Queeries: pre-Pride prayers
🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 Progress Pride flag emoji when?
a prayer for peace & processing
I’m writing to you from a nighttime Amtrak train, heading from one social event (a fundraising gala for Ascendant Neighborhood Development) to another (Dark Matter U retreat). It’s 2023, three years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and my social battery needs a replacement—its charging capacity is depleted; it nosedives from 98 to 0 unexpectedly; the last of its juice was spent on last year’s in-person events, and never recovered. Love a good get-together and chit-chat, but love a quiet night in even more.
I think it’s the small talk that’s exhausting me. I think it’s the pretending, the masking, the hollow pleasantries. The herculean effort to sustain that barely-skimming-the-surface position. I want to talk action. I want to dive deep, dream big, go down a rabbit hole until I’m in another dimension. To hear stories of conflict and healing, of love and loss, of memories and regrets. I want to get to the point. It’s not so much a desire to be productive at all times than it is a dogged drive for stronger human connection.
More than anything, though, it’s just becoming harder and harder for me to not be myself. Which, coming from a nonbinary / genderqueer person, sounds like a cliche, because that’s what we’re all about, obvs. I use be myself in a spiritual-plus-primal kind of way—as in, just be-ing. Doing things when I want to, rather than defaulting to classist notions of earning or deserving the right to do certain things. Trusting my intuition. Sometimes doing nothing, or very little at all.
Yes, it appears that my desire for stronger human connection and concurrent wish to do nothing / just be are opposed to each other. No, I’m not sure I’ll have it all figured out anytime soon.
Clearly, I’m still processing.
a prayer for the end of the semester & the start of the summer (semester)
Someone asked me if I was happy the spring semester is over and I’d be lying if I said no. The past 16 weeks have been hectic. The students in the studio I co-taught read The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies by Dr. Tiffany Lethabo King; devised alternate cartographies with which to “map” the Ohio-to-Pennsylvania region; and traveled to Cleveland and Pittsburgh to present their speculative designs with local stakeholders. I woke up the day after my studio’s final review feeling dreadfully drained despite having been the well-rested co-instructor—not a sleep-deprived student. Only two weeks and two days have passed since the final, but it already feels like many, many moons ago.
The students did amazing work. I feel like I’m still learning how to talk right and not embarrass myself in front of the entire Architecture Department. In the calm that is the end of the semester, I feel called to reflect on the pedagogies that have influenced my performance, my professor drag. Here’s to more collaboration, curiosity, and creativity grounded in history and justice.
a prayer for the start of pride month
Moreso this year than any other year, I feel unprepared, unready, unwilling to accept the reality that June is here again.
Moreso this year than any other year, I pledge to accept that I cannot do all the things, hold space for my fear of missing out, and embrace the fact that I am still queer enough even if I cannot physically party the night away (unless I replace my social battery???).
I crave a different kind of party, a different kind of play.
a prayer for gratitude
Thank you for continuing to read Queeries, even while it currently resembles the goo in the chrysalis. The butterfly will emerge soon, I promise.
Thank you for nudging me on in all of your brilliant ways. As sentient goo, I require abundant encouragement to make order from the chaos, or to revel in the disorganization.
Thank you for listening so far. Lots more to listen to, to come.
🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 I hope these words inspire in some way, shape, or form.
🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
Until next time,
A.L.