an inspiring panel on teens and safety. I shared a bit more of my role in the digital editorial landscape, and how I use Snap’s Family Center tools for and with River right this way. I appreciate these partnerships that align on so many levels.
“Race is obviously an important theme for her, yet so is her focus on the mundane — on boredom, something rarely explored in art and often reserved only for white people. (Manet’s prostitute has always looked bored to me, which is part of what makes her so appealing.) In art, as in media of all kinds, Black women have often been either represented as subordinate, like Olympia’s maid, or as a dignified heroine (and in Hollywood movies, usually a little of both). Mckinney looks past these extremes at something altogether more subtle. Perhaps only someone with her experience — an artist who was only recently able to quit her day job — could truly appreciate how important the act of doing nothing can feel. “I can show us taking a nap and smoking a cigarette, butt naked on a sofa at the end of the day with red fingernail polish,” she said. “I can show us [being] normal.”” I think I linked this Danielle Mckinney story before, but here we are. Finding new bits in read pieces.
This is such a lovely reflection on spring 🌸 Tide pools remind me of being a child and daring to tickle my toe across the tendrils of an unsuspecting sea anemone. It's the little things in life.
Also, thank you for sharing that painting by Danielle Joy McKinney. It's beautiful.