Small update: I go out dancing a lot these days because we found a club that plays plays Patti Smith đ¸ and Chic DJ prowess: @afowler_xx https://ift.tt/2Hp9lxy
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Even though Iâm still fighting bureaucratic beasts at the immigration office, Iâm settling into my new life slice by slice. As Valencia becomes more of a home to me, I feel extreme gratitude for every artist who made work that felt like disagreement or comfort or falling in love, and especially for the folks who made the pieces I look at every day over my desk. Some of these tidbits are relatively new to me, and some have been on my walls for years. Regardless of how long Iâve been staring at them or where I am in the world, these words and images keep me grounded. If they speak to you, too, check out the artists tagged and follow their work. (Calling card by Adrian Piper, âMy dear worldâ chapbook by Meia Geddes, film stills by Andrei Tarkovsky, and half these works found at the happy happy place that is @kczinecon) https://ift.tt/2M2YZXj
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On Female Friendship (or, why I drive with the windows down)
âYou canât take my peace, bitch!â she shouted to the Acura that had cut us off in sweaty, tangled Baltimore traffic. The three of us were driving to the airport after a much-too-brief 48 hours together in deep Maryland, a place where the hot air hung thick and green beneath countless Trump flags and sputtering two-engine planes.
When I say that Iâm in love with these women, I mean it in the way of love Iâve felt few times in my life. Itâs love, an emotion that no degree of italics could capture. The way I feel for the two of them is doubtlessly deeper and more tangled than the way Iâve felt for almost all of my romantic partners. Itâs an attachment that I suspect most folks are lucky to feel a handful of times in this life, let alone for so long.
What no one ever discusses about this kind of love is that itâs discouragingly difficult. Itâs work, and patience, and understanding. Itâs waiting three years to see each other because thatâs the way life carries you. Itâs forgiving each other when you disappear from text threads for months at a time, and itâs apologizing to your roommate for laughing so loudly at whatever they just emailed you. Itâs FaceTiming in traffic because, yes of course thatâs dangerous, but your main bitch is going through a time and youâre going to be there for her. Itâs sending them the podcasts and albums that made you question yourself. Itâs being devastatingly honest, out loud and for the first time, because they know if youâre lying about whateverâs on your mind and theyâre not here for niceties. Itâs holding your breath when you say your goodbyes, because you all well know by now exactly how precious your reunions are.
When I last saw these women, I had joked with them about being emotionally closed off. âI didnât even cry once this weekend, and Iâm angry about it.â Weâd spent hours floating in piss-warm water, drinking improvised cocktails and airing out our ideas to dry in the sun of each othersâ perspectives. After an intensely trying year away, a year in which I lost several loved ones and in several senses of the verb âlost,â I was ready for an emotional release with them.
But my dramatic, misty-eyed monologue never came. We all dove into our own souls, dredging up whatever willowy sludge weâd cared to share. I felt immensely self-conscious about how detached I could be in talking about the grief I felt, how coldly I could describe the well of my own confused emotion. I imagined that wasnât a good sign, and my hyperactive imagination urged me to worry that they saw me as invulnerable, unwilling to be present and raw with them in the same way they had both shared with me. As we piled into the car to part ways, I felt anxious that I had taken our time together for granted.
And then we began driving. It was hot outside, a clingy stickiness that only happens when itâs July and youâre underslept and dehydrated from long nights and late swills. The windows were cracked, an overeager breeze stirring the car as if desperate to bring us one last moment of overlap. We were silent. We didnât say a word, not until the obnoxious Acura swerved ahead of us on I-95 as we meandered south.
In that moment, something broke loose. Pushing her middle finger over the steering wheel, she yelled at the other car, the two of us passengers peppering in colorful comments about the value of serenity and the entitled fuckery expressed supremely by DMV drivers. We began laughing, an overreaction to the humor in a fleeting moment. We couldnât stop. We had moved beyond words; we were simply together.
As the carâs atmosphere again stilled, the weight of our imminent goodbye again pressing down on us, the speakers opened up. âA tornado flew around my room before you came, excuse the mess it madeâŚâ Frank Ocean, a hymn we'd memorized through years of shared history. We all knew exactly where the other two were, without speech or sight. This was what it felt like to be with the people you loved.
I looked out at the tiny needled skyline, curving past us, finally welling down the tears I didnât think I could release. And then a hand. She had reached over, tear-stained fingers in mine, to wordlessly tell me that she was there too. We stretched our palms into the backseat, the three of us clinging to the present as best we knew how, holding onto each other through the last minutes of the journey.
When I drive my car these days, I do my best to keep the windows down. I like to smell the leafy, dusty landscapes of the county where I grew up. I abhor the heat, familiar and fervently midwestern, but I enjoy the way it makes my skin feel, salty and stained with just the slightest discomfort. I relish the breeze and all it stirs up in my scalp and in my spirit. I love the way it reminds me of being in that car with the two of them, barreling toward an ending and yet impossibly confident that the wind would still, somehow, carry us back together.
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Happy Earth Day; hereâs some aesthetic trash I found in Lisbon last month http://bit.ly/2Dww49b
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â...at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance, prevails.â -Raymond Carver http://bit.ly/2TDPzmu
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Please to report that my favorite Notebook-themed bar, El Diario De Noah, is still serving a mean homemade vermouth https://ift.tt/2ryF9bu
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Hacked up a lung on an evening run by the rĂa #stillill https://ift.tt/2Pe2ecM
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Platonic life partner @me_myself_n_jo and I stumbled upon a breakdancing competition immediately after this photo was taken https://ift.tt/2Fbf1wF
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Finally itâs not 90 degrees and finally there are clouds https://ift.tt/2RdWrG9
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