The Month I Moved: Poems on Community, Judaism and Disability

"The Month I Moved to Philly: Poems on Community, Judaism and Disability" by Estelle (twitter). Estelle is a dear friend, who I will hopefully be moving in with in the coming months. It's wonderful and strange to read poems about something I'm about to do, featuring characters also present in my own life. It's also great, because that's just how deeply they resonate with me. She says the context surrounding this text is; "I moved to Philly from Dallas right before this poetry jam to be closer to my community and farther from the isolation and hostility found in Dallas. This collection is the poems I wrote on my feelings before my move and as I settled into my new life and my new community. There is also a few darker ones on my slowly unraveling health, my fear of not fitting in, and the expectation of minimization that's often put on women."

If you've ever moved from the American south, or a rural area, or a non-major city, or the suburbs, to somewhere big and on a coast you're going to feel this chapbook calling to you. People who grew up around cities, even with distance between their hometown and the district, can't understand the adjustment of learning an entirely new culture and mindset. The changes in transport, noise, sights, sounds, food, stores, people, and personalities takes a good while to adjust to. I did this going from Tennessee to Seattle over the course of a few years. It happens without you noticing until you look back on how wide-eyed you used to be whenever you saw anything new. Then it becomes habit, and then it becomes routine. You forget how different everything used to feel. You wake up one day and think "Wow. I'm a really different person now.". But this book isn't that. This book is just the beginning of her journey. Starting out worried, uncertain, but definitely grateful. These are poems about the beautiful things that can happen when the people around us and in our lives are kind and supportive.

It's impossible to trust the kindness of the world around you when all you've know is either the opposite or apathy. Trust becomes scarier than survival. When you trust you open yourself up to a vulnerability you never learned to have. Estelle is writing about needing to come to terms with her vulnerability. To accept it, and know how to move forward even if that vulnerability becomes something someone exploits down the road. Much of this is surrounded by her Judaism and seeking spiritual growth and security alongside personal growth and security. These poems tell a story of a newly founded life. It's something which is scary but necessary. An isolationist society works hard to make you feel like nowhere will ever be your actual home. Only time and the support of our physical communities can undo our ingrained fears. Rest. Look forward to what is to come.

"then that shrinking of your world is an inhale with no exhale

and I almost didn't write this poem because  every time I opened my phone to do so I just

im afraid  im afraid"