ava // robinson
When was the last time you sank into a sandwich and thought this is the best sandwich I’ve ever tasted and when was the last time you ran your hands over your body; better yet, when was the last time you ran your hands over your body while looking at it, really looking at it, and not judging it and not thinking about what you should be doing to fix this or that but just existing in it and when was the last time you stood outside just for a couple minutes just to do it and when was the last time you wrote a letter and put it in the mail and when was the last time you made something, anything, just to make it. To be messy and worried and bold and shitty and curious and thoughtful and human.
Living at the intersection of writing, healing, and collective care.
I’m Ava and I’m a storyteller. A queer mother, writer, wife, workshop facilitator, sex worker, witch, home cook, student herbalist, and reader living in Denver, CO.
I, the champion of underdone baked goods, abolitionism, flakey salt, healing, community, and spicy that makes me sweat.
I don’t want to be a digital influencer or content creator. I want analog. I want to keep pushing the boundaries of writing and get weirder and more experimental. I want to braid protection spells into the nape of my neck, bury my hands in the garden, study dead languages, read poetry, roll pasta dough with my kids, eat things I never have, make out.
Come for the writing, the longing, the ritual, the food. Stay for the community.
in softness,
xxAR
food // and
writing beyond the niche about gender, raising kids, community, and lover-ing. generational nourishment. recipes that taste like a feeling. ava vividly remembers the texture of childhood.
from Bed People
“We are rule breakers in that we have a television in our bedroom. The intimacy killer, they say. The energy interference. Yes//and have you ever watched eight hours of nothing but Denzel Washington movies when you get strep? Have you ever let the voice of Paul Hollywood muffle the sounds of sleepy sex turned into a hunger that escalates accordingly? Have you ever tucked a child, a self, in between the mountain of pillows resting against the headboard in an effort to help (them) regulate while whales swim on the tv? Some rules are meant to be broken.”
from I’m Just a Girl *Bog Witch
“The next morning I stand outside in my underwear and pick the tomatoes that have finally begun to turn— pear shaped Romas and softball heirlooms that ombre green to purple to red. I make bruschetta piled on toasted sourdough and serve it alongside olives, salami, cheese, and strawberries on a beautiful platter next to paper plates. The next day we eat them with cucumbers, pickled shallot, and a little olive oil and red wine vinegar. And the last lunch of summer-break is open-faced BLTs that we eat outside on the front porch with the window cracked so we can hear the music inside. I love it here. I’m glad I stopped lying.”
from The Religion of Neighbors
“I don’t know Leo who lives directly across the street. But I know he lives with a brother he rarely speaks to and puts the dry beans from his food-bank box into the community pantry on our lawn. You can find him each day, his aging girl-dog never not with him, tinkering in his yard and garden with a Gatorade bottle in hand that is always more vodka than Gatorade. I don’t know Leo but I take him cobblers and he shuffles into our backyard to identify a grub infestation or a plant I don’t recognize. I know he’s a vet. I know he waters his lawn year round and that he regrets voting for Trump. I know that he hates when his brother sprays the great big elm in their yard with pesticides— “it drips down onto my goddamn hollyhocks!””
Even if you don’t have kids, being interested in what happens to kids is critical. Even if you don’t have kids, recognizing the wounds you carry, generational trauma, and being willing to sit with your bullshit (hey, inner-child work!) in an effort to not enact and relive your wounds on your partner, community, friends etc is critical. I am capable of necessary change— not just keeping people alive but humanizing their entire experience, now and later. Kids are not simply The Future, a distant thought. My kids are here now as people and it’s my responsibility to show them that what they have to say, what feels good, what hurts, what matters, matters.
my me journal
My Me is a guided journal, designed for kiddos (8-18 or the child at heart) with inclusivity being of utmost importance and is gender-neutral, anti-diet, centers the gifts of knowledge through quotes from the BIPOC and LGBTQIA2+ community, the disabled community, and children and teens that have changed the world themselves.