I just spent an entire day gobbling up a book that had been on my nightstand for awhile. I am one to inhale books, podcasts,  and social media. My love of stories started with summers at my Granddaddy and Grammy Perkins’ house in Greensboro, NC. After my parents divorced when I was six, my father moved back to his childhood state of North Carolina, while my brothers and I stayed in Yankee Maine during the school year. The clash of cultures was confusing traveling across the Mason-Dixon line at the end of each school year. But I was enthralled by the southern tilt of my grandmother’s accent when she read to us from books they kept on their numerous bookcases. My grandfather was forever the orator of stories, sharing his personal tales of kin and memories, while my grandmother was the worshiper of books already written. 

My Grandfather spent most of his life as the Librarian at Elon College. My grandmother taught 1st grade but was forever taking classes at local universities. They both taught me the importance of the written word in their own way. As I grew up, I used books as a way to escape from my dysfunctional childhood. I would get lost in the stories long into the night with a reading lamp as my guide. I don’t often have the time to get lost in a book like that anymore. But I devoured Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera today. 

I discovered the title while listening to a podcast by one of my favorite self help Queen Mothers, Brene Brown. She alone deserves an entire essay about her research on shame and the platform she has created. But she interviewed this new Puerto Rican author from the Bronx on one of her episodes, and I identified immediately with Ms. Rivera, as I soon discovered she was part of the queer family as well. My dream is to be to be interviewed by Brene like that. Another queer feminist writer I adore is Roxanne Gay and she also had reviewed the book. I immediately ordered her book from one of my favorite indie bookstores, Nowhere Bookshop, owned by The Bloggess, herself in San Antonia, Texas. It arrived in the mail unfortunately right around the same time as Barack Obama’s Promised Land  and Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste showed up and so it was added to my already out of control pile of “to be read” books on my nightstand.

Well, somehow I picked up Juliet Takes a Breath instead of the more obvious academic books I had promised myself I would read more of, instead of my guilty pleasures. Sometimes it is good to be wrong and also to be caught off guard by a masterpiece.

This book immediately brought me into a different world and I became the main character.  I could hardly bear it when I had to leave my house to drive to Fayetteville for work. I was so invested with how it would all end up, that I spent three hours becoming a prune in my hotel bathtub frantically turning the pages of this book with my soap sudded hands. 

I imagined my own story being written and then read by another queer kid, looking to find themself between the covers of a book jacket. She wrote “You said reading would make me brilliant but writing would make me infinite.” Oh how I hope to not just be a voracious reader, but maybe contribute to the world with my own masterpiece one day. 

This book talks of the intersectionality of queerness, feminism and people of color so well. I could see my own awkward journey of discovering my racism and internalized homophobia when she writes “Juliet, I am a racist fucking moron and any white person living in this damn country, if any of us tell you otherwise, is a liar not to be trusted. You can be white and poor and racist as hell and wear your Confederate flags, and there’s rich white people who hide their racism behind homeowner’s associations and luxury condo income requirements. And then there are hippie gentrifying, well-intentioned whites like me, and none of us are better than the other.” 

God I hope to be the “hippie gentrifying, well intentioned white person” most of the time. It’s progress not perfection my friends.

Enjoy the next letter…a dear friend warned me that once I had written my words were no longer mine. I can feel that tonight.