My essence and way of seeing the world has been greatly shaped by people whose life experiences created Black Feminist ways of being. And by European-descendents who've maintained connection with culture and empathy throughout the process of becoming "white." And by practicing tenets of solidarity as a way of life.

My cultural identity has been influenced by the people I grew up in community with and I give abundant gratitude to my Black, Brown, and Indigenous loved ones and neighbors for the gems shared with me about realness, strength, style and spirit, the power of culture and what it means to be from the Earth.

I give thanks to hood culture for cultivating my fiercest parts, and the world of literature for bringing solace to my spirit.

I am eternally grateful for the working-class, multi-racial, queer, freedom fighter kin my mother raised me with. I grew up with down-home white women and nationalist black women who sat together across difference sometimes in solidarity, other times in irresolvable conflict and all of this taught me so much of what I know.

I once watched a partner help her nephew make a lemonade stand and it reminded me of two things that quite frankly, I could never forget: 1. Every person who has been murdered was a miracle made of water, soil and stars whose life was shaped by millions of moments of caretaking, love, discipline and sacrifice and it is utterly devastating for each of their lives to be cut short by unnatural causes. 2. Children are the reason humanity doesn’t collectively suffocate from the bitter rage that so often overcomes us. Children are often why we choose to return, and why we take a breath before speaking.

I give thanks to elephants who remember each other for their whole lives, and butterflies whose metamorphosis teaches us how we can transform what we are given, into what we may become. To spiders who resolve to make their way across the sky on threads of self-made silk and peacocks who teach us how to walk in our glory.

One thing I know from the many times grief has brought me to the liminal space between the material world and the realm of spirits, is that life ends sooner than most of us are ready, and the significance it'll boil down to more than anything is our experiences of love.