Just the Beginning: Episode 1
Things Get Personal
This is the first episode of Just the Beginning, Kickstarter’s podcast featuring stories about how independent creators bring their ideas to life. You’ll hear what inspires them, scares them, and keeps them going — and how they’ve remained true to their visions, even if mainstream culture didn’t buy in.
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Featured in This Episode
Stories about what happens when bringing a creative project to life becomes your life.
Photojournalist Nancy Borowick used photography to cope with a family tragedy. She tells the story of what happened when both of her parents were diagnosed with stage-four cancer, and how she celebrates their lives in her book, The Family Imprint.
Kelly Rakowski, founder of the Herstory Instagram account, explains how how she’s creating Personals, a new kind of dating app for the LBTQIA+ community, inspired by vintage, text-only personal ads. We also hear some of the wildly creative ads people have submitted, read by the authors themselves.
Artist , author, and Just the Beginning’s advice columnist, Adam J. Kurtz explains how writing notes to himself turned into a series of funny-but-genuine books to help others face their own creative challenges. You can ask Adam a question about a creative quandary you’re facing by calling 914–381–0233. He’ll respond to some in a future episode.
Music in this episode by:
Transcript
Zakiya Gibbons (ZG): From Kickstarter…This is Just the Beginning.
[Theme Music: Balún, “Años Atrás”]
In this episode, things get personal.
Preview Montage
Nancy Borowick: The moment I put my camera down this one time at the hospital, I fainted.
Kelly Rakowski: I came across this lesbian erotica magazine from the 80s and 90s
Adam J. Kutz: People say there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but that isn’t 100% true.
[Music]
Intro
ZG: I’m Zakiya Gibbons
Nick Yulman (NY): I’m Nick Yulman. And this is Just the Beginning… a new show from Kickstarter about the value of creative work.
ZG: You’ll hear about projects that got their start on Kickstarter… but this is not a show about running a campaign.
NY: Instead, we’ll share the stories behind some of our favorite projects… and how the people who made them started with an idea…. Often one that didn’t have a place in mainstream culture… at least not yet.
Maybe it was too “out there”… or too personal… or just that the traditional gatekeepers — investors, publishers, producers, didn’t see how it could turn a profit.
ZG: So these creators came to Kickstarter to find another way…
But having a great idea… or even getting it funded… is really just the beginning
The stories we’ll share on this show deal with everything that follows… the hard work, twists and turns, breakdowns, breakthroughs — and what creators learn about themselves along the way.
NY: Basically — how bringing a project to life can often become your life.
ZG: And that’s what this episode’s all about.
NY: So Zakiya, later on we’ll chat with the artist and author Adam J Kurtz. And before we jump into our stories, I’d like to read something he wrote.
ZG: OK.
NY: So this is a handwritten note that he posted on instagram. He’s written in red crayon: “Do what you love and you’ll never work another day in your life.”
ZG: [unimpressed] Mmmmm hmmm…
NY: Right so that’s tired cliche — but hang on. Then he’s taken a blue crayon and crossed out that last part and added his own take: “Do what you love and you’ll work super fucking hard all the time with no separation or boundaries and also take everything extremely personally.”
ZG: [Groans] that’s scarily accurate.. “no separation or boundaries” is how I’ve felt about doing pretty much any project I really care about
NY: Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way. And that definitely describes what photojournalist Nancy Borowick went through. And we’re going to start this episode with her story.
[Music: ensemble, et al., “Medal Meddle Metal”]
Nancy Borowick: The Family Imprint
NY: Nancy is based on Guam… (we’ll hear more about that later) but grew up and launched her career in New York.
Nancy’s work was always about documenting other people’s lives. But when her parents, Howie and Laurel were both diagnosed with stage-four cancer, her focus shifted to her own family.
She chronicles this in The Family Imprint, the book she brought to Kickstarter in 2016. It’s filled with Nancy’s artful black-and-white images. We see her parents’ getting treatment; life around the house — moments full of sadness and joy.
But it also feels like a family scrapbook, packed with greeting cards, old snapshots, and other items that tell a much deeper story about who her parents were.
Nancy Borowick (NB): I really needed to have my camera in front of my face while I was going through this experience. The moment I put my camera down this one time at the hospital, I fainted. And the next thing I know, I’m laying there thinking to myself, what just happened? And then I realized this is probably the one moment in this whole experience that I have not had this shield, giving me a distance from the reality that was unfolding in front of me, and that’s when it became so evident that I could never put my camera down again
[Music: ensemble, et al., “Au Cheval”]
Both of my parents were in treatment for stage four cancer at the same time. My mother was in her third diagnosis of breast cancer over the course of 18 years, and my father was suddenly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. My world was sort of flipped upside down and nothing made sense, but photography made sense. It’s how I understand the world around me, so naturally, I just started photographing.
[Music: ensemble, et al., “Typewriters”]
I felt like I needed to obsessively record everything, because I didn’t know how much time we had left. And I thought about sharing it, but then I was sort of nervous because it’s my personal story. I decided that I was a little too intimidated to actually show it to any editors, so instead I submitted it to a contest.
I didn’t win the contest but I got an email from one of the judges, James Estrin, one of the editors from the New York Times, and it was just one line and said, “I need to publish your story.”
[Music: ensemble, et al., “In a Crowded Room With Nothing to Think About”]
I was in complete shock. I’m a freelance photographer in New York City doing the photographer’s hustle. I love it. It’s exciting and unpredictable and terrifying and exhausting. And the New York Times is a big deal. I was like sitting in front of my computer in total shock. I called my parents and I was like, so the New York Times is interested in publishing our story. What do you think? They were kind of like, why? Who is going to care, but if this is important to you, and this is helpful for you, then we’re okay with it.
I sat down with Jim, and, I was getting married and he said we want to come to your wedding, and that will be kind of like the culmination of the story, which I really liked, because there was an obvious ending being their deaths. I didn’t want that to be the ending of the story that we were creating together. And he said, I want every photograph in this project to be yours, so how are you going to shoot your wedding?
What we ultimately figured out was that I would rig a camera in the tree above the chuppah where ceremony would be and it would have remote in my bouquet, and my plan was to walk down the aisle and trigger the remote. And right before I walked down the aisle, I decided my wedding gift to my husband, who is the most patient and wonderful person in the world, would be, I wouldn’t be working our wedding. In this one moment in our entire lives, I would be present, so I handed the remote off.
And while I was underneath the chuppah during the ceremony, I could hear the shutter ever so slightly clicking and it gave me this crazy satisfaction. Like, we’re getting the shot, yes!
[Music: ensemble, et al., “Guernsey Goodbye”]
About two weeks later, my father was jaundiced, and he was in the hospital. That same weekend the New York Times published our story. My personal life was sort of crumbling and my professional life just suddenly was catapulted into a different stratosphere. As much as we were struggling, we were inundated with love and support strangers from around the world reaching out, thanking us for sharing our story. My parents got to experience the reaction and got to feel that love and compassion and I think in some ways, it gave them almost a greater purpose at the end of their lives.
[Music]
My father died on December 7, 2013, which was a year and a day since diagnosis. So he beat the odds. My dad was competitive, so it’s totally on-brand Howie.
And I remember one day him saying to me, will you interview me? I set up a little video camera and started to ask him some questions. And I asked him if he ever wondered what people would say about him at his funeral. He said, I don’t wonder, I wrote it. I was like, oh okay. He said, well, do you want me to read it to you? I was like, the journalist in me says yes. The daughter in me says, no, no, no, definitely not, this is too much.
And it was 14 pages long.
Howie Borowick (HB): Well, I’m off. I’ve always been a bottomline guy, and that is the bottomline. I’ve thought about this event all my life. Mike, stop crying like a girl. Girls, stop crying like Mike. Everyone take a shot of vodka, have a danish. Calm yourself. Catch your breath.
NB: He was a trial lawyer and his eulogy at his funeral was his final summation.
HB: Blessings? Man, I’ve had so many more than my share. It all boils down to great memories of you. That’s what I’ll carry around the galaxies. [paper noise]
NB: At his funeral, I was surprised by just how much laughter there was. And I remember looking at my father’s casket, we’re in the temple and I’m giving my eulogy and I’m thinking to myself, here he is, front and center, surrounded by everyone that he loved, and everyone who loved him in his life. Obviously, I wanted to take a picture of this moment.
HB: The whole lot of you. You’ve helped me cram in 80 years into 57…
NB: In that photograph, my mother, she’s right in the front, and she has this ever so slight smile on her face. After the fact, I asked her, why were you smiling? She’s like, you know, dad was in a lot of pain. While I wanted him to live, that wasn’t what he wanted and knowing that he’s not in that pain anymore, it brings me comfort but I was also smiling because it was such a Howie funeral.
HB: Laurel, my raison d’etre. My valentine for a third of a century. Heroic in your battle with cancer — and with my mishegas. My best friend in this or any other world. As usual, I will wait for you for as long as it takes. But by the way, for once, please don’t rush. Take your time. Thank you for our wonderful home family and life. I love you. Everyone hug someone. It’s all good. Peace.
[Music]
NB: After my father passed away, the focus kind of shifted to my mother. That was hard. She hated being the center of attention. She liked being able to care for my dad, because she didn’t have to focus on her own illness. I noticed that I started to photograph less and I’m wondering if that’s because it was becoming more and more real.
[Music]
My mother, through all of this, was able to find such joy in life. She had these terrible pills she had to take so she would take them with a spoonful of marshmallow fluff. She had no hair. Her skin was sort of a strange color. She had one breast. She didn’t look like herself anymore, and while that was hard for her, she also made fun of herself.
My favorite picture in the book of my mother is the image I open with. She’s sitting on this recliner chair in our basement and the sunlight, it’s just streaming in across her face with her eyes closed and she has kind of like a slight smile, it feels almost defiant. And she’s also wearing like a Happy New Year’s hat and holding New Year’s hats over her chest like Madonna, like those cones. It was this moment of pure beauty. As a photographer, sometimes you hope that you have an image that tells the whole story. I think this tells the story of Laurel and I love it.
[Music]
After our story had been published in the New York Times, it started to get picked up around the world, across continents, languages. It wasn’t an American story. It was an everyone story. And I thought about making a book. If through my grief and through my experience, other people could find comfort and understanding, then what did I have to lose?
But I’m a photographer, I’ve never published a book before. I don’t know what I’m doing. I had the opportunity to meet with a publisher who very sort of seriously looked at me and said, well, no one wants to buy a book about death. And I don’t remember what I said. I think I said a lot in my facial expression. What I should have said in that moment was, well you clearly missed the point. It’s not about death. Death is so obvious. It’s about life.
[Music: ensemble, et al., “In a Crowded Room With Nothing to Think About”]
And I thought to myself, you know what, I’m going to prove him wrong. It sort of fueled me to figure out a way to do it on my own. If nothing else, I’m doing this for me. I want this book, and if other people care, and they want it too, wonderful.
[Music]
People were really surprised that the cover of my photography book didn’t have a photograph and that was very intentional. Because to me, this isn’t really a photography book. This is a scrapbook.
My dream was to make this book feel and look like a family album. The cover image that I ultimately chose was an image of a needle point that my father had made for my mother for their wedding. This always makes people laugh, because my father was this little Jewish guy from Queens who was loud and the center of attention and full of energy, full of adjectives and superlatives and he learned how to needle point from his grandmother and his aunts who ultimately raised him after his mother died when he was 15.
It’s a needlepoint picture of the two of them, under a flower chuppah. My mom’s wearing her wedding dress and my father is wearing this like ridiculous 1970s white suit with a mustache.
And I had this dream of bringing that needle point to life so I was able to negotiate a textured cover so that your instinct when you saw the book was to touch it and feel it.
[Music: ensemble, et al., “Typewriters”]
The very last black and white photograph in the book is of the night sky. I took this while I was on a trip in Mexico. It would have been my mother’s birthday.
So, my father loved the sunset, and when we were younger, he used to drive off the side of the road if he saw a beautiful sunset and would open the windows and be like, look at that sunset. And in his eulogy, he told us that we should look for him in the sunset.
And when my mother was dying, we said, how do we talk to you? How do we find you? She’s like, well, Dad already took the sunset. He also took the wind, he also took the sunrise, he took everything [LAUGH] , he left nothing for me. But I’m a night person…
Laurel Borowick: …I’m a night person. If you want to talk to me or you want to see me, or you want to tell me something, whatever, just look up — I’m up there in the stars. I’ll be there.
NB: It was perfect. One of the most magical things about living on Guam is that every single night, we have the most beautiful sunset and the most sparkly stars and I feel them with me there, which is such a gift. I get chills just talking about that now.
[Music]
I felt like I needed to conclude with that image. It’s not necessarily like an original image—it’s a picture of the night sky—but it carries so much value and weight for me. But I also pair it with something that my mother left behind.
When she was dying, she really wanted to write these love letters to all of us kids. She didn’t think she had the ability or the energy in this moment to do it in the same way that my father had written his eulogy. I remember saying to her, Mom, we know how much you love us. Please don’t worry. When we were cleaning out our house after she passed away, my sister found these three yellow post it notes in her handwriting. She was writing these letters. They were just in the forms of like post it notes around the house, which was like on-brand Laurel.
[Music: ensemble, et al. — Guernsey Goodbye]
It says, courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s knowing that you are afraid and doing it anyway. Don’t spend your days avoiding risk, being fearful. Act, live your life on your terms. Life is precious, spend it without regrets in your own precious voice. For my three angels, if you want to talk or feel my love, look up in the night sky and I’m always watching over you.
[Music]
NY: That’s Nancy Borowick. We also heard home recordings she made of her parents, Howie and Laurel Borowick.
You can see Nancy’s photographs and learn more about her book The Family Imprint at Nancyborowick.com.
[Music]
The Music you hear on this show is from Musicians who have created work using Kickstarter.
This story featured the percussion group ensemble, et al. You can listen to their latest album The Slow Reveal, on Bandcamp.
[Music fades out]
Kelly Rakowski: Personals
ZG: In this next story about projects getting personal, we’ll hear from Kelly Rakowski. This past summer, she launched a Kickstarter campaign to create Personals, an app that lets you date like it’s 1982.
Kelly is the founder of Herstory, an instagram account where she archives forgotten lesbian history.
And while she was digging through old books and magazines, she stumbled onto something that made her realize… when it comes to dating — we’re doing it all wrong…
[Music: Sheverb, “Cactus Juice”]
Personal ad author 1: Hot dog for hot dog. 30, tennis dyke kitchen top switchy film dog in search of femmish she/them/he for yes and. Into intense? Push my needle and I’ll pull yours. Let’s skip to the good stuff and eat off each other’s plates. Mostly monog. Brooklyn.
Kelly Rakowski (KR): My name is Kelly Rakowski, I am the founder of Personals. It’s a text based dating app for the queer community.
[Music]
I started Herstory right after coming out. I’m a photo editor, so I, I just started finding all these really great historical images of lesbians, and kind of teaching myself about the history. And I came across this lesbian erotica magazine from the 80s and 90s, called On Our Backs. And in the back of every issue were these amazing, and witty, and smart personals written by lesbians. So I started posting screenshots on Herstory. And then I started thinking, why don’t we start writing personals just like this? So I put out a call for submissions, and immediately got so many people writing that overflowed my account.
Personal ad author 2:Funny, fragile, fat femme in search of a dominant goddess for cuddly, stoned nights spent kvelling over my cat and processing how all non-Drake men are the worst.
Personal ad author 3: 28 Latinx Leo dyke will push your tender buttons while teaching you Spanish.
Personal ad author 4:Spank me, tell me I’m pretty, buy me tacos, and I’m all yours.
KR: The photo based dating apps tend to be about hooking up, or it was more like throw away people, you just swipe them away and they’re gone. And I think a lot of people were frustrated because you’re just looking at a selfie of someone. I think people are looking for like a more genuine thing.
Personal ad author 5:Southern bruja moving to the midwest for art school. In search of folks of any gender and presentation for friendships, date mates, and nude models. I hear it gets pretty cold out here — keep me warm?
KR: I limit people to about 45 words. And it’s like bite sized, and you can see what they look like if you click on their account, but first you see how they present themselves with language.
Personal ad author 6:21-year-old hijab-wearing commie with big gay energy. Virgo with an affinity for film, football, politics, and dark lipsticks. I’d leave a trail of kisses on your back if you’d let me.
KR: Specifically with queer people, there’s almost like a language within a language to talk about yourself and people really rejoice in that.
Personal ad author 7:Slow-burning femme prince in search of my Velvet Elvis. I like charmers and schemers and hustlers and dreamers. I like tops…
KR: A lot of people have said that they’re like reading these just to kind of get to know themselves better. It’s really helpful for other people to read and see how people are talking about what they want, who they are.
[AD]
Personal ad author 8: DTF femme cub freak. Fat, nonbinary femme cub living with chronic pain and illness seeking self-aware and communicative cuties of all varieties for hookups, dates, and whatever else may transpire. Part pillow princess, part service bottom, full freak with a switchy streak. Come and get it, y’all. @sissybear666 Olympia, Washington/Pacific Northwest
[Music: Sheverb, “Last Day of Summer”]
KR: Distance does not matter, they will travel to go on a first date, like, over an ocean. There was a couple, one person lived in Sweden, and the other in LA, and now they are married.
[Music]
I get almost 500 submissions in a 48 hour period. It really is just proof that people are wanting something, so I just really feel like it’s at a point where it can really turn into something really amazing.
[Music]
ZG: That was Kelly Rakowski.
You also heard real ads from the Personals instagram account, read by people who wrote them! Thanks to everyone who sent us recordings!
Learn more about the dating app Kelly’s developing by going to personalspersonals.us — yep, thats personals two times, dot US.
Music is from Sheverb, an Austin-based psychedelic desert rock band. You can find them on bandcamp.
[Music]
Web extra: Hear the story of a couple that met through Personals
Adam J. Kurtz: Introducing Solicited Advice
Adam J. Kurtz(AJK): You are kind of an idiot. Nobody knows what the fuck they are doing and that is totally okay.
ZG: That’s artist and author Adam J Kurtz reading from his book Things Are What You Make of Them.
AJK: So much of what we do is learned on the job, as we tackle new projects of encounter new perspectives. Everyone had to start somewhere and everyone is constantly learning more. You are kind of an idiot but it’s going to be okay.
ZG: Adam has made a name for himself on social media with his funny but genuine takes on the challenges creative people face. And for years he’s published a daily planner called Unsolicited Advice.
NY: And now we bring you Solicited Advice a recurring segment where Adam will answer your questions about your creative projects.
ZG: But first, let’s get to know him a little bit.
NY: So reading your bio on your website you say, “I call myself an artist because nobody has time for my multi-hyphenated reality.” And we have a little time, so can you tell us a little bit more about that reality and, like, what are those hyphens for you?
AJK: I think what I’m describing is just what most quote creative-types are right now which is a lot of things at once. You’re maybe a designer. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re a media brand because the second you have a social media account, all of a sudden you’re a publisher. It’s like, “Yeah, let me just accept all of those labels.” And maybe that’s why so many people just call themselves creative directors now. It’s like that’s the new DJ is like every creative director.
NY: [Laughs] What was your trajectory? Where did you start as a creative person and what are all the things you’ve kind of accumulated over the years?
AJK: I studied graphic design because I had been building fan websites. So, I taught myself to code…
NY: What were you a big enough fan of that you had to figure out how to make a website?
AJK: MMMMMMM. It’s fine. I mean I literally opened this door. This is my fault. God damn it. I had a Pokemon fan site in my preteens. I think it’s one of those things where I was always like the arts and crafts kid. I was never going to be a fine artist, but I love making stuff. And what was so incredible to me as a 12-year-old on the internet was that I could make something out of nothing.
NY: Do you think of yourself now as like an internet artist?
AJK: I like artist and author. I think that is like the most succinct way to put it and artist is a really hard label for a lot of people, but I think depending on how you define art, it’s exactly right for me. And to me art is when you feel something and then you create work that will evoke that emotion in others. And if that’s the definition, which is admittedly broad, then a lot of people are artists.
NY: And do you consider the things you make memes? What is your relationship with that word?
AJK: Yeah, I think… so, I don’t have a problem with that label, but meme like a lot of other words can be coded in a negative way.
NY: It often suggests a sort of like ironic distance — or like a joke — and you seem to be coming from usually a place of like real sincerity.
AJK: I think that this could be a generational thing. I just turned 30 so I’m dead, but in internet years I’m like gone, like RIP, like it was fun, but I don’t know necessarily that young people think of memes as being something that they’re ironically distant from. And a lot of what I make on social media connects with people because sometimes I’ve said exactly what they’re feeling but I’ve said it in like exactly the right succinct way with like just enough irony, and it’s like genuine but it’s like a little bit disaffected.
NY: In general, how do you kind of differentiate what you do from motivational poster, greeting card… those types of things?
AJK: I mean, sometimes my work is different than like your usual aphorism and inspiration and then sometimes it isn’t. You know, I’ve made things that are just like purely genuine and just end up as Pinterest fodder and some of my most popular stuff is that like purely positive sentiment. And I understand why that’s popular and I’m like totally on board for that. And I don’t need you to like do the homework of like understanding the context of where I’m coming from. You know what I mean? Like, there are people who would probably be horrified to know that I am gay-married to a Japanese man [laughs]. And I have the anecdotal evidence to support that. People who come for the memes and then unfollowed like by the hundreds like when I got married or post my husband. Like, I just hope that people understand that things come from an honest place, but I also know that, like, nice quotes are nice, and we do need that.
NY: So I want to turn to just like yeah the advice world and how did it first become a thing that you started doing?
AJK: I didn’t set out to be like an advice columnist. There’s like a lot of advice columns already. And there’s also a lot of advice creatives — air quotes — who want to tell creative people how to do things. That really wasn’t my goal and it’s still not. But I guess it all comes down to like I am not one of those people that wants to hoard resources. So, if you ask me for advice like I’m going to give it to you. I really am just like not smarter or better than anyone. I’ve just maybe tackled some things already that others are tackling right now. I mean, my entire career is like … it’s really just me writing notes to myself. It’s something that I’m feeling or something that I needed. And then I just kind of open it up for others. And this really comes back to what I was talking about with memes is creating this sort of like banner or shield for other people.
NY: So the idea is that we’re going to be inviting people to ask you for advice about their creative lives and their problems both big and small. Can you give them advice on how to ask for advice? What kind of questions do you find interesting?
AJK: People say there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but that isn’t 100% true. There are some stupid questions. How do I make enamel pins? That’s a dumb question. That’s something that you can ask Google. And I’m not a therapist and I’m also not like a brilliant artist. I’m also not like the king of making commercial work. I’m not a millionaire. You know, there are artists who are extremely successful businessmen, too. I’m not that either, but I will do my best and try to speak from the experiences that I’ve lived. Working with a major publisher to dealing with intellectual property theft and Chinese factories bootlegging your products.
[Music: Balún, “Ultravioleta”]
I have had such a weird array of things happen to me in my professional career. So, I do think that that sets me up to be able to at least address a number of things. But I don’t know everything. I hope that I’ll have extra resources to share too. Like, “Hey, I don’t know the answer this but I know someone who does.”
ZG: We want to hear from you. Call 914–381–0233 to leave a voice message asking Adam for advice on your creative quandaries. We’ll pick the most interesting, relevant, or just plain weird ones for him to respond to.
The number again is 914–381–0233.
[Theme Music: Balún, “Años Atrás”]
Credits
NY: Thanks for joining us for the first episode of Just the Beginning.
The show is produced by Zakiya Gibbons, Michael Garofalo and me, Nick Yulman. Elyse Mallouk is Kickstarter’s Editorial Director.
ZG: Special thanks to Katheryn Thayer
Our theme Music is by Balún
Learn more about the projects, Music, and people featured in this episode at podcast.kickstarter.com.
ZG: And tell us what you think of the show — leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts
Until next time, I’m Zakiya Gibbons
NY: I’m Nick Yulman
And this is just the beginning
Web Extra: Ainsley and Leo: A Personals Love Story
When Ainsley saw Leo’s ad on Personals, they were intrigued but didn’t think they’d ever meet in person since they lived an ocean apart. Three months later they had a plane ticket from New York to Scotland. Read to their Skype conversation, recounting the story of how they met and they plans they’ve made to meet in person.
Ainsley (A): I saw your ad, and I would have scrolled past it, except for the caption and the location were the first things that caught my eye, ’cause you’re in Scotland, and my mom’s from Scotland, and then I looked at your title, and it said (laughs)-
A: “Non-binary, faggy, glitter butch,” and I was like…
Leo (L): Non-binary, faggy, glitter butch. Spoony, outdoorsy, rural, queer organizer. Writer and artist. Please send nudes for me to draw. In search of fellow tender, masculine-of-center folk. Distance okay. Scotland.
A: And I was like this person’s probably my people. You live in Scotland, so like, there’s absolutely no danger here. Like, I’ll read this. Yeah, sure, why not?
L: No danger.
A: I am a very quick to fall for people kind of person. And I had just decided to not date and so like, if you lived in Scotland there was like no danger that I would have any feelings for you.
L: Oh.
A: Three months later I have a plane ticket, so, you know … that plan went out the window.
L: Sure did. I live in a town of 40,000 and I don’t have people in my vicinity that kind of look like me and that I’m interested in. So I was just trying to feel normal and seen.
A: Yeah. So I knew that I couldn’t just pass your ad up. So, I was like, “Hey, I liked your personals ad. Like, a lot.”
L: I looked down your feed and I saw this piece of art that you’d made-
A: Was it the-
L: Glitter queer, glitter queer. And I was like, but I put in my thing non-binary, glitter butch.
A: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
L: I’m like that combination of masculinity and sparkle and exuberance, that caught me.
A: We talked on Instagram for about two weeks.
L: On our first phone call-
A: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
L: … it was like the day before I was going to a wedding, and I was like…
A: Yes, you were sewing, and I was nervous so I took you to the laundromat with me ’cause I was like, if it went horribly wrong, I could be like, “Shit, something’s going wrong, I have to go.”
A: But we talked for two hours.
L: Yeah, we did.
A: We decided to call each other partners in the conversation where I told you I wanted to come see you. It felt like we’d kind of skirted over what does it actually mean to say that we’re partners, especially given the fact that we live in different continents and we haven’t actually been ever physically present with one another.
L: So that was one of those moments of like, yeah, we can’t have the usual milestone for this happening, but it is happening.
A: I mean, I knew when I got on the phone with you that day, I remember I was really anxious, ’cause I was like, “This is the moment.” and then I think I was just like, “I want to come to Scotland.” We talked about everything. That was seven hours on the phone.
L: We had so many moments of each other becoming more real, and so that moment of deciding you’re coming, how could we possibly think of ourselves as not partners?
A: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
L: Because of how real that’s gonna make it.
A: Yeah. It felt like a milestone, I think. ’Cause we don’t have ‘normal’ milestones, quote unquote. I’ve spent the past two years, pretty much, being intentionally single and trying to figure out who I am and what my needs are. Two years because that was the end of my last relationship. While we wouldn’t typically call that a success, because we didn’t end up getting married, which is also weird because I work in the wedding industry, but like…
L: [Laughs].
A: … why is marriage the only deciding factor of success? And I think, as queer people we make up so much of the narrative for ourselves because there is no narrative that already exists for us to like look to and see these life paths on. It’s either a coming out story or like people are dying. And that’s all we have.
L: Your vision for working in the wedding industry and letting people celebrate their love in ways that looks different to what we expect teaches me that I’m allowed to hope for these things. You asked me just the other day, “What’s your vision for your future?” And I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know, living with a few friends and lovers in a cabin somewhere.” And I- I have written out of that story having a loving partner because I’ve not felt like that was going to be possible. You know I… I’ve had relationships, I’ve never felt seen and cared for in this way, and I just find it so amazing that I’m rewriting all of these narratives of what I can hope for, and that is definitely a beautiful success story. And I can like…
A: [Laughs].
L: … feel my eyes welling up, Jesus. Oh.
A: Yeah.
L: Yeah.
A: It feels hard to find someone who is looking for someone like me. And I found you and you live really far away, but I’m still really hopeful.
L: And it feels so early in our relationship to be like…
A: What are we doing? (laughs).
L: Do we have to move continents? [laughs]. Does one of us have to move continent? Like, we don’t know what the answers to that look like, but at every moment-
A: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
L: … it’s like, we can’t not do this even if we’re setting ourselves up for years of heartbreak.
A: What I come back to is when I first saw your message, I was like, “I can’t not respond to this.”
L: Yeah.
A: Didn’t know that I would end up here.
L: [Laughs].
A: I’m glad I did.
L: All right, my love, I’ll talk to you soon.
A: Okay.
A few weeks after this recording, Ainsley’s sent Zakiya an email with an update about their trip to visit Leo in Scotland, as well as some pictures of the two of them.
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