jonathan
kwong

"human beings are magical. bios and logos. words made flesh, muscle and bone animated by hope and desire, belief materialized in deeds, deeds which crystallize our actualities."

- sylvia wynter, "the ceremony found: towards the autopoetic turn/overturn..."

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i have been at this institution for four years by the time you read this, and my thoughts are simple. this needs to decompose. while there has been a lot of joy in my last four years, i am reminded by alexis pauline gumbs that the institution does not love me, so where are the maggots? i came in with a gentle constant breeze of desire to learn only to be pummeled against the concrete structures of stubborn colonial ideologies. how fun. i think about time. how time never goes away but simply diffuses. love diffuses. violence diffuses. indifference diffuses. care diffuses. into me. the deeds which crystallize into the actualities of the institution. which is to say. bad. but also good. life being a magic that comes at a cost. the cost that i will not be the same and i am not. but don't expect me to be grateful. i am simply here. as witness. as testament. this is good. i am grateful. while he institution has not always been helpful or caring, the best way to weather a storm is in a sturdy shelter surrounded by the community i love and care for. from the various study groups to qpoca to canoe family to friends who stayed along the way, i'm grateful for their support and that i could support them. a reciprocal companionship.

a debt that always increases and is always paid forward. to be indebted to the existence of another human is a beautiful thing. so while i learned about violence and indifference, i have also learned love and care that transcends space-time and arrives exactly where power is needed to uplift, celebrate, cry, gossip, and laugh. as a friend once told a friend who then told me, life is a gift with a heavy burden. and i believe that it's a burden worth carrying. with all that's going on. with others. to the end.