Alexandra Billings, Actress and Trans Activist, via Instagram
My first encounter with the work of Alexandra Billings was through her role as Davina Rejennae on Amazon’s Transparent. Luminous is too dim a word to describe what she brings to her performances, because it is apparent that she is imbuing each character with the wisdom gleaned from her own lived experience as a trans woman of color.
Today’s quote is taken from a video post Billings made on Instagram a few years ago. Sadly, I didn’t bookmark the exact day but I did write down the quote for posterity because it was too good not to. What exactly, though, does it mean to stand in the center of your own grace? For me, it means that you accept everything that has brought you to the present moment, acknowledging that what you’ve been through has made you into the person you are. It also means that you absolve yourself of blame, and its fugly cousin shame, for what you’ve done to survive. It means that you are cognizant of the fact that you are here because of what you’ve been through, not despite what you’ve been through, and you do not owe the world an explanation or an apology for taking up space.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
People in the book world are always giving Rupi Kaur a hard time. They say her poetry isn’t actually poetry. It’s too sanitized. It’s too accessible. Well pardon the f&$! out of me, but I don’t think you should need an MFA to be able to access poetry. Maybe it’s jealousy? Maybe they’re pissed that Ms. Kaur is out here stacking up paper while twelve people in the entire world are telling them they’re the next Emerson? I don’t know and I don’t really care. If something someone reads resonates with them and makes them feel something, then damn the literati and their thinly-veiled colonialism. Mazel tov.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
***Note: I received a free digital review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***
Expected Release Date: August 1st, 2021
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
Review
Losing someone you love is hard. Losing a child is arguably the worst thing that can happen to a person during their lifetime. Losing a child to suicide is nearly unimaginable, at least until it happens to you.
In A Fine Yellow Dust, Laura Apol has given us a chronicle in verse of her first grief-year, filled with staccato bursts of anguish, confusion, longing, and finally, a tacit acceptance. She shows us that grief is not a process that ever really reaches completion, but instead is something that you learn to carry with you, and how writing through your pain can be both a deliberate act of remembering as well as a testament to what you’ve lost. Reading Apol’s collection brought to my mind people I’ve lost over the years, and in remembering them through her words, I became a little lighter, a little freer, myself. Please read this.
She [Apol] shows us that grief is not a process that ever really reaches completion, but instead is something that you learn to carry with you, and how writing through your pain can be both a deliberate act of remembering as well as a testament to what you’ve lost.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
My intention with this blog was always to have a polished forum where I could talk about art (be it literature, film, music, etc.). But I can feel it transforming into something else as well. As someone who is neurodivergent, talking about my struggles with depression, anxiety, and PTSD is incredibly liberating.
And I’m not okay right now. I am the very definition of not okay. My work environment is incredibly toxic right now, and today I’m going to have to deal with something that even thinking about fills me with dread so thick I can taste it, like bile, creeping up to choke me. I’m not even sure I’ll be employed by the end of the day. There is only so much one person can withstand, and I’m at my limit.
This post isn’t going to have a tidy resolution. One day, I’m just going to start screaming and I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.
Take care of yourself, friends. If you can help it, refuse to swallow the shit people throw at you. That’s all for now.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
In this moment, you’re still breathing. In this moment, you’ve survived. In this moment, you’re finding a way to step onto higher ground.
This is a book I find myself re-reading from time to time to give myself a spiritual tune-up. Life is often difficult, messy, and downright disagreeable, but it is important for us to remember this truth: everything we need to keep moving forward is already inside us. We have made it through every single one of our worst days and we are stronger for it. This does not mean that we should ignore our circumstances, or blithely move through our days like a bunch of Live, Laugh, Love simpletons. It simply means that we possess, on a molecular level, the tools for survival. We are not weak beings. By being here in this moment, we have already won.
This does not mean that we should ignore our circumstances, or blithely move through our days like a bunch of Live, Laugh, Love simpletons. It simply means that we possess, on a molecular level, the tools for survival. We are not weak beings.
Just keep breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’.
Ariana Grande
You cannot earn breath. It is free. So take in a big breath, steel yourself, and know that you are a freaking warrior. Even if you have to stay home today. Even if you don’t get out of bed. Are you alive? Then you’re winning. Until next time, my darlings.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Do you ever have a day where you wake up and you know that you have a list of things that need to be accomplished, but you just can’t seem to care about anything?
That’s how I feel today. It is beautiful outside, the birds are chirping, and Julie Andrews is singing The Hills Are Alive while butterflies caress her with their wings. And I’m just so irritable I can’t stand myself, much less anyone else. As I’m looking at the clock, I have just barely over an hour to go before I have to start getting ready for work. Yes, I know I’m lucky to be employed. Yes, just the other day I made a post dedicated exclusively to talking about my hard-won promotion. On an intellectual level, I am grateful— but I’m so freaking tired.
It is beautiful outside, the birds are chirping, and Julie Andrews is singing The Hills Are Alive while butterflies caress her with their wings.
Days like this make me think of Shelley, which makes me smile. Shelley is an older Australian woman I used to work with at my store. She was contrarian, pugnacious, cynical, and sarcastic. She designated herself as our resident Mean Old Bitch and wore the title like a badge of honor. Sometimes I miss her so much that it makes my bones ache. We had a bond, we two. I love her and I know she loves me, and that’s for forever.
She designated herself as our resident Mean Old Bitch and wore the title like a badge of honor.
The rapport we quickly developed morphed into a beautiful friendship I’ll cherish as long as there’s breath in my body. One day when we were working together, she looked at me and out of nowhere exclaimed, “Shit, there’s got to be something fucking better than this.” A gentle warning for you: if the word “fuck” offends you even mildly, never work with an Australian émigré. I’m fairly certain Australian elementary school teachers end the school week by telling their pupils to “fuck off and have fun”.
One day when we were working together, she looked at me and out of nowhere, exclaimed, “Shit, there’s got to be something fucking better than this.”
I think about what she said that day a lot. She was right; there’s got to be something fucking better than this. I’m going to make it my life’s work to try to find it. For both of us. Bless her heart, the sour old bitch had to work retail right up until the pandemic forced her into an early retirement, followed by a move to Florida with her son. If you ever read this, Shelley, I love you. If we both end up in hell, please save me some space in your cabana.
If you ever read this, Shelley, I love you. If we both end up in hell, please save me some space in your cabana.
There’s not a tidy resolution for this post. I always get irritated when I’m reading something about someone having a bad day and they “somehow turned it around”. Nope. You can stop right there. A big part of self-care for me is just allowing myself to feel like shit when I feel like shit because it’s my brain’s way of telling me there’s something I need to process that I can’t happy-think my way out of.
A big part of self-care for me is just allowing myself to feel like shit when I feel like shit because it’s my brain’s way of telling me there’s something I need to process that I can’t happy-think my way out of.
I mean, let’s be real. I’m working a full-time, public-facing retail job in the middle of an ongoing global pandemic in a world that’s literally on fire from climate change and living with more mental health disorders than Meryl Streep has Oscar nominations. Ergo, I’m allowed to feel like shit. And so are you!
If you also feel bad today, know that I see you and I stand in solidarity with you, not to talk you out of your pain but to weather it with you until we all feel better. Much love.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
The Voracious Bibliophile 