Samira

thank you todd.
thank you kelly.
thank you lucho.
thank you carnen.
thank you andrea.
thank you ember.
thank you mateo.
thank you frank.
thank you tracy.
thank you shama.
thank you jeffrey.
thank you lisa.
also, thank you holly.

and most of all: thank you, paul.

thank you to everyone who has been present for me this past year,
which has been such a difficult, but necessary journey.

to each of you i haven’t connected with in a while: i hope we do soon.

i have learned so much about myself this past year.
i have felt more emotions than i knew i was capable of feeling.
there was a lot of fear, a lot of anger, a lot of sorrow.
there was much self-doubt & there were many lackluster days.

there has also been a lot of re-discovery & a renewed sense of joy.

i look back at some of those months & i wonder how i made it through.
how Paul made it through. how you made it through. we had a rough year, didn’t we?

but, on that faithful sunday of Kelly’s birthday weekend,
after Paul and Todd and Andrea and i stood embraced
after all the talking and all the crying and all the healing took place,
it all started to make sense again.

remembering why we all ended up amongst this group in the first place.
it gave me a sense of hope, a tremendous amount of relief, and i felt a little less jaded.

i miss Paul and our relationship more than i can approximate here with these word-things,
but i also know we had to find ourselves on our own. we both did the right thing.

i feel calmer these days. i feel more peaceful.
i am incredibly grateful for the honesty and grace you’ve all shown me.

should you ever need somebody by your side,
you know where to find me.

samira

friendship

this week has had an overtone of bitter-sweet, and undertow of memories screaming both tremendous joy as well as sorrow. it wasn’t until last night that it finally hit me, Paul:
Happy Birthday.

6 of your birthdays. 6 of mine.

we even met at your birthday party:
no wonder these past few days have been so wrought with emotion.

realizing that this is the first time in 6 years
that we are not spending our birthdays together
missing that part of the relationship
having a home with someone
thinking of all the ways in which we spent those days together
4th of july fireworks from the couch
playing records in the sun
going on road trips
and other stuff
like how broke we were
and how we’d just have each other
and as much as that was the bad
it was also the good
and i miss that
i miss having my friend, my partner
my touch stone
somebody to come home to
thinking about taking Little Bit to the vet
and it made me think about you and Little Bit
& how much you love her
& how you probably would have taken her today
because that’s the kind of relationship you had with her.

this is not a story of regret, for i am too proud of you.
and i am proud of me, too.

and today, on your 38th birthday, Paul,
i want to thank you for our journey together,
for everything that we’ve endured & felt & tried & forsaken,
for everything that we’ve taken away & learned,
forgotten & remembered,
become enraged for, beaten ourselves up over, forgiven.

thank you for our bicycle ride,
for that rubik’s cube, and that one good record, too.

i am so incredibly proud of you.

i love you.

birthday, hanktheguywithrecords, heart, life, love, paul

The only DJ collective to get two of the Qoöl residents to dress up like women is in the house tonight. Sister SF DJs J-fi, Melyss, Samira & Icon rock Qoöl with open and close by Jondi & Spesh.

Stoked to be back at one of my favorite parties in the city!

111minna, event, icon, jfi, jondi, melyss, melyss icon, qool, samira, sanfrancisco, sistersf, spesh