I’m here because I believe Grace Lee Boggs’ words that “people exercising creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the greatest historical contributions of humankind.”

I’m here because I have to turn pain into beauty, or I won’t survive.

And because I have never been able to forget Susan Cain’s words: “It is the artist’s role is to tell the truth of what it’s like to be alive.” Something changes when we are honest with ourselves and one another; it seems to make living a little softer and a little less lonely, even the painful parts.

I can only tell the truth of what it is like for me to be alive; in this body, at this point in history, within my positionality, with these gifts and scars from the generations before me. I can only hope that there may be some medicine in it, for you too