Newsletter #3

District Made | 6.1.23

An emptied apartment is a sad thing.

When a space is cleared of all the “stuff” you bring, you realize it was you who colored the walls with character. When I cleared the things from the walls from my Logan Circle apartment this past week, Dad helping ferry the TV stands and leftover shampoo bottles, I thought about the character that had covered that wall.

Character made up of many travels, many laughs, meals cooked, stories told, Knick games’ watched. How many times I woke up before the sun so I could run away or clung to bedsheets so the hangovers would instead.

For 5 years, DC has been where I ever really unpacked my suitcase. After a beautiful weekend surrounded by many of my closest friends, I tearfully packed those memories into 200 paper sheets, 12 bins, 6 boxes, 1 mattress bag, and a roll of wrapping paper.

I’m eager for what comes next, but I can’t help but take a moment to appreciate the sadness I feel leaving my adopted city before I let go of it. I think of Neruda - Tonight I can write the saddest lines / To think that I do not have her…The night is starry and she is not with me.

When I move to Austin next week, I do so hoping that when I unpack those bins, boxes, bags, that character has made the 1,500 mile trip, too.

Thank you, D.C. I will miss you.

What I’m Listening To

• Winelight, Grover Washington, Jr.

• Sokkar & Elyanna 2, Elyanna

• Under the Milky Way, Temper Trap

• Ayonha, Hamid Al Shaeri

• Preacher’s Daughter, Ethel Cain

• The Hillbillies, Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamar

• Dawns, Zach Bryan

• Area Codes, Kali

• 3ala Ma Azon علي ما اظن, Rafiek & Karim Enzo

• Ouda, Hamid El Shaeri

What I’m Reading (or want to read)

• Mizna: The Black SWANA Issue, Various

• Midnight Tides, Steven Erikson

• Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Toshikazu Kawaguchi

• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein

• Merits of the Plague, Ibn Hajar Al Asqalani