Adrien King via Unsplash.com

I asked my mom once how a home stops becoming a home. She used a house down Beach Avenue as an example. It’s a huge three floor home with a chimney and towering trees, like the ones in storybooks. It used to be beautiful; a dream home with a blackberry tree and with presence on the block. It was abandoned for a long period of time. The windows broken and squeaking in the wind. The roof falling apart and inside of itself. The sidewalk dripping yellow-green goo from the steps. My mom said that it was definitely haunted because of it’s looks. She said it no longer had people living in it and that homes turn back into houses when there isn’t life in it. There weren’t people living in there moving around, cleaning, maintaining the space, therefore it was easy to fall apart. A house that wants to stay a home needs to be lived in and loved, and that’s where the quote comes in. A home sustains life. She said the same about my grandmas house in Mexico; parts of it are empty, uninhabited, eerie. You know the difference between a bustling, lively, and lived-in home, and a quiet lonely house.  

Since last year I was set to launch a project along with a newsletter since I save lots of links to resources for folks in my communities. I expect to have a cohesive layout of my newsletter by the end of February and hopefully I can launch the newsletter in March or April. In the meanwhile, here are some things that I’ve found I’d like to share sans newsletter:

Latinx in Publishing is hosting a Three King’s Day Celebration at Solas Bar in Manhattan on Monday January 6th, 2020 from 7pm-9pm. Authors Jose Olivarez and Naima Coster will be doing a reading at the event. This is a perfect opportunity to support living Latinx creatives, specifically writers/authors and a chance to niche network. Tickets are $6 on Eventbrite 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/three-kings-celebration-tickets-83714802227

On Twitter, @WritersofColor started a thread for jobs and freelance opportunities. Posted jobs/opportunities by Vice, Zora for Medium.com, Autostraddle, This is Insider, Remezcla, Al Jazeera, ILY Mag, Tor.com, Eater Chicago, Glimmer,  Reverb, WebMD etc.

Here’s the thread: 

https://twitter.com/WritersofColor/status/1212432393010728960

Every now and then, I like to do a thorough cleanse of my room. I change the ways I organize my things. I clean my physical space and feel refreshed. I throw out things I no longer need and I take count of things I bring into my space that I don’t use. I do the same with my digital spaces. My clouds and my devices hold information, photos, memories I no longer need to take up space. I started deleting images from years ago on my cloud, specifically images from when I was in {redacted} situation. I have to fact check but I think that period of my life was about 6 years. Maybe I’ll talk about that some day with my community. I wonder how I’ll deliver the story though. Will it be clear as water or I will share that part of my life using metaphors and changing names? 

This week I had the absolute pleasure of meeting up two of my close friends for some dessert in Queens. My best friend’s bday was last week so I thought it’d be perfect to take him to Martha’s Country Bakery in Astoria. Sitting with both of them, eating yummy sweets made me grateful for the new ways of relating with folks. Listening to them Saul and Alexis talk about their ideas, what they’ve learned from their experiences and speaking new ventures into existence made me joyful and inspired. Actually inspired to take action, not just to imagine what I’d like to do. I decided to take another step back to evaluate where I’ve been, where I am, and where I want to go. In doing so, I made the decision to deactivate my instagram for a while starting next week. The video above shows me drawing and writing out my ideas I have to expand my creative work.

Madam Umebinyuo urged us on twitter to build a body of work because popularity does not equate to being excellent in your craft. So this is more than a break, it’s more than an evaluation. It’s re-centering myself; understanding what I want to create and build for myself and my community. As some folks have predicted, many of us will leave social media platforms, even if it’s only temporary. It is necessary to get to the root of our problems and that requires us to physically check-in. It requires us to digitally check-out…to come off our screen lives to tend to the chaos and order we’ve neglected.