ech Vite
or why you needed to see a picture of my first decent self manicure
So to answer leoning Claire .
" why wouldn't they hire you"
This is my birthday month. I am 27 . Yep you read that correctly for all the boondoggle and the length of time I been boring some of you, I am still only 27 .
I was thinking about that job that I am applying for though I am terrified, because well I know why they might not consider me.
I have a great history of pissing people off and speaking my mind,but I started blogging in need , in need of something that I hoped I could find .
I would have claimed and am often advertised under the guise of feminist blogging. I kind of hate that and prefer to say I am a lover of my people and a passionate artist.Part of it is idealogical of course, there is a wide gulf between what is important to me and what's important to them. A good bit of it is admission .
I wasn't granted it . And I am always seeking it. I have always been seeking it. Admission means strength, means comfort. I came to the Internet looking for it in progressivism
Because I had been admitted in some of the most elite circles, I had been denied others. I had feelings and thoughts And had heard tell that this "place" would have a place for me .
I was wrong.
I was wrong.i was the girl with the fake tooth, the fat ass , the four bellies,who never learned to dress , speak or be right. Who collects nail polishes b ut never learned to give herself or receive a proper manicure.
Unloved, unlovingly touched, confused and trying to find that key, that product
It's something I share with possibly a whole bunch of you . Which I am honored to say a lot of you have told me .
There were keys and circles and cliques that mirrored the constant environs of my life. What I needed like air, food, education were such blind constants in other lives no one seemed to comprehend my hunger, my allegiance or my desperate need to fix .
And online for a bit it seemed something bigger understood not only it's existence in me but also my desperate need to understand it.
It is easier for no lack of practice to try and speak of it in terms of my race, size, gender, or ability. I learned those codes . But the part that searches and desires change across all those locations and more?
As with all truly surprising journeys , it is the relations that are truly changing my life . The friends and loves and sisters and brothers and readers and joys
I find along the way.
Rather than soothe , it has often only increased my passion . These terms , these abstracts that get tossed around have names , scents , babies , lips , laughs that I love. That have done no less than save my life . And these stories, these news bites , these bits and pieces I have exchanged over all of these platforms get those faces , those hearts and for me it is just too much to bear.
Make better networks? Work the system ?! Fuck that was what I said, keeping the tremulous desperate part of me that had no idea how to do such a thing AND keep this fragile , beautiful sense of belonging and being loved as well.
And as I'd it is not difficult to see bylines, and conferences and deals go by without feeling
"THAT SHOULD BE MINE"
But the larger feeling is that
" ON TERMS THAT RESPECT WHAT I LOVE"
That was often the rage , the even now silent scary rage that no amount of cursing or machete wielding has truly exposed. Why is it so difficult for a black woman to love and see a Chicana in Detroit, to find ways to be with a loved Puertoriquena in her own city , to feel safe in teh arms of black man in NYC, to know the woman she loves in Cali will hear her name and not the name slapped on her by bigotry.
It was the gasping furious rage , that is easy to think of as jealousy. That is lumped and bumped along those ideas because it is so uncomfortable. " They want what we have " That can turn a blind eye to the idea that the center of the world is elsewhere . That never had to see or dissect or build a world that made them feel safe , that came to it;'s love from the space of I made this on my own.
When you always have the keys , the tools , the knowledge dismissing others is merely a habit . No matter how you reword it, or defend it the clear message of you don't matter, the world aggrees with me and I only have to wait till I can prove it is a ready tool.
I was the direction of that message and it stung . Ran ice and fire and barbed wire under my skin and through my veins. Punishing again and again with the naked fear
" WillI ever be someone worth loving, worth accepting, worth being encouraged to live?"
or would I always be
too fat
too clack
chipped fingers
bad table manners
too nerdy/needy
too too much
And naively as one does in their early twenties I have bled it all over an electronic page, in public.
Cursing,screaming, immolating bridges and black vernacular dancing around the ashes.
Fucking with versions of womanhood and black stalwartness, swallowing bile for watching peopel advocate silently or openly for my demise
I knew no better. it never occurred to me to be resolute like petit or Diggingforroots, beautiful in their " well FUCK that" or breathtakingly blessed as Lisa ,Little Light,APG searching deeply and infinitely for the good in others. The pleasant practical peace and passion of my buddy.You have no idea how I long(ed) for the pragmatism and clarity of Kai , Wifey, Adele,Mala , or the brainy sarcasm of nez and fnc/Sylvia, the acid insight of Ilyka and might have sold off bits to just be as smart as BFP.
Instead , I was/am a multilingual gaping maw of hurt and anger and love and need and overshare , wrapped in a deep fuck you aversion to editing.
and I was searchable
Who would want that?
Who needs that?
Why would anybody want that?
Skills wise
Of course you want me .
Who else keeps a forty hour a week job, develops curriculum , edits video and translates language while maintaining a 1000+ word a day output.
Who jots notes upon notes , reads books upon books on how to reach people and galvanize them.
Who obsessively tracks mediums , reads philosophy and has learned to smile through nothing less than pandemonium?
Who else searches obsessively in this kind of body.
I am alone in this , and I have proudly earned it , but that hubris lays bare right next to that hurt
A me a whole person
I found out about Seche Vite, from a coworker. Ten dollars.
My manicure a constant bane, had been solved . I could do it myself I had the key.
I cried about it because to fix that what I had always assumed was broken
A thing so small so miniscule that I never believed I could do.was everything at that moment.
Maybe what they said was true I wasn't broken
I just had to learn