It feels right.
Marking Free Fall Write's sixth month anniversary with a piece dedicated to YOU!
Good morning to all of our wonderful subscribers,
Time is weird, huh? February seemed to drag and March steamrolled over reality in the blink of an eye. That forceful energy that takes us from winter to spring can blindside us; but we too encapsulate this energy. We push forward, pruning the dead leaves of disappointment and expectation, and create space for abundance and honour.
Free Fall Write was set up by two queer working-class women of colour who decided to start their own business. The creative industry has shown us countless times that it doesn’t value our labour, and when it does it is only to exploit our ideas with no reciprocity. So we’re tightening our ships whilst maintaining our open door policy, welcoming collaborations and honest chats. You can show your support by becoming a patreon, buying us a one-off coffee, and subscribing to our VIP newsletter with added benefits.
It’s a blessing to be in a mutual partnership with a dear friend who shares similar-yet-expansive principles and values. The day I’m writing this marks the sixth month anniversary of when the two of us sat down in a pub in Victoria, London, and wrote our first free write. Since then, we’ve developed our product and set up an established business. We’ve facilitated workshops, welcomed guest writers into our space to express unique ideas, and helped small businesses perfect their digital storefronts. Throughout it all, we’ve held space in radical solidarity for one another. Something we keep saying as we grapple with our rapid and exciting growth is: It Feels Right. Right now, we’re just thankful for all of you who have supported us in any capacity. This piece is for you. We were inspired by this tune by Biig Piig, if you wanted a bop as you read.
I heard you wanna be in the driver's seat, so keep up.
Going at twenty miles an hour throughout this life on this planet so those who want to amble have the option, slowing myself down - I can’t really blame you for pulling me back but hey, if you really want to drive this car then be prepared for sudden acceleration and sharp turns. This is the authenticity brought to you. Yeah, it was comfortable before, and you really enjoyed how predictable things were, how predictable you thought I was, and now we’ve shifted to fifth and we’re going eighty - can you keep up? I believe in you. I believe in you now because I’m believing in myself and all my fast spinning comrades who turn a drunken idea into a fruitful enterprise, not losing our own morals and vision in the process. Idealists. Visionaries. Can you do it?
There is something to be said about perfect timing but you can’t know perfect timing until you know true, innate happiness and peace. We confuse perfect timing to mean when everything is perfect like that formulated image in our head which complies with society standards and impeccable meanings we place on things that probably just require more freedom of thought. It feels right: a phrase that is saved for those who are brave enough to accept and enjoy where they are. Usually it comes with hard work. Usually it comes with having an epiphany. Take your pill and swallow her, all the way, every inch. Imagine if dicks were femminine. I wouldn’t mind. Imagine if rum and raisin ice cream didn’t have so many raisins, again, I wouldn’t mind at all.
I ain’t a chauffeur, honey. You actually pay the driver, in that situation. Nor am I a sat nav. That would be cool though. Omg, imagine having the entire world map just like, logged into your brain!? Becoming a cyborg isn’t so bad when you realise we’re well on our way. Taking acid, makes you a cyborg. Caffeine tablets? Cyborg. Fake lung? CYYYYYBOOOOOOOOORG. Pretty sick, right?
Do you promise me, that you’ll honour me? Don’t give up.
There is something to be said about the right ones being by your side. The proverbial pruning of energy ties - no bad feelings on my side but you get what you give. I never miss a person who I’ve decided no longer respects me. I owe them nothing: it comes after feeling taken advantage of for a long time. Some people are just blind and that is theirs to own. Theirs to act on. No longer mine to heal.
Here’s to all the friends that we made along the way. The quiet supporters, the raucous fanatics, the gentle dispensers of wisdom. That first drink we had together, that’s for you. Thing is, intuitive people know honour when they see it. We can feel out the intentions. Sure, in the past it was a bit cloudy. We’re all in the logical algorithm so often space for intuiting with your soul was gaslit and left outside, crumpled in three day old rain. How about the sentient, spiritual algorithm we’re working with now? Working in tandem with the logic we’ve harnessed. Spotting a negative energy a mile off, or a bad intention so nestled into the psyche of the other that maybe they can’t even see it for themselves.
Can’t make a blind man see the day. No matter how many times you explain what the day looks like, he will never see it - that’s just life. Same is said for people. They struggle and push to be in your life because they cannot see that the day requires a schedule without them at the front of every scene. It’s worrying. But it happens. It happens and as we have said before in our writing: shift happens.
I used to worry that my friends didn’t know how much I love them because I was second guessing my own gut, but now I know they know I know as much as I know they know I know they love me too.
And to those that didn’t honour relationships, it’s all good. Every single interaction serves as a lesson. Class is never over. I’m done with this exam though, resat it enough. Progressing to the next year, next school. More lessons, more life, more honour and loyalty and truth and joy and ecstasy and food and animals and nature and fresh air and trees and kisses and hugs and bad singing and drum banging and gift giving, I welcome I welcome I welcome I welcome.
There is something to be said about protection and the fact that for some reason, some reason I am eternally grateful for, that we seem to land on our feet. I don’t want to have people see us as lucky. Luck isn’t what is here - luck isn’t what brown girls are born with. Especially brown girls like us, poor ones. Not the middle class gujurati ones. The Conservative dad ones. There’s a hardship that is attached to our whole being and I’m sorry if you feel like it applies to you: in your comforts and security but it doesn’t.
There’s no ties, no net, you gotta follow with your instinct.
This highlights the difference between the people who always want more and more and more and those who are simply grateful to be alive. Take a look at yourself and ask why you always want more. The brown girls like “us”: we have had nothing. We have had moments where we cannot see a way going forward. We have had to make the calls to friends, not you, but the actual friends who can understand why we want to end our lives. Why the world is too much. How the depression has truly embedded itself into our purpose for being. There is something to be said about rich and comfortable brown girls, thinking they are like us, but never fully realising how blind they are to the fact they will never be like us.
I want to take my mum skydiving before it’s too late. Those dreams in which you free fall, the jolt awake is kinda scary but how cool is the feeling of falling? I used to hate how much I would willingly fall into things and now it’s a feature I love. I love that I can connect with people who enjoy it too. Complete and utter faith in what we’ve got going for us, sensitive curiosity about where other paths can lead us. Striking a balance - overplanning is overkill. If you got it, you got it. Anyway. Celebrating those small victories that are huge milestones. I’m taking this moment to sit with the joy that I feel. I’m just stroking its lil furry head and booping it on its nose. You might not be here for very long, or forever, but whenever you come around, I’ll love you fully.
And so here is to us. To us, the poor and trodden on brown girls. But to our friends. The friends who look after us. The friends who genuinely love us for our thoughts, our giggles and our jokes. The friends that have made the unconditional connections with us to accept us as we are.
The friends that have stuck by us every single day for 6 months. The friends that didn’t call us little, nor call our project little, nor our company little when it became limited nor our ideas when they didn’t make perfect sense to the arrogantly biggoted minds that wanted to help but were too lazy to actually contribute anything real or relevant. Am I angry? All the time. But do I stay kind? Always. Here’s to kindness and the community we select to taper healing support from. It feels right. So. Come 'round and show me what you've got.
Here’s to the next six months,
Sending love,
S.