Of a video of Rihanna dancing and rapping playfully—her power and joy palpable, Harmony Holiday describes “I need some mischief and a reliable audience. Watch this, I’m changing.”
I’ve rearranged the furniture again, dismantled the couch, put the art in different places on the walls. The material indicative of some other kinds of shifts, not yet put to words. It’s time again—maybe it’s a willingness to admit and mark how often I am rearranged.
I wonder if it’s tone deaf to mischief amidst so much carnage. I wonder if it’s self absorbed to want an audience. I wonder if you’ll believe me when I tell you I’m changing, if you’ll believe me even though I can’t say how.
We sometimes act like announcement is what makes way for permission, when each time that I’ve felt it it’s been wordless. I put the quote on the wall anyway—because it reeks of verve, feels like a dare. It’s in large silver letters, made from mask packages, gleaming.
Mischief as in play, as in a robust sense of humor. Reliable as in gravity or steady or sunrise or nightfall. Audience as in witness, however many a crowd is. Just watch.