A Letter to (and from!) a New Friend
photo by Kesia Nagata
Just after Christmas in Cody, Wyoming in 2020, someone commented on one of my youtube videos and asked if I had ever seen the channel Listen to Your Horse.
I went to the channel briefly, then my friend Suzi sent me their website. I perused the site lightly, before being taken in hard and fast by reading the "Abouts" of one of the Listen to Your Horse team: A woman --- well, I thought of her then, like myself, as a girl :) --- named Kesia Nagata. I fell head and heartlong into the world of her website and her music, and it wasn't long (like, maybe 10 minutes of utter enamorment) before I sent her a fangirl-esque email, hoping we would become friends.
Exactly a year from the very day of our first correspondence -- December 29, 2020 -- Kesia gave birth to her first child and son, Kumazo, on December 29, 2021.
And about a year and a half into knowing and loving Kesia, and countless voice memos and raw-as-raw-gets virtual sharing and connections later, I can quite honestly say she is one of the humans who I feel knows me most deeply, sees me most clearly, and loves me most dearly. Even though we haven't even met in person yet. (IMAGINE WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN WE DO).
Some months ago, I realized I wanted to make our correspondence --- largely transcribed voice memos, which are not uncommonly over 20 minutes long, and which we fondly call "personalized podcasts" --- into a book of its own, currently with the working title Love Letters: Woman to Woman.
In the meantime, I'll include some of our correspondence in The Wild Way Home. Because it's a way to show how I introduce and express myself to someone new and important in my life (who I simultaneously really want to impress and be unflinchingly real and self-challenging and revealing with) ... and you, reader, are someone new and important in my life. So here you are. Here is my first email to Kesia, and, much to my heart's instant delight, Kesia's quick response!!!
In my next piece, I will share a transcription of my first-ever voice memo to Kesia.
Some day soon (time is relative, y'all), I will also share Kesia's first voice memo response back to me (as well as the poem-like tribute to it I scribbled down by hand while listening to, and shamelessly drooling over, her eloquent and raw response).
But alas, you shall have to wait for such tasty, tasty morsels ...
since I haven't transcribed them yet ;).
...EMAIL 1: the reach
"reaching out" Divinity Ranch <virginiacschmidt@gmail.com> Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 6:05 PM to kesia.nagata
"Hey! Kesia
I feel suuuuuuuuper drawn to connect with you after someone shared ListenToYourHorse with me in the comments of one of my YouTube videos. Both the ListenToYourHorse content as well as your personal creative expressions and endeavors and platform really DEEPLY profoundly resonate with me.
Not sure what the best way to further connect is, but I felt incredibly drawn to reach out to you so here I am!
... Myself, I am quite fond of sharing voice memos as a way to connect and communicate, and I love WhatsApp best for voice memos. I would also be open to a call, or of course more emails. En future, I am certainly hoping to meet our persons and ponies in the flesh! I’m down in Cody, Wyoming, so we’re not TOO far as the crow flies. I think some powerful powerful potential for collaboration exists between us.
And so, Happy Full Moon , and even if we don’t ever connect more tangibly, please know: What you’re sharing in the world is inspiring others. I know this because I am inspired already, just barely touching it.
So thank you, Brave Woman, Peaceful Warrioress of the Light, for the inspirational / Heart sustenance
cheers, to this magical life,
Virginia"
...EMAIL 2: the ripple
Kesia Nagata <kesia.nagata@gmail.com> Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 1:44 PM to me "Well helllooooooo Virginia!
First off, happy full moon to you too and especially happy Other Side of the Winter Solstice and all the juice therein :)
Your email made my heart go WOOP! Thank you for reaching out to it. It's like... the most exciting thing when one's (he)art offerings jive with someone else and the potential for reciprocal resonance is opened. Because as far as I'm concerned the things we put into the world are just imprints and the only point of them is for others to recognize them as their own.
As for voice memos, I've been trained by a dear friend on another continent and so I'm very open to this format of conversation! Given my crap internet it's the best way to get a good chat in at everyone's convenience, too. I'm on WhatsApp at ###-###-####. Send me something to start off! Maybe a bunch about you and your critter people and your projects and what you're jiving with. Any questions. What ever comes out. I'm not easily put off ;)
All I know about Wyoming is the aching open space feelings left by reading Annie Proulx long long ago. I'm in the Kispiox Valley, British Columbia. Future fleshly person and pony visits sound fun!
Looking forward to whatever's next,
Thanks Beauty,
Kesia"