She walked into the room we’d be sharing and exclaimed, “Thank God, another woman of color.” My feeling of lightness was instantaneous: the feeling of sinking into a warm bath.

I hadn’t interacted with a brown person since exchanging hair compliments with a black man at the airport. It had been twenty-four hours of rooms filled with white people. That morning, as a stopgap, I’d danced outside alone to Angel Haze, on repeat, feeling desperate.

We would have several conversations about marginalization during the white-filled, kink-fueled weekend, each heavier than the last.

Heavy can be good. Heavy keeps you grounded.