On the 18th February is Audre Lorde’s birthday. And this year on her birthday I got to attend an event hosted at Pakhuis in Amsterdam „Surrending to Love“. I was standing next to The Base Book Space, owned by Lianne, selling books by and about Audre Lorde, as well as other POC writers reflecting on self love and care and what that actually means in the more contemporary lens of capitalism.

Reading Audre‘s work as a teenager, she gave me a strong sense of comfort. She reflects on her life in her writings including her challenges, experiences with racism, cancer and the conversations with people like Adrienne Rich, James Baldwin and many more. She radiates bravery as she talks to people, such as in her seminars, that have very different views and attitudes towards racism, homophobia and injustices happening on a daily basis.

I am more and more aware of the fact that what is important now is having difficult conversations, to be honest about your feelings, reservations, attitudes, maybe almost everything so that we can generate a new and liberating way of connecting with each other.

I am not very honest about my feelings. Bluntly said. I often try to stuff my feelings with pillow cases to soften the blow of disappointing someone else. But this array of pillow cases isn’t comfortable anymore. For some reason writing helps me stay in the realm of honesty with myself and hopefully at some point my first sentence changes to another.