APIA Summit: "Where You At"-Day 3 and 4

I will call this recognition of community.

I went to "A Song for Ourselves" a documentary about Chris Iijima. It hit me really deep because we can be political and still maintain a "normal" life. It's easy to be consumed in the community and our work as leaders, but it's important to balance out the stress so we don't get burnt out. A lot of us, if not all, teared up and you could feel the air sink deep into your chest. It hurts to lose someone close to you, especially a person who has fought for the same cause. It made me appreciate the life I have and the good, great, godly people around me. To me, even in his illness, he chose to put a positive lesson or outlook on it. Whatever struggle it was, he followed his heart. When a person can always see the good and the open door in front of them, that's a sign that they are good people. I know many of my mentors have been this way: ray ray, mike song, sherweez and mike knox, my mom, etc. strong, good people y'know? and it's good to build that community because you know that you are being taken care of. We've got your back Chris!

Having three hour lunches is cool because I can just float around with Summit folk and know that it will be okay, that i'm not alone, that sometimes two is company enough. I ate with Jesse at Chipotle and got to talk more to Kelly Tsai about Chicago-style pizza and philly cheesesteaks and she's just so chill...i want to be adopted by her! So cooool!

Afer group picture, I floated into the Body Electric: the Queer Erotic as Power workshop. Nate and Adrien are amazing facilitators. We did a pictionary game but with sex words such as: kissing, doggystyle, blowjob, condom, lick, and etc. That helped get our blood going and our minds working and our nervous giggles out of the way!
Next we did magnetic poetry. One word per piece of paper, associate words to "sex" then do the same thing with the word "erotic." we brok up into groups, two given the sex piles, and two given th erotic piles and composed spoken word pieces. this was ours:

sensual sensual sensual
i got a fruit fetish
nipples
dirty symmetry
69 ecstacy
exoctic excitement and experimental pleasure
is wet whips candlelight
intense awareness of summer raindrops on my skin
bold curves
bondage freedom active verbs
one-up
sensual sensual sensual

pretty cool amazing genius stuff!
after thaaat we talked about the word erotic and what we could associate with it. likewise with the word queer. from those associations we write a QUEER-KU (5-7-5). super cute. interestingly enough, i wrote one that had to do with the negative perspective of "queer." mine went like this:

I was told not to
Live, reclaim, or empower
my sacred spirit.

But everyone started reading theirs and it was all about empowerment and the fluidity of the soul and the universe and the erotic intimacies of queer. so i changed it to:

Listen to Daft Punk.
Live, reclaim, and empower
the throb of self-love.

after audre lorde and regie cabico, we got to free write and share our own feelings about the erotic and queer and what it means to us. What is your erotic?

It's kinda cool learning how to float. I know i've always tried to create my own sense of security by making plans here and there so that I don't have to face the fact that I am alone. Luckily for me I had KC and Huy with me. I was craving yogurt so I got yogurt park and they got their boba drinks. I still didn't feel right so I went to get a donut. How funny was it for me to run into my spop kids, Jeff and Olivia, in the Asian plaza right as i walked out of the donut shop! small world. the pull of my gut and the fate of life....i dunno man..is the future talking to me via gut messages? sugar cravings bringing me small surprises. thank you Life, it's all very sweet! I want to drift forever in the sea of summit folk.

And the summit blew me away with this commuity showcase! serious power and voice and energy and love. so muuuuch looove.

we went to matt's and huddle around a jug of carlo rossi and it was a good time. it was a better time when the bud and budlight showed up :) I had to leave just as the party started though, without even getting to say goodbye (sorry peoples) because my parents called and said thy were on telegraph. such good parents for waiting up for me and driving me around places.

i came home and my gramma looked at me, crying, telling me that she was very scared of me dranking (i will write a poem about this actually) and then i went to sleep.

point: community leading to day 4
we opened up with a free write: I came here looking for....and then another one: I'm leaving here....both my freewrites were whaaack. but we sat in a circle of charis and shared what we wanted to say about the summit. So much thanks for the organizers who made this space available to us. It's a very scary and vulnerable place to be, sharing your honest feelings, thoughts, and reflections, but it truly made an effect on me. Again, I wasn't sure if I was going to share but I felt like I needed to. I didn't want to get up for the mic so I waited for it to float my way. Fantastically, Nikki sitting next to me just handed it over. Perfect.

For me, the summit healed me, or at least showed me that it's okay to be broken because we all are in some way or the other. However, we don't let those breaks get us down. We are survivors, yeah...we all are survivors in this cruel fuckin' world and I was finally able to find voice and body united, harmonious, in sync, in the bay, at home, in me. The women's open mic showed me that we are women who go through the same insecurities and struggles, yet we can be sexy. And man, my erotic is seeing how immersed we are in our passions in the community, in our art, in our history, in our experiences. I was soaking wet sponge because there was was an ocean of voices, many voices, one mic. and the mic was on me. I have a place in this sea.

So I read:
My erotic lubes me with intellect
stimulating thoughts of pain and pleasure--
race riots and community movements--
sensual slips between the inner paradigms, thighs
I traffic temptation, wet secret drip:
our domes, nipples, hips, and toes.
we are filled
with the orgasm of collective struggle.
We fight to reclaim the depth of our universe. I
see you, live you, am you.
I embody
the erotic.

We positives and deltas and voted for Summit 2011 Minneapolis, Minnesota!!!!

and bbqed and open mic and just basked in berkeley sun and golden brown people each brown black bbq! Beautiful....so beautiful that it took hours to leave....it's hard saying goodbye and for me, it never is a goodbye, because the possibility of seeing one another will be what I look forward to! We make the Summit happen and maintaining the relationships we made this weekend outside of it shows us that the fire is still burning.....it's hot...it's real...my APIA Poet community is ALIVE and WELL!

See you all in 2 years (or soooooner)!!!