Hi Stacey

Hi Stacey,

I’m trying to use a new voice. As an experiment. I use so many exclamation points. I bring a not not bubbly energy. But deep inside of that pink Glinda bubble is a little witch. For years she cackled, but now she is tired. Maybe when she was very young she screamed a lot.

I walked into my last session with my typical bouncy greetings for my therapist. And then I hung a lantern on the fact that I show up so smiley, but once I sit down I crack down into whatever is upsetting me. “Time to drop the persona,” I said. She didn’t laugh. Yeah, she asked, why the persona?

I feel like I have to witness the pain of the world. If I’m being honest. Like some cosmic purpose of mine is to tell the truth. I can’t explain it that well, but the older I get, the stronger I feel it. The more coincidences flip in my favor.* It was compulsion in my youth, then determination in my 20s, and now it feels the most…like a call. The banger from Moana comes to mind. Specifically when Moana belts: “But the call isn’t out there at all it’s inside me.”

Sometimes I think Taylor Swift is a genius who figured out long ago, in order to get anything done as a society we need to topple the patriarchy and in order to topple the patriarchy women have to confront their anger. So Blondie is, you know, a brilliant mastermind, but she’s had to slowly lead us to liberation in a tricksy little way. In a sparkle blazer, taking a deliberate pause after singing, “So it’s okay that I’m mad!” By keeping diss tracks a strong pattern of her work. By being candid about when men have taken advantage of her. If she can yelp it from the mountaintop, perhaps we can be the echoes.

Waiting for…signs. Again, I feel like horoscope, radio, and random google message are what I seem to pick up on, but I’ll try to be more open-minded. (More in the footnote.)

xoxo

Alice

*Of course, I have wondered if it was you. Who binged little technologies together to ping little people near me. If it was, thank you. I feel like I haven’t heard from you lately, but perhaps you’re trying.