These past few weeks I’ve been focused on moving and settling into a new home. The move has called attention to all sorts of stuff, habits, and emotional swings—things I’d like to keep and release, to shore up and tear down. This process has reminded me, too, of the contemplative practices that contribute to a sense of grounding: grounding needed to stand TALL for justice. One of these practices is spell-casting, which I learned from activist-writer-healer adrienne ... Read more ...
commitments
The Pain and Pleasure of Moving
My cross-country move from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Washington, D.C. has stretched over weeks turned into months. From traveling to find an apartment to now unpacking boxes, I’ve upturned almost every aspect of life. In the past weeks, I’ve sold my furniture, driven hundreds of miles, lost and found items shipped through Amtrak, lived out of suitcases in a temporary residence, and now moved into the apartment-to-be-home (hopefully for some time to come). This moving ... Read more ...
Today Healing Looks Like …
I was only a few hours into Monday morning, and I’d already had three friends text me about grief, a conversation about not just anger but full-on flaming rage, and multiple conversations about how the word heartache doesn’t even come close to capturing the intense pain of seeing families separated and incarcerated. One friend wrote that “the horrors of this administration are making me physically ill,” a statement that caused me to stop and think about my own bodily ... Read more ...
Countering Resistance Fatigue with a Both/And Approach
In the past few days, I’ve seen countless posts detailing “the horrors of this administration,” the latest of which include separating families and imprisoning immigrants. I’ve seen friends describing their embodied physical and emotional pain, including pain from complicity and always too-small actions. I’ve seen friends accounting their own family stories of separation, as the history of state-sponsored violence against Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) is ... Read more ...
Turning 39 and Thinking about Age(ism)
A few weeks ago, I turned 39. I get excited about birthdays, believing that age is cumulative, as “we’re all the ages we’ve ever been.” I think of new ages as adding experiences and insights while keeping all the previous ones: I’m still my toddler and teenage selves, and now I’m adding multiple adult selves into the mix. I joke that “I’m greedy and want all the ages” as a way to affirm and reclaim the joy of aging. And I do see joy in aging—in experiencing more of ... Read more ...
A Barrage of Microaggressions
Some years ago I began recording everyday microaggressions toward learning to recognize racism, which is so often coded and which whiteness has taught me not to see. This recording project aimed at building a repository of common microaggressions to teach with and practice interventions using Augusto Boal’s theatre of the oppressed. The project emerged from conversations with colleagues of color, who shared how often white colleagues failed to believe their experiences. ... Read more ...
Crocheting Granny Squares, Connecting to Grandmothers, and Crafting a More Just Future
Recently, I felt inspired to pick up crocheting again, after many seasons without touching a needle, hook, or yarn. Feeling the call for creative self-care, I ordered vegan yarn in the colors of the 7 chakras and laid them out, planning a small afghan of granny squares. Thread yarn onto hook. Chain five, and connect stitches, making a circle. Days after purchasing the yarn and only a few stitches into my first granny square, my mom shared some news. Betty, the woman ... Read more ...
Revisiting Fear Through Walker’s Essay “Everything Is a Human Being”
This spring I’m reading Alice Walker’s Living by the Word slowly, mindfully, as part of my “Contemplative Writing” course. I appreciate this book of essays for many reasons, including its title, which makes an argument that we live by the words we put into the world. As a writer committed to everyday living for justice, I am taken with this idea of “living by the word.” I am taken, too, with Walker’s reflections on her many relations, including with her father and ... Read more ...
5 TED Talks for Developing Emotional Literacies for Racial Justice
Today marks the final day of the 40-day practice I’ve been leading for a local, predominantly-white church on developing emotional literacies. We’ve been focused on building and strengthening emotional awarenesses, knowledges, intelligences, and response-abilities for racial justice. As part of this practice, I’ve been sharing resources, including TED talks that provide language for understanding emotional literacies. In this post, I share five of these talks that are ... Read more ...
Triangulating the Heart, Head, and Hands for Justice
This spring I’m teaching a new course titled “Contemplative Writing.” I’ve visualized the course design through triangulation, or three intersecting points that rely on the others for fuller understanding. Like a compass, triangulation helps with navigating complicated terrain. It shows locations (or ideas) in relation to each other, highlighting multiplicity. In the case of “Contemplative Writing,” triangulation brings together three semester-long focuses, audiences, ... Read more ...
