Unmasking Neurodiversity and Creating Accessible Friendships with Kimberly Drew

Audio engineering by Hasan Insane

Episode 04 of “Dreaming Different” centers disability justice and accessibility as key social practices within our relationships, while drawing connections to abolition and related social movements.

With curator, critic, and author Kimberly Drew, this conversation explores friendship as a practice of communal care, the realities of unmasking, and the joy that springs from safety.

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“I think more than anything else, access and accommodation is really self-regard and trust. You have to trust that you can slow down, and that doesn’t mean that you’re unproductive or you’re failing, but that you’re actually listening.”

—Kimberly Drew

Transcript

Jezz

Welcome to Dreaming Different with Jezz Chung! Today's guest is Kimberly Drew and Kimberly's one of my favorite people in the entire entire whole wide wide wide wide world. So today's conversation might be extra mushy and extra sweet and soft compared to maybe some other ones and also just a disclaimer that I am feeling extra squishy and soft today. So that is what you'll be hearing in my voice. And to start off, I'll start off with a visual description of me and then I'll kick it off to Kimberly. As you know from previous episodes, I am Asian, Korean American, I have long black hair that goes down to probably my waist and right now it's curly. I have tattoos kind of like stamps across both my arms. I currently have hot pink magenta nails and I have tiny white clouds drawn on the outer corners of my eyes today. And I'll kick it off to you for a visual description, Kimberly.

Kimberly

Hellooo. My name is Kimberly Drew, I am a dear friend of Jezz’s and it is one of the great honors of my life. I am a Black person with short tiny afro, brown skin, wearing a white shirt that says “love and support trans people” and I am in my office which I almost never sit in but it is the best sound quality in my apartment, so here we are.

Jezz

Amazing! Thanks for that. And in lieu of this “what do you do” question which can be overwhelming, I've been introducing people by the impact they've made on me. So, Kimberly and I and how we met: Kimberly and I met in April of 2021 at this community gathering called Protect Asian Lives in New York City and since then, we've grown a friendship that really centers care and access in a lot of ways and that's what we'll be talking about today. But what Kimberly has taught me above all is permission to care. I think you continuously, continuously show me that it's okay to care and it's okay to be curious. Which I think curiosity and care kind of have a lot of similar qualities at times and you really always consistently give me that permission too. Also you've taught me a lot how to speak different love languages. I've told you this before but you, I think out of anyone I know, speak the most love languages fluently. And that's something I always learn from and also I learned how to be more in my Leo energy from you as a Leo Moon and rising and Kimberly is Leo sun, big big Leo and just also thriving in nuance. I think that's something you've really taught me a lot of. When we process things together, that's something that I notice you are so skillful at. Able to see the nuance in people and situations in a way that isn't really common and encouraged even within the communities that we're a part of and that's something I really admire about you. So that's the impact you've made on me and before we kind of go into this conversation about access and friendship and care, the kickoff question that I've been asking everyone is: what are you thinking differently about lately?

Kimberly

Mmmm. Oh well, at first it's just so nice so I'm just sitting with that. I guess I've been thinking a lot differently about playfulness and how sincerely important it is to be playful. I mean you were with me in this journey of the last few weeks of really trying to come into a sense of play and folly and joy and I think I realized last Monday, when we were together, for the listeners at home or the readers, we were together on Halloween and sat on my stoop and gave out candy to children and it was just like this continued kind of serotonin boost and I think in my mind that day I was like, oh I have to go and get candy and I have to find a costume and just like getting so lost in the logistics. Meanwhile it was like, we're playing dress up and we're buying candy and we're going to sit on this stoop. It's so easy to over logisticate or logisticize— let's make words up— what it means to do the things that we do and it's actually funny because as I'm sitting down my family photo album is next to me and in the group chat that we share (one of many) we were sharing former Halloween costumes and I just want to show there's this photograph of me in my childhood home on our porch dressed as cleopatra and my face is so proud and because also the necklace I was wearing is from Egypt and you know I love specificity. So yes, what I've been thinking a lot about is playfulness and the things and terms and conditions that are also necessary to facilitate that in its fullest expulsion.

Jezz

I think we do that a lot for each other and we'll kind of ground each other with “do you realize what you're doing, this is the impact you're making” or “this is what you're doing” or “let's really put a name to it” because we get swept up in our lives or we think of things as chores like you say, I got to go buy the candy and I got to go do this and I got to text my friends and I got to, and then we get to the moment we're like oh my gosh, this was so worth it. The amount of joy that we experienced that night and seeing those little kids' faces light up and us being able to be part of that joy! All the logistics, all the work would have been worth it and I feel like that also just kind of speaks to how friendship feels sometimes. I mean for me as an autistic, chronically depressed and anxious ADHD person, it can be really hard for me to maintain friendships because it often feels like work and then I just don't know what the work is for. Because our brains are still wired in a very primal sense like risk → reward or like input → reward. So the input is a labor sometimes and let's be real, care and making friendship accessible is labor but this is…[voice shaking] oh no I'm getting emotional already. Oh no.

Kimberly

Oh, baby. You're just like spitting bars. So I'm just like, say that again for the people in the back.

Jezz

I feel like since day one, I met you at such a critical time where I just decided to unmask and when you've lived decades of your life and are suddenly like you know what, I'm going to embrace this label of being autistic and not a label but it's literally a framework to live life through that's more caring and more accepting of myself and for me to say that it is fucking terrifying to go out into the world and be like “hey I'm autistic,” even knowing all of the stigma against autistic people and people not really understanding neurodivergence and you have never ever made me feel in all the time we've spent together that I was a burden or that me asking for access needs was too much. You've made space for me to ask. You've modeled it by doing it yourself. You've just done it in a way that I think maybe to you it's natural because your heart is so generous and open and you are so committed to love in a way that is so healing for everyone in your orbit but because you do that, you model for me, that's what I mean by it's okay for me to care, that's permission for me to care. It's permission for me to ultimately care about myself. Right? Because both of us do work every single day to uplift communities, to literally build new worlds. That's the work that you and I are doing every single day and it's hard when we're doing that to then turn that work to ourselves and be like, wait I deserve a new world too. Within my own body and within my immediate circles, I deserve care too. So man…I'm already crying.

Kimberly

It's our thing babes. I appreciate that so much. You know, the day—we've talked about this a lot— but the day that we met when you were facilitating, which is just you know, I'm also a stickler right? Like I bring that love to work, which means that I'm very militant about certain ways that certain things are done. I think that's also just a byproduct of neurodiversity and what it means to trust someone to move through space and when you were facilitating Protect Asian Lives and these reminders to move and to unburden ourselves and to settle in was really refreshing because I think so many of us have either had a desire to show up in these ways in this moment of really building community, in these moments of oppression, fear, disenfranchisement, and either been afraid to show up because of physical worry or been incapable of showing up because spaces aren't made accessible for people to show up or are showing up and just understanding that there's always going to be associated risk no matter what access accommodations are made especially in New York City specifically where we live. So it was really beautiful to go with very high expectations, because it was all of our friends and we know how to throw things and make space. One of the things that Jezz, we've talked about since the day we've met is the day we met, where I got to witness you as a facilitator in one of the many spaces that I think so many of us as marginalized people have found ourselves in where we want to be in relationship to a shift in dialogue, to a convening, to a witnessing of the pain of this time that we're surviving together and for another number of reasons we find ourselves there commuting, convening, but also with this kind of weight and heaviness and understanding that these spaces might not go our way or might not be made accessible for us. And it was really beautiful to go into this program and be reminded of the corporeal realities of our presence. That our bodies need to move that our bodies need joy, that you don't have to leave yourself at the door to show up for your liberation. And I think that even hearing the backstory over and over again where you were coming into yourself, it was so beautiful to see you very quickly penguin pebble this sense of joy and and honesty within yourself. Because I think more than anything else, access and accommodation is really self-regard and trust. Like you have to trust that you can slow down and that doesn't mean that you're unproductive or you're failing but that you're actually listening. Like my favorite thing of watching the Crip Camp documentary was seeing how every day of the 504 protests, it wasn't that they were just resisting, it was that they were adapting. People were in there with feeding tubes, people were in there on, what are they called, not defibrillators, but tools for breathing. Tools that they absolutely needed and there were all of these people who were coming together in coalition to insist upon their survival. It's this most visceral version of what it means to have a boycott or a sit-in and so I really admired being able to see a contemporary helping us develop those spaces and not that Judy Heumann is not a contemporary or the folks who are there are not ancestors or contemporaries, but it was just really dope to see you do it and it made me want to to get to know you and made me want to facilitate opportunities for other to get others to get to know you. And I think our friendship and the life force of it has just been like, how do I show up in ways that continue to allow for you to feel that safety because I feel not a debt, but a definite commitment to the things that you taught me in in a matter of 2 hours of being together but not actually talking yet.

Jezz

Mmm. Whenever I hear you or any of our mutual friends who are there kind of recount that day to me, it's so weird because I probably was disassociated but I was also super anxious and I have such kind of high high high standards for myself that in my mind, it's almost like the underlying voices “I must heal everyone there, that’s my responsibility.” And I think that's something that a lot of people in movement work or equity work and access work take on sometimes and that's why we need friendship to remind each other, you are doing enough. More than enough, first of all. And it's not your job to save everyone. It's not your job to create accessibility around the entire world because that's what it sometimes feels like. Especially as ambitious people and as people who really care deeply and want to wrap ourselves around the entire world. In thinking about how fluent you are in these different love languages— and for people who don't know, there's five neurodivergent love languages, you can Google this and it'll come up, and it's penguin pebbling which is sharing gifts or information that you find and you bring to someone like hey, I thought of you. There’s parallel play which is when you do something next to each other. You might not be interacting with each other but let's say you're both working next to each other or cleaning next to each other or something. And some others, but there should also be 5 access love languages too. I feel like even in mining our friendship, I feel like we could come up with them. But even in the regular love languages like words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts and what's the other one? Yes, touch, physical touch, how are you so fluent in so many? Is that something that you were always naturally, I know we talked the other day about how as a child, we were always so generous. I want to know your origin story in how you developed a passion for access and accessibility and then in turn, in all of these different love languages and catering like one time you described it as everyone deserves custom couture care, care that's suited for you. It's not just a one size fits all thing, where “this is how you care for people, here are the ways and you apply that to everyone.” Everyone has different needs and you're really attuned to that. So how, I want to know how.

Kimberly

Yeah, that's a great question. It's a very generous question, I appreciate that. I think for me the way that I realized that it was a natural instinct was just getting to know my parents better. Because my parents are both children of extreme trauma. My mother was neglected deeply as a byproduct of growing up in the 1960s in the Midwest with a severely mentally ill mother and absent father and my dad grew up in a household with an army veteran who had his own set of of continuances in terms of how to show up and give affection. And then my grandmother who suffered from extreme depression and it resulted in these two children who I think in many ways co-regulated each other, co-parented each other, and when the time came to have a child, were really invested in undoing a lot of the trauma that they'd experienced. And so I had two deeply generous, loving, and caring parents who have very different stories and very different modalities for raising a child. And as a kid, it was really hard to contend with because there was a set of rules at this house and a set of rules at this house and then like extended families rules. But that adaptation is just such a natural part of how I was socialized and so take that plus me starting to leave home at 7 and then really leaving home at 13 and finding myself at boarding school and college and meeting all of these different people, it's just allowed me to let that muscle continue to grow. And also that transience for me, I have spent an incredible amount of time alone. I don't have siblings, I was moving every 8 months because of school schedules and going back home where I didn't have friends before I left home. So for me is the thing that I carry with me not as baggage, but just as a toolkit. I'm a doomsday prepper in so many ways and I'm glad that it's reflected through love. But I make a lot of accommodations because I need a terrible amount of them and so I try to model them because I'm working towards asking for more but until I can, I'm just like “see, look what I'm doing.” It's like parallel play of love, like look look look I'm going to show up for you in these ways and that's because I really like what this does. You know, I really like what it means to sit still with someone or I really like what it means to have words of affirmation or surprise and delight or these kinds of things. And I think more so than other friendships that I've had, as a byproduct of your neurodivergence, is that you're really susceptible and sensitive to that. You can see me doing it more so than I think other people and it's really refreshing because I've not changed a lot but there's a there's a way that I think we've observed each other as a part of our cat-like playfulness like oh yeah, this is a love language and this is a really deliberate thing. This isn't just like an easeful way of showing up. And I think one of the things that separates us deeply in perception from others is that I think because you're so vocal in many ways and because de facto you become a representative for so many people on the spectrum, people think they need to help you. We talk about this all the time. And for me as a person who's read as neurotypical, people don't think they need to help me. And so there's this interesting thing where it's like, I don't know Jezz, you got the tools so I'm learning from you constantly. Meanwhile I’m like no no, no don't look at me, look at our friend who's like here with coconut water and scents regulation and books and pens and plushies and you know these sensory toys that I always forget to bring but you always have.

Jezz

I literally show up to parties with these tools by the way. The visual of this is me in a corner at a party setting up all of this stuff.

Kimberly

And it's so good and I'm just like y'all, you don't even understand how we all kind of need these things and for me, it's so strange. I almost wish more people were jealous of it instead of condescending towards it. That's the part that's really frustrating sometimes. People really see the vocalizing of what you need as this inconvenience. And I'm like no, I'm going to tell you what I need and I want you to in equal part tell me what you need. Doesn't have to be a competition.

Jezz

Yes, because this is the more specific and more comprehensible version of “treat people the way you want to be treated.” And I love how you say it's parallel play in love, this is how I want to love you, this is how I want to be loved. That's what we're saying every time we share words of affirmation or we offer something or we offer a form of care. And everyone has needs. That's such a good point in that I don't think people understand the thing about this neurodiversity paradigm and the movement to really accept and embrace neurodiversity— which is just a human truth— for people who aren't familiar with this term, neurodiversity just means “every brain is different.” That's a summary of it and once we understand that and grasp our minds around that and then just allow for that to exist, then we can embrace our own needs too. Whether you identify as neurodivergent or not, everyone has needs, sensitivities, wants, desires, different conditions for comfort and safety. We were just talking last night too about how sometimes people are jealous of my coping mechanisms, people come up to me and say, oh you're so good at taking care of yourself, but kind of in this tone of “I wish I was too” or kind of resenting me for it. Sometimes it is in admiration and I feel that joy from them and I feel that “oh wow, you really are so great at taking care of yourself, you're reminding me I need to too.” But there is a voice after someone says that I'm like, well I have to. If I'm not here with my plushies, and my scents, and my coconut water and all my tools and if I'm not doing body work and movement work and meditating and journaling and so creating spaciousness in my schedule and all these things, I can't function. So all of these things are for me to function and sometimes I think people might not see it as…I think what it is is people see the result of it without seeing the labor that goes into it and seeing the why?

Kimberly

That's it, yeah. I think that's the thing. Maybe that's the seed of what I'm trying to say too, people just see the byproduct and the grounding and don't understand we are well-oiled machines, like my friend Hassan gave me the greatest gift of saying, we have luxury car brains. We have luxury car brains and you can't just put any kind of gas in this car, you cannot just put any type of engine, you can't put any type of tires. You really have to understand that this is a precious and beautiful machine and it is more than worth the care and investment because you'll be driving through and people will be like, whoa nice car! And that is kind of cool. And yeah, it's terribly important that we don't distract ourselves with this compare and despair when we have the tools to really assess where that feeling of animosity is coming from. I think that's a huge part of maturation.

Jezz

Mmmm, say more about that. I think that's something that is hard for people to do or even identify because you have to be aware of that, right? You have to be first aware that there's animosity or resentment or something, you have to be aware and literally locate it in your body, just be connected to your body and so many of us are disconnected and disassociated because of traumas but you have to locate that. Yeah, say more about that.

Kimberly

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No I think you have to locate. I think when you're young, not that we're not still young, but I think that there's something in adolescence where we’re subject to this desire for sameness or normalcy. And I think that puts such an extraordinary pressure on ourselves and there is naturally a resentment that builds there, it's like teen angst, right? And when you are coming into adulthood and caring for yourself in different ways, I think that angst remains reticent when you look at other people who maybe are doing it better. It's the same thing as a mean girls complex where you're like, that's the cool kids. And I think being able to say, oh my own respective cool should be respected. It’s hard to articulate. My brain is a little loose. 

Jezz

I think it's cool to care! It's cool to care.

Kimberly

Yeah, right? It’s really cool to care and it's like, how can we be less like the mean girls and more like the theater kids. I always envy the theater kids because I'm like oh my god, what a strange universe where you're over there and it doesn't matter about traditional beauty. It's like the lead is sleeping with the person who's like doing the lights and it just flows and I kind of love having an adulthood that looks like that we're just so facetious and I apologize to the band kids, the theater kids, but I think it's such a cool kind of thing to decentralize from these mainstream ideas of cool. And I want to also speak about algorithm and social media because I think that makes it even worse, where you see people outside of yourself succeeding but you don't actually get to see the terrain through which they find themselves on this journey or whatever. So much gets lost by the time that a post actually goes up but it's really easy to be like, oh my gosh they're so cool and they have this partner who they're so in love with and you don't fucking know about the fight they just had or the way that they just reconciled offscreen and how they will continue to be in this journey together, you know? Yeah, I hope that makes sense.

Jezz

Yeah, or even all the work that it took to build that foundation to that one opportunity or moment that then you capture and then you post about. There's so much in the equation before the output that I don't think people are aware of. Yeah. There was something else you said that…oh! It's kind of like decentralizing, decolonizing cool in asking ourselves, constantly questioning, what are we pedestaling? What are we idolizing, what are we uplifting? What are we celebrating, actually? I think that's a better way to put it for me, what do I celebrate? And I feel like once I did that in my own life, I came to my diagnoses and realized this is how my brain works. I really need to adapt my life to this, I need to adapt every aspect of my life from work to my creative practices, my pacing and social activity, the way I interact with people, and of course my friendships. And then adapting to that also means just constantly constantly researching like okay, why am I feeling this way? Why am I like this and then accepting it, doing that work to accept it, and then finding a way to communicate it. And recently I think I'm trying to find more joy in it because it has started to feel a bit like a chore. And even this morning, I was experiencing so much anxiety for the first time in a while. I haven't had anxiety at this level in a while and I spent like hours regulating my body and by the end I was just so exhausted and I thought, I just spent 2 hours regulating my body when other people without anxiety are out in the world just living their life. And that's what I'm jealous of, to be honest. That's what I resent, just being able to live life. Just being able to go through life without that debilitating fear. And the constant overstimulation and burnout and then recovery and going through that cycle. And the more work I do, the more work I do to shorten that cycle and to go through it with more ease.  And that's an intention I always have. May I go through this with more ease, may I regulate with more ease, may I communicate my needs with more ease. May I just feel good, may I enjoy this process. And that's an intention I always set and I do think it helps over time but I think maybe I'm just speaking to the spell I'm in now of like, it is tiring and it is exhausting work which is why I called you this morning and just needed some grounding.

Kimberly

But I also think we have to be kinder to ourselves and unpack and interrogate our ableism because it is completely so fine to need these things, right? That's how we started this conversation. It is totally fine to need a cold shower, to need to dip your face, to need to move, to need to poke your head out of your window, to need to sit with yourself and body skin and understand what's coming up because you are so worthy of that. And I don't think that people who have maybe more neurotypical experiences are any less worthy than that, they just might not know they need that or might not need it with the same frequency which is awesome and dope for them. I think for me too, it was so interesting in 2021 specifically to look left and right and see people for the first time experiencing anxiety and I'm like whoa! I cannot imagine babes, being at this big age and not having any coping mechanisms. Ooooo, like I have my CBD visible, I have my entire sensorium of an apartment set up because I have been in this work for a decade for myself and some people are just like ten months in and I'm like oh that's embarrassing. So I feel very much of two minds of it, where of course it's frustrating and of course it's hard and being neurodivergent has messed me up so much more than I can even begin to articulate. It's so expensive. It's so tiring, I have lost so much but at the same time, I realized through this practice that some things were never for me and there is so much beauty in the way that my brain is lined up and now I'm coming into friendships and relationships that really I don't have to have the same anxieties and so maybe there's more room for flourishing and creativity. I’ve felt more creative in the last few weeks than I have in a really long time. I feel playful like we're talking about and I think it's a lot of making this peace. And allowing myself to let in the gifts that we've earned for ourselves. But yeah, experiencing anxiety for the first time I'm just like haha. 

Jezz

How?!

Kimberly

I don't know, I also just lowkey every day oscillate on this. But definitely some days I’m so glad I was an anxious kid, I'm so glad I went through all these things, I'm just proficient in these things that are in way just a part of life.

Jezz

Yes, okay. 2 things to that. 1, we have another episode coming up about disability superpowers and we talk about how the things that we felt has kept us back in life or limited us in life, which is ableism speaking, has actually helped us become more creative and innovative and caring and kind and compassionate and expands our perspective of the world. And opens us up to the beautiful and different realities of the world. So I think that’s a constant reminder of how sneaky internalized ableism is and that's why we need those reflections. For you to say, that's okay, you need a cold shower, you need to talk to a friend. That's not a lot to ask for. I think when I talk to people who are disabled or neurodivergent, that's constantly a theme that I see. Like, I'm asking for too much and then it's a cycle of we think we're asking for too much in friendship and work and accommodations and whatever it is, then we don't ask for it then resentment builds and then we're not getting what we need so then we're having to push through more and then it's just this vicious vicious cycle that constantly perpetuates the mechanisms of ableism. And I forgot the other thing I was going to say.

Kimberly

And I think that's the mouthful, right? And we talked about this a lot in our early stages of friendship, I am not a person who's easily annoyed. I actually just really would rather have the information because I am only frustrated in the absence of information. I actually really do get enraged when I hear that someone wanted to ask me for something and didn't because for me, that is a betrayal. You don't trust me to show up for you? How can we just sit with that because that tells me that you've made a decision about me and I don't like that shit. I want any and all opportunities to take on this information, to be given the opportunity to show up or to machine learn. Because I think it's also inherently ableist, right? Reciprocally to say, this person who I believe as neurotypical or as not disabled can't possibly handle this, it’s such bullshit. It's this larger kind of systemic issue we have around ableism where it is of course difficult to care for each other, it is of course difficult to ask for help but we owe it to ourselves to fight for that. And when we hide ourselves, how could we possibly have someone show up. How could we do that?

Jezz

Oh, I love that reframe and I hope people listening can kind of sit with that and understand that can be how we work through that discomfort of asking for what we need within a friendship or responding to a need that someone has expressed because that initial flare up of animosity or resentment or honestly, a burden of feeling like someone's a burden that can come up and if it comes up, speaking of being kind to yourself, that's ableism. That's not you. That's ableism that we have been taught through centuries, through literally movements for eugenics that have taught us that disabled people, that people with different needs than what is considered dominant or normative are a burden. That is the message that we have been taught by movies with harmful tropes of really disgusting portrayals of disabled people, of media representation all throughout time. We have been taught this, so it's not you. It's ableism. So that is such a helpful reframe for people to grasp onto and say no, actually I want this information because this information helps strengthen our bond. It helps me show up. How do I know how to show up if someone is not telling me how and then that becomes this kind of opening. And when you said that to me, I will never forget that because there's something Kimberly and I do which you taught me how to do this, to keep a note for each friend and just write down their access needs, their favorite movies, their favorite foods, allergies, fun quotes that they've said in the past so you can recall. For me, it's also a practice of really grounding myself in the love I have for someone because when I get in those states of irritability, I'm like “ugh, I hate everyone!” and then I'll go back to that note of people and be like oh my gosh, these are all these memories that my brain can just kind of blank and try to erase. But when you said that, that’s something I have in your note because when you said—and I forget how we even had started of that conversation— I think I was trying to say something or ask something. We were just having a conversation and I was like “I'm afraid that I'm going to annoy you and I feel like I'm asking for too much” and you were like “babes, let's just cut the crap right here. You're not going to annoy me, you're fine.” And I think even in the beginning, the way that we've texted is very neurodivergent in that it's like here's what I'm thinking and here's another thing I'm thinking and here's another. We'll have like 4 conversations at once sometimes.

Kimberly

My preference is to talk to someone over email, over DM, over text, and then maybe let's throw in a phone call if the idea is too complicated, let's just move this to a FaceTime, we're gonna get through it. I mean that also too is a byproduct of my classification of neurodivergence, I need to process a lot, I need to process a lot because my brain holds a lot of information at once and that helps me remain stabilized and emotionally intelligent and thinking from the safest place. Not the best, but the safest for myself, and so I appreciate our dialogues, I appreciate Mo as well. Shout out to Mo Fayaz, another person who's just very available and chatty and it can be a meme or it can be this thought, Mo’s big thing is like don't be afraid to reach out. And that for me, I think for both of us, has been really liberating as people who have a proneness to isolation. And I think we've watched each other both heal from that. And that's why we're both like, what if we talked all day? Which we do.

Jezz

The other day, we were like here's what I'm looking at at the grocery store, here's this pen that I just got, here's a summary of my day from top to bottom, in detailed 8 minute voice notes.

Kimberly

So yeah, just to circle back, if there's things to take away from it. Not that this has to be an educational space. But I think we both talk about how do we get people to care more and it's just embedded in that, where there just doesn't have to be a way to love someone and we don't have to classify these things as access because I think that makes it scary. It's really that we should always be in this iterative process. Not only of learning ourselves because we are dynamic and always growing and evolving, but also understanding other people are like that too and so how can there be a soft middle of every day taking each other on and saying this is where I am today, and this is what I need. Or I need less of this, let's not overcompensate and lose ourselves there, just be in this flow. I think it’s really valuable.

Jezz

Yes, because at the end of the day, access is love. That's an Alice Wong quote. Access is just a form of love and a form of care and whatever language we use to it, it's just to deepen our connection. It's just connecting. Also, access is connection. Care is connection. Love is connection. So whatever way we want to spin it, it is just a way of being present with someone and allowing someone to be present with you. Yeah, I love that. Okay well, let's go into our final questions which I've been asking every guest. What is some language you use to advocate for yourself?

Kimberly

I think for me, it's not necessarily language but just more mediums of communication. Which just circles back to what we were talking about earlier. For me, I want people to continue to witness me because monitoring is a big part of keeping me stable and so I just tend to communicate more at least in this stage of my life I've learned that's a good one. Because I might not explicitly ask for something but me reaching out is the ask.

Jezz

Love that, I love that. And the final question is, what do you want the future to feel like? If you were to think about just the sensory experience of it or just the general feeling of what you want your future, the future, to be like? What do you think about?

Kimberly

I think I just want the future to feel like feelings. Just feel. I want our fingertips to be more expressive, our taste buds to expand, our sight to improve. And not in the like ableist “good way,” but more in the telekinesis, kind of symbiosis way. Where we settle in ourselves a bit more to be able to feel things.

Jezz

Love that, love that. Thank you so much Kimberly. Can you tell people where to find you and if you have anything coming up that you want to share, how people can follow along with your work and continue to support you.

Kimberly

I would say right now in the winter of 2023 I'm probably on Jezz’s couch, if I had to speak in the future. You can find me at the intersection of Jezz's balcony and Jezz's couch. But in more sincere terms, social media @museummammy on all channels and yeah, projects I don't know. Stay tuned. 

Jezz

Great, I'm sure you'll share it online. Remember you can purchase Kimberly's book “This Is What I Know About Art” and “Black Futures” if you haven't already and thank you again for your time. I feel really really mushy gushy squishy soft in all the best ways.

Kimberly

From the house of squishy!

Jezz

From one house of squish to another. I appreciate you.

Kimberly

Muah!

Jezz

Muah!

Jezz

Thanks for tuning into Dreaming Different, hosted by Jezz Chung for Deem Journal’s Audio Series. If there’s anything in this episode that resonated with you, we invite you to be a part of our exploration in collective dreaming by sharing Dreaming Different with people you know and leaving a review on any podcast platform. Reviews are immensely helpful for our reach and impact. Also as a neurodivergent tip, I find that I process information more deeply when I listen or read something for a second time after I’ve had some time to digest it. Sometimes I even listen on 1.5 or 2x speed and that feels really good for my brain. Sharing those tips in case they can support you in processing all of this delicious information.

Big thanks to the entire team at Deem: Alexis Aceves Garcia, Jun Lin, Jorge Vallecillos, Alice Grandoit-Sutka, Isabel Flower, Nu Goteh, Jorge Porras, and Amy Mae Garrett for their contributions to the ideation and production of this series. Special thank you to Nu Goteh for composing the dreamy music you hear throughout the series. It took so many conversations, iterations, and practices of spaciousness to bring Dreaming Different to you and we hope it helps expand your ideas of the future, the world, and the possibilities we can create together.

If you’re new to Dreaming Different, we recommend checking out the introductory episode, which lays out the origins of this series, what we intend to explore throughout the episodes, and my personal journey with the neurodiversity paradigm. Episode 1 also includes some somatic and mindfulness tools to use if you feel any discomfort or tension while listening.

You can find the complete series including transcripts and show notes at deemjournal.com/audio and Deem Journal on Instagram at @deemjournal. I’m Jezz Chung, you can find me @jezzchung across social media, and I hope you do something to take care of yourself today and all the days ahead. 

Thank you for dreaming with me.

Show Notes

Kimberly Drew

www.instagram.com/museummammy

This Is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew

https://bookshop.org/p/books/this-is-what-i-know-about-art-kimberly-drew/13059390

Black Futures edited by Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew

https://bookshop.org/p/books/black-futures-kimberly-drew/11313740?ean=9780399181139

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Documentary on Netflix)

https://www.netflix.com/title/81001496

5 neurodivergent love languages

https://stimpunks.org/2022/01/22/the-five-neurodivergent-love-languages-2/