Don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm 🔥

Lesson learned and some really beautiful moments in 2022 ♥️

I started writing this missive about a half hour past midnight in the Bay Area. It’s eerily quiet and there are no stars visible in the sky. The rainfall this weekend was record breaking in some parts of San Francisco causing mudslides and waves on streets. When I was a kid, I used to think that the earth was sad when it rained heavily. It was my way of explaining our relationship with nature and if you guessed that I thought earthquakes were nature’s way of expressing anger, well, you’re absolutely right in your assumption. I did, in fact, believe earthquakes were earth’s disdain of human actions causing the planet’s distress.

Now, I didn’t write one missive last year and that was in large part due to the fact that I stepped away. The first week of 2022, my Instagram account was hacked and while the community stepped in to report the account and get it deactivated, I lost an account that I had for over 10 years. But it was surprisingly refreshing, liberating, and exciting to not have to mind an account I was slowly beginning to despise. I gradually reduced my use of Twitter as well. I stopped using Facebook in 2015. So, this past year, I worked my full time job and wrote my dissertation (not a flex, I don’t recommend doing this, by the way). In a way, I ended up being grateful for the hack! They, somehow, gave me time away from the world and it felt good for my self-esteem and made me much more self aware.

However, one of the hardest, most difficult lessons I learned in 2022 was the subject line I share with you, “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.” This act of martyrdom didn’t serve anyone, especially me. I carry this guidance into the new year as I continue learning how to say no to things that don’t align with me, my values, and, to be blatant, saying no to people and organizations that don’t value me. I also learned that no matter what I do, I have to remind myself that I tried my best and not everyone is going to be happy with the decisions I make and that’s OK. Also, stepping away and spending a lot of time on my own working and writing this massive “paper” (I’m calling it that to help me stay focused) has also forced me to have a different relationship with my body. I suffered some serious health issues this year because…I wasn’t exercising, getting up, and walking around as much as I should have been. I was literally setting my body on fire and not knowing it.

Yet 2022 had some truly magical moments… 🪄

My poetry was published in a chapbook with my cohort for the Kearny Street Workshop’s Interdisciplinary Writers’ Lab of 2021. I was floored to receive a Mozilla Creative Media Award for my work The Cyborg’s Prosody (in progress, looking forward to sharing the work this year). I gave a talk about The Cyborg's Prosody at eyeo 2022 and sat on a panel with two of my favorite artists, Salome Asega and Chris Coleman, to discuss community building. I contributed to The Critical Code Cookbook, a very special project led and edited by Xin Xin and Katherine Moriwaki. I returned to writing for the general public with a piece I published responding to extraordinary writer Ysabelle Cheung’s short story, Galatea, for Slate. I also had the pleasure of digging through the AT&T Archives and History Center in San Antonio, TX, which was a much needed research trip for my dissertation. Another important project, I joined forces with two of my long time friends and collaborators, Ana “An” Xiao Mina and Xiaowei Wang, to co-found and co-create Five and Nine, a podcast newsletter at the intersection of magic, career and economic justice. These were just a few of the wonderful moments this past year that I’m incredibly grateful for.

While I don’t want to be reduced to absolute mush, in 2022 (Lover’s Year in Tarot), I fell in love with one of my best friends (and they returned those feelings) ::cue Rihanna’s We Found Love:: 😍

And yes, I’m fully aware that this missive is a bit of a best of and there were so many lessons learned and things I could have shared, but I guess this is my attempt at being a bit more intentional. I would love to hear from you and know the exciting things you’ve done this past year, what you’ve learned, and what you’re looking forward to. I’ll try my best to utilize this platform to be more communicative and connected because, honestly, I miss friends and community and I know I haven’t been the best at reaching out. I hope to change that in 2023.

Cheers and much love to you. I hope to hear from you soon! Speaking of…