SF Bootblack 2020 Jessie’s Stepdown

I thought about this speech for a long time. I tried to decide what I would write about, tell you about, and how real I should be. Should I go for brutally honest and straightforward? Should I do something softer, more palatable, and uplifting? Should I fill it with metaphors and deep insight until everyone leaves breathless and pensive? Metaphors yes, absolutely, but It’s less than two days before I am supposed to deliver this magnanimous opus, retelling all the milestones and wonderful things I did for the community, for you…

I never got the chance. A few months in to weekends out bootblacking with my clubs and events, mere moments after my first trip out of state to represent and with international invitation to bring my shine into the world,  the world was  ripped out from underneath us. Everything spontaneously combusted. A huge eruption of societal magma spewed its contagion and hate all over our community again. Fueled by foundations made of kindling, the fire spread so fast we had no time to react, comprehend, or make any solid plan.

The world burned around us, we could only look out into the sunset hues of what was, as the flames rose higher and higher. We watched in horror while black people were gunned down, lives snuffed out, and our hope for a better future bled out suffocating in the streets. We watched grief stricken and afraid as we lost trans family repeatedly, indiscriminately. We watched as children in cages were forgotten at the border of dreams and complete annihilation. Our indigenous sisters and children who had disappeared without a trace, found lost to the universe cloaked by injustice.  Disease ravaged the bodies of 1.04 million people, leaving just whispers and memories. The amount of people we lost is greater than the current population of my hometown. An entire city lost to indifference, inhumanity, misinformation, and a society built to bury its citizens.

Social networks crumbled. Our physical ties to the community broke. Our support systems thinned. The struggle began to overtake our thoughts, our minds, and invaded our entire lives. We reached out. We begged. We flailed. As the magma burned and scorched our flesh, we gave it one last push. We dug deep. With those left around us to offer a shoulder or space to breathe, we shuddered into the tears that temporarily smothered the fires and began to fill world to the brim with our sorrows.

Our lives completely fell apart. Everything crumbled and the cliffs we once stood on gave way to a landslide that pushed us all the way out to the sea. We nearly drowned in the weight of our own existence, the weight of our situation, and the weight of our losses. Our breaths were drawn heavy and over encumbered. The chains of life began to drag us down to the sea. We watched our fingers lunge through the unforgiving waters, grasping helplessly while the light blue of the surface quickly faded to the darkened depths of midnight blue and blackish oblivion.

We were ready to embrace the overwhelming pressure of the abyss and give our valediction to joy. There were no benedictions, there were no sounds, just the tips of our fingers fighting the dissolution of our vision.

A small boat appeared briefly between blinks. The oars breaking the surface tension rumbled through our chest. A heartbeat in time with the disseminating echoes of hope. A small heat burning inside growing ever so slightly. Just enough to let the last push of air carry the words many were waiting to hear. Please help me.  

In those words we found relief. The water cascaded over our faces as our mouths flew open. We sucked in a breath so profound it gave us the third or fourth wind we so desperately needed. As our chosen family and chosen community pulled us into the lifeboat, we felt a gratitude so deep the ocean beneath us seemed microscopic. 

I know that I sat in that same lifeboat, soaked and still weak, looked into the eyes of those around me in awe. I had my people. We had a community. From food donations, assistance with bills, and late night phone calls to ease the existential dread, to simply messages and texts checking in just to make sure you knew there were people who cared. You reached out to others. You checked in, called, and sometimes just chatted when others needed you. We tried let the warm winds carry our voices to those in the community who needed us most. 

We all sit now in this life raft introspective. Learning new things about ourselves, working on what’s behind our eyes and in between ours ears to bring forth a better us. A better me for myself. A better you for yourself. To collectively come back to the community to help build foundations not of kindling, but igneous rock. Formed though the magma of this current eruption around us when it meets the tears filling our ocean, our core will be so strong that when our boots hit the ground with our better selves and community armed in leather, we shall fear this world no longer. 

Before, I could not physically be with you. I could not physically give you the bootblack representation that we wanted. Now I stand beside you on stronger stone foundations, better prepared to help bring OUR collective shine into the world. 

Thank you.