“dear azlan and majo,
oceans and oceans of
love. thank you for exemplifying love.
love, Alexis”
                -Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ signature in our copy of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, after I told her how Majo and I read from Undrowned as part of falling in love and then as part of our marriage and now as part of our lives

                My partner and I are back together now (as perhaps you’ve guessed, if you read last week). One of the first things we did was sit down to read what Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs wrote in our copy of her book. Before we read it we paused. Shared a breath. That’s something we do when one of us notices the other one is struggling: sometimes sitting side by side (as we were before reading this note), sometimes holding a hand to the other’s chest, feeling each breath, steadying each other, sometimes standing in a warm hug. And we do it for joy, too. For celebration. For silliness. For sleepiness. For waking up. For dreaming.
                Before Dr. Gumbs signed our copy she paused. A breath. Perhaps washing into what she wanted to say. Before that, Dr. Gumbs opened her talk by asking all of us to share a few breaths with her. Breathing now, I’m feeling the age, the depth, the inheritance of this rhythm. The ritual of sharing this. Our breath. How it opens to oceans. How it washes toward love.