HELLO, FROM THE FUTURE*
*new york is in my future and consumes my past...and other notes
There is no chance that we will fall apart
There is no chance
There are no parts.- Poem Number Two on Bell’s Theorem, or The New Physicality of Long Distance Love by June Jordan
hello sweetest pals.
i wrote a poem this week for the first time in like 4 months. although i am always consuming poetry and handing it out to others like an evangelist, i find it difficult to call myself a poet when I am not generating my own poems, with words. but monday night, after dance class and pappardelle arrabbiata, a soul-soothing conversation with jade and so much orange sherbert from kimballs, i read some clifton and i wrote a poem fully unvisited by my critical mind. it felt like talking to god or a future-self with so much ease and generosity.
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that- blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton
“may you kiss/the wind then turn from it/certain that it will/love your back” i love these lines by clifton so much and for me, they’re in conversation with the way that jordan’s bell’s theorem poem sits in my body*^. they both require me to have so much trust — in the words and in what i am being asked to do: worry not about the things/people that i have placed within a loving distance (or have placed me at a distance) or that i’ve turned away from.
i’m having so many feelings lately y’all. about old lovers, friendships, my body. these days, i am my favorite self and i am my most swirly confused insecure self. still, i’ve made generous decisions on my behalf. i am learning to trust that there will be a time for all of the things, the art, the people that are not quite aligned with me in the way i want them to be right now.
and somehow that is true for me too.
something in me (bless my cardinal dominate chart) knows quicker than i do right now that i’m moving in the right direction. i’ll be so happy for me when i fully catch up to that knowing. i am reminded that at this time last year, i started planning to leave my job at smith college, that i hated and though i knew what i had to do, i was also terrified to do it. but i made a generous decision for my body and i made it through that last month by listening to extraordinary machine by fiona apple on repeat during my walk there everyday, tears streaming down my face.
if there was a better way to go then it would find me/i can’t help it the road just rolls out behind me
*^i’ve looked up bell’s theorem so many times over the past two weeks and it’s not until now that i am really understanding it…sort of. from “scholarepdia”:
Bell's theorem asserts that if certain predictions of quantum theory are correct then our world is non-local. "Non-local" here means that there exist interactions between events that are too far apart in space and too close together in time for the events to be connected even by signals moving at the speed of light.
Quantum theory is the theoretical basis of modern physics that explains the nature and behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level.
i don’t know what this means for my back against the wind but whenever i do something brave or Good For Me i wonder if there is someone in my life being brave too. part of me wonders if there’s a chance that our separate decisions will bring us closer somehow somewhere down the line. i want so badly to meet old lovers and friends and parts of myself again differently than how we left one another. There is no chance/There are no parts.
*
anyhow, i am writing to you from new york and from my desk in holyoke because in this letter it is the future and in it i am in riley’s arms which are also in new york.
when i worked as the admin assistant for the center for fiction in downtown brooklyn approx. 500 years ago in 2019, i found all of my joy in the bookstore and in the kind hearts that slung books there. arnell was the first person to take me there months before i got the gig. this is also the place of riley and i’s origin story. when i left new york i missed most of all my commute from harlem on the 2/3 and that little corner of cff, tacombi, BAM and the 365 whole foods.
the center for fiction is also where i met, rolled my eyes at, and giggled with the absolute dreamboat that is marcus scott williams. he is truly one of the smartest people i know, big genuie heart and has the kind of humor i won’t always admit is funny. he is generous and wildly talented to boot AND he has a third book coming out.
damn near might still be is what it is is being published by noemi press and is launching at the cff. this feels so canon for capricorns. debuting your work at your place of work. big saturnian daddy energy.
where are you in the world? if you’re in new york, come to the center for fiction on tuesday, april 19th at 7pm. the $10 ticket is also a bookstore voucher, so you can literally buy the book and i can kiss you on the forehead at the same time. if you’re not in ny you can still live stream the event and buy the book.
i am already here waiting for you and will be there on the 19th too 🌀.
*
SOME THINGS I AM LOVING/THAT ARE LOVING ME:
- playing games with clara wherever we go, always. i love u
- playlists by riley and jade because the scorpio placements in my life are good and true
- fip radio(!!) was introduced to me last weekend and i am so thrilled by this. it’s a live radio station in france and the transitions from genre to genre are impeccable. though in this moment they are having a musical moment: as i type this “another hundred people” from company is playing and has transitoned to “day by day” from godspell.
- this poem by osip mandelstam which causes me physical pain every time i read it and i have read it 300x
- lucy, but of course. what an activating friendship i have the honor of exploring with you.
- this song, this dance and this human.
ok, over and out babes. thank you for being here. more soon, i assume.
previous archive: tinyletter.com/provisions/archive