“There are so many different ways that people constructed home in places that one would not desire for home.”

On my most recent outing with the Black feminist abolitionist revolutionary artist (and dear mentor of mine) kai lumumba barrow, we went looking for Spanish moss for one of her world-unmaking installations. When she pulled up and found me standing in the thick New Orleans street, she lowered her window. “There you are. Wow, you’re aging so beautifully,” she remarked, greeting my emerging silver hairs with grace and wonder before I even got in the car. Kai has known me half my life. And so, as we wandered through the park, looking for Spanish moss, I started to wonder if she had a clue about what I was aging into. Was I the tree, these silver strands my Spanish moss, my reach to ghosts?