meet me at the pond
trusting our mysterious longings
Dear friend,
On the edge of a tiny farm in Iowa, I found myself enveloped in quiet and slowness.
Iowa, while only three hours west of Chicago, has never been on my travel list. I’d once driven through the state on the final stretch of a cross country roadtrip I took back in 2021. Having driven alone for eight hour stretches, day after day after, I was nearly delirious with exhaustion hopping in my car after a night spent near the state border in Omaha. The daylong drive back to Chicago was one endless tunnel of corn and soybean fields, funneling me through the last stretch of one voyage into another season of change.
It was strange to find my way back in the state not to pass through, but to be still.
When I first stumbled upon a creative residency opportunity for midwest artists, I applied without much thought. Since the end of last year I’ve been in a state of compulsive applying. Keeping my eyes open for any resources—education, accountability, mentorship, compensation (however small)—something to justify the amount of time I find myself writing, reading and ruminating about half baked story ideas.
In the weeks leading up to it, I was on the fence about whether or not I’d go. It felt risky to stay in close quarters with strangers in the rural midwest. More than that, it felt scary to claim myself as an artist; to position myself as a peer to other folks who seemed to me so much more clearly established.
In the end, it was those insecurities that pushed me to follow through. By the time the residency dates rolled around, I was in a strange lull with no creative projects in progress. I decided to leave my laptop at home and chose instead to bring myself, a journal, my doubts and big questions.
On the way there and back, I carpooled with a stranger who quickly revealed herself to be familiar energetically and through our shared social circles. What started as mutual guardedness quickly unfurling into vulnerability over the hours driving together. Traveling again through the endless tunnel of corn and soybean fields—this time with a kindred companion—felt symbolic of the intentional changes I’d made to recommit myself to community and art.
I was surprised to find throughout my days with the other residents, and upon our return to Chicago, how unknowingly connected we already were. On July 4th, a half dozen of us reunited at a queer dance party. Then again at an exhibition event full of more friends-of-friends. After trying and failing to find a plus one to a poetry event a couple weeks ago, I was surprised when upon my arrival someone from behind yelled out, “Hey, I know you!”
By leaving the city, I returned to it more able and willing to be known. To be seen more wholly. People and spaces that I’d coded as out of reach—delegated to the foreground in my perception—were suddenly right there. Close enough to touch and be touched.
The residency allowed us to experience each other as humans first. We had sleepy encounters in communal bathrooms with bedhead, while brushing our teeth. We chopped tart pineapple and heads of cauliflower and kale from the farm to prepare dinner. We explored our amateur hobbies at a camp fire or on a couch; wrong notes played on the guitar, drawings with imbalanced proportions, dramatic storytelling that wandered and stumbled but still sparked awe. We let ourselves exist in a state of trying, playing; practicing what it feels like to just be together.
One of the spaces at the residency location that I found myself drawn to again and again was the chapel: a small white structure with a willow tree swaying out front. Other Black folks organically appeared and lingered in and around the space. We seemed to all be drawn to the wooden pews, craving a place to process the religious harm that had calcified at the bottom of so many of our hearts. We had conversations about pleasure, healing and the divinity of transness. I ate lunch on the front porch with a friend and modeled for photos on the side of the pale, shackled building. My mornings were spent there alone—reading, writing and listening to freedom songs.
On the other side of the property, a rectangular body of water no larger than a public pool, was composed of little fish and a grainy sand floor. I returned to the turquoise blue pond each day, sometimes to float, sometimes to watch the still water as the sun sunk under the horizon, and on our last full day, to write in the dim early morning. Swaddled in a crocheted blanket made by a beloved years ago, I walked quietly from my room at 5:30am through the sleepy grounds to the pond where the birds gossiped. The sky was overcast and the rural highway a mile or so away rumbled softly.
I listened. Then wrote what I heard. As an offering in return, I gave my tears and attention as the clouds warmed up with the coming morning.
Later that day, I told a friend about my morning trip to the pond. She exclaimed with disbelief: She’d woken up around the same time and contemplated going to the water, but decided against it, assuming she’d be alone. We marveled at how we’d missed each other; how we often doubt the mysterious longings that are drawing us toward something greater than we could plan or imagine.
When it was time to return home, I was grateful to come back to my life and familiarities. What I missed was that communal tenderness: washing dishes with strangers, gathering wild flowers, repeating each others’ names and pronouns with reverence, attempting to create something and applauding our peers, just for trying.
The medicine of that experience continues to spread through the calcified bottom of my heart and all the other parts of me that default to curling up or pulling away. I feel reminded to not only seek out these rare pockets of retreat but to create them. To cultivate that quiet ecosystem within myself. To show up in the world aspiring to be a reservoir of gentleness; extending and accepting the invitation to meet each other in our wholeness. Trusting every mysterious longing.
With love,
Jas
Beautiful reflections! So grateful to relive this experience through your words.