legacy, layers and California (by Monique)

First, I have so enjoyed reading everyone’s posts so far.
Witches!
California!
Feminism!
Flappers!

So in my thinking about the next work I want to make, I am thinking a lot about layers, about simultaneity, and about holding conflict and opposition in one body mind. That which is ‘problematic’ sometimes enriches, that which is un-feminist sometimes empowers.

I just came out of a short run of my cabaret show, in which I premiered a few new stories and bits, many of which vaguely were about mothers: my mother, iconic mothers, drag mothers, and perhaps alternative ways of mothering and nurturing.

I also just finished Maggie Nelson’s superb little book ‘The Argonauts’ in which she practices a very personal and elegant kind of applied theoretics and talks a lot about queerness, sex, giving birth and parenting.
I have been thinking a lot again (again? always?) about my own choice not to give birth to children and I remain steadfast and content in it.

I will be coming to our (X)change work directly from the airport where I will have been in La Jolla (the very beautiful Northern beachfront part of San Diego – California’s Southernmost city) for the memorial of my maternal grandmother – my last and closest grandparent. I’ll arrive a little sad, tired and infused with legacy.

Matrilineage!
California!
Let’s make some new, weird little art-babies!
Let’s get all California together!