A few weeks ago in therapy, I had what some might consider a breakthrough.

For the past few years, I've been mean to myself and I mean really mean. My sticks and stones have been replaced by automatic weapons. I've critiqued my body, my love life, my clothing, my diet, and especially my spending habits. Left to my own brain, I've felt like a total failure, and some weeks it's hard to live with what feels like an overwhelming truth (no matter how many of my amazing friends tell me otherwise).

As of late, I've been flying by the seat of my pants as I navigate nomadism. In my highest mind, I want to call myself a nomad, but in my most vulnerable moments, I feel more like a vagabond. These feelings don't come from a place of kindness, but from a visceral, festering wound that has been well-fed. Because I have elected to live far away from home, I am finding myself without a space to regulate, and it's starting to take a toll.

My therapist is always reminding me to zoom in when I'm overwhelmed, and these feelings arise. They're trained in somatic therapy or therapies that "posit that our body holds and expresses experiences and emotions, and that traumatic events or unresolved emotional issues can become 'trapped' inside."1

In sessions, whenever I monologue about life or whatever feels most urgent, my therapist will ask, without fail: How does this feel in your body-mind? If I allow it, we'll sometimes even do physical movement to return to that connection. I’ll hold up my hands as if in a prayer pose, and gently touch pinky to pinky, then ring finger to ring finger, slowly melting my hands into themselves.

On one hand, I appreciate the challenge of leaving my analytical brain and being drawn back into my body. Because I take mood stabilizers, it can be very difficult for me to feel big feelings for very long. As such, my analytical brain often takes the front seat, applying logic to whatever emotions are coming to the fore. I don't sit with a feeling for long before I go into clinical mode: I feel A. Why? What needs to be done? How long has this been present? Whose fault is it? That last question tends to be the most operative, because my brain —judge and jury— knows without a shadow of a doubt that everything is some version of my fault. I’m guilty because I’m not smart enough, wise enough, cool enough, hardworking enough. Enough, enough, enough. Some call this the inner critic, and let me tell you: mine would put Siskel & Ebert to shame.

In a recent session, we had a conversation about my inner critic that has stuck with me: I jokingly seriously told my therapist, "If I ever met my inner critic, I would push her down a flight of stairs." She paused and said, I don't know if you'd do that to a child.

Before that moment, I had never considered that my inner critic might not be as big and grown-up as I am. After their comment, I started imagining my inner critic as a stack of little-me's — almost Little Rascals-style — all piled into a Burberry trench coat, shouting from the peanut gallery. A little grouping of Kimberly’s of past years with sticky fingers, with knocked knees, with gentle eyes.

This realization led to what feels like a genuine breakthrough.

Rather than being in constant opposition with my inner critic, which really just adds to the pile of self-hatred… I'm now a bit more attuned to the fact that even she needs some nurturing. Maybe she's lonely. Maybe she's scared. Maybe she's just hangry and needs a home-cooked meal. More and more, I'm challenging myself to stop weaponizing my analytical mind and to make room for questions instead of conclusions.

Conclusions feel like safety, like control, but I know, somewhere deeper, that this is a lie I’ve told myself for a long time. This need for control invites sharp words toward myself and those I love very deeply. I move into an immediate posture of offense before allowing myself the room to pause and access more than a surface feeling.

I don’t know that I’ll be able to rewrite my inner dialogue overnight, but this reframe has genuinely helped me, and I hope it might work for you too. We’re all caught in a constant cycle of hurting and healing and contrary to what we’ve believed for so long, there’s no prize at the end. I often gawk at people who have “graduated from therapy,” because, to me, the work of tending to yourself never has an expiration date. Yes, we can hold ourselves to high standards, but we can’t forget the gesture of holding, or we’ll just be pushing ourselves out of moving vehicles with no safety gear.

I not so humbly describe myself as “a woman of words,” which really just means: I love to YAP. I love to chat shit, to share philosophy cribbed from podcasts, and I even love to eavesdrop on others as they yap.

Lately, Portuguese lessons have been ripping me a new one. Conjugating verbs, curving my mouth to reveal new sounds, and constantly making mistakes has been necessary, urgent work.

To keep me in the game, I started reading Dr. Kató Lomb's Polyglot: How I Learn Languages. Dr. Lomb famously knew 16 languages, many of which she learned in her 30s and 40s. In it she writes, "Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people."

What's most true about language learning is that it stems from our desire to connect. As humans, we crave it. While tools like Google Translate and whatever AI doohickeys get us through quick transactions, learning a language … and truly leaning into the chaos of it … is one of the most romantic things the human brain does. It makes us brave. It makes us choose our words wisely. It can trip us up, but sometimes it's necessary to slow all the way down. There are couples who have been together for years without fluently speaking each other's languages, and yet their connection holds because they work to find their own language. The sweet slippages in between are what bond them. The foundation of good loving is a work of comprehension. On the whole, learning implies a lack of knowing, which also implies room to grow and mature.

We cannot let this fall by the wayside. We need to fail into connection far more than we need to get it right.

In addition to formally learning languages and how to learn languages, I've recently developed the habit of researching the etymology of words. This week's word has been desire.

Desire comes from the Latin desiderare, composed of two parts: the prefix de-, meaning "of" or "from," and sidus, meaning "star" or "constellation." The composition implies a longing or waiting for what the stars will bring, often linked to ancient astrology or navigation. Before this, I'd always equated desire with something corporeal, but I’m moved by this celestial re-imagining.

What we desire is so much more than a yearning. When we let it be, desire is more like a grander connection to the great beyond. We’re all created from stardust and so maybe what we desire is with and within us all along.

Below, I’m including a few of the tabs that opened in my mind as a result. To know me is to know that I am both a woman of words and a woman of well-curated tabs.

1: Emerson Rocha, The Blue Where Yemanjá Reigns (2024)

I recently reposted this amazing artwork from Altagracia Alvarado's substack. This work, created by Emerson Rocha and entitled The Blue Where Yemanjá Reigns (2024), immediately re-emerged in my mind when I thought to start this etymology series. Rocha's interpretation of the orixá Yemanjá, covered in stars, struck me. Yemanjá's name is derived from the expression YéYé Omó Ejá: "The Mother whose children are fish." I'd originally wanted to draw a direct connection between this interpretation of Yemanjá and the idea of being born from the stars, but I don't want to speak to what I don't know nearly enough about. What my affection for this image did lead me to, however, is a two-part essay by my beloved T. Lax, Curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York — Searching for Iemanjá: On the Move in Brazil — a deeper dive on Yemanjá, her lore, and what makes her such a powerful force spiritually and culturally. Go read it and delight.

2: “You Are My Starship” by Norman Connors

The absolute banger "You Are My Starship" by jazz drummer, composer, arranger, and producer Norman Conners is one of those songs where, when it plays, you don’t need to know the words to know the words. I wonder if there's a theory for this—specifically within Black culture. I often feel something like a sonic inheritance in songs by Al Green, Frankie Beverly and Maze, Patti LaBelle, and others. I never stopped to learn the lyrics, but through some osmosis of Blackness they sit in my bones.

Oh, oh, you are my starship
Come take me up tonight and don't be late
Yes, you are my starship
Come take me up tonight and don't be late
And don't you come too soon

3: “Daystar” by Rita Dove from Collected Poems 1974-2004

Rita Dove's "Daystar" remains one of my favorite poems of all time. I first came across it in college in a class with Dr. Kevin Quashie, author of The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture and Black Aliveness, Or A Poetics of Being. Any chance I have to mention him, I do. Without Dr. Quashie's tutelage, I cannot imagine having become a writer. At the time, we were also reading Gwendolyn Brooks's only work of fiction, Maud Martha, another book I absolutely adore and highly recommend.

"Daystar," much like Maud Martha, opens a portal into the subconscious of its protagonist. Beyond its gorgeous prose, Maud Martha's structure always struck me: beyond a few choice moments, Maud Martha is largely muted and doesn't engage in much dialogue. The book's storytelling exists entirely within her mind and purview. Similarly, Dove's protagonist in "Daystar" silently carves out a moment for herself in the middle of her day. She finds mindfulness. She builds a palace. She finds a place to be nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day, and in that nothingness she finds both desire and fulfillment.

Daystar

She wanted a little room for thinking;
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door.

So she lugged a chair behind the garage
to sit out the children’s naps.

Sometimes there were things to watch –
the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
a floating maple leaf. Other days
she stared until she was assured
when she closed her eyes
she’d see only her own vivid blood.

She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared
pouting from the top of the stairs.
And just what was mother doing
out back with the field mice? Why,

building a palace. Later
that night when Thomas rolled over and
lurched into her, she would open her eyes
and think of the place that was hers
for an hour – where
she was nothing,
pure nothing, in the middle of the day.

I am, in many ways, the king of quitting. Before Pace, I’d only ever held one other job for that long. Maybe I’m avoidant. But movement has been the organizing principle of my life since my early teens, when I elected to go to boarding school. At 12, I knew I wanted to see more of the world, and that by hook or crook, I would find my way there. I was going to school six days a week, taking night classes on Wednesdays, and a year later I was enrolled at St. George’s School in Newport, RI — far from everything and everyone I knew.

For most people, that kind of rupture might insight a mental collapse. For me, it was the beginning of a unique, third sight. I have come to know myself through changes in environment. I know who I am because, of course, I am with myself all the time. Over the years, I've come to love and to hate her — but still, she never leaves me.

Applying to and getting accepted into the program was a great challenge to my look-and-leap lifestyle. Not only did I apply to graduate school, something I'd convinced myself I needed, but I applied to a program in London as an international student. I want to pause here to say: please hug anyone in your life who has moved to a new country. Going through the motions, the costs, the logistics — all of it confirmed that I may be both intellectually and emotionally inept. I have always held deep compassion for migratory experiences, but the trials of moving freely between two English-speaking countries had me on my very last leg. For reasons too tedious to recount, I couldn't apply for a student visa and pursued an artist's visa instead. It was hard. It was expensive. And for so much of my life, I haven't shied away from hard.

I was a kid in Gifted & Talented. I am a perfectionist. I am hard-headed. However, the difficulty of this process was a mixed blessing.

You see, my life is one of tremendous privilege. I have time on my hands. I have people to hold my hands. I have a full belly. I have every reason to believe in the power of God. And, as such, I have to be for real when every sign is screaming no. And so, I let go of the “dream.” But not before I sublet my beloved apartment in New York and quit my relationship, my job, and left behind every safety net I'd assembled: all at once.

I was in a low of lows, but again, still privileged enough to pack my essentials and chart into a year of “yeah, sure” and “well, why not?” Since last August, I’ve lived on the road. I’ve stayed on friends’ couches, in their childrens’ bedrooms, in apartment shares and while I’ve done very little staying, I’ve been confronted with myself in ways that I haven’t felt since I was thirteen.

In this “yeah, sure” year, I've been in and out of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Milan, São Paulo, Rio, Doha, Los Angeles, Florence, Charlotte, Miami, Chicago, and most recently, Bali. Along the way, I've taken photos, made gratuitous Instagram posts, but I have yet to write a travel blog or make a vlog. As we know, contemporary internet culture has produced this insistence that every moment must be performed, packaged, and shared, and by my third move I was over the expectations. Over the past fifteen years, I've built a career as a curator and, at the same time, over the past eight, I've also made the majority of my money as an influencer. This means my economy survival is, quite literally, one of sharing. Influencing keeps the bank account accounting. Influencing puts me in the most extraordinary rooms. Influencing makes the making worth making.

Right? And yet, I can simply not be fussed.

Lately I've been watching travel vlogs — women in my age group sharing their day trips, their long stays, their outfits, their meals, the places they've been stranded. And with every click, I can't quite see myself doing the same. In my travels, I've also been slowly reading Johny Pitts' delicious Afropean: Notes from Black Europe. I love to take in these methods. But I have yet to find the form that lets me both remember and remember. In Bali, where I spent twenty-one days completing a yoga teacher certification, I lived in a small community within a small radius, and I kept a daily gratitude journal. Its pages hold everything from I am thankful for Bad Bunny to the things I should have said in arguments with people I love tenderly. This has felt like enough.

Last night, in the wee hours, I planned a trip to Sevilla to see América. Conexiones diaspóricas en la colección Jorge M. Pérez curated by the brilliant Hélio Menezes at Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo. Mayhaps, I’ll bring my fancy camera. I’ll hold my arm out and I’ll talk to it. It all feels slightly wrong in the way new, cringe, and challenging things sometimes do.

For now, I’m moving so fast I’m still working out where I am each morning. But I suppose it might be time to begin making some sense along the way.

Let’s see how this goes.

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Sharif Waked
Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints, 2003

Chic Point is a seven minute video that ponders, imagines, and interrogates "fashion for Israeli checkpoints." Set to the backdrop of a heavy rhythmic beat, men model one design after another in an exploration of form and content. Zippers, weaved nets, hoods, and buttons serve the unifying theme of exposed flesh. Body parts - lower backs, chests, abdomens - peek through holes, gaps, and splits woven into readymade silk and cotton t-shirts, robes, and shirts. Raw materials and standard clothes are transformed into pieces that follow normative fashion standards while calling them into question.

As the sights and sounds of the fast paced catwalk dim to a close, the viewer is transported to the West Bank and Gaza. A series of stills taken from the years 2000 to 2003 display Palestinian men traversing the profoundly violent but highly common Israeli checkpoint. One man after another lifts shirts, robes, and jackets. Some kneel shirtless, others naked, with guns poised at their exposed flesh. Men in Jenin, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Kalandiya, Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, and Gaza City wrangle with the Israeli state’s security apparatus.

Firas Shehadeh, Like an Event in a Dream Dreamt by Another—Insomnia, 2025

Insomnia is the second iteration of Like An Event In A Dream Dreamt By Another. It explores how Palestinian players transform RPG games into acts of defiance and worldbuilding, not as escapism but as survival. In Palestine, where sleeplessness is imposed by the constant hum of drones, wakefulness becomes both a curse and a battleground. Rejecting the role of an NPCs in a rigged game, Palestinian modders hack, rewrite, and reclaim their narrative, asserting their agency through play. The game is no longer a colonial fantasy; it is a contested ground where Return is the endgame, and resistance is written into the code. The film traces the lineage of colonial violence from Turtle Island to Palestine in Los Santos.

Descanso is an anti-monument that invites us to think about a paradigm shift. It is a replica of the statue of Christopher Columbus in Plaza Colón in Madrid, fallen and completely invaded by invasive weeds and plants (local and migrant) that gradually devour the figure in a colorful and harmonious feast.

The installation is conceived as a territory of rest from this colonial and violent legacy, an invitation to leave behind anachronistic heroisms that celebrate the violence exercised on different peoples, and to give way to life and to a new era more in harmony with others and with nature.

As a Colombian artist this installation has a special symbolism for me. Colombia etymologically means “the land of Columbus”. It was so named by the independence fighters (mostly white men descended from a European caste) who after winning a long war against Spain, wanted to dedicate the country to Christopher Columbus, a great paradox like the rest of our history. This work, between sculpture and landscape, also functions as a kind of return: here is your hero, we no longer need him. We need instead a rest from that legacy, a rest from those heroisms of cruelty of yesteryear.

— Ivan Argote

While the exhibition doesn’t open to the public until September 6, there’s already a cornucopia of auxiliary happenings—exhibitions, fairs, performances, and countless opportunities—to glimpse the vast creativity unfolding across Latin America. Though Brazil looms large in the global cultural imagination, many here (and across the region) remain disparagingly impacted by distance from the art epicenters of the United States (read: New York) and Europe. The result is often a very you had to be there kind of deal. With that in mind, between cocktails, openings, dance floors, and dinners, it’s my intention to bring you along for the ride. I am fortunate to see much of the world, but few places have educated and inspired me like São Paulo.

As a primer: biennials are most easily described as the “Olympics of Art.” The model, established in Venice in 1895, was initially conceived to spotlight Italian artists with a biennial exhibition of Italian Art (Esposizione biennale artistica nazionale) marking the silver anniversary of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy. In the early 20th century, the event became increasingly international. By 1907, countries began installing national pavilions—the first being Belgium—which already hints at the Biennale’s complex, problematic history. (For context, Chanel even dedicated a season of the podcast CHANEL Connects to the Venice Biennale last year. I joined my beloved fellow critic Andrew Durbin for the season’s opening episode.)

A half-century later, in 1951, Italian-Brazilian industrialist Ciccillo Matarazzo spearheaded the creation of the São Paulo Biennial, hosted ever since in the pavilion that bears his name in Parque do Ibirapuera. More on that later. For now, here are a few highlights from my first two days of exploration—because, in true fashion, I went straight from the airport into the bustle of it all.

Stop 1: SP-Arte Rotas
Described as “an art fair that moves with the times,” SP-Arte functions as a vital meeting point for the artistic community, promoting exchange and strengthening the circulation of visual arts within Brazil while expanding to the international market—firmly situating Brazil in the global circuit. Rotas, one of two presentations of SP-Arte, launches in the days leading up to the Bienal and serves as a platform for connections, movement, and discovery. Featuring 60 curated projects, organized by the fair’s artistic director Rodrigo Moura, it is, in my humble opinion, one of the world’s cooler fairs.

Below are a few highlights that made the journey to ARCA worthwhile:

Galeria Marco Zero (Recife, Brazil)

Yehudi Hollander-Pappi (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

VERMELHO (Lison, Portugal)

Cristina Guerra Gallery (Lisboa, Portugal)

Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi has long been one of my favorite abstractionist painters. I can’t quite remember when I first encountered his work—definitely on-line—but I do remember seeing it in person for the first time at Tate Modern. Gosh, there’s nothing like that first time.

His use of color, line, and scale has always drawn my eye and heart. For me, encountering his work feels like a soft tap on the shoulder: a reminder that whichever museum houses his work might just have a collection that is worthy of closer attention, that their galleries deserve a slower pace, and that my presence and patience are essential tools for viewing. Context is everything. As a viewer, I know what I like and what I don’t, but I also know that when I rush, I risk disenfranchising my own experience of art. I’m always grateful to the artists that stop me right in my tracks.

Today is Day 857 of the war in Sudan. El-Salahi was born in 1930 in Omdurman, one of several towns in eastern Sudan that remain in dire need of aid and our collective awareness.

This month, proceeds from subscriptions will go to Basmat Wasl, a volunteer-led organization that has worked tirelessly to distribute drinking water in Gedaref and meals in Gedaref, Omdurman, and Jareef. As of last week, Basmat Wasl announced on Instagram that they have run out of funds to continue operations.

If you are able, please consider making a donation to their PayPal, here.

Yesterday on Instagram, I posted a Reel sharing a sassy lil’ zinger about how the idea of community is at risk of becoming another commodity. Like most commercial goods, community has been sanitized into something transactional when, in truth, it is far more transcendental. At its best, community can be a transference of energy, a state of presence, a village in which we must all show up as villagers.

In the comments, the brilliant artist Sophia Al-Maria asked a question that piqued my interest: “Where is our generation’s Situationist International?”

I’d never heard of the Situationist International, so I went digging and here’s a quick primer:

The Situationist International (1957–72) (SI) was a collective of artists, writers, and social critics seeking to dismantle capitalism by revolutionizing everyday life.

Drawing on Letterism, Marxism, Surrealism and Dadaism, they imagined a world where culture wasn’t a commodity to be consumed but a living, breathing part of daily existence. One of the groups core tenants was that “there is no Situationist art, only Situationist uses of art,” which amazingly meant that little to no art was made. Top tier trolling!

Guy Debord, one of SI’s leading figures, famously described modern capitalism as the Society of the Spectacle—a system that manufactures our desires and leaves us perpetually chasing fulfillment through consumption. Sound familiar?

The SI argued that even our cities were designed to serve capitalism, separating people from one another and from their own desires. They introduced the idea of the dérive (French for “drifting”)—aimlessly wandering through urban spaces, following feelings instead of function, to uncover the city’s hidden, enchanting atmospheres. These dérives imagined a future where spontaneity and play—not efficiency and order—shaped the world we inhabit. (Fun fact: Psychologists have recently delved into the concept of “awe,” or the softer journey towards awe-inspiring moments as a path towards better mental and physical health. Huge time for wanderers who are not lost.)

Through wild, often provocative tactics, the SI tried to flip the tools of domination against themselves, revealing the absurdity and emptiness of consumer society. Their vision was utopian: a world where work and play, art and life, finally meet.

Of course, SI wasn’t without its failures—deeply misogynist dynamics meant women were mostly sidelined, making up just 10% of the group and often included only as partners or relatives of male members before being expelled completely in the late 1960s. But even with its flaws, SI carved out an audacious dream of a freer, more imaginative society—one where life itself was art.

If you’re curious to learn more and add some great reads to your library, this YouTube video by Shannon Kim is the great explainer (and truuuuust me, I opened so many tabs). I also picked up plenty of insights from The Art Story, which is a tremendous resource for anyone aiming to piece together the fragments of most chaotic, fascinating movements in the history of art.

Fast forward to present-day New York City: it’s nearly impossible to travel through any borough without passing delivery drivers zipping by on e-bikes, carting fresh meals and miscellany delights to our doorsteps. As of 2024, over 65,000 app-based food delivery workers navigate the city daily, collectively powering an industry that generates billions of dollars each year. For many New Yorkers, delivery apps have become an everyday convenience — but for the workers themselves, the conditions are far more precarious.

In response to mounting concerns over low pay, unsafe conditions, and exploitative algorithms, New York City1 passed landmark legislation in 2023 to set a minimum wage for app-based delivery workers. The law guarantees a base pay rate of at least $17.96 per hour (before tips), with planned increases to match inflation in coming years. Meanwhile, crackdowns on illegal e-bike seizures and new safety regulations continue to reshape the landscape in which these workers operate.

For artist fields harrington, these couriers and their bikes have become the focal point of a new series of photographs featured in Jesse Firestone’s timely exhibition Clocking In, Clocking Out, on view as part of Residency Unlimited’s 2025 NYC-Based Artist-in-Residence culminating exhibition. According to the press release, Clocking In / Clocking Out “emerges from within this loop of labor and time, considering how time and work structure the conditions of visibility, agency, and endurance.” The show spans multiple mediums, but what struck me most in harrington’s work is his daring attempt to test the boundaries of what photography can do.

Photography has long been understood as an extractive practice — deeply entwined with larger questions of representation, documentation, autonomy, and, of course, commerce. After a recent studio visit with harrington (thank you, Jesse!), I’m still suspended in the tension of his ways of seeing. I admit, at first I was skeptical. Like many, I carry a healthy suspicion toward the ethics of documenting, narrating, and commodifying the lives of others. What does it mean to photograph people at work? How do we responsibly tell stories that can — and perhaps should — be told in other ways? What role do the author and the audience play in the interior lives of any subject?

Through what feels like a kind of self-flagellation, harrington continues to position his lens at this labyrinthine crossroads. After shadowing several, often (and justifiably) hesitant drivers, he chose to pause documenting the workers themselves and turned his focus toward the bikes. He grew curious about the bikes and their construction — for example, exploring the link between the batteries that power the bikes and the countries of origin of the riders using them. What does it mean for a driver to seek refuge from the very country whose mineral resources power the labor they now do thousands of miles away?

In documenting thousands of bikes, certain patterns began to emerge: symbols of home, religious imagery (think prayer hands and images of the Virgin de Guadalupe), and subtle signs of personalization that many (myself included) might never have stopped to notice. During our visit, it was amazing to hear the artist think through how to tackle questions of labor from a truly holistic perspective. What has resulted — at least for now — is an assembly of photographs: still-life images that reveal a striking diversity among these vehicles and, by extension, their riders. Is it a perfect solution? Perhaps not. But have these images fundamentally changed how I see these bikes — and the strategies for survival they facilitate? Absolutely.

One of my favorite things about artistic practice is that artists — unlike most other public thinkers — can exist within the space of hypothesis. Art and culture are critical allies to policy, but on their own, they remain spaces of curiosity and experimentation. I’ll let fields keep his secrets about future iterations of the project, but what exists today — shown alongside equally compelling work by artists including Ayanna Dozier, Cato Ouyang, and Bat-Ami Rivlin — is the beginning of something I have no doubt is worth continuing to resolve. Clocking In, Clocking Out represents a collection of ritualistic, process-based artworks that grant so much more than the eye can see, and for that I’m deeply thankful.

Clocking In / Clocking Out
Residency Unlimited’s 2025 NYC-Based Artist-in-Residence (NYCBAR) Exhibition
Featuring Ayanna Dozier, Cato Ouyang, fields harrington, and Bat-Ami Rivlin
Curated by Jesse Bandler Firestone
All Street Gallery, June 12 – July 2, 2025

The Debt By Paul Laurence Dunbar

This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end —
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release —
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best —
God! but the interest!

If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s this: I’m a prepper.

In my early 20s, I read about the typical age-of-onset for mental health disorders and knew I needed to get into therapy—and fast. Because of my family history, I understood I was statistically more likely than most to encounter some form of mental illness. So I made a plan: get into therapy early. Build a wall. Build a moat. I thought, If I’m already in therapy, someone will be there to catch me if I fall.

Dear reader, I’ve survived two major mental health crises since then—and no amount of preparation could have fully readied me for the journeys each would demand.

This Friday will be my last day as a Curator at Pace Gallery. This chapter has given me so much—more than I could have planned for. I often called Pace my version of graduate school, and now, I find myself in a season of graduation. At the same time, a new chapter begins: I’ll be heading to actual graduate school this fall, moving to London after twelve years in New York City.

Since beginning my “preventative therapy” journey, I’ve watched my mental and physical health ebb and flow in ways I wouldn’t wish on others (ok, maybe… some others). Still, alongside the wreckage, I’ve managed to build a beautiful, hard-won life. There are excruciating moments I’ll likely never share online. But after my last long-term depressive episode in 2021 just before beginning my job, I was faced with a choice: die, or fight for a life that I could survive.

Now, as I prepare to leave New York—not just for a visit, but to live elsewhere—I am terrified.

This will be my first time living away from New York for more than a month since I arrived in 2013. And although I travel often (more than most would recommend), living somewhere new is a different kind of leap. I’m scared that this next step might be leading me toward danger, rather than deliverance.

The other day, my friend Justen sent me a video where someone said, “The more I heal, the less ambitious I am.” It left me spinning a bit, thinking about ambition—the root word ambire meaning “to go around,” from Roman politicians canvassing for approval.
Thinking about ambition as external validation has been clanging around in my brain, especially amid all the conversations about "Black excellence."

Lately, I’ve been spending time with Dr. Judith Joseph’s High Functioning: Overcome Your Hidden Depression and Reclaim Your Joy. In the book, Dr. Joseph defines High Functioning Depression (HFD) and its emotional architecture. I had to pause the audiobook after just a few chapters—the words felt too raw, like Dr. Joseph was speaking directly to me. (Like sis: why are you yelling at me?)

In her descriptions of maladaptive coping, I saw myself too clearly. Not with shame, but with shock—at how much of my survival had been engineered to look like success. Processing these realizations in therapy has given me—and the younger versions of myself—a little more breathing room. A little more language for the archive of survival I’ve been quietly building for years.

So, dear reader—this isn’t a newsletter about art today. It’s a letter about living.

It’s tempting to believe mental health follows a clear timeline—that crises have start and end dates, that strength or ambition will save us. It’s tempting to believe we control the map of our lives.

But if I’ve learned anything, it’s this: survival isn’t linear. Healing isn’t linear. Growth isn’t guaranteed. It’s easy to tell the hero’s tale once collapse is seemingly in your rearview.

After a recent therapy session, I wrote a note to my teenage self—who’s been tapping on my shoulder lately. Back in 2004, Baby K and her parents moved her to Middletown, Rhode Island to enroll as a boarding student at St. George’s School. Those four years are pure memoir fuel. I couldn’t see it then, but being admitted to meet a diversity quota wasn’t freedom—it was forced ambition. A stripping of agency I’m still healing from.

Y'all, I don’t have all the answers—even after tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours in therapy. I’m just writing to you all with the tenderness I often feel as I stumble into Spring.

I hope you’re not facing the future with rigid resolve or perfectionist ambition, but with tenderness—understanding that life is uncertain. We can prep. We can read. We can plan. But unless we meet ourselves with curiosity and compassion, there may never be true growth. And there may never be true survival.

Here’s to the beautiful, bewildering work of staying alive.