The time is now (f🤬ck perfectionism)

A message from a Belfast attic about not waiting

An early morning view from my attic bedroom in Belfast

I’m writing from a bougie-bohemian attic in Belfast, where I’ve been staying the past few days. The nights have been freezing but this morning there’s some hopeful sun smashing through my smudgy skylight. I’m here for my first time at Outburst, a radical queer arts festival that’s been happening here since 2007, bringing together queer artists and activists from across Ireland and far beyond, and one I’ve had countless glowing reports of from mates who’ve attended in earlier years. 

The queer family and community I have access to at home are a gorgeously fortifying source of love, encouragement, care, opportunities, energy and inspiration, and I am endlessly grateful to and for them. That in itself is a form of safety and home, one I craved and searched out for years before I found it. And it’s been so comforting and affirming I haven’t wanted to venture much beyond it, since even before the pandemic. 

Connecting to other queers, creatives and activists has been one of my most consistent sources of meaning and joy. And part of that is because what always comes from those connections is the reminder that so many of the barriers we face are systemic rather than individual. Healing old wounds. Giving ourselves permission to follow our creatives drives and desires. Finding our way past the gatekeepers or starting parties or sometimes entire other cities outside the gated city walls. Grappling with access to funding, or lack of. Grappling with how to make things sustainable. Doing it anyway, even when your project is too ambitious, too weird, not commercial, not marketable. Out of sheer stubbornness and necessity, the queer arts community is an endless source of defiance, tenacity, resourcefulness, courage and creativity. And while in isolation or smaller ecosystems that can get exhausting, getting out her and reminding myself of the scale, power and imagination of this globe-spanning family and community has been a true tonic.

Earlier this week, my mate and I followed the map to an independent queer bookshop hidden away on the fourth floor of a labyrinthine building on an industrial estate behind a West Belfast petrol station. You’re definitely gonna feel like you’re going the wrong way, someone told us earlier that day, when we’d told them about that evening’s mission. And the more lost you feel, the closer you are to finding it. It was a cryptic clue that made sense later, when we finally traipsed to the end of a twisting corridor and found the adorable sanctuary of Paperxclips, its walls lined with shelves of books, zines, comics and art, and a makeshift semicircle of chairs around a squishy settee, set for a Q&A with Orla Egan, author of Diary of an Activist.

Me and Orla Egan, author of Diary of an Activist

I’m no longer sharing my writing on Substack, but you can read the rest over on my website.