Not Strange at All: The Body

Yesterday I swept the studio floor. Dust, threads of fabric, and old wood chips scattered like memories I’m trying to gather back into myself. The room feels different now, as do I. My body is not the same—breast cancer, radiation, and the full hysterectomy have carved a new map inside me. I am stitched together not just by surgeons but by sheer will, prayers whispered into hospital ceilings, and the hands of ancestors who will not let me go.

As I push tables back into place and lay out my brushes, I realize this act—rebuilding the studio—is also rebuilding me. I want to say I feel whole, but the truth is, I feel raw. There is light here, though. The walls still hold my laughter, my anger, and the dreams I haven’t yet dared to tell anyone.

And then—Mississippi. Two young Black men lynched. Yesterday. This country pretends to be surprised, but history keeps repeating, no matter how loud we scream. The horror is both ancient and immediate, as if no time has passed since strange fruit swung in the Southern breeze. My body trembles not just from my own scars, but from theirs, too. From the weight of being Black in America, knowing survival is not promised, not even in 2025.

I want to paint something bright today, but grief has its own palette. Red for rage, black for mourning, maybe gold for the tiny sliver of resilience that insists on shining through. My art will have to hold all of this—the intimacy of my healing and the vastness of our collective wound.

This studio is not just a room; it is a battlefield and a sanctuary. Here, I will remember who I am. Here, I will keep creating even as the world tries to erase us. Here, I will fight for my life, and for the lives of those who should still be breathing.

Because even in a country that celebrates separation at any cost, we keep finding ways back to one another. And maybe that is the truest art of all.