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Praxis and practice are what we humans do, and even then, perfect is only an illusion.
Folks, I would like to start this first public long-form update of the calendar year with a poem.
I am a ghost of lives present.
A ghost of the carceral and racist and classist urbanisms who refuses to be a token.
A ghost of a hometown that won’t let itself grow sustainably, who refuses to be a martyr.
A ghost of a university that tried, but failed to protect all of me, out of fear, that loudly declares themselves as an alumni, the gender neutral, plural spelling of the Latin, to remind those who wish I would disappear that I am still here and I am still alive.
Or am I a ghost, or a haunting ghoul.
More than alive, witchy, enchanted, and proud of my connections to my soul, roots, and ancestors.
The real spook is my grief and fear, but I will make my anger the fuel to my cauldron!
My websites are back
The book is getting to y’all if you order it in paperback on Bookshop.
I’ve blocked out the time between work, conferences, and my next book talk to record the audiobook.
I have my grant and a wonderful new studio home.
I’m well underway with a new crochet coat.
The world continues to thrash, but gentrification and all of its cousins still continue to be denied.
I’ve been writing for the past two months between the Gregorian New Year and the Lunar New Year, strictly in my journal, for myself. In this exponentially fascist time, at least in my purview, I wanted to know exactly what I was here for.
My book delay, my website shutdown, my housing shuffle, and doing the retail job all gave me different angles of how life could or couldn’t be.
In fact, when I thought my websites were completely dead and my books were never coming in any form, I started to think through what it would be like to be a ghost, to be dead. Hence the ghoulish thoughts above, straight from my journal.
As much as I think about safety and privacy, the call to bear witness, from my spiritual practice, bubbles up even more. The call to live on, screeches and is undeniable!
In this highly surveilled world, I still know I have access to spiritual guidance. Not to push down anyone’s throat, but to remind myself of my divinity and my ability to thrive.
Defying gentrification is a forward motion for me, not just some theory that never becomes praxis.
And because it’s praxis, it’s not going to always be perfect.
And, I’m going to ground into that process, lean on my people who love me in praxis, not in perfection, and I’m going to get going.
Here’s a snapshot of the past few weeks from the Kristpattern channel, as I reflect on choosing what color I want my life to be, in a world that insists on being colorless.
Here’s a clip I edited out on creating the colors for the Defying Gentrification Playbook
Until next time,
Kristen
PS: Bookshop.org and the paperback copies are the fastest, best ways to get your hands on the Playbook. There will be more to come, but for now, back to poetics.
PPS: Happy Birthday Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. May you both continue to be consequential ancestors in my life!
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