Letters to Past & Future Selves

November 2022 Copyright Lavender Phoenix & All Individual Contributors This zine is licensed under AttributionNoDerivatives 4.0. You may copy, share, and reproduce this zine in its entirety with proper atribution, as long as it is not remixed or transformed.

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table of contents Nuriel Cahigas ............................................................................ Cover 10/22/22 Workshop Brainstorming Jamboard ............ 3 Myself I Love you, Finn Kaoru Laubscher ........................... 4 A Lil Ghost, Nuriel Cahigas ........................................................... 5 Catharsis, Anonymous ................................................................... 7 A Difficult Past with a Small Resilient Bud, Hsin-Yi ... 8 Whispers of Prayer, or Letter that Will Never Reach Muy Older Self, Kiwi ........................................................................... 9 Letter to My Young Self, Tary ..................................................... 11 Dear baby GAD, Amaya Wooding ......................................... 12 Mind's-Eye Self Portraits, Alder .............................................. 13 Letter, Jenica Rose Garcia .......................................................... 14 Persistence, Yzabel .......................................................................... 15 10/22/22 Workshop Brainstorming Jamboard ........... 16 As I Lay Dying (Or Alternatively, an Ode to Cat Fur) after Adrienne Maree Brown, Ren L[i]u .............................. 17 Letter to My Present/Future Self, Tary ................................ 21 A Colorful and Delightful Spring from the Future, Hsin-Yi ....................................................................................................... 22 Pagtanda, Amaya Wooding ..................................................... 23 Gift from me to 2, Tary .................................................................. 24 And What if We Are New?, Amaya Wooding ................ 25 Entanglement, Alder ...................................................................... 26 The 5-4-3-2-1 Sensory Grounding Technique Adapted for the Trans API Community, Madison Tang ...................................................................................... 27 10/22/22 Workshop Poem by Anonymous .................... 29 Closing Cover, Finn Kaoru Laubscher ............................... 30

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10/22/22 Workshop Brainstorming Jamboard

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A lil ghost by nuriel cahigas To the friendly ghost that haunts my past, I know who you are, see the remnants of you in my face Day by day. Week by week.

Everyday I see less of you and more of me.

I cut my hair. Wear a new piece. Sing a new song, never skipping a beat.

And every day I am getting closer to your dreams of me.

To the friendly ghost that haunts my past, Im sorry it took us this long to be here. Alive, well, and happy.

To the friendly ghost that haunts my past, It sure does warm my heart to know That even with this typhoon within me You still continue to be. Carried me through the waves of hardship through a ship made of love.

I know that time fixed us with the scars of then as you bleed With depictions of depression seeping through from the seams.

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I know the pain you felt, saw the faked smiles plastered on a face you never thought was really yours. Im glad to tell you ~ it is now ours.

To the friendly ghost of the past, I see you even though I know you couldn't even fathom seeing me.

To the friendly ghost of the past, I remember it all. Though I know you'd rather I not.

I let you haunt me for much too long, and at some point, I must let you go.

We are no longer the same, dear friendly ghost of the past.

I will let you go, I will let you go, I will let you go, go happily in my memories.

I remember you just as you dreamt of me.

I will remember you happily, the little person that made me.

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whispers of prayer, or letter that will never reach my older self 11.6.22 by kiwi content warning: suicide i wonder where you’ll be, and if your body will still be this enigma that not even you can decrypt, with the curves that seduce you, hips that never quite fit into the men’s jeans you wear, and hair in all the wrong places for a woman. stranded in the side alley off the boulevard of binaries, the only thing that makes sense is to exist nowhere. in ten years, will you still dream of this nonsensical, nonexistent place? not of visiting, but of becoming nowhere. will you still be kiwi? i wonder how many times you will bury yourself four feet underground so that they might decompose into the earth, so that you might not have to look them in the eyes when you peer at yourself in the mirror. i wonder if you’ll choose another name once you start to feel understood, close to others, loved. you’ve never been a fast runner you goof, and you’re fooling yourself if you think you’re fast enough to outrun the little girl within you (although she

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wasn’t a fast runner, either, at least not compared to her skinny, white friends). you refer to her as my deadname, but she’s still very much alive, and a part of you. don’t try to kill her (again) because one day you might even stop yearning to. i wonder if your heart will ever jump out of your chest like it used to when people misgender you. that violent lurch now has diminished to a dull throb, not because it doesn’t hurt anymore, but because i don’t have the courage to stand up for myself. it’s easier to pretend like i don’t care. besides, there’s no they or them in no man’s land; it’s just some soggy, brown soil caressing a trans body. in ten years i wonder if you’ll be in love. not with the love of your life, but in love with life. like the glimmers i get now walking down noriega, dancing a little, giddy about nothing but simply being alive next to the ocean. the blue sky above my head so vast, it makes the world feel infinite, just like the ability to love. as the water inhales, i pray. that she might sweep me up in a rhythmic drowning that she might fill my lungs with her love. take me, i think i’m finally ready. and she knows exactly what to do.

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Dear baby GAD

By Amaya Wooding all your years lurch-heaving lemon ricola bile into trash cans and you never thought the throat-swell like morning sickness? of course you didn’t, sweet summer egg, you were nine and couldn’t speak-see the name of your own womanhood now sometimes you want to revisit the pre-prozac days, to recall the chew-touch-feel of vague and veiled knowing when you could do-woman as forgettably as glasses on a face: vision raised to twenty-twenty, omnipresent and unimpeded

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10/22/22 Workshop Brainstorming Jamboard

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as I lay dying* *(or alternatively, an ode to cat fur) after adrienne maree brown

by Ren L[i]u

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original journal entry What does it mean to carry my ancestors with me everywhere I go? To recognize that I am the creation of hundreds of thousands and eons of ancestors?

What does it mean/look like to deconstruct our linear view of time? So that the past is ongoing and the future is already ever-present?

How does that allow me to expand my definition of who my ancestors are? those younger than me, my peers, all integral parts of my lineage How can I live in relationship to the earth, in reciprocity, that she is also within that web of ancestors?

How can I, in recognizing that my communities are my ancestors—and I their descendant—also understand myself to have descendants?

What would it look like to move through life in viewing myself as an ancestor? i often think of myself one year from today as my ancestor (i.e. flip the rude “one year ago, today” snapchat reminders Myself one year from now as an ancestor who knows far more than I do, and I as their descendant And doesn’t that deconstruct this linearity of time we have grown so deeply accustomed to One in which ancestors exist in the future and descendants also exist in the past What does it mean for my care to determine my ancestry rather than my ancestry to determine my care?

this is a poem about the ancestry that has informed the ways that I care that in turn has given me ancestors everywhere, and a roadmap for finding them —to understand that care and ancestry are intertwined As I lay dying Make sure to unravel the lint roller and return all of the cat fur back to my black clothing it is where it belongs stubborn and unmovable thousands of persistent reminders of the warmth of a small and powerful heart laying next to mine beating harder than a drumline but only if you are allowed close enough to hear it so that even in the cold months when my physical state has finally caught up to each musing of “I’m deceased” or “mentally, I’m Six Feet Underground” i will have these tiny reminders buried with me these tiny reminders coaxed into my being by the hand that has Brought my Existence nearly all of its warmth my grandmother strokes cats with the same gentle, divine hands she has used to hold me and how could each strand of

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shedded fur be a nuisance when it is the most tangible gift and reminder of my ’s magic and of course, how could I hold onto my grandmother without also bringing with me my grandmother’s grandmother and her grandmother and all of the grandmothers who have existed before her their lineages intertwined like kindergarteners’ fingers wrapped around a rope their little big hands linked together to form those strings of twine that connect us this rope i shall carry with me its invisible twine passing through my grandma’s fingers coaxed onto my body as strands of fur yes, these are forever reminders of how I, too, have held my darlings close and unwavering clinging to the thoughts of them For days, years, even centuries after first impressions letting the images of loved ones seep and embed into my being getting stuck into even the darkest

姥姥

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corners of my closets And maybe that is why cat fur sticks most to black clothing so that even in the most intense shadows and shades those who have formed me cling on unwaveringly and “you’re stuck with me” is no longer just metaphor It is only cat fur that has managed to get everywhere all dimensions of my being filling every nook and cranny especially the ones I have spent so long keeping hidden my ancestry shows up illuminating wisdom and meaning in even the most marginal of spaces dandelions from cracks of concrete blossoming and radiating out I carry this cat fur my grandma and all of the grandmas before her all my ancestry with me into into the lives I live and the loves that continue mine and my darling, how I would be so honored if a seedling of my being somehow nestled itself into the folds of your brain for even just a millisecond

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Pagtanda

By Amaya Wooding We did it, we have grown old. Not the false old of thirtyfive, but Grandma Fa old, raisin-wrinkled, jowls coaxed by gravity. Our face is so canyoned it falls under topography over dermatology. Gout, aches, and skin tags are middle fingers to our naysayers, the sideeffects of existence; mammograms and white-coated prostate pokes the maintenance of survival.

We still have succulents in constellations of pots sewn throughout the yard. We are just as stubborn, juicy, colorful when stressed. What turns us colors? We are as old as our lola when she said she wouldn’t mind leaving life in her garden, surrounded by her flowers. Who are your flowers? Who has gone before us? Where are their bones? Where will you give yourself to the earth and sky?

We sometimes forget we are trans until we need to refill our estrogen. It is simply a thing we do, not a box built around us. We go to the store and find hormones in an aisle next to the allergy medicine, over the counter. How great have grown without walls? How far have we run without gates?

We have pursued desire again and again. We had second puberty for our sex-gender, second and third childhood for our languages. What cycles do we now spiral and change? We have earned our lovers again and again. Who do we call love? How do we know it Are we surprised?

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Footnote longer than the poem: Have you noticed how we rush to the past to justify our present? Have you seen how such a method can come at the cost of ignoring or devaluing the amazing and novel ways we have available to us within our moment? What is the present but the future of the past? What is magic but technology beyond comprehension? This poem is about facing the youth of our methods and saying, yes, we may be old, but also we are new, and what of it? Newness is a result of creativity, of adaptation, of the dynamics of survival. “God is change,” Octavia Butler says through Lauren Olamina. And we are not fossils. Newness is a sign of life. Let us ascend.

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The 5-4-3-2-1 Sensory Grounding Technique Adapted for the Trans API Community

by Madison Tang Use the Five Senses to Ground Yourself in the Present Moment within (Queer, Anti-Colonial) Time & Space 5. SEE: Acknowledge & honor five colors that you can see around you. Acknowledge that all of these hues are part of a spectrum of light. Consider that you are part of this same spectrum of light, sprung forth from energy with the simple goal of Being. Honor how each color holds its own self under and within the light, and how it refracts and glimmers and blends and expands; remember that you can do this, too.

4. TOUCH: Acknowledge & honor four surfaces that you can touch around you. Examples: Touch the fabric of your favorite item of clothing and honor the threads or fibers that bind it together. Hold your own hand. Caress your own cheek. Bend down and touch the earth, including any plants on it, with your full palm. Touch the bark of the nearest tree. Touch your forehead to the nearest wall. Touch the chair you are sitting on. Touch an object or being of meaning to you. This is your ecosystem; you are a part of it. You can have a loving attachment to land, plants, animals, objects, surfaces, matter—because you exist in relation to this ecosystem, including in relation to yourself.

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3. HEAR: Acknowledge & honor songs you can hear around you. Focus on separating the ambient sounds of your environment until you can hear the songs of things like: echoes of voices, leaves crinkling in unison with wind, insects chirping, water dripping, flags rippling, machines near and far humming, human footsteps nearby or above you, your own clothing rustling with slight movement. Then, hum one long, sustained note to yourself, and honor your own voice. Take breaks/breaths if needed, then continue to hum until you have heard your voice in your body and your mind.

2. SMELL: Acknowledge & honor two things around you that you can smell: one that reminds you of the sacred power of your transness and one that allows you to breathe in with it the warmth and strength of your ancestors. Focus on the sources of the scents.

Examples: natural body odors, fragrances, textiles and furniture, foods and drinks, skincare products, oils, incense, sustainable and ethical smoke cleanses of aromatic plants 1. TASTE: Acknowledge & honor one thing around you that you can taste. Take a moment to hold gratitude for the food, its components, its creation, and the soil and sunlight and human touch that nurtured the food from its original form to its form on your tongue.

After you cherish its taste, prepare the same bite of food for a loved one and witness how the food, delivered by your hand, nourishes them.

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acknowledgements 2022 Our Timeless Existence Zine Workshop Participants We would to extend warmth and endless appreciation to everyone who attended the Our Timeless Existence Zine Workshop!

Thank you for opening up and sharing your experiences as TQAPI people, holding compassion for your past selves, and imagining the infinite possibilities for our collective future.

2022 CommComm Zine Team Bisma Farzansyed, Jenica Rose Garcia, Kaylie Chen, Michelle Wang, Beck Liao

Special Thanks to Yuan Wang, CommComm Workshop Closed Captioners: Phibi, Tary, Mei, Yzabel Workshop Radical Welcomers: Amaya, Amulya, Nuriel, Peck, Al

THANK YOU!