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Hey there loved ones!!!
Sorry for the lag, but guess who I've been hanging out with? Babies!!! About to be born babies, 1 year old babies, 1 month old babies, 2 year old babes and beautiful grown folks who remember and amplify the cutest most endearing parts of their infant selves. Babies are amazing. I admire them. I aspire to be more like them. More present, more immediately expressive, more tactile, more sensitive.
I mean think about it. Babies dream all day about shapes, colors, the remembered shape of the womb, the facial images of love around them. They feel fully productive just by looking around, and processing energy through their soft selves as liquid, light, sound and sense. They are love matter tuned to the process of generating love, reaching out with need, resting and growing and growing and growing every second.
Some time back, inspired by the Sweets for the Sweets workshop that QBG's Beatrix, Moya, Julia and I co-designed, I made a committment to myself to treat myself with the care and love that I would give to a newborn baby version of myself. No smoke-filled clubs, no sleep deprivation, no poison disguised as food, no suffering in silence when I'm hurt or in need. It's been going pretty well. (Though I must say that I did endure a smokyfilthysketchy club this same babyfilled weekend and it was worth it to see excellent drag incarnations of Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and even the Gospel Music Workshop of America Mass Choir! but I digress.) My newborn standards have helped me immensely over the past couple of years, to feel more peaceful in my body, to ask for help when I need it and to remember my interdependence within a loving community.
What would make you feel brand new? Digital Alchemist Adele Nieves reposted a question from Julie Kirchmeier on facebook this
morning: "do our professional standards...limit our ability to innovate?" And I would say of course they do. Professional standards ask us to develop our capacity to conform and even those of us who don't have or want jobs (i'm raising my hand) still internalize capitalist measurements about whether our days have been productive, whether we are doing it right, whether we are good enough. Babies have no clue about professional standards, why would they even imagine that their existence can be judged? They just came out of a womb into a world. What task could possibly compare?
So in my aspiration to emulate the youngest among me I am asking you to join me in getting a little bit more brand new. Having more moments where you say...wait a minute...I am a black beacon of love in the universe, ancestral impact of generations of warrior healers, love poem in the heart of a world waking up. My very breath is miraculous, my very presence is historic in the tale of how energy shapes itself into possibility. In other words, if we can learn to mother ourselves, we can also remember to feel the awe and inspiration that we project onto babies for our own growing, fragile, new and renewed lives. And we don't have to wait for a new year to do it!
So breathe deep, reach out for what you need, make some noise and be as patient with yourself as you would be with a newborn spitting up on your shoulder :)
And speaking of dreaming shapes, colors and the facial lightshow of love...here is a message from QBG Moya towards a vision of Quirky Black Girls converging in Detroit this summer! Check it out!!!
QBG Moya says:
"Dear QBG's
As black girls are from the future, I am thinking wistfully of the summer as I try to keep warm this winter. One of the many things that warms my heart about the summer is that it holds the promise of my favorite conference ever: The Allied Media Conference (http://alliedmedia.org/)! QBG Lex introduced me to the AMC three years ago and I've been a fan ever since. Kids track, dirt stencils, dancing, karoke, not to mention it's the most attractive conference I've ever been too! Doesn't that sound awesome?!
And really, the only thing that would make it even more awesome would be if you were there too! Yes QBG Sistren, will you answer the call and let us know how we can convince you and yours to come to AMC 2011, June 23-26 in Detroit? Think of what magic we can create together! We can plan for our QBG music festival, create the agenda for the QBG retreat, and just delight in each others beautiful shinning faces!
Please email us at quirkyblackgirls[at]gmail[dot]com and let us know you are interested in attending and what we can do to help get you there!
Can't wait!
QBG Moya B"
Yes and yes and yes! Okay babies. Have a good nap and wake up loud...and while you're at it check out QBG extraordinaire's song "Breakaway" especially dedicated to QBG's like us!!! : http://tlrmusic.bandcamp.com/track/21-weeks-wk9-breakaway
LOVE always,
QBB (Quirky Black Baby) Lex
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