Dia De Los Muertos Tucson Photos 11/10/2009
Hola, he puesto los photos de La Dia De Muertos, Tucson, Noviember 09 debajo de 'Memorials'. Photos from the All Souls Procession in Tucson, Nov 09 are posted under 'Memorials'. Distro Project 10/01/2009
Hey y'all, We're still working on putting together a distro of things created by sali's friends and loved ones (see below for a better description). It's taking a bit longer than expected, which is both good and bad. It's good because it means that there's still time to create something if you haven't, or send something you already made. There are lots of great writings on this website and could be awesome in the zine that's being put together- so if there's something on here you'd like to see printed and sent all over please get in touch (see below). The new date is mid-october (let's say the 15). For real. Everything is going to be in both english and spanish, so to have time to translate please send stuff by october 15. So, email to bicyclevillain [at] riseup [dot] net to submit internet writings or to get an address to mail other anythings. The plan is to put together a zine of poems, writings, pictures, etc... that friends have made in response to sali's murder. As well as anything else that can be reproduced- posters, patches, yer own zine, stencils, anything you want. Then it's going to be mailed all over the US, and Oh Sali 09/30/2009
Dear Sali, Happy Birthday sweet young woman. We love you and miss you, pretend this is everyone who loves and misses you screaming your name and our love from the tops of cliffs and mountains, where our voices might carry the farthest and find you wherever you are today. We too died a death of sorts this year from all our grief, but I suppose we must still pretend to live. Your Birthday today, but you will always be a young 20 to us, not 'the wide-eyed and young' Sali but the young, beautiful woman that I will always remember you as. It's lovely here, I can see you everywhere I go, you seem so tangible but so far. I keep pretending that you're not gone but just continually riding some trains to somewhere. This is our Scream from Cliffs for you, Sali Sali Sali Sali Sali Sali We Love You, Sali We Miss You, We will Always Be Sad That you Have Gone, But We Will Always remember your Stupidwonderful laugh, You were our amazing present for those almost- 21 years. Happy Birthday Sali. . following some advice. 09/16/2009
salita. how am i gonna get through this? i havent written you because i know its just too painful to be reminded that youre not there to receive it, but right now i dont know how else to make these memories three dimensional and i need to be surrounded by you. i admit, i have these moments pretty regularly where i think to call you or write you because i forget that youre dead. i remember the dream i had of you, when i was like where the fuck have you been? and you laughed and said just living outside of town. i wonder if youd like the things people write and say about you. i sometimes cringe, as it appears the way i knew you and the way other people knew you have very little to do with each other. i dont remember young, wide eyed or reckless. i knew you "late" in your life, as it were. i had so much respect for you, immediately. i saw this person who was serious and scared, like i am. and i feel so lucky to know about your alone moments, the ways you felt hurt and hesitant. i think we both saw ourselves in each other, just as so many of our dear friends predicted. and i wanted to protect you, isnt that fucked? i just remember the gesture of you spreading the butter in your hands, talking about gettin through the fear. you writing to me about puffing your chest out to trick people into thinking you had it down. you and me shouldve found a disgusting little cave to hide in instead of running off in separate directions, pretending we were way more confident than we really were. our vulnerability was a secret that we shared between us, and i think sometimes we even fooled each other when we were realllly insecure. i saw so much worry in your face and i fucking love you for this. why the fuck not? i could tell that you had a lot of defenses up, and you had been wronged far too many times. and i remember the strongest desire to erase the pain you were living with, the feelings of rejection and confusion. i remember sitting in the kitchen together, quiet, lamplight, tea. is that fucked up? you were asking me, as if you didnt know that you had a right to be treated with dignity, honesty, respect. its been a year now since youve been gone, and i wish i had something more to offer you. i wish i could be like, here, borrow some of this excess strength i took on since we last saw each other... i wish i could say that ive stood up for myself enough for the two of us or that ive become brave in the places i used to just pretend were brave. but im not there yet. im admitting this to you, in secret. because we both know that its not safe to let other people know that we falter. salitamija. i cant forget the images of you fighting in slow motion. i remember feeling lucky to be your self defense partner, because you were attractive and intimidating and it was a way for two frontin tough-asses to create intimacy between themselves. but perhaps this wasnt on your mind at all, perhaps you were just concentrating on your form. either way, i remember the way your body moved to defend itself and it haunts me. i have so many memories of being physically close to you, as if i always knew where we were in relation to one another even though i had no idea how much i was paying attention to it at the time. we got to be friends in a strange context. cleaning wounds and serving soup and whispering translations back and forth. sleeping in the cruz roja together because we were the only girls in the camp. im repeating all of these memories because they really are nourishing me. sometimes i forget to remember the good things, the tender moments, and focus too much on my sadness and anger that youre gone. i wish i would think more frequently about the sound of your voice pronouncing "tranquilo" and "acento", and the look youd get on your face when youd be pretending to listen to someone, really impatiently. for many reasons, i saw this face a lot. and also this face of yours that was so revealing of sadness but obviously not wanting to show it. sali, i want you to be proud of me. i want to be making the decisions that i would have wanted you to make. does this make sense? we are cabronas for a reason, shit. come visit me more often, hm? it sucks without you. what a hard year 09/02/2009
i don't want my grief to be all that is left of my friend, this is a great fear of mine. when i am not so overcome, i wise up a little bit and know that my vivid memories of sali are burned into my brain, that they aren't going anywhere. she lived too hard and joyous and strong to fade away. i cry when i think of how wonderful you all are to have kept sali alive in so many ways: through this website, song, sharing memories among our mutual friends, through memorials, through struggle. christ this is an intense night for me, for some reason. if you all haven't heard it yet, my friend santa's band "adelitas" wrote a song for sali, called "la que lucho" or "she who fought". the chorus says: "la que lucho por la vida, no se le llama muerta, tampoco morira" or "she who fought for life, you can't call her dead, she will never die" my grief is so inarticulate. it tastes like salt and smells like simple green cleaning fluid... i got a call on the bus on my way to work at a youth shelter last year, that's how i found out. i couldn't stop shaking. i got to work and a friend/coworker called and called to find coverage for my shift, which he eventually did. if i left, the shelter wouldn't have been able to open for the night and 30 teenagers wouldn't have had a place to sleep. i couldn't stop crying and saying "sali" and folding laundry and scrubbing down counters and hoping someone would relieve me before the youth came. the tears just keep coming and my breath catches in my throat, thinking about it all. she has touched so many people. one of my new coworkers, at a transitional youth house, heard about her story independently of me... and was so touched by sali's courageous, silly, raunchy, and sweet life. she felt a connection, and was so glad that somebody like sali existed. its almost been a year, im trying to think about what i would like to do to honor our friendship and her glorious existence. if any of you have any ideas, please post them... i read and re-read this all the time. hugs all around julia (pdx) Ashes By Dendron 07/01/2009
How the grief accumulates.... 06/26/2009
Tonight i sat at a reading a close friend of mine was reading at. A big ole queer event with people sharing their guts and feelings and all that, it was beautiful, but the thing that has brought me to this website tonight is that a family;a mother and two sisters of a woman named jennifer who died in a car crash in december came to read her stuff to this crowd of queers, to honor her memory, to keep her alive. how brave this was, how beautiful that they knew who she was. that her queerness among other things was not hidden, not shamed into the sidelines of conversation.. i cried through the entire reading, so touched and so reminded of sali... our beautiful beautiful friend who's mom knew who she was, knew all the secrets (well probably not all). at sali's memorial in eugene i was blown away by how integrated her blood family, those she grew up with and the traveling crusty anarchists were the whole time. i had people walk up to me after i sang and read my piece say to me"you really brought her spirit here, thank you for keeping her alive in this space" how amazing to be speaking of this wild eyed crazy dumpster diving emotive diva and have those who didn't nesasarily view her in that way to appriciate and not deny. Sali was not denied who she really was, she wouldn't let herself be denied in life and she has not been denied in her death. there have been a lot of deaths around me lately, feels like the summer of death.was with a best friend while his dad died of cancer, some close friends very close friend drowned a couple weeks ago, someone from my community killed themselves. i am very sad for the loss of these people, for the people that i care for and their pain, their long process of grieving. also their deaths bring back my own grief for sali. someone said to me that the grief just accumulates till it is almost all the same grief, just one big pile of heartache and keeps coming back every time you lose someone, but also that it gets easier, not that people don't mean as much to you, not that you get desensitized, but that it is integrated into your body, that we remember that a part of the living is the dying. but it is still so hard for me that sali's death was murder, murder and rape and its still so hard for me to get over, i mean i will never get over it, i guess that's whats different about violent deaths, its harder to accept. through all these new deaths i have started up a ritual with burning candles and burning myrrh and white copal(something i learned from Lindsay. white copal is burnt as a offering to the dead, myrrh is burnt for the ones grieving death, to comfort) both of these are used in latin america for rituals and while they are not my cultural practices i have integrated them in my own way for my own spiritual practice. as i have been burning them i have felt sali's presence again, i know shes with me sometimes, laughing at my drama, at my insecurities, at the little things that get me down, i know she is what keeps me going sometimes, this drive and inspiration that still shines through even in her dead form, her spirit form, wherever and whatever she is now. most of the time i can accept that this is the way she is in my life, but sometimes i just want to hold her again, hear her laugh again, listen to her stories, and look into her eyes. our beautiful sali gone? those are the times i cry and wonder if my housemates can hear me, if they worry about me, if they even remember that i am still grieving, that this pain is still so deep, that this will be with me forever, a part of my bone matter, right up next to legacies of abuse and racism and homophobia, right up with all those lessons of self hatred, right up there with feeling so so alone and depressed and suicidal. that this pain settles and fuses doesn't make it any less, it makes it easier to go on, but it still fucking hurts, that sali is not in the world fucking hurts. i have learned a lot through this process of communal grieving, have learned that it is so much easier to do it together. it seems like we have all moved on with our lives a little more the past few months(i think the last posting was in march) but reading these postings here tonight and writing has been so important, to remember that this is not over. i know that so many of us still sob as we fall asleep, hold fear of violence, and can't get out of bed. i know that we are still grieving and won't stop, i know that some of us must be just getting out of the shock, or are heading into depression phase. please lets not forget each other, cause i know that we haven't forgotten sali and as someone posted before, this is how we are all connected, this is how we can hold each other, cause we all loved and held sali in all differnet ways, and we all feel that void no matter how small without her .i would love to hear how others are doing, how people are moving on, how they are not. this is how we can keep her alive , through all of us. so much love to you all stompinbarefeet@risup.net 02/13/2009
I know that on the other side of the pendulum of my anger, grief and sorrow are the same weight of emotions, mirrored in intensity, but complete opposites because of how profound my love and admiration for her is. The price for loving Sally and having the privilege of knowing her is that the loss is felt immensely and carried heavily. The pain is as beautiful as it is tragic. The beauty comes from Sally-who she is to me-her intensity, how she lived her life, our friendship, the love and understanding we had for one another, the times we shared together and what she meant to me. I’m haunted by her death, but my memories of her keep me from getting lost in it. I keep her spirit alive by remembering: her laughing in the sweet light of an August evening in a corn field-I can still feel your dreads tickling my shoulders if I sit still and bring myself there, all the stories we shared, seeing her for the first time, lying my head in her lap while she sang to me as I felt my heart crumbling, cuddling under a makeshift tent from the rain, her tanning her smelly raccoon hide for days on end, singing together, watching her belly dance, being ridiculous, having serious and heavy conversations as well as sharing positive life experiences and her whaling while she strums her banjo in which ever town we happened to be wandering. Sweet Sali 12/02/2008
Hey all, more memories and thoughts c/o juli@... 10/26/2008
i read these stories every day. sometimes just a paragraph, sometimes post after post. i like thinking about her, and all her strong friends who i have and havent met, rather than fixating on how i felt when i found out what had been done to her, or the images that have been running through my head when i start thinking about all the wounding that friends and i have been forced to deal with. | AuthorAll ArchivesOctober 2009 Categories |
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