LANGSTYN IS THE MOST RANDOM friend you’ll ever have. He’ll text you around 2pm on a random Tuesday to ask if you want to join his group at the Yuba River on Thursday—and be deadass serious. You’ll reply “sure, as long as I can come up on Friday and there is wifi” because you support your friend’s random side quests but you’re still a responsible adult who has to work. Langstyn, of course, is going to say “that’s perfect!” and then you’ll find yourself last-minute scrambling for outdoor essentials because, though you be outside à la Jadakiss, you are not an outdoorsy type. But you’ll get everything together and come Friday, you’ll hop in the car with some strangers and head up to Yuba County.

And that’s how I ended up in Smartsville, CA over the weekend.

Shortly after I confirmed, I was added to a group chat called "Blessed by the Yuba 5.0." Eleven other people, all of whom had been before except me and two others, all of whom knew each other in some capacity while I kinda only knew Langstyn. I'm never afraid to go places alone, so I read the chat like a syllabus and showed up anyway.

The 5.0 is because Langstyn does this every year. He leads Negus in Nature (NIN), a nonprofit that gets Black folks and their communities back outside — and eventually, into leading the environmental work that happens out there. And the work isn’t just confined to the Bay Area or California. I’ve had personal friends fly out across states to take part in NIN activities in Colorado, Utah, and even internationally on the continent of Africa.

This wasn't exactly my first NIN event. A few months ago they co-hosted Black Bathers' Day with Stay Good Good at Good Hot in Richmond, and I've been to a few of their more social gatherings around Oakland. But trips like this past weekend in Yuba is what NIN is known for, and I was finally getting the full experience.

I hate static pole. Haaaate it. I don’t like being still.

Static pole movement uses the pole as prop that one choreographs around—and I get that—but I just don’t flow the same. I prefer spin pole because it is a constant flow; I’m always spinning, continually moving. Every transition is captivating and unexpected because there was never any pause or break in the movement itself. And it feels really good to move while on spin; it feels really powerful. On static pole, I feel like I look like an idiot—and stuck.

My lack of enthusiasm when it comes to static pole is just a microcosm for my disdain for static areas of my life off the pole. There is nothing I dislike more than being stagnant, static, waiting. And, for me, it is really hard to move around static areas/people in my life healthily. It’s either I allow the stagnancy (is that a real word?) to make me completely miserable or I trauma-block it from my existence altogether. I admire the people who take time to sit within static areas and learn the lessons they are supposed to. I don’t have the patience to do the same. I’m too ambitious and I have too many ideas.