dances i am learning
ignorance would be such bliss
i’m not very communicative
i'm not very communicative
getting my poems to you
isn't easy for me
i dance most times
when i'm lonely i
pull pearl beads cross
my window-scape / i ride
the freeway / trolley lines
climb trees / i walk
i hear young
girls cursin
their mothers & old
men coughin
to rid themselves of phlegm
always makin em whisper
i avoid friends
i dance
i make grits to ease
pre-menstrual obsessions
a desperate fear of laziness
hurtin someone &
not reachin you
ntzoke shange
my dream about being white
hey music and
me
only white,
hair a flutter of
fall leaves
circling my perfect
line of a nose,
no lips,
no behind, hey
white me
and i'm wearing
white history
but there’s no future
in those clothes
so i take them off and
wake up
dancing.
-lucille clifton 🌀 🌀 🌀
oh goodness. hi there. it’s been a minute since we last connected. my trip to new york in april felt like stepping through a big portal. i experienced so much love and care and mutual respect — more than i knew what to do with — riley and i held it together: enormous bright soft-yellow orbs of light. it was the lightest i’ve felt in NYC in a very long time. we kept getting our way and we ate so well.
it’s been quite difficult for me to write this newsletter…even now as i write i am feeling a hesitance and calculating in real time what i want to say and what i don’t want to say.
i’ve been really hard on myself lately for how frustrated i feel being in dance spaces that are mostly white. particularly as i explore contact improv more. i mentioned in a previous letter that i’ve been finding my way back into a movement practice and taking dance classes again, something i haven’t done consistently since 2016. between then and now i lost some understanding of the magic connection that dancing creates between my body and mind. i forgot how natural my desire to dance is and how much a movement practice brings me closer to myself.
i’ve heard myself say a lot lately that there are many things about whiteness that do not and have not penetrated me and that the only thing that really gets to me is when i can’t enjoy doing something that i love, or learn something new (reader, that is literally everything). i’m not just making a statement about what’s affecting me in any given movement or educational space, i’m carrying the weight of how simple of an ask that should be. as someone who is often open to initiating some newness in my life, who leans into learning spaces and desires being a student, i wonder why wanting to be in a room where i am not 1 of 1 black people or 1 of 3 people of color feels like a tall order. why this feels like a reward i need to prove i am worthy of recieving.
i’m writing to you 24 hours after completing a week-long silent meditation retreat. for 6 days i woke up at 6 am and did alternate sitting and walking meditations until 9:30 pm. about 2 days in, i discovered there was a thin agitating layer to my general existence that was missing. something i wasn’t thinking about. and then i realized oh, i am at a retreat where only people of color are practicing, that is bipoc lead and every time i look up from some unpleasant string of thoughts or offering myself metta, i am looking up at a sea of black and brown people doing the same as me. and then i went back to meditating.
i’d like to be able to not notice it. i want to be able to do what i’m doing without feeling this particular brand of double-consciousness. and frankly, i want to stop talking about it. i have so many other things to do. but part of what’s been hard about writing this newsletter is a fear of permanence. like i won’t escape the thoughts and feelings i have if i write them down for you to read. i too worry about offensiveness and being turned away from — by myself, in the difficulty of these feelings and my peers.
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incantation: i’ve been bringing myself back to a moment i had at a 4-day contact improv jam in gardiner, ny that my friend lily co-organized. during a workshop, we split into trios and one of us was instructed to close our eyes while the other two would initiate some kind of movement in our bodies by coming into contact with us. a blind hand on your shoulder might tilt you diagonally, a foot-to-foot contact might glide you behind yourself. There are so many options to getting where the force takes you.
when it was my turn, I was actually rather nervous. I trusted both my partners but felt insecure about how I looked without being able to see myself (note that I am my most judgmental eye). with my eyes closed, I had the child-like urge to spin and turn, dizzy myself to the floor, and move across the room and i was directed and engaged with with love and attentiveness.
there was a moment while pivoting my body when I placed my hand on my lower back, palm out, and at the same mili-second, one of my partners, rose, placed their hand palm first to my lower back and our palms kissed. my whole body buzzed. we deep-giggled. I could not believe such an auspicious moment.
my prayer is to be met this way by life as often as possible.
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in july i’ll be heading to a writing residency in oaxaca that i’m quietly excited about. the school year is over, so i won’t be working (or getting paid regularly for that matter). i’m most nervous about the financial aspect of the summer. i’ve had a few side gigs and some crowd-sourced funds that i am hoping will keep me afloat but, as most of this year has been, i’ll be living pretty hand to mouth this summer. i appreciate and welcome love and fortitude from wherever you may be reading this.
i am excited about being in touch with you again in this way, and hopefully with some consistency.
gratitude,
magh
If you can read and understand this poem
send something back: a burning strand of hair
a still warm, still-liquid drop of blood
a shell
thickened from being battered year on year
send something back.
adrienne rich, “coast to coast”