Legacy Russell described the footnote as a place for love, growth, and collective thinking. We have often lived in the footnote, the subtext, the wayside of the main body and while we’ve made that place our home, I’m so happy to be at the center. That’s not to become the new main body, but to move our home to the forefront, to remain as us, but louder. For I have never hated the wayside, just what it has meant for my people. Thank you for creating a new wayside for us to occupy. We live in the glimmers, in the ephemera, in all of the nooks and crannies of society. Muñoz says we must continue to collect and practice those glimmers and I am happy you are sharing the language of the glimmers with those who may not have seen us before. 

To be honored was never a goal for us. We merely wanted to exist. We wanted to progress. We worked for it. Prayed, marched, and died for it. While our job wasn’t finished before we passed, we hope that you can build off of it. 

Just as Felix said in his letter to Ross, we are connected now and forever. Though time has not allowed us to meet, this space you have created allows us to convene in our own time, our own space, our own way. We are with you at all times. We enter every room with you. Every step forward you take makes us proud. All the progress you make honors our legacy. You are the culmination of our dreams, for every day something has tried to end our time and failed. 

Your body is the altar we convene in. You are the greatest offering. An offering of joy, of knowledge, of growth. Thank you for honoring our names, stories, and histories. Thank you for creating a space of healing. Thank you for your relentlessness. Thank you for being a weed, a glimmer, for being you. goes here

A friend told me that she lived in all the hues of blue

From the deepest part of the ocean

To the blue that radiates off the sun’s beams

And while I always loved the sentiment,

It wasn’t my perfect fit

For my existence has dreamed of the blues but has always lived in the reds

A color of protection and ritual,

But also one of vulnerability and pain

Reds have always defined certain parts of me that I’m still trying to understand

Red is a color I once feared.

For me, it has always been tied to blood spilled,

Sacrifices,

Open wounds,

But I’m starting to understand that it is like a flame.

It is neither good nor bad,

But can be used for both.

It has burned and healed

It is love and rage

It is a cosmos of possibility in which we can create and find ourselves.

So I no longer fear the flames that once burned me,

Because I have made my home in those reds.

Mis ancestros no son de sangre

Nunca los conocí personalmente

Yo los conocí por libros

palabras

videos

In all the ephemera they left behind in this world.

Even though we never met, they have touched my life in ways that I can’t even explain.

What will become of me when the dust has settled?

When the tears dry and all that’s left is a hum of what was?

What will become of me?

What will become of me when the grass grows back and the flowers bloom?

Will my name be spoken again?

Will my name taste the sweet feeling of being spoken again?

Or will it just echo into the abyss?

Will I be remembered?

And what will I be remembered for?

Will I be remembered for my efforts?

For the work I have done?

Or for who I was?

Is one better?

Or could I be remembered for both?

What will become of me if it's neither?

Even though I will never know the answers, I want to create them for myself.

I want my name to be remembered. I want it to feel like the sweet taste of sugar cane on your tongue.

nostalgia,

fondness,

soft.

Like a moment you’d keep in your locket.

It’d definitely be nice to be remembered for my work, but when I leave this world

I hope I am remembered as kind, soft, resilient.

So what will become of me when my body fades?

I really don’t know

and I’m starting to make peace with that.

Did you know the house of the Lord holds the devil’s mind?

Why else would there be hate within those walls?

Thinking back to my first time in church, I remember seeing the priests robes

White, long, embroidery along the trim

With a beautiful pop of color on his stole.

I’m pretty sure it was purple and red with hints of gold.

Thinking back to my first time in church, I remember the opulence, the grandeur of it all.

The stained wood that cradled gold embellishments

The sunlight hitting the stained glass and the way that the colors danced as I walked under them to feel their caress

The mantillas that covered every surface, making sure that the objects on them were safe, secured, cared for.

I want to be safe,

secure,

cared for.

Thinking back to my first time in church, I remember so much more than I thought I would.

The smell of the bibles placed in the pocket in front of us

The creak of the pue as it held my body

The expressions of the faces in every artwork.

I remember so much sorrow in them.

I knew all of their stories, but still always wondered

Are they mourning what has happened?

Or what is about to come?

Thinking back to my first time in church, the thing I remember the most vividly are the reds.

The drops of blood from the stigmata

The wine stains on the napkin the priest used to wipe the cup between sips

The red robes that embraced La Santa María.

I want to be embraced.

Red is usually one of the most strategically used colors in a church.

Usually used sparingly in order to call attention

attention to pain

attention to sorrow.

attention to someone experiencing or talking about

pain

and sorrow.

Catholicism talks a lot about pain and sorrow.

A pain and sorrow suffered for us

In place of us.

So that we may move our attention to freedom–peace.

Then why is it that I am still in the

pain

and sorrow?

Why is it that I still live in the reds while others get to look at the blues above?

For even when I force my eyes on the blues above me,

I see the reds reflecting back.

What is blue for others is stained red for me

Casting a purple shadow over everything in my horizons.

Purple

Purple like a fresh bruise.

One that is attempting to heal but is constantly reestablished by the people running over me to see their blues

While the soles of their feet stain the ground beneath them in red.

We offer flowers to our ancestors for their beauty and meaning

Red roses whose fragrance reaches up to the heavens

Bright orange marigolds so our ancestors may find us from the other side

Lavender so that they may know peace

But what if I told you I offered them weeds

Thistles, violets, dandelions

The most unwanted

The outcasts

Not for their beauty

Not for any meaning we have placed on them

But for the resilience that they have shown

For I have learned that the only difference between a perennial and a weed

Is that weeds are unwanted

A weed does not fit the desired landscape

But then again, neither have I

I offer my ancestors weeds so that I may have the same strength and resilience that allowed them to survive long enough that I may exist

And I pray that I may be able to be a weed just like them

Unsightly

Unrelenting

Unapologetic

So at my funeral, please do not cover me in roses

Do not cover me in lilies

Or lavender

Cover me in all the weeds that you rip out of your garden

in all the unwanted cuttings and trimmings

Because just like them

I will keep growing

And while my body may decay

My spirit will live on

Live on

Live on

My spirit will thrive

just like a weed.