As The Ground Gives Out Around Us

Premiered Friday May 16th, 2025 at The Future of Art in America Live at Disco Market in The French Quarter.

Photo by Iris Azalea.

The morning after the first Future of Art In America Live Show, I listened to one of my best friend’s in the world’s brand new song, “Saturnalia”. The lyrics, “as the ground gives out around us, as the ground gives out around us”, hit different than months ago when Kim previewed the track for me.

The ground gives out around us in 2025. All logic I previously held as law has been stripping away and revealing itself to be absolute nonsense based in past trauma and collectively calcified fear.

People have surprised me in 2025.

People have revealed sides to themselves I had no idea were there this whole time.

I’ve revealed more of what I’m thinking and feeling to other people than ever before.

I interviewed my friend Patty, a community organizer in Chicago, back in February about her life story and mission. When I asked her, “When did you discover you were an artist?” She simply said, “In 2017, I woke up.” Patty is in her 40’s. She owned that she wasn’t really a conscious active person until she and her family found a dead body in the park down the street from their home, and that’s when she realized she had had enough of the senseless, unnecessary violence.

Even though I’ve been an artist forever, I feel like Patty.

“As The Ground Gives Out Around Us; As The Ground Gives Out Around Us”

Saturn has been in my Home Sign of Pisces for awhile now putting my life in a straight jacket of restrictions.

My Bank Account always seems to have enough for the moment but not much more. I always end up paying every single bill on time even though I’m unsure fully how until it happens. All of these things are designed to focus my attention radically on the present moment.

Instead of wasting any ounce of energy complaining, I take care of myself. New layers of punishment that my inner monologue inflicts on me keep bubbling up to the surface.

As the ground gives out around us, I have to have my own back. I cannot outsource that to anyone else.

People have surprised me in 2025.

I have surprised myself.

I’ve listened to far less noise on the Internet and written so much more about how I see the world around me. It’s my job now, in fact.

My essay series Dear Writer Director allows me to see my life much more clearly. I’m not constantly gaslighting myself out of my emotional experiences anymore.

I’m no longer the voice of the patriarchy.

That said, the more I discard, the more insidious the lies I tell myself that I find.

Everybody around me is a mirror.

A Gen Xer white dude shouted at me that I wasn’t an artist because I’m also a businesswoman the other day. As he disappeared around the corner, I thought to myself, “Do I really feel that way about myself? Why? Why was I holding onto something as stupid as that?” He never came around again.

The days I spend vending on the streets of Lower Decatur are the days I go home spiritually pummeled and then suddenly, a lot freer.

I return to my craft the next day a little less bothered by everything around me. My Lower Decatur angels aka those who I’ve strongly connected with while selling books remark that they are witnessing my rapid growth as a person. It feels good to be reflected back in their hopeful towards the future of humanity eyes.

Outside of Lower Decatur, our world is full of comforts and problems that are not real problems. Being stuck in a torrential downpour with sixty books you have to keep dry is a real problem. It puts everything in perspective.

As the ground gives out around me at my tiny pop up small business, the ground gives out around me in my most intimate blossoming relationships. I have already caught so many of the ways I have subconsciously tried to control these dynamics.

I have investigated the roots of my obsession with having everything tightly scheduled and how, living the pace of life in New Orleans and living within such close proximity of everyone I want to see, I no longer have to compete for anyone else’s time. Nobody’s seeing a million people and comparing and contrasting all of them like it feels in Chicago.

It’s ingrained in me to always require a firm time and place before committing to anything as if that’s the only way something becomes serious. It’s so healing to feel like I no longer have to do that. People actually feel available to me now. It’s a new sensation on my nervous system. I don’t feel like just another option anymore. It’s yet another layer of bullshit that I can readily let go.

As the ground gives out around me, I no longer feel impending doom.

I feel impending joy. I feel bonds of trust forming slowly and intentionally. I feel the power of being someone someone else can trust with their vulnerability. I feel grateful to be considered worthy.

After living through 2025, I will never take anything for granted ever again.

The morning after the first Future of Art In America Live Show, I’m stoked to get to the next time I get to do this show.

As the ground gives out around us, what new layers of myself will I be exposed to? What will I see? Who will I choose to become?

People change in 2025.

Or really is it more- they’re becoming who they were always supposed to be in the first place?