Exhuming a Grave. Or, How to Think About James Baldwin's Face
tochi.substack.com
I return to my body as a site of resistance, as a site from which I might understand the echoes of this season. But first, a very short story. I woke up one morning to an unexpected bedmate, a black spider which, I promise, sounds more menacing than it looked. It was on my pillow, inches away from my head and eyes, its black stringy skin a sharp contrast to the white sheets. Panicked, I went in search for answers. Google of course! Do spiders kill? I ask. How long before spider bite takes effect? How can I tell which insect is poisonous? The answers were fractured, returning to me like prayers that reach the ceiling and bounce back to earth. And so, I deferred to Amazon, because where else does one turn in this hyper mediated capitalist age? So, bug spray, yes. Insect repellant, still yes. And now, an adjacent story: I am in a new apartment where I live alone, without the usual constrictions of roommates that attend American student life. Yet, strangely, of all the ways I can stretch my limbs in this new space, I find that I am most obsessed with what lies right outside: my mailbox. There are days (and I’m not proud to say this) when I check it more than five times, the mailbox I mean. Apart from a few books, I really don’t have any reason for paper correspondence. Still, I sniff around the box, my eyes darting left and right, watching for neighbors as I adjust the strip of paper that serves as my label on the box; I am acting out this little imagined script, playing my own detective, my own surveillance officer.
Exhuming a Grave. Or, How to Think About James Baldwin's Face
Exhuming a Grave. Or, How to Think About…
Exhuming a Grave. Or, How to Think About James Baldwin's Face
I return to my body as a site of resistance, as a site from which I might understand the echoes of this season. But first, a very short story. I woke up one morning to an unexpected bedmate, a black spider which, I promise, sounds more menacing than it looked. It was on my pillow, inches away from my head and eyes, its black stringy skin a sharp contrast to the white sheets. Panicked, I went in search for answers. Google of course! Do spiders kill? I ask. How long before spider bite takes effect? How can I tell which insect is poisonous? The answers were fractured, returning to me like prayers that reach the ceiling and bounce back to earth. And so, I deferred to Amazon, because where else does one turn in this hyper mediated capitalist age? So, bug spray, yes. Insect repellant, still yes. And now, an adjacent story: I am in a new apartment where I live alone, without the usual constrictions of roommates that attend American student life. Yet, strangely, of all the ways I can stretch my limbs in this new space, I find that I am most obsessed with what lies right outside: my mailbox. There are days (and I’m not proud to say this) when I check it more than five times, the mailbox I mean. Apart from a few books, I really don’t have any reason for paper correspondence. Still, I sniff around the box, my eyes darting left and right, watching for neighbors as I adjust the strip of paper that serves as my label on the box; I am acting out this little imagined script, playing my own detective, my own surveillance officer.