Hi, P—

. . . . I’m sitting in a really very pleasant café in downtown Burlington, Vermont. It’s all wooden and brick and plants everywhere, a heartleaf philodendron overhead , it’s long leafy tails reaching out and climbing along the exposed wooden beams like some kind of a green sunburst. Half a dozen women sit at a table in front of me and discuss different theories of how they will approach teaching music and harmony and singing to children. I’ve just come from a yoga class. (Some things never change.) I’ve been having what is, for me, a yoga intensive. I’ve been going to at least one class a day, sometimes two classes, and most evenings I’ve been practicing (with Andre and our friend Piper, who owns the studio at which I’ve been spending so much time) different things that I’ve learned and just generally playing, enjoying the use of my body.

I’ve started to keep a yoga journal, and I’ve even learned how to draw at least well enough so that I can keep track of things that I’ve learned, interesting exercises, corrections I’ve been given, new postures, and variations on postures that I already know. I really think that it’s deepening my understanding and retention of what I’m learning. In martial arts, my head instructor has often told us that we should keep a journal and write in it after every class, and as much as I’ve enjoyed my martial arts training, it’s never propelled me to that level of study. I don’t know why. Perhaps deep down inside, I don’t believe that greater study of K-- would reveal to me ancient truths that will change my life forever; rather, perhaps I fear that deeper study will reveal to me that it’s kind of a sham. I don’t know that it is or isn’t. I just know that yoga moves me in a way that no other kind of physical movement practice ever has. Dance is the only thing that has touched this passion (because, as you very well know, I love to dance, I just love love love to dance), and still I was never driven to really scrutinize it, to really spend my free time going over and over things that I’ve learned, to study it outside of class. I was plenty well driven to get my ass to class (and to multiple classes), but never driven to independent study. It’s such a cool thing, my little book, because I don’t just come to class, do interesting things, forget most of them, and repeat. It really feels like I’m holding onto what I’m learning and then building on it. And thinking about yoga all the time. (Like usual, only more so.)

Andre and I went to Montreal a few days ago. It was nice. I’d never been to Montreal. In fact, after years and years of elementary school French and middle school French and high school French and college French (not that I came out of all of those many years with mastery of the language, still) I’d never been to a French speaking sort of a place. I planned a trip to Lyon, once, but I wasn’t able to pull it off. So it was really neat for me. We went to the part of town known as "old Montreal," which was pretty touristy, but enjoyable all the same. After so many days in Vermont, which is an extremely white town, it was so nice to be in such a multicultural place, people speaking all kinds of languages everywhere all around my head and shoulders. It was so nice hearing French everywhere, the rusty parts of my brain which had studied that language creaking to a slow whir. The buildings were beautiful, the people were friendly, and I felt a kind of relief just to be out of the country.

"America" has been so weighing on me. Even when I’m not thinking about it, I’m still aware of everything that this country has done and continues to do. I want to be away from it. I want to be gone. And, of course, it’s still home in the way that a dysfunctional family is "home," no matter how fucked up they are. You are not them, you may not approve of how they live or how they treat each other or how they treat others or what their beliefs are; you may not like visiting, you may feel alienated and strange; and yet, they are familiar, you’ve grown up with them, you understand the rules, whether you like them or not, and better, perhaps, than you’ll ever understand the rules of other groups of people; and though you are not them, you have their mark on you, though you may attempt to cover it up or rub it out of your skin. I am not America, though I am America’s daughter. Deviant, black/queer sheep, and ready to be a runaway . . . .