Where I been, where I'm at, where I ain't- and where I'm goin'.
My mappings in a bursting, seeping package.
My name is saylem mississippi celeste, and I am the author of Make Peace.
As I pen these words, I am a 24-year-old Detroiter, except for a brief six-month hiatus in The Bay Area. I proudly identify as genderfluid (Trans/Agender) and am deeply rooted in the rich tapestry of Black Matriarchal Traditions and Heritages. To honor this lineage, I use they/themme pronouns.
I am a beacon of Freedom and Care. While I will delve deeper into my definitions in the future, I firmly believe that Freedom and Care are states of being that we can embody independent of any political or cultural authority. As a Black Feminist, I uphold Transformative Justice Principles and oppose Imperialism, Colonialism, and Capitalism. I believe the key to any transformation lies in recognizing our shared and individual humanity.
To contextualize the stories, research, observations, etc., that will follow in Make Peace, I would like to detail a series of critical elements in my life throughout the past four years. These writings will filter through my experience, so I invite you into some of my folds. I want to share who I am, what I care about, what I've seen, and what I feel right now. Who I am will unfurl here because the personal is political. I intend for this post to act as a foundation for what will be explored in this continuous letter.
This is a small part of my story.
2020
I left Wayne State University in March 2020 to attend the Rhode Island School of Design in Fall 2020. My last two classes at WSU were "Identity and Me," a class about structures of power and how they operate within the mind, and "Black Women in America," where I learned the most I had ever learned in a short chunk about where I come from as a Black Femme in America. At this point, I do not know how to talk loudly about my trans-ness with my Black femme-ness, but I feel the link in my body.
During the summer of 2020, I spend three months living in the Bay Area. My train to the Bay Area left three days after the death of George Floyd, and I was on an internet-less train heading to Oakland, California (The Home of the Black Panthers), which was at the time- thankfully- being absolutely rampaged by justified comrades. City governments nationwide were also 'locking down' to maintain property values. On this train, I watched an older white man turn blue in the face because he choked on a steak bite, but he didn't want us (two perceived women) to help him. He choked for 3 minutes until the train car attendant struck his back, and the steak drooled out of his windpipe. He didn't talk much the rest of the journey.
When I arrive in Oakland, my Covid Pod urges me to stay home during the initial weeks of protest due to the high amount of targeted arrests of Black people during BLM Protests. I participated in one protest the whole summer- The Sutro Hill Bomb for Black Lives- which I spoke briefly and participated in without injury. This is where I would meet a new friend and inspiration for how they hold trans-cultural spaces. Shortly after, they gave me $100, free skate shoes, and would show me my first Risograph machine. I was too afraid to learn how to use it and avoided it the whole summer.
I would experiment with natural dyes and make protest flags since I was en route to art school. At first, just posting the finished product online, I wanted to try my shaky hand at mutual aid. A raffle to help my friends out with the first Detroit Community Fridge back home. We raised too much money and were able to give to two other local organizations.
After a long summer, I left The Bay, knowing it was a home in my heart but not a place where I could live without being crushed by the wealth gap. Before my departure, I send my parents, including my stepmother, letters regarding my trans-ness and the trauma of my upbringing. My father responds lukewarmly. My mother responds with an abundance of support, although needing to learn a lot. My stepmother reacts terribly. I haven't spoken to her meaningfully since except for her mother's passing- who I learned posthumously was a member of The Sounds of Blackness.
Not finding a permanent home in Oakland, I decided to go to RISD. My mother has driven me my whole life to Rhode Island. I struggle to buy food, and the rich relative who said they would support my education here and convinced me to attend hangs up the phone on me after telling me I'm on my own. I sob myself to sleep. My community later pays this bill, but I remain untrusting of the disconnected wealthy class for a long time.
Around week 2 or 3, I begin skipping classes to browse the vast library- trying to find a link to reality. Everyone at the school is committed to undoing for a RISD stamp, and the institution can buy its way above COVID- something I immediately recognize as classist. For context: Around week 3-ish, I also begin taking long walks with my roommate- of whom I have admired their work for years prior. I exclaim to them how racism is in the groundwater, and the air- the school's center is Market Square, a large part of the historically top-grossing slave market in the region. They tell me they must make it in the industry to make the experience worth it. They told me they cried every day for a year here and that it's a part of the experience of being here. I know I won't be here long. Within this library, I discover the expansive possibilities of Quilting after trudging through the crushing, tangible film of slavery in the late summer air. A book about Gee's Bend becomes my guiding light, and I teach myself how to quilt from the photos in the book. I begin sewing every day for spiritual survival.
I am at RISD for six weeks before I am committed to Butler Hospital of my choosing. The outside world- Covid, BLM, Poverty, etc.- does not exist with tangibility within the walls of an 'elite' institution. I went completely mad. It is within the hospital that I gained a critical mental health diagnosis. It is also the most heard and seen I felt as a human during my entire time there. After three days, it became clear that the community I desire is at Home in Detroit, and it has always been there. As I'm leaving the hospital, another RISD student comes in. The staff says that someone from there is always at Butler.
Upon my return to Detroit, I became a part of a cooperative incubator. This cooperative in this iteration never came to be. Still, I learned a lot from the other group members about what it means to be a part of a close-knit community and how to build something outside of the blueprint of capitalism with your mind. By the end of 2021, I'm not involved with this cooperative effort, but I learn a lot.
2021
(TW: Housing insecurity)
After returning from RISD and recovering, I began making custom clothing and doing alterations for other poor queer people. I can make a little bit of my living this way, but it only lasts about six months because I can't afford my rent. I cultivate my skills around dye, sewing, and Quilting- holding my first quilt raffle.
I was Houseless this entire summer. I couch-surfed with gracious friends and community members, but only my close friends knew.
This was the first summer that I was brought in to teach and facilitate with youth. It was a short project, but I enjoyed crafting care kits for the young activists. I have worked with youth every year since.
I would return to Oakland to visit. The prior connections I had formed on this trip led me to Lower Grand Radio. That radio appearance is my first mixed recording. It is still one of the most empowering experiences I've had in music and is a significant inspiration for Blue Moon Radio.
This summer, I was first introduced to my dear friends at Submerge Distribution through residence at the building. It's short-lived, but it's hugely impactful.
At the end of this summer, I move into a house with other community members. This also becomes short-lived after a heated and traumatizing incident between myself, GX, my roommates, and my roommate's guests at our housewarming. This event destroys my relationships with my roommates after I choose to express my misguided anger on social media and kick a roommate out of the house. It is not something I am proud of. I own my misplaced anger and aptitude to act on behalf of GX (see below) instead of taking the time to think about the long-term effects of the trauma for everyone involved. It remains one of my most dishonorable moments. In hindsight, I recognize the complexity of my role as an accelerant for harm and have taken many steps to repair and atone- both by choice and by legal/financial/emotional responsibility.
2022
(TW: SA, Substance Abuse)
At the beginning of 2022, I permanently left the person (herein abbreviated as GX) who had been grooming me from late 2018 until early 2022 when GX SA'd me. Every choice and decision before this line was impacted in some way by GX, even though our primary relationship only lasted for six months in 2019. During the relationship, I experienced extreme Intimate Partner Violence, Gaslighting, cheating, financial, psychological, and Emotional Abuse. And more. The relationship had severely impacted my other personal relationships to the point of losing friends, artistic/academic support, career opportunities, and the worsening of my health. After the assault, GX continued to stalk me for the following 18 months.
My friendships have been tumultuous this year. It's hard for me to make meetups and respond in the way I want to in my body. I feel grossly weighed down by the impact of GX, RISD, Houselessness, and the general displacement of living a life I didn't plan. It's easy for me to see why now, but at the moment, it's crushing.
One evening at Paramita, a friend talked me into taking my music production seriously. He challenged me to attend one of Paramita's producer Open Aux events, and I completed the challenge. It was at this event that I met my current partner. I also sent the beats to my Mentor at Submerge to see if I could return to the building. With the endorsement of a different friend, I returned to learn more about music production and its ability to cultivate culture.
During another stint in Oakland, I was awarded a residency with the Detroit Justice Center- which at that time was the most significant amount of money I received for a project. During these three weeks in Oakland, I would develop the initial concepts for Midnight Care Collective and Blue Moon Radio.
I made my first trip to attend the Gee's Bend Quilting Retreats with my friend Ellen Rutt during the Fall. At Bully's, the chef sounded like my Papa. At the retreat, my friend Ms.China looked like my brother's great-grandmother, Ramel. The Mississippi air smelled like Northern Michigan, and the sun's glare looked like Oakland's Pacific haze. I decided to come and quilt here every year, even eventually to have a second home there. When I return home, I'm bored by the club scene and keeping up with what's popular- as I have been for the past year. I want to be a part of a community that is as generous and caring as I experienced in the South with new friends and strangers.
2023
My dear collaborator, Triniti, and I have decided to begin collaborating on Midnight Care Collective. In the summer of 2023, we have our first event series, Handle With Care.
At the top of the Spring, inspired by my life-changing experience at Gee's Bend, I teach my first quilt class in Detroit. The class is taught through the lens of Transformative possibility and art's potential to bring us closer to ourselves. I love teaching, and I started identifying as a teacher.
The Summer of 2023 is also what I have dubbed "The Summer of Repair," for which I made a 9-month commitment to navigating relationships broken by many factors. In the years prior, I had been rendered verbally repressed due to my inability to properly regulate my emotions from trauma and communication via preoccupation with GX. I mended, laid to rest, and returned to a myriad of relationships I thought would be forever broken. I was unsuccessful in all my attempts, but I'm pleased I prioritized this time for myself.
I learned that GX has succumbed to a substance addiction after 18 months of stalking me, which has rendered them permanently disabled. Others in the community ask if we should launch an awareness campaign about what he has done. I refuse it because I want to lay it to rest. Who GX was doesn't exist anymore, and I refuse to punish someone who is currently disabled and detached from reality.
In the Fall, I began spending 3 to 4 days a week at Submerge, either helping with small tasks or just sitting and talking with my Mentor. In October, I made my first timeless song. I learned about lesser-known techno pioneers such as Aaron Carl, Laura Gavoor, Ken Collier, and Kelli Hand. I have been trusted to help artists through their musical and life problems. This ongoing work helps keep me grounded in the possibilities of resistance.
At the end of the year, I contracted COVID-19 and the flu back to back. I bring in the new year in bed and am the sickest I've ever been. Through the fog of my fever dreams, I realize I have more work to do to become fully invested in my career.
Where I'm at:
I am currently safe in a shared home with my partner. It is the first time since 2020 that I haven't had to put pressure on myself to live in someone else's house and within their realm of acceptability (on various scales). It has been exhausting, but it is over.
I am quilting again after a long break. Quilting requires not only an abundance of time but also an abundance of space- physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. I am approaching the last backlogged quilt of the beginning of my career.
I am learning about archival processes to help preserve the world's first techno museum.
I'm reading and writing the most I have since January 2020.
For the entirety of 2023, I endured the body terror of an improperly placed IUD that was bent into my uterine lining. My gut would burn and bloat without warning- creating a state of paralysis and irritability. It's out now, and I am recovering.
I am accepting my role as a writer and archivist in Freedom Work. I started making zines and learning how to repair Risograph machines earlier this year, and I LOVE IT! I get to offer an imprint of my many conversations around Freedom in a sharable, offline form.
I am shutting down my Patreon and switching to Substack full-time. This app is more accessible for my work and exists in the context of others sharing what they know about Freedom and Care. This switch will happen as of July 31st.
Where I ain't:
At this time, I am holding my decision not to return to Academia as a student, visiting artist, or teacher. I don't wrestle with this choice because I know that the community I need to serve does not prioritize institutionalism as a requirement for deep, critical thought. I am committed to alternative education (Residencies, Grants, Skillshares, etc) as a means of learning.
I am moving away from club culture as a primary access point for my sonic work. Black Music is more experientially expansive than the conventional club model. I will work toward engaging with sonics in alignment with the spirit of said Black Music. That means more resources and time spent on Radio, Block Parties, and Special Events than in clubs, Which, in most cases, only care about people and how much alcohol they can buy.
I'm not moving out of Detroit. However, I will be more open to traveling for research and cross-collaboration.
I am not and will continue not to be a part of any groups, community institutions, or collectives that actively mimic systems of carcerality- even if a Black/Trans/Queer/Femme person is in charge.
Where I'm going:
Wander Home is an exhibition of my new work that will be showing starting October 5th in Cedar, Michigan, right outside of Traverse City. During the show's first and last weeks, we will have a camp-along, a guided tour, and workshop programming for visitors.
I will be teaching more! Thanks again to Cody Cook-Parrot for encouraging me to step into this role within my career path fully. Starting in the Fall, I will experiment with online offerings (for the first time!) and in-person opportunities.
My freedom-based social practice projects, Midnight Care Collective, and Blue Moon Radio will become my primary focus starting in February 2025. I need to make this leap to fully commit to the journey of being a Freedom worker.
Midnight Care Collective will launch a new core project, Black Salt Press, in October 2024. The press is Midnight Care Collective's arm of practice that centers around the legacy of Black Feminist Archival practices through print.
Blue Moon Radio will take on its initial forms beginning in January 2025. I have been conducting a lot of research on how to initiate this project best, as most music projects end up being a watered-down version of their goals after money is involved.
I am on a debt-free journey, committed not to fall into lifestyle creep. I have had this commitment for the past two years, but I have finally been able to make a plan that has been going well. I am on track to be debt-free by the end of 2025.
I will conduct the initial research to become a certified Somatic Practitioner by 2026. I love learning, and I have been seeking a healing modality that does not infringe on the cultural heritage of a lineage that does not belong to me. Somatics will allow me to help myself and others return to our bodies as a means to heal from trauma as necessary.
I feel no fear or shame in sharing my stories because these are stories that I tell with the grit of telling the truth. There has never been any one person in my life who has known and been able to hold all of these sentiments. The above exercise made me the first to witness this journey. You may be the next. My path thus far has been full of tales and allegories that feel entirely unreal to me- through bewilderment, struggle, what I could bring myself to recall, and what I have chosen to leave out from this history. Perhaps even what I have decided to ignore or revive from my private memory. It has been heartbreaking. It has also been precisely revolutionary.
In Make Peace, I will ask many complex questions, some of which I have been afraid to ask myself when left to my own devices, as I have been for these past four years. This practice is a commitment to returning to the discomfort of witnessing my change and perhaps beginning to archive or transform the substance of myself.
In this world where we are all wrestling with survival and comfort, I am committing to the readership of Make Peace that I will not be 'peddling' this project incessantly. If you subscribe to this Substack, it will support this work being done through research materials and improve my livelihood—that's what the subscription goes to. But the work will be done regardless. I will make a way. Instead, I will prioritize the act of invitation and choice. I appreciate you.
Here, I am a storyteller. I will share stories and make connections within the scope of my life and my commitments to Freedom and Care. If that might be you, join me in this new journey of questioning everything and being scared very loudly.
smc
There’s so much here, yet there’s so much more to you 🌷 Can’t wait for you to continue unfolding
🫶🏽