V. H. King's Ink

Recently, I started a journal of sorts.  I have a large bound journal with lined pages where I scribble at the end of each day, rambling about mundane things and whatever worries and joys I find myself wading through.  I have a smaller bound sketchbook that I use for my tarot readings, where the writing goes every which way and colors spill across the pages along with my poems and prayers.

I started a new journal, though, because I wanted a specific recollection to look back through one day.  Kind of like a scrapbook, although I’m not sure how much glue I’ll use. I want to be able to trace my memories and experiences of Afro-Centric occasions.  I want to remember where I was and how I felt, surrounded by iterations and expressions of Blackness.  I want to remember what I saw and learned and heard from the breadth and depth of what it means to dream and believe and resist and rejoice while Black. 

I need to remind myself that I’m allowed to live.

This journal isn’t explicitly dedicated to Blackness, however.  It’s a testament to all the things I have yet learn.  It’s in honor of all those stories that aren’t mine to tell, and deserve to be uplifted with grace, attended to with humility, shared with permission.  For years, I‘ve been hungry with longing—to see and support the Black and Brown Queer artists and writers I know must be out there.  I have been searching for community, but I lacked the means or capacity to meet in coffeeshops or attend virtual conferences. 

As I manage to curate my little corner of that artistry and joy in semi-real time, I’ve searched for events and opportunities to be present with myself and my dreams in relative proximity with others who are further along on their journeys.  I want to show up for the exhibits, the art fairs, the weekend markets. 

My spirit has attuned itself to the echoes of these things across history. My body reaches for it as I twist my locs and watch documentaries about the lives of elders and visionaries who were really just one person showing other people what’s possible. 

I have nothing in the way of formal training, when it comes to technical skill, critical commentary, or cultural history.  I can’t tell you the historical movements or the cultural significance of the art and music and movies that move me. I’m just a BlackQueerDisabled kid dreaming of what is possible, in spite of the circumstances. 

I can tell you how I felt when I was there.  I can write poems of all the abstract kaleidoscopic visions of Blackness in all its beauty.  I can paint the overflow of joy and perseverance and hope and strength and sorrow that forever resides in my bones. 

When my family visited The Truth of Freedom: African Diaspora to Afrofuturism, my dad said I didn’t disappoint him.  When I asked what he meant, he said he thought I would leave my thoughts in the notebook the set out for patrons to reflect on their experience, and I didn’t let him down.  I half-smiled at that, but mostly I asked him what he thought of the exhibit. 

Despite my Dad having an abundance of opinions on life in America, I don’t know how to ask him the important questions. I hear narratives and experiences of what it means for other people to be Black, but somehow I always feel outside of that, left out of whatever central understanding there seems to be between people who look like me.  And a lot of times, I feel like other Black people can sense that—and instead of inviting me in, they refuse me the warmth they otherwise meet others with. 

I’ve been told plenty of times I’m not Black enough, whether in word or look or deed.  My Dad’s strategy in life, as far as I can tell, is to not give a shit.  He is himself, Black Man and all, and his focus is making sure he provides for his family. 

In some ways I take after his unapologetic ownership of identity—although my BlackDisabledQueer badges of honor often clash with his worldview.  To most people, I probably come across with the same thick skin and work ethic. In the space between my ears, I wonder what it’s like to be embraced, supported, loved, celebrated, comforted, by other people who look like me.

I don’t know how to find that community, but it hasn’t stopped me from looking. More times than I care to recount, I’ve had to battle down the lie that I’m undeserving of it.  I am fantastic at caring from the other side of a screen, but flesh-and-blood shelter from this storm of a life has been ever elusive to me.  Sometimes, I wonder if I’m not allowed such a blessing because I wouldn’t be able to withstand losing it. I don’t know if any part of that is true, but it usually brings me back to the part where I can give myself permission. 

To be proud, to be exhausted, to be alone, to be hopeful, to be disgusted, to be critical, to be small, to be here.

The gist of what I wrote in that notebook at the museum had to do with one burden of racial responsibility being to grant permission for others to fully embody their personhood.  It shouldn’t fall to a very few to uphold a shining light to the rest of us. A fulfilling livelihood is my birthright—perhaps all the more so because of the political agendas so intent on depriving me of that. 

When I go to exhibits like The Truth of Freedom and festivals like I Made Rock ‘and ‘N’ Roll; when I share Black and Indigenous and Afro-Latine art in my little circle of influence; when I myself make art regardless of whether it will ever hang in museum walls—I can’t say everything that it fulfills of my ancestry, but I trust what it means.

I dare to believe that by showing up for myself in the here and now, I am linking hands with those hidden in the rewritten pages of history and everyone who isn’t here yet. In m own way, I will invite others to give themselves permission to be, in the fullness of their bodies and the highest expression of their spiritual calling.