Also, I accidentally lost the url to this blog. Thus, we’re now at phoebesinclairwrites.com. I miss my wholeheartlocal address, but perhaps this is for the best. I still want to wax romantic about my adopted city, about the many beautiful little things; small, bright or shadowed moments. Yet, with so much on the horizon, this field needs grow a little wider, wilder.
Looking forward to catching ya’ll up, hopefully. Soon.
Hi! I’m checking in, after many months way. As I wrote back in the winter, I’ve been taking time off from Whole Heart Local, my trusty blog and web home since 2011. There are a number of projects in the works that I’m pleased to finally have an opportunity to note. Several are writing projects, several relate to paid-work (read: jobbity-jobs), several more are straight-out wanderings, and at least two aren’t mine. Several + several + several adds up to A LOT, hence my continued absence at WHL and well as MIA hours of sleep. My mom, and maybe somebody else, says “you can sleep when you’re dead!” and, while I might not go that far, I’ll admit that I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish recently.
Writing
Edits: Intermediate Fiction Novel Those of you who know me personally, or have met me and asked what I’m writing, will recall that I’ve been plugging away at a novel featuring a 12-year-old, Halloween, and a zine. As I wrote in a blog post for my Fellowship, at 13-years-old the manuscript has out-aged the protagonist. Nonetheless, I’ve got stacks of colored index cards, notes, writer’s critique group edits, and Scrivener’s document files at the ready to make good on completing yet another reorganization/revision. Stay tuned.
Edits: Other Manuscripts You can read more on this blog’s Writer Page, but suffice to say that there are a number of other projects idling on the runway for when the above novel manuscript achieves lift-off, in whatever form that takes.
Fellowship: Writer’s Room of Boston Early in 2018, I applied for a Fellowship at the Writer’s Room of Boston. Writing space is something I’ve long struggled to obtain –especially space near to home. I was honored, grateful and excited to be awarded the Ivan Gold Fellowship for 2018, which means I’m able to access a quiet, retreat space in Downtown Boston, shared with paying members of the room and other Fellows. So far, I’ve been utilizing the space at least twice per week and it’s making a significant difference in my productivity. Equally important, the Fellowship has raised the profile of my creative writing endeavors in an increasingly overcrowded schedule.
An requirement of my Fellowship is to pen WROB blog posts, check ’em out:
Community: Boston Writers of Color This Facebook group, supported by GrubStreet, is comprised of writers in the Boston area. Even though I’ve only been able to make it to one IRL event, meeting other writers of color in my vicinity and learning what they’re working on, struggling with, and achieving energizes me. I’m following and participating in an effort called the Rejection Joy Tally, where people send in notice of their rejected submissions. Related, I attended a Submit-a-Thon event back in March, where writers of varying ages and backgrounds gathered at Grubstreet to submit work to publishers, contests, journals, etc., as well as work on projects to shine them up submission-ready.
Paid Work
Community Liaison at Agassiz Baldwin Community I know that some in the Interwebs-sphere believe that I’m a librarian because I endlessly talk about books, reading, and libraries. In fact, I am not. (I did work in a library during my teen years.) As is the nature of nonprofit work, my role at Agassiz Baldwin Community comprises many disparate elements. My title, Community Liaison, I tend to oversimplify as “writer and charmer” or, even “I talk to people.” I primarily organize and support a nearly 50-year-old neighborhood advocacy group, and secondarily manage long-standing community events; ‘master’ several websites; and, more recently, provide facilitation and communication supports. What I deemed a job for a decade looks more and more like a “life-style.” It’s completely bizarre and unpredictable. I love it.
Associate, Essential Partners I started attending workshops and training at Essential Partners, then Public Conversations Project, to gain skills to help me better serve the Neighborhood Council (see above.) Several years passed and I got in deeper with the EP crew –showing up to pretty much any free learning opportunity they hosted. In 2016, I was invited to take part in a pilot apprenticeship program and BAM. To my surprise and absolutely no one else’s, I’m now officially working with EP as an associate. What am I doing, people often ask? With my super-impressive colleagues, helping people and communities develop the skills and knowledge to successfully engage across difference. (Also, this winter I got to work with two very different communities in NYC and Wyoming –so yeah, there’s that. #wander!)
Freelance Consulting Not sure how to describe this yet as it’s a thing that’s happening almost without my calling it forth. ☺??!
Wandering
Mentor for Institute for Nonprofit Practice I was invited to mentor a Community Fellow student at the Institute for Nonprofit Practice. My bright, skilled mentee and I met a few times during the winter and spring and discussed what I’ve learned working in the nonprofit sector for over a decade, as well as both of our early community building experiences. It was hard to imagine what else I might offer to someone who is already so well prepared to stride forward and lead. In that paradox of imparting knowledge and insight, I gained as much as I shared.
Fan Fiction Theatre Although my affection for fan fiction is apparently never dying, I myself am not really an author of such. Except . . . I am? Or, was! At age ten I wrote a poem in the voice of Samwise Gamgee and kept it because it turns out I’m an excellent archivist of my own work. Good thing: that poem came in handy for the Fan Fiction Theatre, a fun and hilarious event hosted by The Ladies of Comicazi, a volunteer-run “community devoted to consuming, critiquing, and creating comics and pop culture.”
Check out the LOC blog for a full recap of the event. In brief: I read two poems to the great amusement of those gathered. The opportunity for old work to find new value and an audience was a treat.
The Human Library The Human Library is an event that I’ve been itching to host in some form or another, so I jumped at a chance to participate when I saw Cambridge Community TV and the Cambridge Pubic Library had collaborated to run it. The goal of the event, originally out of Denmark, is to challenge prejudice by bringing people of different identities together to learn about one another. “Readers” are invited to check “Books” out for a specific amount of time, and precautions are taken to ensure that the experience is safe and pleasant for everyone. I signed up to be a “Book” and my description was:
Title: Writer, Wanderer, Friend . . . Radical? Excerpt: Meet Phoebe Sinclair – writer, wanderer, friend and radical. She is ready to discuss her experiences growing up during the “colorblind” 1980s, and also to talk about natural hair, fresh food warriors, and the Nation of Islam.
About seven people (some in groups) checked me out for 30-40 minutes each, and I engaged in conversations about what it means to be a radical (which, admittedly, isn’t a title I normally claim); what I write; and most intriguing to me, what it means to wander. I’m still thinking on the experience and would definitely do it again. Cherry on top, I “checked out the book” that is the new Cambridge Police Commissioner Branville G. Bard, Jr. Fascinating.
Podcasts Participating in the Fan Fiction Theatre spun several other opportunities for me to get my wander on. One was being a guest on Paragraph’s Lost. Host Tim Hewitt and I chatted about my high school self and I read several poems that I’d written during those years. Tim’s impressively apt episode description: “Phoebe makes strides to stay an individual while balancing two high schools and a library gig. Parents magazine proves invaluable.” Take a listen.
I’ve also been a guest on the fun, funny, and insightful Ladies of Comicazi Podcast, sharing reactions to the movie Avengers: Infinity War, with particular attention to how Marvel movies’ treat female characters. Take a listen.
Partner Projects
Literally, my partner’s projects. Although I’m not directly involved with David’s music endeavors (I cheer from the sidelines), I’m including them here because GO DAVE!!! and also being exhausted vicariously is 4realz.
Double Star After a year of band and song development, Double Star has launched and will soon be playing on a stage near you (in greater Boston.) Self-described: “Double Star fuses female-fronted alternative rock onto a chassis of R&B inflected punk. With their emphasis on vocal harmonies, effected guitars, catchy melodies, and R&B rhythms, they recall The Clash, Belly, Big Star, Liz Phair, Ramones and Indigo Girls.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream As Music Director for an outdoor performance of my favorite Bard comedy, David teams up with a Double Star bandmate and other area musicians. The show is being produced by Theatre@First, a volunteer community theatre based in Somerville, MA. Performances continue to the end of June 2018, and you can learn more on their website.
Skin is so soft and smooth and warm. Sometimes I can’t help but kiss it. Which isn’t a problem, not really. Though perhaps . . . inappropriate if that skin is my own? My soft, smooth, warm bicep, presented to me so alluringly as I hang, drunk with exhaustion or maybe simply distracted, by one arm from the too-high stainless steel grip bar on the Green Line, Red Line, Orange Line.
Perhaps you do this, too? I can’t be the only smooth customer holding myself aloft by an act of might, resting my mouth against my arm, too-early in the morning/too-late at night.
Anyhow, fellow passengers, my apologies. Sorry if I weirded you out.
Dear Stranger Whose Business Suit-clad Rear I . . . Bumped:
Remember me? I’m the ‘little black girl’ who ‘smacked your butt’ on the Red Line headed towards Alewife. I swear it was an accident.
We must have been crossing the salt and pepper bridge because I remember the train car being well lit. I recall the echo of train wheels rolling up and over and across, Charles River glinting below. It wasn’t a packed car, but it also wasn’t empty, so probably other passengers witnessed my transgression.
Business Suit Dude: you had leaned over to fuss with the bag at your feet when the train swayed and my arm . . . swayed. There was contact: your tush, my hand. I remember thinking a muzzy uh-oh! when I realized I was too late to resist the motion.
You shot up, squeaking in surprise. Or maybe it was a gasp. (I assure you, the sound you produced maybe wasn’t was very manly.) However it’s best described, your response contained an implicit ‘oh!’, which, if you were a 80’s-raised black woman like myself, may have been followed with an outraged ‘you didn’t just do that!’ But you were a white dude, probably late 30s, early 40s, and, judging by your shocked expression, this was not an interaction you’d ever envisioned.
You gaped. I shrugged one shoulder and, as an afterthought, added a disarming, half-sorry smile.
My bad. I probably should have been less amused?
In any event, dear Business Suit, you have my 78% sincere apology. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve re-told this story many dozens of times. Don’t worry, you’re always the victim.
Remember, that time on the Green Line, when I dropped blueberry muffin crumbs on you? I wasn’t sure if I should reach down and sweep them from your shoulder and leg, because: a.) too obvious an admission of my transgression and b.) intimate. (Sidenote: isn’t it funny/curious/strange how, if I elbow a person or singe someone with angry eye beams for getting too close or fresh, that act is somehow less intimate, despite common elements touch and eye-contact?)
Dude: I didn’t know you. You didn’t know me, but there you were, dotted with fluffy crumbs. There I was, swaying from a nearby handhold, struggling against rising tides of mortification and laughter. I recall coming to a decision, taking the risk to casually brush a creamy-yellow muffin fluff from your nearest shoulder. (I wouldn’t dare get so forward as to brush your leg.)
Train jerked. Muffin jostled, and more crumbs joined their cousins on your person. You still didn’t seem to notice but, on my end, all hope for a graceful recovery was dashed.
Dude on the B Train: my bad. Wherever you are, I wish you well (and muffins).
In my near two decades as an adult woman, I have suffered many fools irritations. You know. Run of the mill stuff: catcalls, wolf whistles, random grabs, assaults on my intelligence, backwards compliments, non-subtle demands that I be always pleasing in my countenance and manner. Hey, why don’t you smiiiiile?
These experiences, not unique to me, can be draining. They repress my goodwill, shake my faith in men, and erode my desire for humanity to continue past my brief time here. Sometimes, I’d prefer to dig a giant hole and just dump men everyone in.
Enter the Internet. Suffering silently alone has evolved into suffering loudly together, publicly. Hyper publicly. Enter fresh, new terms. I’m not super-hip, so I know only a few: mansplaining, man spreading . . .
Pausing there for a moment. I once saw a woman on the T get into a battle of wills with a man over the spread of his legs, blocking the seats to either side of him. Impressed at her unrepentant boldness, I was used to being squished between the tree-trunk outer thighs of dudes not so large as to need that much space. My experience of calling men on their . . . stuff has never been great, so I devised, over time, an understated but effective method: silently using my leg to intimidate their leg. Turns out, legs have their own language; plus New Englanders don’t like to touch.
So, tonight. Yep. On the Orange Line and the dude next to me was really, really into his smartphone. Sizing him up, I felt fairly certain that my leg could nudge his out of my floor space. Our knees leaned lightly together. Heat traveled noticeably from his person to my person and suddenly I was all awww, thanks, guy! A bitter night got less cold, literally, while Mr. Space Heater stayed glued to his device. Did not notice. Unwittingly provided a service for 3/4 of my ride home.
Fine. A boon. Justthisonce! Tomorrow, I’m back to annoyed.
Some years it’s weather that prompts us to tarry longer than we planned before making the 280-ish mile trek to coastal New Jersey. Other years, a dip in health. Some, friends’ invitations to holiday engagements. Others, energy (or severe lack there of.)
This December, check ‘D.’ All of the above.
Christmas Day, instead of opening gifts in David’s parents’ ocean-edge, cliff-top home, D and I took a stroll in the record-setting warmth. The sunlight was gorgeous, so naturally I wandered with my camera.
We weren’t the only ones out and about. (Close, though.)
Run, squirrel!
We were among the few seated for a treat at one of our favorite Jamaica Plain restaurants, Cafe Beirut. Ah, well. More for us.
I sat, reading my iPod among all the readers (and game players and early-morning conversationalists) on their devices, and beside me a large man in a heavy, tan hooded sweatshirt who smelled heavily of cigarettes and hard work, whose face I never saw. His hands were broad. He’d pulled a rumpled Metro newspaper from the floor of the car and, well-used ballpoint pen in hand, folded it to the page with sudoku. Whole ride, he sat, staring at the puzzle, scribbling a few numbers.
I became aware of the man’s breathing, the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of the tan sweatshirt, beneath which a person, a pulse, a heartbeat, a heart. I became aware, in the seat on my other side, a different man whose details I can’t recount because I paid him so little attention. He was younger, smaller. How shockingly obvious his breathing suddenly seemed, the lift of his jacket keeping pace with the man in the tan sweatshirt. Then I glanced around the subway car and everyone was doing it. Everywhere, hearts. Lungs. Hands. Thoughts. Desires. Hopes.
You’d never know it. A year arrives and it departs. For us, I mean, the short-lived things who tragically fail to honor hearts on the subway. Who go along reading, talking, thinking, zoning out and, in our shared silence, believing the myth we are alone.
Way back when, my good friend Kelly and I had an annual tradition of checking out what’s new in the veggie-dom at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. Then she moved to Cali. I got distracted by other festivals, other learning spaces, other events.
Then Kelly moved back and we returned, two friends together, curious and delighted.
I believe this woman is being factory farmed . . . ?