thoughts for this moment 🤲 (🎞📸 by DP @dcarlomen #120film )— spent the last few days disassociating from thinking about roe v. wade & the ongoing migrant deaths around the southern border on this stolen indigenous land and then wanting to cry & nothing coming out. But when I’m with my chosen family, I’m able to feel & breathe again. Today, I don’t know how to best contribute to this fight for reproductive Justice and the abolition of borders, & pol(ICE). At times, as a cultural worker, I feel like I have little to offer in an immediate moment, because ethical storytelling & finding the funding to pay everyone; takes very long. But I try be a good friend. I ask my loved ones how they would like to be cared for. What are their love languages? I listen to their stories. I offer what I can to help them feel seen and cared for, because the state sure as hell won’t and continues to fail us, especially working class queer / trans Black Indigenous POC and those without citizenship. I believe we are given the sacred gift of cultivating a handful of deep long lasting friendships in this lifetime. 🌿My chosen family, has saved me over&over, they remind me who I am in the depths of grief, they hold me accountable when I mess up, (many things I have inherited from this empire & my Chinese diaspora that I continue build my capacity to confront & unlearn) and they teach me how to love more expansively than the state can destroy. 🔥Friendship has taught me that we don’t have to wait for permission from captialism/the institution/the state to express our love and beautiful rage. when we don’t have time to make a poster or curate a program, when we are too sad and tired to go to the protest/vigil—in the immediacy of this moment, we can care for each other. No revolution has started without the love cultivated between long term friends & comrades; uniting disparate communities toward the shared goal of getting free. Those making these inhumane laws don’t understand a love this vibrant— if they did, policing our bodies&genders would be of the past. The world is burning, & there is much we need to organize, but I hope you can take a moment today to care for your loved ones. 🍃🫂