honor the hummm

a place to perch in borrowed songs

Hello gentle-people,

This week, I was

Locked In

, writing virtually alongside some Black, Indigenous, and Writers of Color here on Substack. It all began when a few weeks ago,

Alex Lewis

wrote a Note asking if anyone was interested in creating/joining a virtual writing group. Alongside Alex,

Marc Typo

,

Zefan

,

Shivani Kumar

and

Stanley Fritz

planning and organizing this group has been such a source of deep joy. The goal wish to commune and focus on writing for the majority of the time, with our energies surrounding the sessions geared towards connection and fellowship (with no unsolicited advice offered!).

As the facilitator of this first session, I was so excited to begin, that I was dressed and ready a whole 2 hours before we began. I felt I was singing in that space, via my keyboard, of course. I look forward to sharing the piece I began writing then in the future. However, this post is a reflection on what it means for me to keep my words close (to my body) sometimes, as a writer who hums.

“Love to you builders of the worlds that no one sees. Love to you makers of life beyond our view. Love to you, and gratitude for all the depth it takes you to do the private work, the deepest dive of loving you.” —Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals 

a writer who hums

In this season, I feel loquacious. But I am reminded that I have learned to carry this weight in my words and when I share, I am inviting others into navigating some heaviness. This is a space where I hope to craft “a gentle landing.”

I place my little g’s with their feathers where I hope I can inspire folks to pause and breathe.

But I put them where I come up for air—I have no idea, really, how often you need to come up for air as you read what I write, but I hope to be the kind of writer who cares for your breath and mine.

Most of you don’t know me well enough to know how often I hum. I hum all day long. I hum in places I want my voice to go when I can sing louder. I hum to get through the hardest parts of my day.

Wordless moments between friends

The weight of a hum

These are the things I seek

—me, on Threads

A good friend of mine, Dzidzor, has this beautiful incantation she guides people through in her collaborative performances: “Sometimes if we…don’t know the words we hum….”

“We must be protective of those things that have been birthed within us. We must be protective of those things that have been buried within us.” —Dzidzor, from the video above

honor the hum

I have memories of movies and TV shows that portray a suspicious character as one who hums and whistles.¹ But I have grown to learn that humming can soothe your nervous system and calm you in a life-preserving moment.²

These days I am working to honor what I am learning from the hum. In it, I remember the parts of me that need the pedagogy of the body. I often cannot find words to describe what the hum has told me as sound meets my rib cage. Though I often raise my voice from silence to singing into yelling (which is still singing)—I still go back into a humming that feels older than time.

I am reminded that we all are like that, in different ways. So I am making space here in this work I call “A Gentle Landing” for the hum.

Those who are paid subscribers, aka members of “The Landing Zone,” will soon know what I mean.

“There are times I want to be moved by poems, other times when I want my experience of language to be upended and my ideas about reality to be upset, even other times when all I want is to hum along with the hum lying deep under the Earth.”—Forrest Hamer (via Remica Bingham-Risher, Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and the Questions that Raised Me)

Too marvelous for words

And so I'm borrowing a love song from the birds
To tell you that you're marvelous
Too marvelous for words

—Frank Sinatra, Too Marvelous for Words³

I want to honor what it means to say you are “too marvelous for words.” I am often trying to find a place to perch in borrowed songs. Which is why I am excited to work on more collaborations in this coming season.

This will be my last essay-ish thing for awhile, so I am taking a bit of a break from pushing out “more lines for perching” as I cultivate ways for us to honor the hum together.

I will be consulting the hum within myself, umm-hmm.

Hmmmph—there is truth there.

Hmmm….I’m gon’ stay here….until “my soul has got to move”⁴

Landing Tracks

🐦‍⬛For soft-spoken truth-tellers: Here’s a podcast on a similar topic reflecting on my journey with my voice and the choices that come with raising it, quieting it, or remaining silent:

🐦‍⬛ Ways of supporting my work: I am trying to get better at this part—where I name the support I need as I seek to create a gentle landing for myself. Here are some ways you can support my work, other than contributing as a paid subscriber here:

• Buy a book or select A Gentle Landing as a beneficiary when you buy a book on Bookshop. I wanna especially highlight this growing book list based on conversations on the season 4 theme for Black Coffee & Theology, “Black and Alive.”

  

• Buy me a book (through Buy Me A Coffee) and support my book-buying habit.

• Explore other support options here.

🐦‍⬛ Practice perching in the archive: If you find yourself wanting to dive back into some old posts, remember the hum. Stay with the sounds within you waiting to be born—into parts of speech or action. If you remember to, come back to A Gentle Landing to testify to the truth you heard within yourself.

🐦‍⬛ Learn from folks who honor the hum: I have been enjoying the blackout poetry

Jamal Robinson

has been making in his newsletter

Found Notes

. I continually learn from how my sister-friend

Sharifa

interacts on Substack notes with a community of writers in ways that nurture and uplift us—plus everything she writes hums. I am so glad another sister-friend,

Camille

has returned to writing on Substack, after taking a break to honor the hum through rest after writing and publishing her book. Every time

Robert

shares his musings, I am reminded to slow down and take life in at the pace of wonder.

1. A Tom and Jerry scene runs through my mind as I write.

2. I have learned about this from Resmaa Manekem’s My Grandmother’s Hands and Barbara Holmes’ Joy Unspeakable. (These are affiliate links.)

3. This song started playing in the coffee shop I am in as I wrote this post…what a wonderful turn of events that was for me.

4. I am thinking of this moment of synergy this past week with a friend on Threads, @thebethanynicole, who was reflecting back her own experience of the hum. The words she quoted reminded me of last week’s post “eclipsing vocations,” which talked about the slippery foundations I am moving away from: “there’s a leak in this old building/ And my soul has got to move /Yeah my soul has got to move /My soul has GOT TO MOVE.”