smokefalls

[smokefalls]

Intensity is the difference between intimacy and any other type of emotion. The variations between a cuddle and a squeeze can be intimate, but the determination of how close we come is rendered by how far apart we were in the beginning. This means a second part of what renders something intimate is validation. The scary part. We like the kind of validation that affirms us; worships us; tells us we are everything to this world. We need to feel good about our place in the world—rectified, acceptable. But validation is actually the act of checking or proving the accuracy of something, which means it’s just as valid for someone who validates you to come back with negative reports as with positive.

Shayla Lawson, "On Intimacy (Kyoto, Japan)" from How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir

#Shayla Lawson #How to Live Free in a Dangerous World #quote #nonfiction #memoir #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

In the culture we live in, intimacies are abundant but intimacy is scarce. Sex, social contact, information. It’s easy for us to get what we want, but not want what we need—to be close to each other. It’s not excitement we need, but the nearness of it.

Shayla Lawson, "On Intimacy (Kyoto, Japan)" from How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir

#Shayla Lawson #How to Live Free in a Dangerous World #quote #nonfiction #memoir #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

In my privilege, I had always assumed that the refugee process was a troubled but essential part of giving equity to human life. Even now, I don’t know enough to speak on it really. But you know what I feel? There’s a troubling aggrandizement to believing we can heal the damage we have wrought dividing our borders and waging imperialism. As an American, I am still a privileged benefactor of this system. African American or not. And though I am thankful for an education that did not close me off to the delicacies of other cultures, I wonder who I’d be now if I had not seen firsthand, as a foreigner, what it means to seek refuge in a foreign country.

Shayla Lawson, "On Privilege (Roosteren, Netherlands)" from How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir

#Shayla Lawson #How to Live Free in a Dangerous World #quote #nonfiction #memoir #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

I don’t agree with fighting for the monolithic use of “Blackness” to describe all people of African descent. It’s not enough. We need more language so that we “speak” to each other and not just through each other—through Dr. King, and Malcolm X, and the assumption that Blackness can represent everybody with African ancestry. As long as we do this, we limit ourselves.

Shayla Lawson, "On Blackness (Harare, Zimbabwe)" from How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir

#Shayla Lawson #How to Live Free in a Dangerous World #quote #nonfiction #memoir #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

The need for capital-B “Blackness” as an ethnic modifier arose from slavery, not skin color. With the creation of an African diaspora came a need to find a unifying element. Since we are not all joined together by religion or skin color, culture became the substitution. But when we center that culture around American culture, we miss so much. Capital-B Blackness, despite its global appeal, is not a global unifier. It’s one part of the Pan-African vocabulary, maybe the most popular but not the only one. The difference between [capital-B] “Blackness” and [lowercase] “blackness” is the difference between a shout and a whisper. Knowing the difference is a crucial travel skill. I like to think of Blackness as a lighthouse on the edge of an ocean. Blackness might lead the way, but it is blackness that fills the shores.

Shayla Lawson, "On Blackness (Harare, Zimbabwe)" from How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir

#Shayla Lawson #How to Live Free in a Dangerous World #quote #nonfiction #memoir #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

That’s the only way we make it out some truly terrible shit, is by making the place we live beautiful. Making something out of it.

Shayla Lawson, "On Firsts (Minneapolis, Minnesota)" from How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir

#Shayla Lawson #How to Live Free in a Dangerous World #quote #nonfiction #memoir #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

Title: Tin Man Author: Sarah Winman Publication Year: 2017 Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Genre: fiction, queer lit

This was a quiet novel focusing on the somewhat complicated relationship between Ellis, Michael, and Annie. I say complicated in the sense that the relationship between Ellis and Michael in particular wasn’t exactly defined, other than that there was an intense intimacy between the two that somewhat fell apart as they grew older. Told first from the perspective of Ellis, followed by a more intimate perspective from Michael (which I think was a result of it being told in the first person), the reader saw the wonders and tensions of love in every sense of the word through their narratives during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom (and France, for some moments).

I found that I was most invested in Michael’s section, especially to see how he made sense of his identity as a gay man during the AIDS epidemic. Unfortunately, I felt that his section wasn’t nearly as developed as it could have been, though, to be frank, I feel that the novel overall wasn’t as developed as I had hoped. Given the shortness of this novel, I think Winman could have taken more time to flesh out her characters more to really dig into their interiorities and, of course, their relationships with one another. While the prose was beautiful, I was a bit let down by the fact that there wasn’t depth in the content to make the writing really shine.

It seems like this novel worked really well for many other readers, but I found myself wanting a little more than what was given.

Content Warning: death, terminal illness, homophobia, grief, references to suicidal thoughts

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #book review #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads #booklr

[smokefalls]

My loneliness masqueraded as sexual desire. But it was my humanness that led me to seek, that’s all. Led us all to seek. A simple need to belong somewhere.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

I rise early with the sun, open the shutters and rest my arms on the ledge and let my eyes gaze out onto that shimmering sea of yellow. I sit outside with a small Calor gas stove with a coffeepot boiling on top, and as the morning lightens, I watch the sunflowers lift up their heads and learn to decipher their whisper.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

And I wonder what the sound of a heart breaking might be. And I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

There’s something about first love, isn’t there? she said. It’s untouchable to those who played no part in it. But it’s the measure of all that follows, she said.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

I’m broken by my need for others. By the erotic dance of memory that pounces when loneliness falls.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

But sometimes I feel as if my veins are leaking, as if my body is overwhelmed, as if I’m drowning from the inside.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

I had crushes, I had lovers, I had orgasms. My trilogy of desire, I liked to call it, but I’d no great love after him, not really. Love and sex became separated by a wide river and one the ferryman refused to cross.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

I said to him that just because you can’t remember doesn’t mean the past isn’t out there. All those precious moments are still there somewhere.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man

#Sarah Winman #Tin Man #quote #fiction #queerlit #2024 reads

[smokefalls]

Title: What have you done to our ears to make us hear echoes? Author: Arlene Kim Publication Year: 2011 Publisher: Milkweed Editions Genre: poetry

I wanted to enjoy this collection more than I actually did. It’s likely a result of not understanding all the sources Kim was alluding to in her poems (though the poet’s notes at the end of the collection helped a little). It’s a little unfortunate, because I was really intrigued by her distinct, dreamlike style. Kim plays with an interesting mix of memory and imagination throughout her collection by turning to mythology and folklore meshing with the (im)migrant experience. I admit that I’m not sure I understood the question she wanted the reader to mull over (which I believe had something to do with identity), and this probably explains the difficulty I had in following this collection.

I think this is one I’m going to have to revisit in the future to see if I can better understand Kim’s ideas on a second read.

Content Warning: references to death

#Arlene Kim #What have you done to our ears to make us hear echoes #book review #poetry #2024 reads #booklr

[smokefalls]

If our transmission is successful, trace us back through translation, diagram the journey of our mute longing.

Arlene Kim, "Occupation" from What have you done to our ears to make us hear echoes?

#Arlene Kim #What have you done to our ears to make us hear echoes #quote #poetry #2024 reads