cripchick's blog

i recently came home from a whirlwind 12 day trip to portland and san francisco.

my time in portland felt much like a “tour” in that it was not a conference or gathering, it was about seeing me (think “come see cripchick speak here!” x 5 times… and people actually showing up). i kind of fell in love with the gratification of facilitating successful workshops, breaking ableism down and having ppl get it, and getting the respect of people i respect. there was a time where i was looking around the room in portland and was surprised that i could say i hadn’t met one straight person all day — i was completely immersed in queer crip community. (sad thing is i could also say that i hadn’t met one person of color, portland is WHITE yall).

and then i went to san francisco, right?

it was even more mind-blowing. here i was in community with artists, poets, organizers. the sins crew. azolla story fam.

carved out a routine rooted in crip interdependence.
slept in late and started my mornings writing poems under the shade of a lemon tree.
spent the days engaged in conversations with queer crips of color.
stayed in the home of the most generous person i’ve ever met.
spontaneously met up with two queer koreans, only to hear that there were more of us.
explored an accessible city.
ate delicious food.
got deliriously lost in a crush.

no matter where i travel to, every trip home always begins with a deep sigh of recognition. i love the south. can’t imagine living anywhere else. at the same time, coming home was really hard this time. although this is where i belong, it is also the place where my reality is one rooted in military chain of command culture, heteronormativity/hypermasculinity, and the fact that there is not much room for non-black folks in people of color organizing (very much a black/white dichotomy). i kind of don’t know what to do with my sadness. the “right” answer seems to be to move (whether that is another town/city in the south, like durham or atlanta, or another region) but this… is my home.

a friend/fellow organizer once said that this is the question every southern queer faces: “stay in your home of origin or [if even possible,] move to a place where you have more resources?”

wish i had an answer.

look at little ms. social butterfly
wings carrying her between movements
that girl finds commonality
everywhere

look at little ms. social butterfly
holding your hand & greeting you with a kiss, a hug
she will come
to read poetry
with you
to organize
with you
to walk, talk, and overanalyze
with you

but somewhere between hello
and how are you
she is gone

always pollinating
look at the way she has brought us all together!
no can’t you see
she flies between us all
never calling one place home

could you love little ms. social butterfly
knowing she will be fully present
but only for a little while?

could you love little ms. social butterfly
knowing this, this fluttering between communities,
is the only way
she has figured out
how to survive?

maybe she is all of us:
a breadth of experiences and identities reflected in the patterns of our wings
let’s fly to new heights
and find somewhere to return

weaving together bridges
and relying on no one’s backs

look at little ms. social butterfly

detroit was really powerful to me because it meant that there were always 20-30 people in a half mile radius that i could trust with ANYTHING. still, after the conference, every single person i have talked to has said something along the lines of “it was great to see you! i wish we had time to hang.” i am seeing so many pictures and jokes of moments i missed with people because i was somewhere else. where was i? how many communities am i flying between? if you are having conversations with multiple groups of people, do you ever get to go deep with any of them?

who do you consider a leader?

the person who speaks the loudest?

the one with the quickest tongue?

the person who knows how to control everything?

lost an amazing friend yesterday… life is a weird thing. we are so wrapped up in ourselves that too many times it takes a tragedy occuring for us to appreciate other. you can talk to someone, work with someone, accomplish a million things with that person, but do you know how much you need them? do you recognize the intricate way that they are woven into the delicate fabric that is your life?

this woman was the kind of leader i want to be. it didn’t matter if folks had decades-deep histories that go back to times before i was even born, she was able to bring people together. never painted any one person, one agency, as the enemy. made folks act civil and talk to each other. fundamentally, she believed everyone was acting in good faith and she worked as though it was always just a matter of reaching resolution. under her leadership, we have taken steps i never thought were possible. maybe it’s only with this philosophy that bridges are able to be built. good faith.

she used her connections and her power to make other people’s leadership possible.  i think it is a testament to who she was that i did not even realize how much we need her until she is gone— she never put her name on anything and led by supporting people.  helped my youth crew and i navigate system after system so we could get what we needed. whenever we succeded, she never tried to control us or claim our work as hers. if she disagreed with us, she never silenced us. while other well-intentioned adult allies would tell us that our project ideas were impossible because of politics, she would come in and in minutes, make it all seem so simple. she would tell us what we had to do to make it happen and that if we did those things, she would extend her support and work on things from the inside. she always treated us with respect. always believed.

skill + respect + a pure heart for community… that’s the kind of leader i want to be. that’s jeannie wolff-rossi.

lost an amazing friend this week. don’t know what to do, except to study her leadership, lift her name up, and continue forward in her memory.

for years my mom carried me on her back using a technique similar to a fireman’s lift. my family lived in a tiny duplex and even when i grew bigger than her (she is 5’1 and 105 pounds), she still carried me. now i live in a wheelchair accessible house and have home healthcare nurses, but the effect of her carrying me is still very present. today she woke up not being able to move and it is very often that her joints are burning or the house smells like menthol because we are all wearing a million muscle relaxers.

back pain is common for every woman in my family. my great aunt has back pain because she has spent 60+ years working on a farm (and is still doing so at 80 years old). my halmoni has back pain because she walked miles to work everyday and at 82 years old, runs our household. i do not do any physical labor but i have back pain because of disability. part of the reason my family pushes my younger sister so hard to succeed is so she doesn’t experience this negotiation of pain. too early to tell.

if i wrote a blog post yesterday, it would have spoken to tired shoulder blades and burning muscle. the world sits squarely between our shoulders. i do not know how we are so invisible when we are the ones keeping these movements, these communities, together. as activists and as poets, we talk about building new frameworks but everyday is another attempt to keep a closing door open. with the recession, people are losing jobs and states are slicing budgets. it is a heavy door but we stand firmly in the threshold. this week i feel like i am a conductor on an underground railroad, sneaking people in and moving forward before people realize that our tired feet are carrying us towards freedom. so exhausted that when i am not working, i am upset at something or sleeping.

even though i am so tired, i am also happier than i’ve ever been before in my life. not holding back on anything. nonprofit industrial complex likes to make things sterile, creates these pockets of movement where people are told they are leaders but look at injustice simply as work and feel no accountability or commonality with others. first time in my life where i am not messing with that, where i feel no obligation or investment in that. i have found more and when i feel tired, when my back is breaking, community tells me to rest. i can trust that they will carry me, it is what we are building.

thank you for being in community with me.

in response to dr. elle, my buddy (email is coming), and my girl nadia