Hello gentle-people,
I have been reading Maya Angelou this summer. Particularly, her book Singing and Swinging, and Getting Marry Like Christmas,1 which chronicles her brief marriage and divorce to a white man, then follows her career working as a Calypso singer while being a single mother, depending on her own mother’s help as a caretaker for her son. Her writing voice and her clarity of purpose as a writer has been guiding me a lot in this season. In the collection, Black Women Writers at Work2 edited by Claudia Tate, this quote stood out to me:
As I explore what work and rest looks like in this season, I am perching on this line for as long as it can hold me.
🐦⬛ Before we continue, can we pause here to bear witness?
This week begins my third week of a new job! When I say, I feel a kind of settled, I haven't felt in a long time… And I mean, it feels familiar, but I can't actually pinpoint when the last time was that I felt it.
When I say that joblessness was weighing on my body in a particular way… what I mean is, I have spent a week and a few days having so much energy and excitement for new ideas and refocusing that I couldn't sleep. At least, that is the narrative that I embrace about this bout of insomnia. Another narrative comes from therapy – my therapist says “sometimes anxiety is just looking for a home.” I wondered is it possible for it to be banished? I guess I will have to live this life to find out. And I hope I have a story to share that I can invite you to bear witness to about that.
A lot of good things are coming true for me and this season. I wrote this affirmation to guide me through joblessness. In the darkest part of it all, the words ceased to have meaning. I thought the only way they could be true, as if I was uncompromising in my search for a job. And towards the end I can tell you… I wasn't.
What I celebrate isn't so much my resilience and drive towards making this affirmation true for myself. What I celebrate is that there are people around me who helped me remember what I wanted when I forgot. People who asked the right questions. The job I have now came into my path because I was nearby. I was nearby because I was searching for a place that felt good to be. I am being intentionally vague, because I don't come to this newsletter to talk about my day job. But this job does help me come to this newsletter with much more relief as I write.
🐦⬛ about perching lines
A “perch” is a light rest. Much needed in a world where many of us have to learn how to catch a break while standing up. In these lighter posts, I will offer poems, questions, and connections for those brief moments of reprieve. [Explore more in this series.]
My live-work space
One of the things I love about this job is I get to work from home. I get to spend the majority of the time in a space that is good for my nervous system. But it is not easy to craft a space that is both efficient for work and comfortable for rest. As you know, here at A Gentle Landing, we do not put rest and work at odds with each other. But we recognize their dialectical relationship and seek to be at ease with our beloved selves through a vocation of softness. Here we seek to redefine work and rest in ways that continue to [re-]humanize us.
Am I the only one who hears the term “live-work space,” and think of an open concept loft owned by a young tech entrepreneur? Let me know if you can see him in your head. It's always a him isn't it?
Today's perching lines come from my live-work space, as I am making it. These are the current poems and quotes that are stirring in me. Some of them you have seen before in various newsletters. It's okay if you can't read calligraphy—I will include links to where you can read them or write the text out in the caption.
I hope this will not be the last time you see this space. I have been feeling for a while now like my world is opening up as I grow more comfortable with being myself. Soon and very soon, I want to explore creating spaces to explore whatever it looks like to move at the pace of flourishing with others.3
But for now…isn’t it a little bit cool that a series on “perching lines” features actual perching lines?
Now if I could just figure out how to get birds on there…
A Litany for Survival, by Audre Lorde.
Watch this video here to hear her read it for you. Click here to read for yourself.
Alice Walker’s definiton of “Womanism,” just part 3 only.
My friend since college,
, made this beautiful artwork below for me. It is the last thing I see before I leave my room on my way out to places that may or may not receive me well. Read the whole thing here. [In front is a deck of the Lucille Clifton “Divining Poets” oracle deck and a deck of “Nature’s Pharmacy” cards. I try as often as I can to change the ones on display so that I'm always thinking about her poetry and always learning a little something new about the curative power of plants.]
“Freedom is knowing you are not for everyone…and you don’t have to be.”
I wrote these words so that I could work on believing them. I share them with you so we can try together. (The artwork in the back is by Paula Champagne, a gift from a friend I made and continue to keep since seminary. I cannot get over how much the woman at rest in the photo looks like me, especially from my loose natural hair days. I used to wear flowers in my hair all the time.)
When I say perch, I mean perch. I hung some twine. I used some clothes pins. I thought about how much slack to leave in order to avoid accidents. I recognize some of these may fall at some point, as lines often do. But when I am just a little bit lost on my way to doing the work in the way Maya describes in Black Women Writers at Work, these reminders bring me back.
🪶 ✨ Trying out a new thing: I will make a feather for every gift (regardless of amount) on Buy Me a Coffee. These feathers will help me have a visual reminder of this supportive community. Right now, I have a goal of collecting 220 feathers to pay off medical bills.
🐦⬛ landing tracks
Remember that these are questions I ask so that you may you take them with you. It is okay if they do not show up in the comments here for a long time or ever. I am not here to measure your faithfulness to the ideas of A Gentle Landing, though I would love to be a witness to how these questions and ideas shape your life if you invite me with your comments.
Keeping this one until it becomes a part of the zeitgeist—Check on all your people:
It’s no longer “check on your strong friend,” or whatever.
It’s always been “check on all your friends.”
Let’s stop trying to do guess work to evaluate who is strong and who isn’t.
Let’s assume people’s inner worlds are foreign to us—because they are.
—Rose J. Percy, from Apple Notes, July 6, 2024
Want to contribute to the ongoing cultivation of this live-work space? I added a few things to my Amazon wishlist I would love to bring to this space. (For now, ignore the books. Those are going to be transferred to my Bookshop wishlist soon, so that money goes towards independent bookstores!)
What is the relationship between work and rest for you? How do you steady yourself as you shape a life of good work and good rest? (And it's okay not to have an answer just yet. It is also okay to struggle with the idea that there is such a thing as “good work” in the world shaped by capitalism. Perhaps we can return here together someday?)
How can you make a place for perching lines in the spaces you occupy? How do you hold onto quotes and images that stir something in you? What is the journey like, as these words moved from the space, to your mind, and into your body? Can you describe the journey for words that move you until they move through you?
🐦⬛ Locked In BIPOC writing community and Unlocked newsletter
Locked In is a writing group for Black, Indigenous, and Writers of Color/the global majority on Substack. We currently write together on Fridays at 9am EST, with new times rolling out as our community grows.
All are welcome to subscribe to Unlocked | BIPOC Reads to enjoy some curated posts featuring work from members of the Locked In community! Here is our latest, curated by !
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As of right now, I have some notes and a graphic. I hope to build this dream slowly and sustainably and to bring you in to dream with me soon. But one guiding visual is Lucille Clifton’s poem “night vision,” specially the line “the space between the bed and the wall.” I wrote a bit on this here in a post on the vocation of softness.
I instantly love that photo of Maya. Before I even embark on the reading.
Opportunities abound for me. I do not have to compromise my values to find good work. 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾