Good Morning Starlight,
I've seen a trend on social media where people occasionally re-introduce themselves to their followers. Cringe. I find the question, "What do you do?" cringe. I find our need to assimilate our identities into headliners and titles cringe. I find that our named and visible identities lock us out from belonging together. We are all so much more than the words we use to describe our experience of being alive. Words are insufficient in encapsulating the complexity of identity within ontology. Identity is not singular nor static.
Not so long ago, I saw a childhood friend who told me they could not tell from my Instagram what I did. That's good. Let me remain a mystery.
This week, I received a grant ‘report card' for a government grant I co-wrote and did not win. Our average score was a B+, but only the A+ grants won. Our lowest score was made by one of the three grant evaluators who stated, "The impact could be greater for this amount of grant money." The grant was for a community garden built and managed by historically disadvantaged and underrepresented youth. My question to the committee of three was; "How are you evaluating measurements of impact without subjectivity, you fucks!" (I left you fucks part out) They responded that there is no subjectivity in their process of analysis. Really? So, is imagination entirely removed from analysis?
The same day of the week, I attended a reading by Aayliyah Bilal, author of Temple Folk organized by my good friend and marvelous writer Rachel Ephraim. Both Bilal and her editor, Yahdon Israel, discussed the power and need of imagination. They advocated for the imagination in which we can all create stories of each other and for each other without having lived them first, ie. fiction. They described the need to stop letting the imagination block us from new possibilities. We must become curious and act on the curiosity versus the imagined "no" stopping us before we try. The author also ranted about the problem of analytics stating how we are blocking the possibility of imagination flourishing because we are destroying it with analytics and probability. Herald the artists! She then said we need to know our 'ontological assessment.' Hmmm? That sounds like analytics to me. In an attempt to better understand her statement, I found it as the title of a research paper, 'A Conceptual Model for Ontology Quality Assessment', which is all about analysis. Do we squash possibilities by analytics, yes, probably. Can analytics be helpful, yes, for probability. Krishnamurti said, “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” I am not that intelligent.
At the end of our grant conversation, the grantor told me that it would be essential to revise our grant to tell the story of our mission to fit their narrative and to ensure we back any qualitative statement with a quantitative measure. This is the same advice every young person is given as they begin their journey into their livelihoods. In other words, this is the language of dismemberment.
Yahdon Israel, the editor (mentioned above) taught a branding class this late winter. I did not attend, but my friend did. My friend relayed that the essence of the class was that everyone has a brand; it is their central question(s) in life. I am curious about the framing of a brand. A brand, to me, is something someone burns into your flesh to be able to identify and sell you. I wouldn’t want to self-inflict that pain in the ass.
How do I sell myself? How do I sell my work? How do I make it marketable? How do I tell the story of my work? These questions all artist asks themselves. They are not the right questions in my mind. They are the language of dismemberment, the language of capitalism. Instead, ask yourself what you want to learn more about. What must you celebrate? What must you mourn? Do those things and let people know you are doing those things. Share those things with people. Our job as artists is to share and be what we love.
Below is a re-introduction for my social-media followers. The content that is comparable to a measuring stick. In writing and reading it back I’m noticing how woefully incomplete it is and in that way these identity titles can misdirect us from authentic connection and engender harmful judgement. Our connection to each other not only comes from what we are seen as and our history but what we care about and what we imagine.
We can do, be, and make in ways that will or will not fit others narrative for us. We can do, be, and make beyond the boundaries of probability if we trust our imagination in our possibility.
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A mother1
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A (queer?) woman using she/her pronouns2
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A writer3
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A non-profit founder and director4
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A survivor5
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
An artist6
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
An apple pie winner7
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A student8
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A wife9
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A white German-English-American10
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
An Islander11
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
An oldest daughter12
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A forgotten mourner13
Let me introduce myself
I’m Dawn Breeze
A goddess14
……………………
I have raised an almost 16yr boy and miscarried a soul at 11.5 weeks
I never imagined nor did I want to be anything other than my assigned gender. As a young person, I didn’t feel I could be or was anything other than heterosexual. In my home homosexuality was a straight shot to hell. I’m a woman that didn’t name my queer experiences as anything other than playing and banished every femme crush as a glitch in the system. Once my little sister told me she was bi and that she believed we all are fluid. She was braver than I. My grandmother lived with a woman for half her life but stayed married to a man she didn’t live with. We still don’t know why. I don’t give my sexual identity much volume as I am not terribly interested. I find wildflowers, etymology, and ceramics more exciting discussions. Maybe someday that will change.
I discovered I was a writer in my late thirties buried under a pile of dirty beliefs that discounted the possibility by judging my erroneous grammar, disinterest in writing fiction, and lack of writer’s jargon as determinants.
I created and run a non-profit organization that supports youth to cultivate belonging by knowing, loving, and serving themselves, their communities, and the earth. We do this through a Gap Year fellowship program.
I’m a high ACE score person; a survivor of abject poverty, domestic, and sexual abuse, carob cakes, suicide, and being raised in a Christian fundamentalist home.
Everyone is an artist.
Two time blue-ribbon winner! I do not have the recipe because I make it up every time. I never follow recipes. Written directions are a struggle for my attention. I don’t follow maps, Ikea, Lego, or any How-to’s. Luckily for me I have a strong sensory ability and only need to drive somewhere once to know how to get there again. But don’t ask me names of streets as I won’t know.
I’m always learning. There is nothing more that I love about being alive than exploring and discovery. I have an unquenchable thirst to find and create meaning. In my late thirties I pursued an MFA which was a very special experience. I would like to one day get my PHD. I am constantly enrolled in multiple classes and wish I was in more. I am what is considered an autodidact. I excel as a self-taught learner, meaning I usually have to do it “my way” which in some ways is double the work as someone has found a path I could follow but I seem to need to carve my own path for it to make sense to me.
I’ve been a wife since I was 22. I married my Italian husband for his visa so we could stay in the same country together for more than 3-months. We are still married 25 yrs later. I don’t believe in the conventions of marriage. I do love my husband. I do love having the security of a life partner.
My ancestry was only recognized in German slang, like: heinie. My whiteness went unrecognized most of my life. When you are white living in a cloud of whiteness in a white supremacist overculture the blaring whiteness can be blinding.
I was born and raised on an island. It shaped my being the way pebbles are shaped by lapping waves. I am not home unless I am near water.
This could also be named Little Mother, or The Responsible One, or The One Who Took the Pain for the Rest.
There are no words. There is no name for someone who has lost their sibling, unlike widow or orphan.
I don’t know how to write in public like this, have a public profile. I do it sometimes, and badly. I haven’t learned the lessons of personal branding. Some people have titles for themselves like, “Jane Smith, ‘The Pastry Lady’” or Bob White, ‘The Poet Extraordinaire.’” I have never felt my self expressed in a title. I have struggled with this for 30 years- wanting to want to belong to something but not wanting it. Wanting only to belong to my self, and by self, not my small, human-sized spaceship but the Source of Self. It is not marketable in the least. If you talk about it at work (which I don’t), they (the people who pay you) might chafe at your lack of devotion to the common cause. If you talk about it with friends or family (which I mostly don’t), they might roll their eyes and your lack of focus or immaturity. I have been waiting a long time to grow up and get a grip. At this point, it is becoming apparent that this way of being/thinking isn’t due to lack of commitment or knowledge or willingness to live in reality. The reality is that nothing sticks. We do this work, we do that work, we have this relationship, we birth, we bury, we lift, we put down, ashes to ashes. If I say I am this or that profession, how do I feel about the box I’m in? Does it explain me? Recently I had some conversations with people who work in Narrative Medicine and as I described some things I do, one person said the word “multivalent.” I said that sounds better than “scattered,” but he was not fooled by my hat tip to Culture (that tells me I am less-than for being interested in more-than). Everything is connected, it’s so plain to see. I have only ever been interested in this one thing.
Nor is there a word good enough to describe a mother who’s lost a child…and I wonder…would one word even begin to describe me now?? Or, you 🫶🏼