“The fact that it amazes me, does not mean I relinquish it.” - Firelei Baez

It is mid October. I am what some

Would say -

Spiraling. I have just sent my ex lover 23 dissertations on why they shouldn’t

Leave me. That we are of the same tribe. Same island. That we belong. Gone is my brown skinned beauty. My anacaona. My Hispaniola incarnate. My Mona passage home. La mamey y dulzura de mi vida. My heart is breaking. I literally feel it’s ligaments dismantle.

Pouring onto the dashboard, onto

The LA pavement onto the deaf ears of my mother. I’ve been listening to Anthony Santos “Matame” for 6 times today.

Nah fam. Get it together. Skye.

You don’t need a cigarette. I tell myself

For the 4th time

Today.

I need something. Someone. Anything

But this.

My

Mind is a blur, the tears make all the street signs read her name. I see nothing but shapes and sounds and emotion.

Behold a bookstore. Books with messages. Books With faith beckon behind the glass. Perhaps a book that will lead me somewhere else than here.

I park at a red curb, in front of Hauser & Wirth. Risk getting a parking ticket, because what’s a parking ticket to a walking ghost. 3 years in LA and I never noticed this place.

Until today.

I skim my fingers through the Afro revolutionary quotes of James Baldwin.

The harsh truth of Charles Bukowski poems that only make me want to drink whisky.

Picture books of Frida Kahlo.

But still. Nothing breaks my aorta open

Quite as much as the image I was about to see

Across the hall at this open gallery.

My limbs start to remember the joy of loneliness. The journey of one. The adventures of wandering carelessly without direction through the east village in New York at 19 to find some kind of wonder along St. Marks Place.

I barely open the heavy glass door.

And there it is. To my right, My heart splattered on a canvas. A woman seemingly surrendering on her knees but blooming from her mind, a deep array of multicolored flowers. The Flowers I will never get to send. The hope that someday I will see her again.

And

My grandmother. The way we love.

So unconditionally. The pouring over. The codependency.

The Bougainvilleas along the iron gates of my Abuelas marquesina that never seem to know a limit and pour onto the street

The exhaustion in my body. The years. The weight. The abuse. The remnants of colonization. The duty to give and give some more.

The romance that capitalism kills.

I do not render to my knees, but let the painting do it for me.

I weep. Inconsolably. And let myself.

Tear drops fall through the sides of my ray bans and onto my cheek.

I must run now because as much as all I think about is love

You need a car in Los Angeles and I don’t want to get mine towed.

I rush out without catching the name of the artist. But this color carries me through. Through the day. Through the night. And into slumber. Art saves.

Time ensues.

Nearly 2 months pass. This impending doom of the holiday season without my family in a city I decided to

Call home. I miss Dominican Republic. I miss my mother. I still

Miss my ex but I accept it now.

I’ve colored my chest with compassion. I’ve grown to understand the why’s.

The nature of life and love, are all the same.

Inundating myself with social events and coquito sessions with friends. A paranda every weekend. Sancocho at Issas.

And an invitation to a

Firelei Baez discussion.

I have no idea who this is, but I accept. I let my friends guide me. Hold me

Through the winter and lead me to all places good. The street is familiar. The parking just as bad. But

here I am @ Hauser & Wirth

Again.

Saturday 2pm

Mid December. Walking into the same glass doors and into the same large space. the same painting, to my right, the same altar of flowers on canvas where I last wept alone & left my heart in front of.

I am back here again. But I am different than the last. And I am smiling.

And this time

There is people. I am

Not alone. We are all

Gathered listening. Being witnessed as we witness the beauty in the space. Held by flowers. Held by community. Held by our collective awareness to understand what is growing and evolving inside of us

And I realize that the woman in the stunning orange dress sitting & speaking at the front is the artist.

Firelei Baez.

The muse that planted new seeds in my chest. And she just so happens to be dominican.

I am home.

My friend Francine , smiles from across the room. Her invitation inviting me to bloom in this room. We hold hands like primas rekindling at Abuelas.

And Yendry is there. A smile I know too well. Her Cancerian heart emanating bliss behind the pearly gates of her beautiful teeth. A tambora always in her sway.

We all Witness each others joy among the flowers as if la Luz regreso al barrio despues de un apagon

We are together now in our pain, and in our grief and in our bliss.

Firelei mentions Bjork and I smile.

“I thought I could organize the world around me, how Scandinavian of me.”

The crowd laughs. Suddenly I think of the track

“All is full of

Love.” By Bjork. And how truly I am witnessing this, at this very moment.

Here we all are, in the thick of love.

She speaks so beautifully about the non binary. Our ancestors of the dominican diaspora. Before the structures of

Colonialism. The true freedom of simply existing. Being. I touch my short hair. What was once long. I feel seen. I am.

I am. I simply am.

Snippets of her dialogue move me as waves of consciousness stream from her breath. She discusses the goddess in the room. The massive impressionable statue she created that is half palm tree. Half woman. Her thick thighs remind me of my own. I do not know if I want to be her or love her. Her hips wide. Her Amazonian frame. Her hair made of palms in the wind. More powerful than 7 miami hurricanes. She is Oya, To me. The Yoruba goddess of the winds, bringing us in and out, and inward, and back again.

“You’re either going to dance with her, or you’re going to battle.“ - Firelei

I’m always

Up

For a good battle.

Aries moon til

The end.

But this time

I

Want to

Dance. And in this moment I remember that we are to move with nature, and not against it.

Nature will break, what does not bend.

I notice more than ever now

What my tears didn’t let me see at first visit. Behind the images of flowers and plants. Inscriptions of colonizers. Currency exchange. Historical Documents. Artifacts built to distract.

The hands. The amulets. They gave us as children as protection around our gentle necks. Santa Marta comes to me

In the painting of what seems like a snake. I am

Deep in La Loma now. Dancing to Xiomara Fortuna.

All of these systems that attempt to

destroy. Debunk. Decentralize what is most crucial.

From what is most important.

And

Firelei’s incessant need to remember.

And remind you

Of who you are.

Beneath all of this.

“I love engagement. At Baseline I cannot engage actively with the bombardment of information, if I am disassociated from myself.