every day is a lifetime
short thoughts for my birthday
It is my 35th Birthday and the 3rd Birthday of this here newsletter. Thank you, as always, for subscribing and reading SLOWLY, SLOWLY. What a treat to have you here with me.
It is indeed a weird little birthday. I had a lovely party and housewarming and woke up the next morning convinced everyone was mad at me1. These brains of ours and the things they do!
Life is both difficult and beautiful. It has been a year marked by grief. I mourned the lives I hadn’t lived, the relationships I didn’t have, and the gap between where I imagined my life would be, the things I thought I would have at this point, and where my life currently is. My aunt died in September. Audrey died in November. My cousin Indra died nine days ago.
After this last year and into the next, I’m sitting with the question: what is the right balance of living like you’re dying? Indra suffered from recurring brain tumors for the past nineteen years. Not much of the family knew about the most recent recurrence of her brain tumor, with the addition of the growing tumors on her spine, until about three weeks ago, when she suddenly found herself in debilitating pain. I wish I had known, but also, what could I have done? From my cousin Keisha’s telling, she got the sense that Indra just wanted to be present for the life she had. In these last years of life, she had a daughter, Kalina, a blessing that she had prayed for after several miscarriages. She lived her life, and all I can do in this moment is to try and do the same.
Coming out of this last year, I feel very close to the understanding that death is a promise, and that it might arrive at any moment. With this deep felt-sense of impermanence, I hope to spend the next year more fully seeped into my life. I made a short list of longings over dinner with Jen last night, including: more sushi, more sex, more unscheduled time, more spas and more saunas. Some of these things are more easily accomplishable than others, and I have already made progress on half of the list, so we’re cooking with gas.
Life is both difficult and beautiful. Every day of the last week has felt like an entire lifetime. I saw Beyoncé for the first time, I celebrated my birth with a good chunk of nearest and dearest in my home, I rode the NYC ferry, and I’ve eaten well. I’ve cried a lot. I’ve marveled at how well I’ve been able to dissociate at moments - or for a reframe - how well I’ve continued living despite feeling a deep well of sadness at this loss. I’ve felt / feel very loved. Tonight I’ll read poems, and tomorrow I will fly to Kenya to bury Indra.
Life is both difficult and beautiful, and if every day is indeed a lifetime, I want to live each one of them so thoroughly, to feel every lifetime, to suck the marrow from the bone, to howl at the moon, to be deviant against the void, to rid myself of every hungry ghost. May it be so.
xo Jessica
A PLAYLIST FOR YOU
I made this playlist thinking it would be my summer listening playlist, but I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to start listening to it immediately. Here you go! Happy Unofficial Summer. 💁🏾♀️
TONIGHT: READING POEMS WITH CAVE CANEM
Tonight, I’ll be reading some poems alongside a group of brilliant fellow poets with whom I’ve been participating in the Cave Canem NYC Regional Workshop. During the last two months of the workshop, we have been delving into the theme of (re) memory, or the moments and past events that live within us and refuse to be forgotten. More details below:
Methodic Madness: A Reading with Karma Mayet Johnson and Select NYC Poets
Cave Canem & Bowery Poetry Club
Join us for an intimate reading with poet and Fellow Karma Mayet Johnson and participants from the generative NYC Regional Workshop, Methodic Madness: Poems of (Re) Memory, as they read new and original work. Participants will share work that delves into moments described as unspeakable, whether for their subtlety, joy, or for their grief, to address the challenges of (re) membering who we are through language.
This event is presented in partnership with Bowery Poetry Club & is free and open to the public. If you are unable to join us in person, there will also be a captioned livestream with ASL Interpretation available for both.
WORK WITH ME
You can find me five days a week at Arena and often at 462 Halsey Community Farm.
🌞
I checked in with a couple of friends, and thus far, no one is mad at me.
Happy belated dear Jess
sending you much love and steamy sauna sublimity on this new solar return <3 <3