Hom(e)ie Summer Camp: Autism, Unmasking, and Learning to Travel Differently

This trip marks something important for me. It is only the second time I’ve traveled on my own since receiving my autism diagnosis and allowing myself to live more fully through the ongoing practice of unmasking.

Hom(e)ie Summer Camp: Autism, Unmasking, and Learning to Travel Differently

Hom(e)ie Summer Camp: Autism, Unmasking, and Learning to Travel Differently

Hom(e)ie Summer Camp, Unmasking, and Trusting the Road

A Small Personal Note

I almost didn’t write this.

This trip is about practicing the very things I write about in the Cosmos—embodiment, community, curiosity, and returning to myself.

Right now, though, getting there is becoming more financially uncertain than I anticipated.

If this essay, or the work I’ve been building over the years, has meant something to you, I’m inviting you to help me make this journey possible.

Mutual aid, becoming a paid subscriber, purchasing from Bead & Cowrie, or simply sharing the work are all meaningful ways to support the Bespokecurry Cosmos.

Thank you for continuing to walk with me.

CA $thekiingcurry

VM @kiingcurry 

paypal beadandcowrie@gmail.com

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Over the next couple of weeks, the rhythm of the Cosmos may shift a little.

This trip marks something important for me. It is only the second time I’ve traveled on my own since receiving my autism diagnosis and allowing myself to live more fully through the ongoing practice of unmasking.

I’m calling it hom(e)ies summer camp because that makes me smile. In reality, it’s simply a trip with a hom(e)ie—a chance to learn, rest, create, laugh, and spend time in community. But it is also something much deeper.

It’s an opportunity to keep practicing trust.

Trusting that I can move through the world without forcing myself back into an older version of who I thought I had to be.

Trusting my accommodations.

Trusting my rhythms.

Trusting that I can navigate unfamiliar spaces while honoring the person I have become instead of performing the person I once believed others needed.

This also isn’t a splurge or a vacation in the way those words are often understood.

It is an investment in relationship.

For much of my life, so much of my energy has gone toward surviving, understanding myself, and building a relationship with my altar’d self. That work continues, but I’m beginning to grow the capacity to build relationships beyond that—to practice friendship, community, and being present in the world without abandoning myself in the process.

That, too, is embodiment.

Because of that, the pace here on the website may ebb and flow depending on my capacity. If energy allows, I’ll likely publish a few essays, field notes, or reflections while I’m away. If not, the work will be waiting when I return.

You may notice me sharing more frequently on social media over the next couple of weeks, offering small moments from the journey as they arrive.

And if you’re new here—or if you’ve only encountered the work through social media—I want to offer a gentle invitation.

The website is where the ecosystem lives.

Rather than reading one essay and moving on, follow your curiosity.

Wander.

Open the links that catch your attention.

Let one idea lead you into another.

The essays were designed to be relational, allowing concepts to meet each other across astrology, Black study, embodiment, food, adornment, neurodivergence, movement, and the many other waters that make up this Cosmos.

There are countless entry points.

You don’t have to begin at the beginning.

Simply begin where your curiosity meets you.

And if this work has supported your own journey, I’d love to ask for your support while I’m away.

The Cosmos continues to need tending whether I’m writing from home or practicing a new way of moving through the world.

If you’ve been thinking about collecting a piece from the shop, July is a wonderful time—everything is 25% off throughout the month. If wearable art, books, or objects from the Cosmos have been calling to you, this is a beautiful opportunity to bring one into your own ecosystem.

If you find yourself returning to these essays, consider becoming a subscriber. Your subscription helps sustain the long-term work of building this archive and allows me to keep creating resources that invite deeper embodiment.

And if a purchase or subscription isn’t possible right now, a donation of any size is another meaningful way to help keep this work alive.

Every form of support helps create the conditions for the Cosmos to continue growing—not only through essays and artwork, but through moments like this one, where I’m practicing a larger, more relational life.

Thank you for reading, for wandering, for supporting, and for growing alongside me.

I’ll see you somewhere inside the Cosmos.

Field Notes from Adult Summer Camp

Curiosity packed the lightest bag and carried the most.

Accessibility isn’t extra luggage. It’s part of how I travel.

Sometimes the destination is simply becoming available to the window.

The landscape kept changing. My practices came with me.

The morning arrived before I knew what to call the feeling.

Sometimes the person you’re becoming waves back first.

Arrival isn’t the end of the trip. It’s the beginning of paying attention.

Rest can be something we practice together.

Wonder usually begins at walking speed.

Some memories become clearer after they’ve become companions.

One of the biggest decisions I made for this trip was choosing to travel by train for the entire journey.

That wasn’t just a transportation choice—it was an embodiment choice.

My first trip after receiving my autism diagnosis taught me something I couldn’t unknow.

I genuinely enjoy trains.

Airports are still deeply overstimulating for my nervous system. They move at a speed my body struggles to metabolize. Constant announcements. Bright lighting. Security checkpoints. Crowds moving in every direction. Last-minute gate changes. The expectation that everyone should simply keep up.

The train offers me something different.

It gives me time.

Time to regulate.

Time to notice the landscape.

Time between connections.

Time to eat when my body actually needs food instead of rushing because boarding has begun.

It also allows me to pack the foods that help me stay regulated throughout the trip instead of hoping I’ll find something that works once I arrive.

More and more, I’m realizing that my body isn’t asking me to move slower because it is broken.

It is asking me to move at the pace where I can actually experience my life.

This trip is another opportunity to practice trusting that pace.

What’s Traveling With Me

Accessibility isn’t what I pack after I’ve planned the trip. Accessibility is how I plan the trip.

These aren’t necessarily recommendations.

They’re simply some of the companions helping me move through this particular journey.

• Inokraft handheld fan for temperature and sensory regulation. (im inspector gadget geeking out about this one in a big way)

• BAGGU bags that help me organize my belongings without creating visual chaos.

• Noise-canceling headphones for building a quieter sensory environment.

• A battery pack so my phone, headphones, and other supports stay powered throughout the trip.

• Foods that I already know my body enjoys and tolerates.

• Comfortable clothing that lets me move instead of perform.

• A notebook for whatever the journey wants to teach me.

• Materials for the beginning of my textile practice and the first stages of building the Afroscape Hair Installation. This trip isn’t separate from the Cosmos—it’s part of it. Along the way, I’ll be gathering relationships with fiber, cloth, texture, and hair as I begin imagining what this installation wants to become. Rather than arriving with a finished plan, I’m allowing the work to emerge through observation, curiosity, and lived experience.

• The first printed draft of the Afroscape Field Guide. This will be its first journey outside my studio and the first opportunity for me to live alongside it. I’m excited to read it in new environments, make notes by hand, notice what feels clear, what wants more room to breathe, and how the field guide changes as it enters into relationship with the world beyond my desk. Like so much of the Cosmos, it isn’t finished before it is shared—it continues becoming through lived experience.

The destination matters.

But so does the way I arrive.

The journey started before the train ever moved.

This wasn’t packing light. It was packing relationship.

Movement became reading time instead of waiting time.

The landscape kept changing. My pace didn’t have to.

Some miles are measured in breath instead of distance.

Sometimes the longest part of the trip is watching yourself arrive.

The train kept moving. My nervous system finally stopped trying to.

When the world became quieter, I could finally hear my own field notes.

Every destination asks a different version of who you’re becoming.

Rest is also part of the curriculum.

Field note. Before naming the trail, I wanted to learn how to notice it.

Community doesn’t begin with conversation. Sometimes it begins with arriving at the same table.

Cosmos Watershed

The Cosmos Watershed is not a bibliography. It is a relational map. Rather than documenting only where ideas originated, it traces how they entered into relationship, what they nourish, what nourishes them, where they continue flowing, and which currents they resist. Knowledge does not move through the Cosmos as isolated facts. It behaves like water—branching, converging, disappearing underground, resurfacing elsewhere, and continually reshaping the terrain through which it moves. The Watershed invites you to follow those currents rather than simply cite their source.

Cosmos Watershed	Tributaries
Companion	On Support — 10 Years of Building the Cosmos; My Emotions Are My Process; Reverse Osmo(cis): Restoring Circulation; Stage Management & the Architecture of Accessibility; OCD Apologies and the Black Body
Origin	The realization that receiving an autism diagnosis did not end the journey—it created the possibility of building a life that honors the body’s actual rhythms rather than masking them.
Expansion	Extends into embodied travel, friendship as developmental practice, nervous-system-aware planning, accessibility as relationship, and documenting travel through Field Notes rather than productivity. Introduces the beginnings of the textile practice and the Afroscape Hair Installation as companions to lived experience.
Application	Readers are invited to observe their own travel ecologies: What environments regulate them? What pace allows them to arrive as themselves? What companions, objects, foods, and practices support relationship with their body rather than performance?
Lineage	Disability justice, neurodivergent embodiment, Black liberation through rest and accessibility, relational ecology, Afroscape, The Six Waters, Altar’d U, lived observation over optimization.
Counter Currents	Productivity culture, hustle narratives, tourism as consumption, airport-speed expectations, masking for social comfort, treating accessibility as accommodation instead of relationship, believing embodiment happens only through introspection rather than lived practice.

Hom(e)ie Summer Camp: Autism, Unmasking, and Learning to Travel Differently