The following is part of the Talleres for Dreaming Series, which is a collaboration with a todo dar productions and Galeria E.V.A. The letter was sent to folks inviting them to mark the 2021 Fall Equinox.
I sent you something in the mail.
I hope you receive it before Wednesday..
I hope it did not break in transit.
When I was a kid, an undergrad at UT, I spent many hours at a dingy cafe called Les Amis. I loved that place because it had a wood burning stove but I mostly loved it because they never really carded anybody. So at 18 I could buy an onion soup or a bowl of black beans and rice and a glass of wine for $5. I spent many afternoons there reading books, debating politics, making plans and dreaming. I liked the guato, the messiness, the people watching and being in a public space with artists and activists and misfits - it made me feel grown.
There was a guy who was always there - no matter what time of day - whose name I have since forgotten. He painted with watercolors and after a short conversation - he would ask you for your address. He'd scribble it in a journal and months later - sometimes even years later - when you had forgotten you had ever even given him your address - you'd receive a hand painted postcard with a note. His postcards were often simple drawings of hearts but I always enjoyed receiving them because receiving one of his postcards was always a surprise. It always made me smile. Looking back on that memory - at 18 - I probably shouldn't have given a man I barely knew - whose name I can not remember now - my address. At 18 I still had a lot to learn.
Since moving back to Austin I've thought a lot about Les Amis and the places we gather publicly and find community with people we know little about and whose names we might forget as time goes on. Since the pandemic, I have been thinking about how we stay connected despite geographic distance - how we can create together, with and for each other, even if it is not a play or a show. I have been thinking a lot about what we are creating together if it is not a show.
I sent you something in the mail.
I hope you receive it before Wednesday..
I hope it did not break in transit.
At the onset of the pandemic, Veronica Castillo shut down her gallery on the Southside of San Antonio and began cooking food for those in need, comida casera, meals over an outdoor wood burning stove. It's not Les Amis. The food and the company are much better. Over the course of one year, through a community effort - a loose collective at Galeria EVA of 10 core volunteers that help with the preparation and serving of meals on a weekly basis - Vero has made over 4,780 meals for the unhoused, for our neighbors, and for the elderly in our community.
Tomorrow is the last full moon of the summer, a harvest moon, a corn moon. And Wednesday Sept 22 is the Fall Equinox. Marissa Ramirez from Books in the Barrio and I commissioned Veronica to make a series of ceramic plates for this year's Fall Equinox. Veronica made them in community and with her family.
Autumn is a time for reaping your harvest, a time to slow down, to restore balance, a time for transition and change. On Wednesday, I would like to:
Invite you to take some time out of your day, to reflect on the time that has passed since the Spring Equinox.
Invite you to plan a ritual to welcome the Fall. You do not have to complete it on Wednesday - but if you are willing - I would like for you to plan it that day.
Then I would like for you to send me something in the mail about this ritual - once completed. It can be anything. A recounting, a picture, a poem, a drawing, a video, even a play. I just ask that you do it sometime before the Winter Solstice (Dec 21).
We sent you the plates for two reasons: to acknowledge a ritual we have created together of making and sharing food in community and because I hope we can actually share a meal together soon. Face to face. In person. Bring your plate. Sending you so much luv. Stay well. Be safe. -vgrise