THE NAMING OURSELVES PROJECT
6 months in....
Welcome to the beginning, again. Happy New Year, my friends! What a time this time has been.
For the last six months I have been working on a project that’s changed my soul. I have struggled to find the exact words that shine a light on all the “whys” of this thing. I am still unsure of exactly what to say. I am overwhelmed by the “muchness” and the everything of it. I find myself eager to walk alongside the project as a friend, a witness to its growth and its becoming. I find liberation in its poetic, self defining nature.
It is making it itself just as we continue to do day after day. This project is nothing without the brave and wide ranging who demand to be seen as they are, as we are.
The Naming Ourselves Project is ongoing and explores the personal, powerful journey towards naming oneself as a trans*, nonbinary, gender expansive person. It is a sacred celebration of choice and agency that transforms the human experience. We then find ourselves, through the delicate and delicious act of naming ourself.
As I continue to work through what this project is, I maintain and prioritize a constant relationship with the community and world around me. I stand on a foundation of ethical story sharing and transcription. I value the beautiful and amazing folks that have and continue to engage with the project. I am not sure what we’re cooking but it’s tender and transcendent and I hope it will feed your soul.
-- This is from my personal journal. Written on a day in which I struggled to be here. Thank you for sharing space.
December 6, 2023 | 8:16AM ...Something I’ve been pondering about The Naming Ourselves Project is how it saves me. How all the various modes of creation save me in so many different ways. But this project, after loneliness, isolation, sadness, healing, confusion, being lost in what became or had become of me — this project, saves me. It puts me and the idea, which is a culmination of things outside of “me”, in a collaborative relationship with the world and the people around me. It gifts me the opportunity to be present with someone I’ve never met. I am learning to BE with others again. Gratitude indubitably.
Chevy