First, I’d like to announce a workshop I’ll be teaching in June. This is the third installment of my “Pop Culture Is Personal” workshop, which I taught in 2021/2022. For the first few weeks we read/talk about the art of cultural criticism and the personal essay, then we transition into workshopping our own pieces. Ostensibly this is a workshop centered on cultural/literary criticism, but I’ve found that it’s really a safe space for Black femme writers to convene and talk openly and honestly about their writing journeys, the things that hold them back, the obstacles that get in the way. I’ve so enjoyed facilitating this workshop in the past — the best part has been following the work of the cohort — from Substacks to podcasts to book deals to magazine cover stories. If you would like to apply, fill out this form.
Second, I’d like to tell you a little bit about where I’m at:
I’m gonna be candid: I feel very off. I have been away from this place for a few weeks. Honestly, I hit a bit of a mental and emotional wall and couldn’t think, let alone write. I’m better now, or at least a little more accepting of where I’m at, wherever I’m at. But it is a very strange and hard thing, to be a writer who can’t write when they are unwell, and who happens to, in fact, be unwell 80% of the time. For the first ten years of my career I didn’t realize that I was completely dissociated, that I was writing through such deeply dysregulated states that left me burnt out, brain fried, cut off from myself completely.
No one asked, and no one cared, as long as I was producing. And now here I am, healing in the wake of that wound, trying to create work on my own terms with a whole world crumbling around me as my inner world crumbles as well. It’s very wild. But I keep going, which is even wilder. Even writing these words to you now is a little miracle. I’m in a lot of mental/emotional/spiritual pain. But I also have to survive, which means I have to write things down and share them in the hopes that the words will land in a soft place and sustain me for a little while longer.
I find that my emotional life can often become very enmeshed with the collective, Aquarius moon shit. I can’t cut myself off from the pain of the world, nor do I want to. But it makes for a very chaotic inner life. I get very overwhelmed. And then bored with all the ugliness. Bored with people. And then detached. I disappear inside myself to process. When I emerge from my cocoon, and find the same jagged landscape that I retreated from, unchanged, I shut down. A cycle.
But things are changing. We are living in a time when the abusive cycles of white supremacy and capitalism and imperialism are being challenged and disrupted in truly revolutionary ways. These days I’ve been trying to figure out how to disrupt my own patterns and cycles, how to transmute my extreme discomfort with being alive in a world like this into something like acceptance so that I can do more than just try to survive. How to accept suffering while rejecting injustice. How to be of service without sacrificing the softest parts of myself.
My birthday is next week on April 29th. I’m turning 35. I’m proud of myself for living this long. I honestly didn’t expect to. This is the first birthday —more than sweet 16, 18, 21, 30 or 33 — that really feels like something. A shift, a portal-crossing. I can sense with both a mixture of terror and excitement (which, so often, feel like exactly same thing) that my life is going to change in very drastic ways. That the world is about to change in drastic ways. I’m trying to prepare. I don’t know how. I think that’s the point of all of this, anyway. Surrendering to the mystery.
Anyway, not much else to say — just wanted to check in send love and solidarity with anyone else whose struggling. To affirm that if you are feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, if you’re unraveling over and over and over again, if you feel a little small and a little helpless in the shadow of of all these beasts, you are not alone. And I want to encourage you to find points of connection where you can — don’t swallow down the poison of isolation, mistaking it for an antidote.
More soon.
watch
I found a lot of comfort and inspiration in this interview with Noura Erakat: “This is not just about this moment, but about what kind of world is going to be left to the future.”
I just thought this was really beautiful, and heartbreaking, and hearthealing all at the same time - a woman named Michelle “Mike” Ng dying from ovarian cancer held a living funeral with all her family and friends:
How Hollywood Broke James Baldwin — if you read my last newsletter on Hollywood portrayals of James Baldwin, this video is very illuminating on his own thoughts/feelings about the industry.
Really appreciated the insights from this video by Leah Manaema on indigeneity and individualism vs collectivism, you can find part two on their page.
read
Will always return to these words as a compass:
Books I’m reading at the moment:
listen
This conversation on post capitalism with author Alnoor Ladha unlocked something in me:
some Sunday energy
Thank you Zeba, for your words and for your heart. I am turning 35 this June and I have been feeling that *something* about it too, but without a real way of fully explaining it yet. This was such a welcome and gentle point of connection, received in a soft place. Sending you lots of care! <3
Thank you for sharing this Zeba. Your words have become such a comfort for me as I go through my own mental health struggles. I know it’s hard as fuck out here so I appreciate every time you are able to post. Sending you warmth right now, praying for more ease and gentleness on your heart. ❤️