The beginning is always my favorite part of pursuing a new endeavor.

The thrill of the unknown, the seemingly endless ideas permeating within my mind, the anticipation of the first positive response to the work. In its infancy, any new idea feels like a quest towards elation. A high to be chased. Each keystroke is a hit.

Except, for me, when it comes to writing. I have always been insecure about sharing my thoughts on the world. Preferring to keep them safely locked away in the recesses of my mind rather than daring to expose myself. Doubt creeps into my subconscious like unannounced police officers into the homes of Black people and I fear, just like them, readers will mistake my genuine efforts for connection as blasphemous rhetoric and take aim. Killing any good, decent idea quicker than you can turn off a bodycam.

I want to write because I have shit to say. Sometimes about niche 20th century Black films, and other times about learning how to repair the relationship with yourself after heartache. I want to write about the importance of empathy, and the generational impact that respectability politics has made on the Black community. I could write about the intracultural “-isms” that keep Black folx divided via class, sexual identity, or creed. I would like to share my observations on the ways Black women have been portrayed on screen, and the responsibility of the artist; whose work will either negate or perpetuate those images. And blackness, there is always much to say about performing and inhabiting blackness. Yes, I want to write about it all. About all the things that matter to me.

If this is our first time meeting each other then I should say a bit about myself. My name is Joy S. Brunson. I am an actress, an entrepreneur, an emerging scholar, a friend, a daughter and a trepid woman having a second coming of age in her thirties. I identify as an artist because it’s the label that best fits my excessive desires to watch, digest and re-interpret the world around me . There are other spaces that I inhabit too, and with time maybe I’ll share them with you. For now, this is more than enough to begin.

I write from the intersections I occupy in real time, as I figure out what it means to embody each label. Trying on for size varied human characteristics in hopes of discovering some that fit just right. It is a gumbo of messy life experiences and observations that intersect at the same axis point, my curiosity. I’m ready to share my thoughts now, in fact I feel I might need to. Not to scare you away too quickly, but if I can’t figure out how to get these ideas out of my head I might start screaming. Or crying- I’m really good at crying.

I don’t know what I will write or how I will write it. I don’t know what my “voice” is yet, I only know that I need to use it. To shout it out loud, to whisper it sweetly. Maybe it will be through poetry or short stories or journal entries or photographs. Maybe you will find bits of yourself in my words, maybe you won’t. It is an offering either way. Mine to give, yours to receive.

Writing is, for me, a continuous call to courage. A cycle of turning inwards to check in on and honor the person I am becoming- reemerging to the surface with effortful words that culminate in (self) righteous text for others' consumption.

Please know that this is both selfishly my invitation for you to get to know me better, and an attempt for me to feel my feet on the ground again. To grip the earth with my toes, confirming what I remember to be true. That my roots of confidence run deeper than my doubts. That fear is my brain's way of telling me what is actually important to me. And that other’s opinions are just that, theirs not mine.

What a gift a shift in perspective is?! Maybe together we can forge a new path, you and I. One of winding intellectual reciprocity and mutual respect. A road built on an open heart and bravery. Perfection be damned.

So, what do you say? Will you take a chance and begin this journey with me?

welcome to Notes of Joy.

in the beginning…