To: being seen and hesitating to be heard.

So if it's one thing I've learnt about being here is how to assert my femininity. Especially with regard to poetry circles and circuits and cynics. I looked at this video a friend had posted a few days ago, and it really made me think of how I had shied away from the idea of just trusting my own abilities and taking control of a situation.

For instance...whenever there had been a (non-smiths of course) cypher of sorts or just music and people just jumping on, back in T'dad, there would hardly be any women in there, neither on the music, nor the voice....with the exception of some background harmonies...myself included.

An instance happened a few weeks ago that sort of woke me to this habit and how it had affected me. We were in Best Buy after a show with Carvens Lissant and Joshua Bennett (these men are awesome btw, you should check their work out on the tube) and they had found this guy getting down on some keys in the piano section of the store.

When I went over they started vibesin on it, then two shelves away, another man comes in with a bass guitar, carvens starts singing, joshua spits and then goes, "...Jump in Arielle" and almost instantly, without even thinking about it, I declined. The idea of this has haunted me since then. What is it that I'm so afraid of? That night I conjured in my head, every possible justification for why I reacted that way. None of them really make sense.

We are afraid to sit at the table. We are afraid of being fearless. Back home it was because we were waiting to be asked, nicely, to feel like we were not imposing, to feel that sense of inclusion. fluff it. Time for that is gone too.

On to being the woman my foremothers were praying for.