On continuing relationships, why art is political, and things gone unpublished in a world askew

The Last Sushi

On continuing a relationship with my dad

It’s been almost six years since the last dinner I’ll ever have with my dad, and today, for the first time, I went back to that hibachi alone.

I was sat catty-corner to our last seats—there was a man dining alone there. He was finishing as I came in. I thought about moving when he was gone, but I let the idea pass once I could clearly imagine you where you had sat before—the way there was a thickness in the air there; an outline of your absence.

I watch the busboy clean the table, pick up the dishes and cups, take things away.

There is the strangest art on the wall—where I would not have been able to see before—backlit water with these rocket-shaped blobs of jelly floating intentionally upstream towards columns where they are wholly absorbed; lose their own shape; become the columns; one thing, subsumed—the individuals to the collective, and I hear you trying to show me that we’re still the same, you and I.

I sip hot sake at noon. Feel your smile beam from the chair in front of me.

Tell me about all of it, you say.

I let out a sigh, and in a way I tell you about how I’m stuck between things: Between sheltering the kids to only know love and innocence and kindness for as long as it makes sense and raising revolutionaries who know how to stand up for themselves and their neighbor. Between all the mundane things I love and miss because doing anything less than shouting about the audacious injustice of our world feels wrong. We must have more audacity. Wellsprings of courage. Between feeling the most euphoric of joy in the faces of my children and the terror of the world they’re being given. Between stroking their tiny hands in mine and the images of small hands around the world desperately reaching for their mothers, or worse. Not reaching anymore at all. Between making things with my hands and my heart while feeling like the very humanity I reach for is crumbling and it makes art feel like ash in my palms. Between the deep instinctual call to action and the full-body fatigue of a twenty-four hour news cycle. Between the stark silence of each frozen winter morning and the way months rush past me like they’re trying to escape. Between famine and starvation and the indulgence of this very meal in this very moment. Between the suffering of it all and the beauty of it all. I know there’s still beauty in it, but I’m tired of the work of uncovering it; of digging it out with such a small spade.

The music in this restaurant transports me back to sushi in Chicago, to that strange place with red lights and white chairs shaped like giant bowls, where we ate more edamame than I ever could now, not needing to think of much outside those walls, those moments. Can you believe that was almost 18 years ago? I could barely do the math just now.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to eat when I came in here—the way my stomach was tying itself in knots, but then it felt like we came to share this meal once again, and I put way too much wasabi in the soy sauce—maybe on purpose, because the ginger sting of it in my nose reminded me of your laugh, and all of a sudden I was ravenous—the way grief leaves you starving—and I ate every crumb on my plate, down to the bones; licked the orange rinds, people were staring. You always were a messy eater.

Things Gone Unpublished in a World Askew

I’ve been migrating all of my past blogs to a new website, and there is a distinct line in the content between before 2016 and after. These past 10 years have disrupted all of our lives with the cascading strength of a waterfall fed by an ocean of injustice. And in that time, over and over again, I’ve purposely de-centered my voice to make space for the underrepresented ones that we should be and need to be listening to. 2025 was no different.

When Andrea Gibson died in July, I quickly took to my journal and I started a piece called On the Loss of Andrea Gibson: Or the Incredible Honor of Having Shared Life at the Same Time as Them. And then it sat. And sat. For four months. I felt paralyzed, staring at the unfinished words. The truth was, with everything dark and askew in the world, I felt no business feeling as heartbroken as I did by the death of a stranger. I watched their wife, Meg, publicly unravel her grief for us all to share in with awe, and slowly, I came to hear what I think Andrea would want to say—because they had said it already:

This reframe—to seek out the love beneath all our sorrow, to reclaim that primary emotion that is the genesis of all other difficult feelings—is the thing we need to hold so tightly to now. We feel such despair for the families that are being ripped apart, for the desecration of our collective morality, for children suffering all around us because we hold such deep love for those children, for this country, for our neighbors, and for this world. It is our love that is calling out for us to reckon with all the wreckage around us. We are love. Hold onto it in a time when that is the very thing the State is trying to dismantle because it knows nothing is stronger than love. Nothing.

In light of all of this, I cannot connect with you all without acknowledging Minnesota. Without acknowledging communities and families, including my own, across the country being terrorized. Without acknowledging Gaza. And Sudan. And the myriad of humanitarian crises that collectively weigh an anvil made of apathy on our shoulders. Without acknowledging survivors of these unimaginably massive human trafficking networks that all of our “leaders” across the globe are deeply knitted to. Without acknowledging the women mourning the stress of motherhood in these years, and the Black and Indigenous women who have been screaming for us to see this very condition of our society the entire time, for all of its history.

As the threat of an authoritarian regime looms near, rather than standing still I’ve been focused on solutions, on action, on community, and I’ll be sharing more of that in the coming weeks, but for now, in this critical moment for our country, our entire world, I want to acknowledge and amplify some of the innumerable resources coming from organizations with more bravery than most of us will ever have to muster.

Immigrant Defense Project - Fighting for Justice & Human Rights for ALL

Immigrant Defense Project protects and expands the rights of all immigrants, focusing at the intersection of the criminal and immigration systems.

www.immigrantdefenseproject.org

Casa San José - Latino Support in Pittsburgh

Casa San José supports Pittsburgh’s Latino community with social services, education, healthcare, and immigrant rights advocacy.

casasanjose.org/en

ICE Rapid Response in Western PA - Home | Frontline DIGNITY

Dignity means treating someone as an end in themselves, and not as a means to an end. In today’s critical moment, we are on the frontlines of the fight for dignity nationwide. The call to affirm the dignity of our neighbors has never been more urgent, and we are answering it.DonateGet InvolvedWHAT WE DO Prepare communities before harm occurs. Frontline ... Read More

frontlinedignity.org

Home

Public Source tells the stories of neighborhoods and towns across Southwestern PA — covering issues & decisions that affect your daily life.

www.publicsource.org

ICE Rapid Response in Western PA - Home | Frontline DIGNITY

Dignity means treating someone as an end in themselves, and not as a means to an end. In today’s critical moment, we are on the frontlines of the fight for dignity nationwide. The call to affirm the dignity of our neighbors has never been more urgent, and we are answering it.DonateGet InvolvedWHAT WE DO Prepare communities before harm occurs. Frontline ... Read More

frontlinedignity.org

ICE has no place in our neighborhoods! - Toolkit

ICE has no place in our neighborhoods! - Toolkit

www.codepink.org/latam_ice

Halt the ICE Terror Machine | Indivisible

Act now with Indivisible to demand Congress rein in ICE, end aggressive enforcement, restrict ICE and Border Patrol funding, and protect communities.

indivisible.org/campaigns/halt-ice-terror

People Over Papers - Report ICE Activity

Report and track ICE activity in your community. A community-driven platform to document immigration enforcement.

iceout.org/en

Art is Political

If you can’t do anything else, make something

In the deep hibernation of December and January, I have been creating. I have been channeling all of these things around me into workshops and programs and talks and paintings and weavings and drawings and poems. My hands have been busy in communication with my heart with the knowledge that under the threat of an ethnostate, the mere act of creativity is political resistance.

Art is activism. It is lending your voice and your support to the communal dialogue surrounding us, and it is a way to hold a light—a beacon—that says you are here, in it; that we’re suffering, celebrating, mourning, fighting all together.

The process of creating art becomes political in that it asks us to excavate our deepest feelings and reflections and to grapple with our own internalized narratives, biases, confusion, hurt, discomfort, and joys. It empowers us to see ourselves as whole beings, and never at the mercy of any coercion.

Right now, creating art feels heavy, and it’s because we’re grappling with so many heavy things—more than we’re even designed to be able to carry. And maybe you might even be feeling darker, or resentful, or angry, but I invite you to create with it. Recently, the ever-inspiring Kiese Laymon discussed permission to hate under the tyranny of white supremacism, and said that if you need to hate, make sure you hate beautifully.

Stay connected. Stay safe. Keep creating.