Leaflet No. 13 - Joëlle Simeu
This week’s leaflet tea tastes like … Moroccan mint, bitter orange fruit spread, lavender syrup, and Brut classic deodorant
Hello, everyone.
Tea Leaf Tech is a process in which I brew a cup of the Beobab.tree’s blend (its bark, leaves, its fruit, and a dapple of honey—of course!), which is a way to introduce settling and warmth into the day’s spiral of events. During this time of sipping and slowness, ideas and images collect at the bottom of the cup. The readings of the tea leaves laid to rest on ceramic glaze will be the basis of Wednesday’s leaflets. From here, I invite you to sit with your own cuppa and peruse what sensations this week’s tea blend has to offer.
At the end of each month, I invite a guest who will have their fill of the blend and transcribe a leaflet, featured only on Beobab.Tree.
Komorebi is Japanese for the dapples of light that passes through a tree’s leaves and unto all beings underneath the tree’s crown. So arguably necessary is an instance of language to describe streams of sunlight in interstitial spaces.
February’s komorebi is through our guest Joëlle Simeu.
Joëlle (they/them/theirs) is one of my dearest friends, and they are a poet among every way to be understood that they choose. I met Jo when we were taking Dr. Ricardo Wilson’s English course on Afrofuturism and science fiction in shaping alternative thoughts on the Americas. As we excavated texts from Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, and Jorge Luis Borges, often our mutual puzzling brought us to the same library computer lab—often late at night and, as a result, chaotic(ally good).
Whenever we hang or call, I feel recognized. Jo’s check-in questions are blunt and curious, prompting me to always be softly on my toes—knowing I will have chance after chance to be honest with a friend, which is to be honest with myself.
They’re doing their Thing while studying at Cornell University’s English PhD program. This is the friend I associate with gardenias, the smell of jasmine incense, sauteed red cabbage, and home—no less.
Now here’s Joëlle with this week’s tree bark transcription:
Enjoying:
🌺 Audre Lorde
A friend of mine hosted an Audre Lorde birthday party where we went around and read her work. It felt like church. I read from “The Uses of Anger.”
🌺 Gender Euphoria
The concept of coming out will remain absurd to me, but when labels are productive, I’ll note that I identify as transmasculine, I use they/them pronouns and I’ve been taking steps to make my body a safer place for me to inhabit.
I’m about 4 months on Testosterone, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of the changes I’ve experienced.
It’s a lot easier for me to look in the mirror these days and for that I’m incredibly grateful! I have a friend who started their transition around the same week as me, and every other week we take out T-shot together. Talk about trans joy!
Recently I scheduled a top surgery consultation and a friend of mine offered to take sick time from work to accompany me. An act of love! Being trans is hard, and there’s a lot that I’m still struggling with.
Some days, dysphoria creeps in harshly, but I’m learning to lean into community deeply, to love others abundantly and to allow myself to be loved too.
🌺 Friendship
I know I’m always saying this, but I really do love my friends a lot. I wouldn’t be here—as in I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be alive, I wouldn’t be typing this right now—if it wasn’t for friendships that pulled me out of the depth of depression. I’m always fortunate to befriend the loveliest people and even though it’s hard making friends as an adult, I really like the people I’ve met at Cornell.
I want to highlight Aishvarya! We share a lot of queer immigrant kid trauma (oop), and way beyond that, similar taste in music, art, poetry, and style. I don’t have a lot of other transmasc-nonbinary friendship and the solidarity and friendship I’ve found in them is one I know will nourish me for a long time.
🌺 Transparency
I’m working on communicating my feelings more as they come up. I’m working on telling people how they make me feel. It’s not always easy, but it’s often rewarding.
🌺 Therapy
I really lucked out and found a really great therapist. They’re trans, and Black, and queer, and they’ve really challenged me to unlearn certain unhealthy thought patterns.
Some notes (#TrickleDownTherapy)
It’s important to put parameters around your processing.
For me that means, when something is making me anxious, instead of allowing my brain to play the anxieties on loop, I give myself particular days or hours where I get to lean into my feelings, without allowing my emotions to take over other areas of my life, including how I treat or engage with others.
Sometimes, depression is anger turned inward.
This week we’re sorting through my anger vs. my pain. I have a hard time engaging with anger as an emotion, but I’m trying to confront it more because I’ve held so much anger inside of me, within the past year.
Healing isn’t linear.
I rolled my eyes when my therapist sent this, but I know they’re right. Ugh, whatever.
🌺 My dearest Sula
What people don’t know about Sula is that she is one of the most communicative cats I’ve met. We have full conversations together, and I’m currently teaching her French and Spanish.
Mornings are her favorite times because she gets a ton of cuddles and scratches. She acts like she doesn’t like it when people come over, but I know she does.
Sula loves tuna and mozzarella cheese, people watching, any and all moving strings, and the bathtub. She hates loud noises, ALDI cat food, the whirring noise the air fryer makes, and getting her teeth brushed. She’s 1/3 Nigerian, 1/3 Irish, and 1/3 American. She’s the most perfect cat.
Here is some sweetness:
Inspired by Sally Wen Mao’s Ode to Emptiness
🎴Srija – this is my friend Srija. They’re doing an English PhD at Columbia, and we’re internet friends who hang out in real life. It’s great. We haven’t been friends for long – our intimacy unfolded sort of quickly. But I feel like I could talk to them about anything, and they wouldn’t judge me in any way. They’re one of the most unexpectedly chaotic people I know.
🎴Pisces season
This is the first birthday I’ve genuinely been excited about. I’m turning 25 on February 27 and I’m excited to be celebrated by friends and family. Last year I started a new tradition, where instead of writing “Happy Birthday” on a cake, I choose a birthday poem, and pick a phrase to adorn on the cake.
This year I’ll be rocking with Gwendolyn Brook’s “To the Young Who Want to Die.”
🎴Bro time
My brother came to visit this weekend and we did poppers together and hung out with all the gays in Ithaca, which was certainly not on my 2023 bucket list. I think it blew his mind a little bit. It was nice to have him on my turf though, doing things I want to do, and allowing him to see the parts of me that I’m not often quick to show to family members.
Thanks for allowing me to share a corner of my world. I appreciate Izzy’s practice of seeking delight in the details. While I’m in a period of change and transitioning, what really holds me down through it all are the people who seem invested in witnessing my growth.
Thank you for giving me the space to be witnessed here.
Over and out,
Joëlle