this specific August

time to luxuriate in my curiosity

sometime after April 1996 but before April 1997. I was two years old. Presumably at my parents desk at our old house on Nottingham. Ypsilanti, Michigan.

I start my doctoral studies in History at the University of Michigan in twenty-one days (but have been doing research for a professor all summer, have multiple books to read for the first day of classes, and have orientation the next two weeks, so maybe the program has already begun!). There is much to say about how I came to this program at this time in my life in this place, but that is for another newsletter. I am both surprised at this choice/turn of events/return and also not surprised at all. I always wanted/knew I would get a terminal degree (though which specific degree it would be has changed over the years). I never thought it would be from U of M though. But we make plans and God and the ancestors laugh or maybe they are smiling because through it all, I really do believe I have ended up exactly where I am supposed to be for this next season of my life—for who and what they have called me to be and do.

I was trying to find a different picture for this newsletter’s hero image. But I’m worried I might have thrown away the scrapbook it was housed in during a fit of anger, depression, and hopelessness, when I was sick with cancer a few years back. I didn’t think I would get better. I didn’t believe everyone who told me that I was going to survive what happened to me. I did not see a purpose to anything. I had no hope for my future, so it stands to reason that I didn’t care about my past. The picture I wanted to share is from my very first, first day of school. My hair was pressed and in a half-up, half-down style with white and navy blue barrettes in it. I had on a white polo shirt, navy blue skort, and either white tights or socks with black Mary Jane shoes and I was standing outside of the door to my elementary school holding a Scooby-Doo roller backpack that was lavender, pink, yellow, and of course brown with glitter on it. I can see the picture clearly in my mind so maybe it doesn’t matter that I might not have it physically anymore. I’m hoping that I/we do though. That the scrapbook it’s housed in that I made for my high school graduation open house will turn up somewhere. That it’s just on vacation somewhere in our basement, eluding scanning because the photo wants to just live in my memories, mine and my parents of course. And if it turns out that I never find the scrapbook, I will be okay with that. If I threw it out when I was sick, I was a totally different Gabrielle then and the me of today understands exactly where she was coming from and why she made the choice she made. My parents tried to get me to keep whatever it was that I was throwing away at the time and I wouldn’t. I had no hope for my future. I didn’t need to care about my past. All love to the me that felt that way. I harbor zero ill will or contempt for her in my heart.

But here’s the thing, I did get better. And I needed every single fit I threw back then to survive.

I’m typing this to you from the future where I made it through. Maybe not whole, but I did survive. And one day, whether from cancer or something else, I am going to die.

So I’ve decided to set on about the business of doing something interesting that I respect in-between.¹

Painting on the floor with my mom. This was probably shortly after we moved so around 1997 or 1998. I was three or four years old. Ypsilanti, Michigan. I’m thinking that school and art making can actually just feel as fun as painting on the floor with my Mom did at three or four years old. I can hold this experience that lightly.

That was a very long pre-amble and now I’m crying, but I’m going to keep typing this note to you. I thought I didn’t have anything to say this week, but I was at the library on campus this morning, working on my summer research and was struck by the fact that I am entering a chapter of my life that younger me (not cancer me) always knew would arrive. She’s like I said surprised about where we’re doing this degree, but I also know she trusts me to make the best choices I can for us from moment to moment with the information and experience I have. And so I’d like to share a few things I’m thinking about, want to return to, hope to keep in my mind and on my heart as I move through this doctoral program over the next seven or so years. Because the space to in the words of my friend

Camille Bacon

“luxuriate in my curiosity” is something I’ll never take for granted—something that is an art and responsibility all unto itself.

So, in no particular order:

• Getting this degree is a means to answering a question, one that has been in my mind and on my spirit all of my life, whether I knew it or not.

• My family is and will always be what matters most.

• I am not the work I do, I am the person I am.²

• I must continuously count my blessings.³ And it is okay if I do not always feel blessed. Life is not black and white. I am okay holding and living in the gray.

• Cancer was a real life and death thing. If I hadn’t spoken up when I did, my prognosis could have been much worse. This PhD is not a real and death thing. It is important. It is a means to answering questions and getting resourced, but it is not a life or death thing. I will not treat it as such.

• Fall in love with the world, over and over, and over again.⁴

• Nothing is worth my peace or my health.

• One fiction book a month. Minimum. And not historical fiction. Romance. Sci-fi. Something to easily get lost in.

• Pursuing this degree is also a means of getting resourced. Not because academia is the only way to get resourced, but because I could no longer bear to split my time or energy between stuff I didn’t care all that much about to make sure I could pay my bills and support my practice. The resources are in and outside of the classroom, in and outside of the academy, in and outside of what the University of Michigan can offer me. The biggest resource of all is having little else to do but taking care of myself, loving who I love, and showing up to do my work. I know this is also an immense privilege. I will remember and hold it as such.

• Everyone is not able to give you feedback that you need to internalize and then try and do something with.

• There’s a lot that you can, could, or should do. What do you want and need to do? 

• Make as much time as you can for fun (that’s totally unrelated to your work).

• People will tell you that you’re doing too much. Some people are allowed to say this to you, others are not. Remember that your capacity is your own just like their capacity is their own. Your body knows the difference between enough, too little, and too much. Listen to her above everyone else. 

• The scholarship informs the art. The art informs the scholarship. There are no privileged methods, mediums, or materials in my practice. The work inter-is.

• The work is to honor my ancestors, contemporaries, and descendants—to make the contributions I know I was sent here to make.

• I will ask for help and support when I need it. I will not struggle through this program alone. People like me for me. People love me. My community wants me to be well. It is anti-community to not let people help me.⁵ It is anti-community to not help others when and where and how I can.

• Meal prepping is crucial. So is going for walks and calling friends and stepping into the backyard with no shoes on. Getting grounded is always a great use of time.

• I choose my choice. This is my path. No one else’s. There’s nothing to compare myself to here.

• It’s about honing my scholarly and artistic vision and using my voice, art, and freedom, to contribute to getting everybody free.

• Putting down roots of my own.

• I can still leave whenever I want to.

• Somebody prayed for me. Somebody is praying for me. Had/has me on their mind. Took the time to pray for me.

• I’m already brilliant and prolific. Time to keep getting smarter and hotter and wiser.

• Keep holding the practice. Protect studio time. School will try to encroach upon it. Don’t let it.

• HOBBIES HOBBIES HOBBIES. Especially ones you absolutely cannot in any way shape or form monetize at some point.

• Everything and everybody can’t come.

• Say no as often as you need to and remember it’s a full sentence. You don’t need to over-explain.

• Be as present as possible. Be wherever your feet are.

• What a joy it is to have nothing to say.

• Guard your doors. Your inputs. What you hear and see and absorb. Other people’s academic experiences do not and literally cannot be your own. Do not let what feels like anyone else’s negativity make you negative (or grumpy or afraid or anxious or depressed). Protect your heart. Protect your experience. Protect your ability to believe (not in the university, but in yourself and your community and Black freedom dreams).

• You will always be someone who charts her own path. There might be examples, but there will never be blueprints. You are not someone who can fit into a box of someone else’s making, someone who can step into someone else’s system. You are someone who has to create what fits and works for you. This experience and all that will come of it is no different. Remember the beauty and depth of all that you are. Do not flatten. Do not be squished or smushed. There is often a way to do what you need to in ways that honor you. Look for that way. Chart your own course.

• Remember to keep somethings for you.⁶ “Just enough 😉”-

  Camille Bacon
  again.

• Grace will carry you home and grace will see you through.

• Document as much as you can. Document everything. You will want to have evidence of your memories. Or maybe you won’t. You can also choose to be forgotten. But take care of whatever you choose to document.⁷

• Getting this degree is a means to answering a question, one that has been in my mind and on my spirit all of my life, whether I knew it or not. Other questions will come up in the process of answering this question, write them down, you’ll turn to them next.

I was in 2nd or 3rd grade here and I 100% still make this face. I don’t remember the specifics of why this photo was taken. But when I look at it, I see such confidence. I’m doing this for her and for Scooby Doo backpack carrying me and for all the me’s in between then and now and for every me I’ll be in the future.

While at the University of Michigan, I will continue working across materials (clay, words, herbs, printmaking, photography, documentary, history, and fiber) as I engage in a series of calls and responses to the world around me, especially the worlds of the upper Midwest, where I am from and where my family has lived since 1870. My personal history in the region animates my visual art and research practice as I am about to be a first-year doctoral student in History focusing on the African American family in the Great Lakes Region from the 1800s to the present.

My practice is concerned with African American Midwestern histories, presents, and futures taking shape beyond major urban centers and dominant cultural narratives about African American history in the Midwest.⁸

I want the Midwest to be more than a stop on the Underground Railroad or the place African Americans migrated to after the horrors of slavery, failures of Reconstruction, and terror of Jim Crow.⁹ I want to tell another story about our history here and believe I am best suited to do so as a daughter of this land, these waterways, and the ways of being in this place.¹⁰ 

I’ve waited for this specific August my entire life and it’s finally here. This is the place where it happens. I’m in the place where it happens. Home is the place where I happen.

more soon,
Gabrielle

P.S. I’m not yet able to share the work I made while on residence in Richmond with y’all (in case you were wondering what happened with all that). But the second I can, I will. It’s made and I feel really good about it. Looking forward to sharing it with you soon.

1

CTFORUM. (2020, November 13). Toni Morrison on Trauma, Survival, and Finding Meaning [Video]. YouTube.

2

Morrison, T. (2017, May 29). The work you do, the person you are. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/toni-morrison-the-work-you-do-the-person-you-are

3. I love you Granny.

4. Thanks Jen for sharing this nugget with me.

5

Gotta be a community member to have community members. Luna. March 1st, 2024. TikTok.

@lunatattoosyagotta be a community member to have community members #fyp #community #lettingpeopleincanbehard #vulnerability

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6. But tbh, my Scorpio rising is gonna make sure I do that anyway because that’s just who I am.

7. And let’s try not to throw stuff out in fits anymore. It’s all love. It’s not life or death. It’s not the end of the world. But it would be nice.

8. This (the first two paragraphs in this section) is grabbed and adapted from my bio. Full version here.

9. And of course it is all of those things, but those are the narratives that are so often centered in discussions about African American Midwestern history.

10. This is grabbed and adapted from the closing section of my personal statement. Good to know I can return to my application materials to ground me in what it is I think I’m doing whenever I need to.