Let's do this thing

[photo by Kelsey Ianuzzi]

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now—write again, for myself, about myself. I felt most me when I was blogging and instagramming, being seen and finding connection in my communities. I’ve put it off long enough; feeling held back by made up scenarios and pre therapy emotions about my emotions. This draft has sat here for six months and I’m tired of it holding me back. So here, take it so I can forget about the beginning part, the earnest introduction, and launch straight into the good stuff.

Hi, I’m Abbey Crain, a journalist who isn’t reporting, a writer who isn’t writing. 

I am an expert hype woman, an aggressive girl’s girl, and a champion of other people’s stories. It’s played into the hero complex ingrained into my identity as a journalist for the past decade. You know, the “give voice to the voiceless, hold power to account” thing. But damn if that ethos hasn’t eaten away at my sense of self. And “journalist” has come to be an identifier I no longer want to put before my name, before me. But before we go there, you’re going to want a little background.

Ten years ago I wrote an investigative piece for my student newspaper on the University of Alabama’s segregated sororities. They desegregated just nine days after the piece was published and I spent the last year of school hell bent on getting out of Alabama. The praise motivated me and the criticism propelled me. I moved to New York right out of college and worked for The Wall Street Journal. Like, I did it. I did the damn thing. But like most young, not-from-around-here writers, I learned tenacity may get you out of your hometown, but it doesn’t do you much good navigating legacy media organizations. I wrote some pieces I was proud of, but I never could quite figure out how to leave my mark in the proverbial big pond.

So I thought I’d switch gears. I married my college boyfriend and home was calling anyways. I come from a long line of good mothers, the kind you write books about. So when faced with rent increases and a brain not built for the cold, (I am paraphrasing for the sake of a quick, cohesive narrative because that is a story for another day) it was easy for me to pivot my dreams from fancy magazine journalist to cool, young mom. I heard you could do both, but I needed to try on a new identity, one that would love me back.

I moved home, taking a job covering women and gender issues in Alabama. I wrote about a lot of the awful ways women and queer folks in the South are denied power, silenced, controlled, killed. I created and authored a newsletter for women and LBGTQ+ folks in the South and documented (for the first time on the record in a local outlet) a woman’s story of getting an abortion in Alabama. I won some awards, hollered about things deemed unbecoming of Southern women. And I watched on while state legislators fist bumped each other after they successfully ended Alabamians’ right to a safe and legal abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned (spoiler: it was) all while trying to create a family of my own, right here, in one of the most dangerous places to be pregnant in the country. 

I hadn’t read much on infertility before it swallowed me whole in its invisible grief. I watched as cousins, sisters, friends, and strangers grew ripe with new identities of their own, quelling my hurt so as not to let it bleed onto their celebrations. I held on tight to hope, despite the pain of it being ripped away each month, each year.

But two summers ago, after Roe v. Wade was overturned I couldn’t do it anymore. The writing or the trying. I went through two failed rounds of IVF, my family was going through a particularly tough time, and I realized I had been so intent on liberating others with my writing, that I had forgotten to liberate myself. 

I’m not a journalist. I’m not a mother. I’m not sure who I even want to be. But I’m figuring it out.

So what is Send Nudes?

Send Nudes began as a pandemic art practice prompted by the desire to liberate my perception of self from the male gaze. As I documented the process on Instagram, it turned into a side hustle, as friends and family and then strangers on the internet commissioned their own nude portraits. 

You may be receiving this email, because you signed up on my art sight years ago. Feel free to change your mind :)

Send Nudes (sometimes noods depending on the social media platform censorship levels) has grown (mostly in my brain, but it officially exists now that I’ve hit “publish”) to encompass my art and journaling practice as it coincides with my innermost thoughts on the intersection of bodies, gender, identity, and culture in the Deep South and I think I’m ready to start sharing.

What to expect…

I’m using this space to document the dirty parts of self-discovery and identity. There will be artist updates, cultural commentary, original reporting, rambling essays, and maybe some outfit posts. It’s a substantial task, you know, figuring out who you are. But I’ve always found comfort in doing it out loud.

I’m not quite sure how to navigate the paid aspect of Substack. But tbd, I may start charging as the posts become more consistent, more juicy, etc. Until then I suppose.

Thanks for reading. 

Abbey