4 August 2024: 🏡 🔑 Updates, 💬 Q & A: The Grammar of Geology and Dance for Video Installation, ✍🏽 The River 🌊 Meditation (Pauline Oliveros), 📸 Photograph of the Week, and 🎫 Paid Subscriber Perks

Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We say Bismillah to initiate an act to acknowledge the intention and the ethics we carry with all that follows Bismillah.

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Table of Contents:

1. 🏡 🔑 A Quick Update: On Birthdays, Moving, and Library School

2. 💬 Q & A: The Grammar of Geology and Dance for the Video Installation Decisions

3. ✍🏽 Writing Prompt: The River Meditation from Pauline Oliveros

4. 📸 Photograph of the Week: Abulis Religious & Spiritual Cultural Store

5. 🎫 Reminders about paid subscriber perks!

1. 🏡 🔑 A Quick Update

August 1st at 11:41 pm was my 39th birthday. I spent my birthday at home with my mom hiding from the heat. Birthdays are hard for me, but this year felt different. I am still recovering from COVID and earlier illness this summer, so I wanted a day of rest. I took about three naps, had a slice of bean pie, talked to my two dear friends, hugged my mama, looked for cats to foster before realizing that texture aversion was going to prevent me from cleaning up after a pet, then took more naps before finally doing a little reading. It was such a sweet day.

The quiet celebration ended because I need to leave my apartment by this Wednesday. My mother and I have been packing my one-bedroom apartment to move to my new place for the past few days. I am overwhelmed and want to cry, but I must get this done. Send prayers. There is a bit more change than is manageable right now, but I am leaning on the consistency of good sleep and my mom reminding me to eat. Today marks the 70% point of getting everything in boxes and pushed to one corner. The last thing is a closet I have not opened in years 😂. Moving is really emotional given the housing instability I’ve experienced as a child. I am excited about my new home.

The move marks a moment of clarity for me. I stayed in the apartment I lived in with my ex-husband because it was rent-stabilized, but also because there was an element of needing to “prove” that I could heal in the same walls of so much abuse. I stayed for three years after the divorce and four years through a terrible marriage. My landlord emailed me on my mother’s birthday saying that a two-bedroom opened in my building. I immediately said yes. Since June 4, I have been carrying this ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach because the anxiety, fear, and shame associated with this apartment, while unpleasant, was also familiar. My new place is about three times the size, and