Friday 14-10-16 Reno Tea Party

You had to be there. We just loved each other. I'd been shitting myself for days. What if no one turns up to my party? You know the feeling. But they did. Just the right kind of people showed up to support excavating our club, unearthing our story. We felt warm and happy to be together. We ate posh cake. We drank coffee and tea in posh cups and saucers. And we laughed like we use to laugh when we were all together.

I hadn't seen Myra for at least 20 years but it felt like yesterday. And we all broke off into our little sections. You know, like you do. I don't know where anyone was sat or who anyone was stood with. I didn't care I was back with my own. We were girls around our table.

'You didn't get me a saucer.'

'Fuck.'

I was too excited.

I was excited that I'd pulled it off so far. And the posh cake and the posh cups weren't an accident. And we didn't care about the filmmaker, Mat. And Sarah the acheologist had been dragged into a crowd somewhere and I was happy. 15 years since I've been with my own. 15 years since I've been in the arts world. Not really feeling comfy. Feeling out of my depth. Watching my Ps and Qs. Thinking I was making something of my life. But I suppose I have. If I hadn't done that apprenticeship I wouldn't be able to excavate The Reno. The amount of bullshit I've had to go through. The amount of bureacracy I've had to talk to. Manchester City Council said no three times. And obviously I am so proud of myself.

But this project is bigger than me. It is bigger than all of us. It really feeds into a change that is happening in the world. When poor people and black people and people of any colour, that usually amounts to poor people, are saying enough is enough.

And do you know, they did the right thing not letting slaves read. Because last night I watched the beginning of the documentry 13TH. And yeah when people begin to read and they begin to look behind the scenes they really begin to see the Matrix in action. 

They've been getting us for years to think badly of our selves. Even my early podcast interviews when I'm talking about excavating The Reno to drum up an audience for this our website I find it hard not to see us as criminals. Not to describe us as crimanals because that is the way we have been taught to think about ourelves. That our lives are worthless. Our lives don't matter. Well here we have a site to explore this.

Maybe we will find out stuff we don't like about ourselves. Real stuff not stuff taught to us to think. But if Friday afternoon is anything to go by we'll realise what a top time we had. How we love each other. How that can't be undone.

Our story is going to be told in our owns words. In our grammar. Let's see what we find out. Let's see what we document.

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