Dear Harriet

How do I stay alive, moving through life, when I fear the punishment of the future & the risks of my present?

Dear Harriet,

I asked someone today how do I stay alive, moving through life, when I fear the punishment of the future & the risks of my present? They responded, “ask Harriet.” So I am writing to ask you this very question. I know I am not the first person to live through terrifying times & to have those times impact how we feel in our bodies. These days, I’m overwhelmed with grief, weighted shoulders, & constant sighs not of relief but simply to remind myself I am alive.

I want to know that there is someone waiting for my safe return even as I continue pushing myself further. I want to experience the feeling of grandmothers standing outside—one hand on a hip, the other hand waving, while shouting don’t forget to call me when you get home. I want to experience the feeling of venturing out & returning to a house with the porch light on ensuring I make it safely inside. If I’m being deeply truthful, I want to experience a world that does not require a porch light because the blanketed darkness of night is protective enough.

Frida Dreams of St. Harriet by Natalie Daisie. Natalie writes on her website that, “I imagine that Frida Kahlo dreams of St. Harriet and paints her in the style of her original piece, "The Two Fridas." 24" x 18" From The Apparition of Saint Harriet series.” When deciding on an image to include I chose this one because it centers two artists with disabilities. Frida Kahlo experienced polio has a child & life long pain due to a traumatic bus accident.

If that’s the world I desire to move towards then why is the potential punishment of dreaming that risks my present actions so suffocating? While I’m weary of the ways of the world I know I have nothing but the truth to hold on to. I want to experience these tender moments of homecoming by trusting the power of people to take loving action. I think I need to ground myself more in rituals that sustain me. If I have my truth & my breath then maybe I do have everything that I need.

I know you crossed many rivers & other land forms marked by those who believe they were natures intended boundaries of freedom. How do you cross over from feeling vulnerable, nervous, & shaken to showing to affirm your inherent expansive freedom? I remember reading about you learning the stories of the land from your father in Night Flyer by

Tiya Miles

. Perhaps the expansive wilderness mirrored the truth of your people’s expansive spirit. I must remind myself that I am apart of your people—your lineage that cultivated faith dreams & dared to see them through the other side.

I long to know who is on the other side ensuring my safe passage. I long to know who those in flesh & spirit who have my back where I call home & those in the new sense of home I’m sojourning towards. If the goal is to not need a light, then perhaps what I’m really asking you for is to help me adjust my eyes to the darkness. Help me to trust that in the darkness there are loving hands pulling me through a depleting world into a nourishing one. Help me to see the flight path I am charting in the dark by telling me to feel the fear when you fly in order to keep going. For we both know going back is not an option that moves us towards the homecoming we so desire.

Yet, I’m still left wondering how did you care for yourself with a chronic disability when you were labeled property? What grounded you so that you could continue doing the work your heart set out to do? Maybe, I’m placing the ideas of what it means to devote oneself to a practice in my times onto you. What if your knowledge as healer, astrologer, superb naturalist & more were in fact the practices that kept you going?

Then there’s the return of the word that always slips through my hands when my bones turn brittle from shocked nerves—faith. The clarity of vision you possessed, rooted in faith that the future must drastically be better, is one that wades in & out of my life. The clarity faith can provide me with evades me the most when I’m restless & not penning it down. If there’s much more to life than what you can sight then I’m asking you to help me not only see it but feel it deeply. I fear the day I no longer feel faith bone deep is the day that the weaponizers of light have won. I will not be convinced that darkness is a wild, dangerous thing, to be controlled instead of the portal I’ve been yearning for.

So how do I stay alive, moving through life, when I fear the punishment of the future & the risks of my present? I fear the day I no longer feel is when I have chained myself to a world I desired to move from. More specifically, I must continue to feel my expansive spirit in a world that attempts to constrict it. Though the walls feel like they are closing in I must remember a clearing has no walls to begin with. I must root in the knowledge that many things cannot be contained—trees, water, the sky, etc.— & I am one of them.

may darkness keep you well & carry us home,

Kay Brown

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The first Clearing Ceremony within The Clearing by Assemblage Conservatory will be Sunday, June 1st, 2025. Within The Clearing, we claim our unruly & wild imagination through the process of vernacular citational practice & study. In this upcoming Clearing Ceremony I will be facilitating a close looking/discussion of the Assemblage Definition & Black Women x Rest Quilted Syllabi. This is also the space for unruly folks to bring their reflection, questions, or observations from the guided prompts in The Clearing Library to discuss them with others. We will challenge definitive theory & of course open up conversation about how to metabolize it. To receive an invitation to The Clearing Ceremony you must enroll in The Clearing prior to June 1st, 2025. Feel free to share the flyer below & this piece with fellow unruly folks in your community. I hope to see you from within The Clearing!

Inspired by bell hooks’ writing within Art On My Mind, “In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life.” On page 57 bell writes that “the walls of images in Southern Black homes were sites of resistance. They constituted private, black-owned and -operated gallery spaces where images could be displayed, shown to friends and strangers. These walls were a space where, in the midst of segregation, the hardship of apartheid, dehumanization could be countered. Images could be critically considered, subjects positioned according to individual desire.”

Please remember if you choose to quote this piece, share this piece, or any piece on this publication to always CITE BLACK WOMEN. Please always include my name (Kay Brown she/her pronouns) and a link to the publication of the Assemblage: Baby’s Breath substack in your sharing practice.

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