A bright painting of a larger-than-life tern catching the sun’s rays pulled me in at an art market this past fall. Its dark eye, nearly hidden in its crown, seemed to look straight at me. The piece stood out from the artist’s usual bold, colorful work depicting Black Americans; this one was quieter, more subdued.

“Oh wow, is that a common tern?” I asked, a little too excited. On bayside beaches here, I’ve spent hours watching them – small, graceful birds dancing around each other before diving at high speeds into the water. The artist lit up, surprised. “Yes! Most people just walk by and say, ‘ooo, it’s a pretty bird!’”

My partner and I lingered, making small talk with Derak about his work. As I often do at markets, I told him I wasn’t in a place to buy anything, to remove the pressure of artists possibly anticipating a sale. While at the same time opening the door to great conversations about creative processes.

Lessons in Creative Nonfiction and Voice

In the months since, I’ve been deep in my own creative process, pouring time and resources into professional editing for Northern Lights, Northern Lives. Before handing it off to a paid editor, I spent weeks self-editing to cut down details from my own journey. My own writing – mostly travel reflections and pieces of my gender journey to introduce each set of stories based on region – had grown to be 40% of the manuscript. This book is meant to center other people’s stories though. And with the cost of printing a full-color photo book layered with text? Oof. My own words had to shrink.

But the first round of editorial feedback surprised me. Give me more. What’s behind this sentence? Why does this matter to you?  The editor also helped rein in my more ADHD-style tangents, side trails that wandered too far from the topic of gender or the people I photographed. Those were easy to trim.

What wasn’t easy? Being asked to expand. To take up more space in my own work. It’s not that I struggle to write about myself. Clearly. But something in me tightened at the idea of adding more. At the idea of centering my journey alongside the people I’m trying to uplift. There are still parts of me that learned, long ago, that shrinking kept me safe. 

Finding Details in Expanding

Back at the art market, my partner and I parted ways for a bit. Feeling overheated, I took a nap in the shady grass, while he kept browsing. When we found each other again, I asked if he’d bought anything. He showed off a small hummingbird print and an assortment of stationary cards from different artists. 

Then he added, almost casually, “I bought Derak’s tern painting for you. He gave me a huge discount because you loved it so much!” My stomach dropped. Between the two of us, I’m usually the one tracking budgets and watching every dollar. I’d been carefully planning for our upcoming trip overseas, making everything in my personal budget stretch. The discounted painting, still several hundred dollars, felt like… a lot. Like a less dramatic version of “surprising” your partner with a new car using shared money.  

I tried to hold both truths at once: the beautiful artwork, how thoughtful it was, and how overwhelmed I felt. His excitement dimmed as I worked through my own mixed emotions. He reassured me it was on a payment plan, trying to smooth my ruffled feathers. 

Back at home, I carefully prepped the frame and mounted the painting. We stepped back to take it in; the tiny, graceful bird now stretched wide across the wall of our cozy apartment, glowing in translucent brush strokes of light.

Then I started crying. My partner tensed, bracing for a comment about the price. “Is everything okay?”  “Yes… It’s just… it’s so beautiful to see something so small taking up so much space.” We stood there for a long moment, letting that sentiment settle. I want the freedom to take up more space too – without performing. Maybe that message wasn’t the artist’s intention. But it’s what the piece became for me: a quiet reminder to my inner child that it’s okay to be seen. To expand. To exist without shrinking.

I’m still learning that taking up space doesn’t mean taking anything away from others. In writing this book, I can hold both: amplifying the voices of others and offering pieces of my own story as a bridge, something that helps readers understand why this work matters to me, and how I came to it.

For my own writing, it’s taken weeks of long days implementing the first round of editing recommendations; of cutting and re-adding, of questioning what belongs on the page. Maybe readers don’t need every detail of my life. But they do need something real, including small windows into the experiences that shaped this project. Like a strange roadside conversation. Bizarre moments that gave me a glimpse into queer communities I passed through. A realization that only makes sense in hindsight as I tie a multitude of stories and perspectives together. 

I’m still learning what it means to let these moments stay. To not shrink them. To trust that even the quiet, easily overlooked pieces of our lives can hold weight, if we give them the space to be seen.