Non-Place, a Short Story

My fingers stumble around the cluttered cube shelves somewhat frantically. I lift up the Ziploc bags full of oils, costume jewelry, perfume samples. Flick old receipts and thin gift bags of new jewelry. My ear is itching something crazy and I’m searching for a hair pin to soothe it. The ones I keep on the makeshift nightstand of two plastic Sterilite containers are tucked into my locs, pin-curling them for the night.

I look for the box of bobby and hair pins that’s usually peering right out at me. Almost two months here and my things (and me) remain antsy. They never seem to stay where I put them but when I find them they’re right where I left them. I think they must have to get up and walk around their unfamiliar corners to feel like themselves. I do the same.

The box of pins is where they always are. On top of the cube shelf, in front of a fancy black rectangular box with a black ribbon leaning on its corner. The RumChata shot glass holding the piece o’ palo santo to the pins’ right. A small bottle of Bacardi rum meant for Esu to the pins’ left.

My creature comforts are at odds here, regardless of my efforts to designate them a space. So am I. They co-mingle with the other inhabitants of the room. My hair brush and make-up bag sit awkwardly on a pile of my sister’s old shirts. This is a room of forgottens. A room for storage of old memories that haven’t been held in years. Artifacts of former loves that may never see daylight again. My things, in frequent use and needed by me, bristle at this environment. “When will we return to our mod style wooden nightstand and our bathroom drawers?”

I heave a belabored sigh from deep in my chest. “I don’t know. When I can summon a livable wage.” I place my deodorant spray back in its tight space after knocking it over in the hunt for a hair pin. I hope it can feel in my weary smile my gratitude for it not rolling away behind the shelf when I constantly smush it into another bottle.

My shoulders ache. The frustrated and cramped vestiges of my old lives groan and my body holds the sound. They worry that we will become forgottens too. That I will never get us out of here and forget myself. That in forgetting myself I will forget them. They’ll never soothe knees inflamed from bussin a wine or kiss my neck with my signature scent and waft through a sexy lounge. I pick them up, my perfume and my cayenne oil, and assure them that we’ll live a life outside of this box. Reminding them that I’ve recently taken them out for a couple of entertaining nights.

Their labels stare back at me blankly. I haven’t used them with the same verve as before or worn them stridently like I used to. I’m tired. I can’t convince them (or myself) that we’ll saunter into a spot together, fully aware of the delicious polycule we make, anytime soon.

I lay my head on the pillow. Sink uncomfortably into the too-soft mattress. Drift deeper into my liminality.

Full Moon in Taurus Ponderings Amidst Metamorphosis

As I traverse existential questions of purpose, transcending capital(ism), micro world building synchronously & asynchronously with people & places, and ownership vs. stewardship. I am in deep reflection on the origin and composition of… everything. Myself, my family, my friends, our relationships, my faith, our governance structures, western society, ecosystems. This deep study is a part of a self-facilitated practicum on conjure. Cooking and gardening has been a part of my praxis for world-building, relationship tending, healing, and memory for twenty years, before I knew that was what I was doing. My study and my writing now turns its attention to how I and we can be who we chose to be in Orun* and transform our world into one hospitable for future spirits to come/return and fulfill their assignments.

Back to elements. I am mining the archive of my body, the land I’m currently residing on, and the recipes of Black women cooks from the 18th century to today. Below are some thoughts on the elements blood and water.

Blood is an archive.

A waterway that carries memories, mutations, skills, tempers, nutrients to & fro the organs in my body.

It is a transmitter, connecting me directly to my Ancestors by way of my Grandma’s fetal ovaries.

It may be thicker than water but it would cease to exist without it.

Warm

Rushing

Languid

Syrupy

Spry

Bright

Older than time

Universal

A highway providing passage to oxygen.

Could we re-member* ourselves by meditating on this force?

Could we re-member our world by asking questions of our source?

*Orun - Yoruba for the ‘spiritual realm’

*Re-member - From Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s work on utilizing creative imagination, Indigenous African languages, and collective cultural memory to restore/orient African people to themselves

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For those of us who come from generations of “just enough” or “barely there,” our inheritance is in our blood.

When we combine onions, celery, & green bell pepper, inducting our pan into one of the many Ancestral dishes that began with the Holy Trinity, we draw from that inheritance. Grandmothers and great-uncles instruct us on how to get the taste the way they like it and the way you need it.

For the inheritance they left is for more than pleasure. Encoded in their recipes for meals, medicine, and conjure are tools for transubstantiation. The things we eat or imbibe re-member us into our own Saviors. Jesus becomes our brother-Ancestor. Whether enslaved on a plantation or nominally free at some white person’s business/institution, we are creators of a new, blessed world in our kitchens. Our gardens. Our apothecaries. Our cemeteries.

As a descendant & Ancestor-in-training, I add my lived experience and wisdom to the inheritance. The roux of our collective blood memory thickens, enough to stretch on for many generations, long after the flesh from my bones is eaten away. My body carries epigenetic codes for arthritis. Rheumatoid and osteo. To move my body with more ease & less inflammation I have to consume less American gluten & dairy products. My recipes, even those from my Ancestors, reflect that. These modifications will serve my future generations well, until we have successfully excised “Ole Arthur” from our bloodline. While the affliction is not welcome, its origin story, relationship with numerous relatives, and the lessons its left with each person (for me, it’s when and where I must stand up for myself) must remain in the archive of our blood. It too is a valuable inheritance.

There is very little money to pass on. Struggling to make ends meet, soothe & nourish ourselves, all while being paid pennies often result in debts at the time of death. And still, my inheritance is vast. Acres of agricultural knowledge. The oldest & largest library in the world. So many interconnected languages that span eons and locales that linguists beg and attempt to steal access. The recipes themselves are spells. They are locked away for only the most worthy to embody. The only way they can be read is through the work of the hands.