Start the week off with some local W’s

I’ve been meditating on a stream of positive experiences lately that contradict the more common cultural narrative here we’re all begrudgingly familiar with. I figured I’d invite anybody to share times in the city they were either pleasantly surprised or moved by someone’s words and actions, or haz lo que te sale de los cojones idk. I think it’ll be good for our collective blood pressure, and I’ll start:

-I was walking at AD Barnes Park when I noticed most of my cards came out my wallet and retracing my steps wasn’t helping. A woman walking her dog eventually noticed me stressed and asked if I’m (my name) before handing me a stack of everything. When I’d just been thinking, ‘of course it’s Miami, my shit’s been gone and it’s on me,’ I couldn’t help but tear up at being wrong and made sure to get her name to thank her properly.

-A volunteer at an O, Miami event working with a pin-making station heard me talking about how much I love manatees and pins, so they ran after me at the end to hand me a manatee pin and shared how they felt about my writing for their org. I felt so seen but I’m just a llorona atp. Any of their community events will be loaded with warm, kind people like this.

-I do karaoke at Gramps sometimes and the people there can just be authentically inviting, and there’s no describing how therapeutic that is when you’ve been painstakingly crawling out of a hole. Cross-faded with my face buried in a double smashburger, I will always have love for the drunken besties calling out encouragement to me from the other side of the street.