you shared w/ me a body of indigo stones of scarred tissue the wind shakes the night & you let the moonlight have you
in the eyes of daylight i have bottled summer’s gold i taste it in the empty spaces, the memory
I move to New York in a little under 5 weeks. 4 weeks and 5 days. My future roomie has lived in the city since 2011 (and currently lives there). I’m grateful to be cohabitating with someone who has experience navigating the NYC housing terrain. I found the apartment we will be living in on Craigslist - a two bedroom in Bushwick with two bathrooms, a backyard shared with one other tenant, a large common area in the basement, and laundry. A perfect spot for us with enough space to feel private. We were still grieving the loss of an apartment we came close to getting approved for but at the last moment, the landlord decided they didn’t trust the fact that I didn’t have proper pay stubs to prove my income. A years worth of highlighted bank statements, plus a letter of recommendation from my landlord of 4 years, plus my credit score which is in the upper-good range wasn’t enough for them. We were devastated. The process of getting approved for an apartment brought up a lot of grief and shame for me - I’ve worked so hard to get to the place I am now, to make art for a living and to make a decent living at that. I’ve mentioned on here before that I grew up extremely poor, and in fact, my mom and I were homeless for a period of time while I was a baby. I am a classic example of a person trying to break their generational poverty. Having to highlight every dollar I made in the last year and essentially beg the landlord to trust I will pay my bills because I didn’t have a family member who would co-sign for me was humbling and didn’t feel great, but I weathered the storm of shame and numbers and now I have this new space waiting for me. I’m endlessly grateful for the spot we found, and endlessly grateful to everyone who has ever supported my art. One great thing about our apartment is that it happens to be an 18 minute walk to the studio I’ll be tattooing at, or a 6 minute bike ride, or a 15 minute walk in gay walking time. This move, or at least planning it so far, has been a combination of things not coming easily and the beauty of divine timing. The apartment hunt wasn’t easy but getting the job at the studio I’ll be working at was a sort of beautiful freak chance. I assumed I would rent a private studio to work out of, as I do here in Detroit, but one fine day I stumbled upon a tattoo studio’s Instagram I wasn’t even following and decided to email them to see if they were hiring artists. I got an interview and then got the job. Tattooing came to me so unexpectedly and I’m still learning so much. To move to another city to do this thing I recently learned that I loved (and only recently got good at) feels wild. It’s also wild to find a new craft in your late 20s. Society tells us that at 18 we have to go to college and spend thousands and thousands of dollars to become qualified for the career that will eventually pay for our retirement. I will find a way for my art to pay for my retirement. My art will pay for my retirement!!!!
(came out as Cody to my mom a few days ago)
In the process of preparing for my move, I’ve been going through years of old art and many sentimental scraps. I’ve been living in this house for over 5 years but surprisingly haven’t accumulated as much stuff is one might think. I’ve narrowed the sentimental items that come with me into two plastic bins. The bins I’m taking contain several old journals, over 100 sets of film negatives, old drawings and paintings, and lots of photos. While purging, I found a lot of old writing from as far back as my early 20s, mostly fragments and many written on scraps of paper
I don’t have the capacity to write on here with much frequency at this time. I write in my journal, but it feels good to put my thoughts on this platform once in a while. I’ve been working almost every day to save for my move and battling chronic fatigue and some nasty shoulder pain. (I was extremely touched at how many people booked tattoos with me before I moved - I opened my books in February and got booked up all the way to the end of April, until the last few days of me being in Detroit<3) I’ve been reading a lot and drawing a lot and going on sweet dates with a beautiful ceramist. Dating them has helped me to feel more present in this extremely transitional time and further reminding me how many beautiful people are here in Detroit, and how much I will miss them.
All we have is what is in front of us, the present moment. Things will always be good and bad, or maybe nothing is ever bad or good. Things will either go in our favor or take the shape of something we learn from, a redirection we will be grateful for later on. We must sit within the void of not knowing and perhaps even embrace it.
Hola , Esperó Qué Tú Nueva Aventura En La Ciudad De Nueva York , Cumpla Con Todos Tus Sueños. Un Saludo.