Hazard
On Safekeeping
I didn’t think this essay would be about love. I was brainstorming this newsletter in February, so it just felt too predictable. But sometimes, a thought hounds you so much that you have no choice but to hound it back. Something lingering in the fog of writer's block reaches out, and you’re left with no choice but to grab hold, shake it, and ask, “What the hell do you want from me?”
Thankful for the hounding, the shaking, and the light that brought me here…
One
One morning, I’m digging to find some photos from May last year, 2022. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I remember going to Jefferson Avenue in the same frame of mind. Sure of where I was going but unsure why. Sure that it was calling out to me but unsure of the reason. I didn’t think about it then, but we spent so much time marching along Jefferson with our cameras, bearing witness for the world, unsure if we’d be caught in another attack. We were well aware of what staying would cost us, and this cost, this worth, necessitated our presence. We knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into.
Despite the cascade of caution tape sprawled all over the neighborhood, the fearful gaze of those who did not know our intentions, and the eerie silence of the Tops Market building crashing up against the disparate cries heard from the people, we stayed. We had accepted an assignment and chosen to be where no light imaginable could possibly touch, or so we thought. The shadow felt darker by the day, yet we heard, “Glad it’s y’all tellin’ our story,” “It’s good to see us protecting us,” and “Would’ve loved to have y’all meet them.” Altogether, we realized we weren’t at the margin but at the heart of it all. Despite all that peril, we found love there. Perhaps, because of it.
Two
In his essay Nothing Personal, James Baldwin says, “ …and you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earthquakes, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is [there], for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.”
I want a love that addresses itself only to safety. As in, so conscious of peril it knows better than to waste a chance. As in, unwilling to participate in anything that might destroy its hosts. As in bravery, not bravado. Funny because love is dangerous and demanding by default. Dangerous because it lifts us out of ineptitude and directly into action, demanding because it calls us to have faith in what it will reveal. More than all that, it is revelatory and unveils places we can’t even imagine. These places being the nowhere from which we might say our lovers come from, the shadows out of which we await to be rescued, or the cold we carry warmth into for someone else’s sake. I want a love that addresses itself only to light because it knows it must brave the darkness to be witnessed or, better yet, felt.
Which is all to say, I want a love that doesn’t stop reaching, that knows it’s scared and reaches anyways because no one ever said that fearlessness was a prerequisite for all this shit. Just bravery.
Three
“The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure….” laments Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in 2007’s No Country For Old Men. “It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand.” He just like me forreal.
I’ve been told to stop being “afraid” of potential lovers at various points in my life, and those people have always managed to see their way out of it. Somehow, it always works out that they reveal the exact thing I was afraid of. Apprehension is interesting in that way because it means there’s one thing we know for sure: it ain’t all good company out here. As luck would have it, I’ve crossed paths with people who taught me how to feel marginal and altogether forgotten. Folks like that believe us to be replaceable. And they’re right. We are. That’s life.
But, anyone who intends to replace others is a hazard; it means they’ll never be all-in on anyone. It means we are just placeholders. I don’t want the company, let alone the attention, of someone so willing and prepared to be rid of me. That’s not loving, and it surely isn’t special. For better or worse, I always entertain the possibility for someone to change my life. I’m always pushing my chips forward and, for better or worse, I’ve never lost. I just leave each game more somber, and much smarter, than before. The sheriff ought to give himself more credit.
I’m not afraid of it. I’m just tired.
Four
I’d like to think that love is knowing the danger and still mustering the faith to reach out to someone. I’ve failed my friends several times, and lovers too. I’ve missed birthdays, folded on favors, and just straight-up forgotten things. Such is life, and none of us are perfect. Those friends still, somehow, remain. Perhaps because we understand how bad the shit can get and how desolate solitude can be, even when chosen.
I’ve been granted the good faith of folks who don’t owe me a goddamned thing, and in turn, no matter how far I fall, and how often I blunder, I still try my best to hold them up. As trivial and straightforward as our times may make it seem, friendship is its own precious kind of love. My friends aren’t simply play-things or pastimes to me. They’re neither easily forgotten nor willing to let me feel as such because threads like these are delicate and precarious. We’ve entrusted one another with faith daring enough to damage us. This is how we teach love to one another.
None of us are born with any legitimate obligation to those who might become our friends, let alone lovers. We can choose to replace people whenever we want and in whatever capacity as well. But the decision to safekeep the people we do have, lovers or not, is the only true testament to our capacity for love. We gotta keep pushing our chips forward so the dealer knows we still wanna play.
In the places where we are tied, there are no bonds except for choice, faith, and (mostly) chance. Because by chance, one is found in the beautiful muck of the everyday. One chooses and is, in turn, chosen by someone they’ve known for less time than they’ve been alive, and since it has taken all of our own lives to trust ourselves, and will require the rest of it to continue to do so, choosing to trust this person is insanely dangerous…but one does. And every day, by faith in this chance, poems are written, great distances are traversed, languages are learned, and children are born. And this is how we are redeemed.
I might just see y’all out there. Best of luck.
Yours,
WTJ
This is like when you stick around after the credits at a Marvel movie to see the post-scene. But it’s just me sharing a sappy playlist I curated for your listening. These songs acted as touchstones throughout my process of creating this newsletter so I’m glad I get to share them in this format with y’all.