when someone asks me why i love art, i don’t really know what to tell them.

a few weeks before my classmates and i exchanged tearful goodbyes on our watermelon-strewn street campus—because only at our school would we be screaming over a watermelon eating contest one minute and then crying in each other’s arms the next—my art teacher said something that follows me to this day. she told my class that, whenever she gets mad at her husband, she’d outline the contour of his face and body and slowly fall back in love with all the little details until her husband frustratedly tells her to “stop drawing me!” but neither one is really mad, so they just laugh together in that special way that only people in love do.

i don’t know why that story, of all the stories she’s told me, has stood out. maybe it was the way her voice softened at even the slightest mention of her husband. regardless, i can’t stop myself from randomly thinking about that story as i’m falling asleep or zoning out in class.

after class that day, i scribbled a few things down in my sketchbook: art is love and love is art. have fun, love your friends, take time to decompress and fall back in love with everything, help people in the ways you can, be kinder to yourself. they’re pretty standard and self-explanatory, but they ground me whenever i’m having a particularly rough day. i’d argue that these are reminders that we all need every once in a while, even if they seem obvious.

i’ve clung to these notes ever since then. as i’m writing this, i’m realizing how much they’ve meant to me these past few months at home.

this summer, my biggest stressor has been community organization. i’ve been working as a community organizer for about four years now. it’s a big part of who i am. when i first started, i procrastinated. a lot. the mental, physical, and emotional strain it put on my mind, body, and soul was not worth it, even if it was for a good cause. lately, i’ve been trying to remind myself that there’s only so much i can take on at any given time, but when my worth as a “youth activist” seems to be dictated by how many nonprofits and coalitions i create or how many protests i’ve led in a week and if i’m getting any media attention for my work, it can be extremely difficult to tell myself that it’s okay to take a step back whenever necessary. there are times where it just gets too much and i end up hurting the people, organization, and movements i work with. it’s easy to say all of this is for the “greater good of society,” but at what cost?`

there are times where i’m working on something and i don’t even fully know what i’m working in pursuit of. most of the “youth organizers” i know in real life only care about getting into ivy leagues and most of the ones i do know who are genuinely passionate live miles away. its thoughts like these that make me lose touch with all the things i hold close to me: love, friendship, optimism. i start to see these things as a means to a just future, not as what makes me wholly me. these are also the times where i recognize that i need to take a step back from organizing and decompress.

for me, decompressing means connecting with my community. it means logging off twitter and facebook and surrounding myself with positive energy from my loved ones. even something as simple as a message in a slack channel can go a long way in helping me recenter myself. @channel: i love you with every inch of my heart. i know we’re all tired, but we will get through this together.

sometimes, i get asked why i talk about holding onto love, and hope, and compassion so much. i think the answer is that i really don’t know where i’d be without these values. maybe i’m just sappy, but i know hope is what got me through some of my darkest moments. i also know that love and compassion is at the core of everything i do. that’s why i continue to organize. for me, organizing isn’t a response to anger and frustration—it’s a manifestation of empathy and compassion. i know we can be better. i know we can do better. i know this society isn’t a lost cause, not now and not ever.

i have found art to be a more relaxing way for me to channel my hopes for a more loving and kind world into a means to decompress.

through art, i find solace, love, connection, and empathy. these past few weeks, every time i’ve found myself getting too caught up doing movement work, i grab my sketchbook and head into the woods that border my former high school. i talk to my old teachers and long-time friends about what it means to make art and what it means to be an artist. growing up, i used to get yelled at by my teachers for doodling in the margins of my notebook, but i have always used art to ground myself. art has become much more than just a casual hobby. art is love and romance and friendship and mementos and warm hugs and cuddles and showing up unannounced with little gifts and holding hands with loved ones and so, so, so much more.

i’ve been told by many that this is just a jordan thing and that baffles me, because i think there’s room for art and love and romance in all our relationships, even the ones with our friends.

love and romance are choices and right now i am just a person falling in love with the contour of my friend’s eyes when he laughs, the hazy hues of the sunset i am watching with my neighbor as we share cookout trays on his roof, the yellow-orange-pink glow that lights up the art studio around the same time that terrified juniors are sprinting back with poke bowls and boba and half-eaten bean burritos before they get caught after curfew, the coarse lines made by sticks and pocket knives etched onto the surfaces of the run-down benches, the raspiness of her voice when she sends me sleepy voice memos in the dead of night and oh dear god just her, the rumble under my feet and the chants and speeches that fill the streets of downtown raleigh, brushstrokes in every painting my former roommate made in the sad hours of the night, the way that my friend’s hair drapes her shoulders and makes her look like a disney princess in the sunlight, the lines of my friend’s hand that jump out at me when i’m holding it, and the skyscrapers and the city lights and the dark skies and the clouds and dancing in the rain and i am choosing this—choosing how to love and choosing to see the art and passion in everything and being radically hopeful. and i love that about myself. i really do.

it’s a good time to try and write the best poem you’ve ever written, or paint the prettiest landscape you’ve ever painted. it’s a good time to try to find the art in everything around you when you’re overwhelmed by whatever it is that’s going on, to make sure that when you do find art and beauty in your life, you hold onto all those things through everything and anything that comes your way. there is art and love and beauty and romance everywhere we go, and maybe this is the hill i’ll die on, but it doesn’t take a jordan thing to see it. having the ability to see the art in everything is an opportunity to see yourself—your values, your aesthetic, your work, all of it!—reflected in everything around you. it gives you that little push you need to continue holding onto that hope and i think that’s beautiful. i find so much comfort in art and i hope everyone does too. we’ve all taken art for granted, but it’s time that we finally start to recognize it for what it’s worth and to make an active effort to create art, to bring beauty into this world and help others find art in everything they come across.

but, when someone asks me why i love art, i don’t really know what to tell them. so i just shrug and say, “i don’t know, i just do.”