September shows up every year and it’s never ever the same. You think it would be. Sure the leaves change colours and the plants that we’ve gotten comfortable with throughout spring and summer begin to fade, hibernate, or even pass on to wherever plants and trees go when they die, but every single year is different.
You’re a little older, you’re a little more aware, you’re a little more conscious of things you may not have known before, and you have opportunities to evolve that you didn’t have the year before, and on and on it goes.
As a child, September means school, which isn’t always so fun, but as an adult, it’s a totally different experience. In school, we learn about the social studies and the maths that we’re exposed to at whatever grade we’re in, but as an adult, we learn about relationships, war, we learn about politics, we learn about love, we learn about all the things that it means to be human. We learn them when we’re kids too, but we’re conditioned to forget.
Gone are the days of chasing frogs through the pond, or hunting for spiders or ghosts in the shadows of the forest, hello are bills and consequences for our actions, and it can be really overwhelming, and there can be a lot of days when we think it would just be easier to be a kid again.
We feel powerless because we’re conditioned even as adults, to believe that we’re powerless, especially in places where we go to ask for help from people who we think understand us.
Yesterday I had the amazing opportunity to speak with Dawn Tyree, who is a fighter and a survivor like myself, and I got to say all the things that I’ve been holding back.
Out of fear, anxiety, and the annoying sensation that the people who need to listen are choosing not to, I wasn’t able to say these things before, and our conversation validated my story and gave me someone who was a gojer – or outsider from my family – to hear me…and I felt heard. For once.
Growing up I hated celebrating Halloween because I knew that for me, it wasn’t the way that it was supposed to be celebrated. September brings about for witches at least – the knowledge that this is the time of the year we need to protect our children the most, and so this year, as with all years, I’m cautious about celebrating the way that the western world celebrates Halloween.
I do not celebrate Halloween, I celebrate Samhain, and I whisper prayers into the night, to protect the angels, to protect the children, and to ensure that those I care about are safe. I light my candles, I light my incense, and I whisper and sing my chants into the air, whether silent or loud so that I feel like I’m taking the time to connect to my spirituality.
But growing up I wasn’t taught this stuff by my family who all practice the exact same way, I was actually conditioned to believe that I had to believe in the Christian God, and this is the first year that I can say honestly, I don’t believe in Him, the way that you do.
I believe that we get to choose our higher powers, and just because someone or something is connected to our higher power, doesn’t mean that they are connected the same way that we are. I have lots of friends who know lots of the same people now and even back in the day, but that doesn’t mean that the way we’re connected is the same, and sometimes it’s not even similar.
Some of us are family, others are just acquaintances, and for the first time in my life, I’m understanding the desire to make that boundary, to keep people in community boxes where everyone fits in particular groups, but I also realize that I’ve never been able to do that. You’re either a part of my life or you are not. If you are then I want you all the way in, if you’re not then please get out of my way so that I can see my people.
The people that I love, I hope they know I love them first of all, but secondly, they come from all over the world. From South Africa and Missouri, from Detroit to Chicago and Cleaveland to the UAE, and at one time or another we’ll meet up or we won’t, but the one thing that I’m learning is most important is that when I need them the most they are here.
I haven’t always been capable of being the kind of friend that other people need, but I’m trying my best now to use this blog to remind those who read that if you’re reading this blog, I don’t consider you just another reader, I can’t. I mean if we’re in public that’s one thing, but when I’m writing this blog, I feel like I am writing to trusted friends and that’s what September reminds me of.
When we were kids we couldn’t wait to get to school – even when we weren’t very popular – because it meant that we could talk and have an opportunity to meet new people and maybe have a different result than we had the year before.
This year I’m trying really hard to plan a celebration party for Loud Mouth Brown Girl, and although a lot of people I really want to have there, like Sam and Bobby, and YoKalli, and Geisty, Danny, Spyc0 and so many others, won’t be able to be because of distance and money and things, I just want you to know that this entire year of Loud Mouth Brown Girl is for all the people who came from around the world to help remind me that I deserve to be here.
Every single reader, every single person on social media, and every single actor or actress or doctor who actually “heard” me when I said “I’m in danger,” thank you. I’ll tell you writing about it didn’t really help, but I’m still here, which means that some kind of majick happened so I would be, so that tells me that the rest of this year is going to be absolutely phenomenally weird…just like the rest of my life. I’ll take it if I get another year with y’all.
Happy September everyone, may the rest of this year bring you nothing but laughter and “holy fuck moments.”
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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Loud Mouth Brown Girl 