I realize too late that I have become a gaping hole. A yawning yearning that opens and opens but never closes, full.

I realize so very late that I am trying to love myself vicariously through you. A vacuous invasion that asks and asks but never responds, answered.

I realize this. It is late in the day, late in the year, late in life. But perhaps it is not too, too late. 

Too late for it not to hurt, yes. But not too late to do something different. 

When the wise people said, "love yourself", I was angry at the simplicity. I thought that they did not understand how hard it would be to choose myself when no one else was choosing me. I had the infinite depths of want and desperation and need staring, unblinking from my consciousness. 

I realize, a little late, that the wise people give simple sounding advice when there is no other way. A loving labor that strains and strains but never tires, ended. 

I realize now that the little love I gave myself was too meager a ration. A gnawing knowing that nothing and no one could fill or feed, complete.

I am unskilled at this new effort of loving myself. A strenuous mountain moving of practice and practice and practice, again.

"Deserve" is not a word that I use. Not about me. Not about anyone else. And I guess there are a lot of reasons for that. But at the top of the list is that 1. it makes me uncomfortable and 2. I don't see the point. What is the point of thinking about what people deserve? Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to malicious people all of the time. No one gets what they deserve. Injustice has been a life long companion of humanity.

And if you were to try to pin me with a direct question about what I deserve, I would squirm and evade. Because I am not special. I've done good things and been given bad results. I've also been rewarded for my selfishness and cowardice. It seldom adds up. 

If I were to advise someone else, I'd say that there is still value in asking people to treat you the way you deserve, with dignity and respect. But ask me point blank how I deserve to be treated and my mind goes blank like new fallen snow or a dreary overcast sky. 

I deserve what all humans deserve. We deserve softness and rest. We deserve justice and health. We deserve the full range of human emotions from anger to joy and back again. We deserve happiness deep as glacial lakes.We deserve comfort for our suffering and grief. We deserve love like spring rains. We deserve to be. We deserve to be alive.

I have struggled this week.

Truthfully, I have struggled to finish the days set before me. And I've struggled to start the days too. 

I've been redrawing boundaries with folks near and dear who should know better but don't. It's hard work, heavy work. I am often riddled with self doubt and a desperation that consumes me. I want to be understood. I don't want impossible things to be asked of me. Sometimes people hurt you most when they are trying to love you. That doesn't make what they were doing less hurtful.

In my family, I am the boat rocker. The one who finds the dirt under the rug. The bridge builder. The yeller. The question asker. The defender. The confronter. The first to apologize--regardless of whether I feel like I have the most to apologize for. The one who never stops trying to make things better. I ask for more. I know I intimidate and exasperate my family. But I know no other way of being. 

I reached the tragic place of being too exhausted from yelling into the void. So I withdrew. For the first time in 30 years of doing family, I stayed quiet even though I had so much to say. I hoped that those family members would respond more to my absence than they had to my constant effort because I was out of ideas, out of energy, out of words. And to my great surprise, a few folks came back. Some came accusing me of abandoning them and that was ironic. And some came cautiously, quietly feeling out the ground I had left empty.

In both cases, I have needed to be clear about what I will and will not accept when people try to love me. I am glad for that down time when I withdrew. It's helped to prepare me for this next phase. But still, I am exhausted. Keeping these people in my life in healthy ways is taking everything I have. Physically, I am barely strong enough to see this through. Some mornings, I can barely see much less think. My stress affects me in my sleep. I clench and grind my teeth until I am sore from the top of my head down through my shoulder blades. I wake up feeling like my teeth are vibrating. My face feels like someone slammed it into the asphalt. 

This morning, all I could think of was that my tongue was the wrong shape. It had been flexed all night and I couldn't remember how normal people hold their tongues--touching their front teeth? Probably not rammed up against the roof of the mouth like mine. If I relax it, it feels like it's going to fill my throat and I won't be able to breathe. That's probably the anxiety talking. But knowing that doesn't solve the fact that I don't know what to do with my tongue. Round and round my thoughts raced while I tried to fall back to sleep. 

I am not ok. But I am trying to be ok. I am the kind of "not ok" that comes from trying to fit the pieces back together. The kind of "not ok" that no one can really help ...unless you want to do my laundry, clean my kitchen, and help me think of soft foods that sore teeth can handle. I have a lot of friends who like to give advice and share experiences. I do not lack answers. I need folks to massage my clenched shoulders and tell me that it's ok to ask for what I need even though I know that. And honestly, most folks advice and relevant experience has begun to stress me out. And my body simply cannot digest anymore stress. 

I hate this season of life. No one wants to be this fragile. I do not want to hurt this badly. Sometimes, I dread going to sleep because I might wake up in so much pain. I'm on a full regiment of stretches, hydration, vitamins, herbs, regular (soft) meals. (I realized that haven't been eating enough because my jaw gets tired so I need to prioritize soft foods if I'm going to feel full). All of this barely maintains functionality. I've become someone who falls asleep with a heating pad on my face. 

Today I woke up at what I would call a 3 on the pain scale. But I don't know what someone else would rate it. All I know is that I have been in 70% more pain at some point in the week so this isn't too bad. Despite the pain behind my right eye and in the back of my head. Trying to account for how familiar this pain has become but also adjust for how annoyed I am that it is still here and I don't know what use a pain scale is except to say that I am still here in this body no matter how much I wish I was a robot or a plant. Still here. Still stressed. Still trying.

To all of the people who will tell you to "manage your stress" and smile like they are giving helpful advice.

How is that working for you?

In this world where every single thing you could love has been broken. In this world where not loving will kill you differently than loving, but both will definitely rip you open. In this world, where truly no one has it all figured out and no one ever will.

You hear me? No one will ever have it all figured out. 

This world, where we need each other just as deeply as we hurt each other. Of course there are seasons where we are stressed to our limit and our bodies cry out for rest and repair. And I won't feel guilty for  any of that. After all, I am here to love and love hard. No matter what I lose. 

When someone tells me to "manage" or "reduce" my stress, I hear "spread your love out thinner" and "care less about the people who make up your world". If you don't know where my stress is coming from, be careful about telling me to cut out the source. Sure, sometimes, the source is toxic and rotten. It needs to go. But sometimes the source is love. Sometimes the source is asking people to love you as hard as you have loved them. Sometimes the source is one last chance. A desperate attempt to make things right.

For a little over two weeks now I have been struggling with headaches and overall soreness from clenching and grinding my teeth at night. One tiny day at a time, I've been inching my way towards that dreaded title, chronic pain. Pain without purpose. Pain without end. Pain with such a distant beginning. Few things terrify me like chronic pain. The need to be so incredibly patient with a body that is not on your side. The need to be so ineffably strong so your pain doesn't seep and soak into everyone around you. The need to advocate for yourself but not constantly bring it up either. 

I'm a morning person so I am taking this one extra hard. I love to wake up in a quiet house, read, stretch and take things slowly with a cup of tea. But when I grind my teeth, none of that happens. I wake up wishing I could remove my face and groggily try to brainstorm things that will make the pain stop. It takes all morning. Today, I didn't feel myself for a full 5 hours. I stretched, drank water, took pain killers, tried (and failed) to finish my tea. But the pain wouldn't let go. 

And I cried even though crying made it worse. And I clocked into my desk job even though I wanted to sink into a pile of blankets and not feel a single one of my bones. And eventually, the vice lessened. We'll probably do it again tomorrow. And that scares me. Knowing that when I wake, it will be back is awful. Knowing that it's reasonable to expect a daily tax of 5 or more hours from here on out. I'm hoping to find solutions but it's so hard to manage pain and seek answers at the same time.

Grief is weird. All of these years of being friends and I still get surprised by the way grief shows up uninvited and unannounced. 

Today is one of those days where all of the people I have left and lost throughout my life combine into one. All of the ways that I couldn't be who they wanted or needed me to be string together. All of the things that I almost said stack up against all of the things that I shouldn't have said and the scale trembles under the weight unable to determine which regret is heavier. 

I feel small and unlovable in a deep and ineffable way. I've determined that these days are just pain for pain's sake. My reptile heart is shedding its skin. No matter how loud and angry I get, there's still all of these soft, broken pieces that it is too late to protect. No matter how nice and accommodating I am, someone is bound to step on the debris. 

And I wonder, truly wonder how long until I really feel whole. But that's not the right way of thinking about this. Tomorrow I might feel whole. Tomorrow I might feel worse. And I know that I used to feel broken all of the time and walk around like I owed the world an explanation for how I could show up in so many pieces. My broken days are much less frequent than they they were 10 years ago. But this last year has conspired to remind me of exactly where I come from in every possible way. I spent a month digging through the corners of my trauma. I feel raw and fragile, like if someone leaves the window open, the winter wind will take me away. 

I wonder if all humans have days like this where the ache is all that is real or just some of us. Music helps. So does poetry and really every other art. Feeling connected to humanity and also feeling the hurts of someone else can help give structure to a grief that could easily drown you.

I am so full of rain and it is only about to be November. Which is to say only the beginning of the long dark rain. 

I will not dry out for 4 more months at least. Maybe 5 or 6. And it is already hard to live in this body. 

But I love this body. Even as I feel the next decade begin to hang in places where I did not have anything hanging before, I love it. Even though it is prone to illness and laziness, I love it. It is good to love yourself, a gift. 

In the same way that the bed is never more comfortable than the 5 minutes before your alarm, so I comfort my body through this rain. Shh. We will have to get up and face the rain soon, but we will fit an eternity of rest into each of the seconds right before. Summer is over. Autumn has turned from warm gold to wet silver. Shh. Any second now we will have to get up.

On Being Told to Take Things Less Personally So That I Can Be Less Emotional

1. Haha, no.

2. Why?

3. Really, why? 

4. Please explain how this interpersonal interaction is not personal. I am here, personally. 

5. I remember when I took absolutely nothing personally. I felt nothing. I was apathetic and disconnected. I was only technically alive.

6. I don't know how. 

7. Specifically, I don't know how to feel less when I worked so hard to feel anything at all. 

8. I feel like this is more about your comfort than about my health.

Pain comes full circle. Through the generations again and again. I see my reflection when I look to the elder and the younger. We have been here before and we will be here again.

But healing also comes full circle.

I won't say that the healing makes the pain worth it, but it makes it bearable. To know that our inheritance is more than suffering. 

To rejoice that the curse can be broken is different than giving thanks for the curse itself. It means our portion is larger than any single day or year. It means that we cannot be reduced to just our tears. Even on the days when we feel like we are made of nothing but tears and shattered glass. We may have inherited our family's curses, but we will also inherit or invent healing.

I have been writing you for three weeks now. This is a sort of personal record for knowing what I want to say but not knowing how to say it despite years of thinking about it. The words come all at once, jumbled, confused, and anxious. They are more raw cry than sentence., more gut instinct than communication. I feel taken back to time when I was powerless.

Three weeks and I don't feel any closer to communicating with you than before. I have to keep stopping to forgive myself. Which is ironic because everyone thinks I need to forgive you, but I have been training to forgive you by shouldering more responsibility up onto these shoulders for decades. Long after I should have stopped, I kept trying. And sometimes I hate myself for that. For volunteering for this damage. But I have never hated you for letting me. So I rise and forgive myself again.

I used to think forgiveness broke like a tsunami wave, obliterating the pain and resentment. 

I used to feel guilty for only being able to muster the smallest of ebbing waves. 

but these gentle waves are enough. 

Day after day. 

I forgive you.

I forgive me. 

I forgive us.

Nothing is obliterated. Nothing is swept clean. There is no drama or fanfare. Just the persistent tide and hope lapping at your feet. This the way even the hardest stone is worn away.

If the opposite of love is actually indifference, what is the opposite of hate? Maybe it's also indifference. I like that. I like thinking that indifference is preferable to hate instead of thinking of indifference as "worse than hate" compared to love. But maybe the equation is actually like this: love is the opposite of selfish-ness and hate is the opposite of enabling your bullshit. I love you like I love the stranger on the street which is to say impersonally and by discipline.

You couldn't possibly realize how dangerous you were. When I tried to love you, I began to mistrust myself. Deep and dark were the lacerations you left. When I tried to hate you, I could no longer move forward paralyzed as I was with the immensity of you and your influence. It's only this numb indifference that I find myself unlearning all the unhelpful things you taught me. You exist. Like the stranger on the street except you're the stranger in the home I grew up in.

I've told you that I can't forget. And that's true but maybe not the truest way to explain myself. 

I have been working on my trauma for 12 years now. That is to say, before it was even over. I've learned a lot of things and accepted even more. When I first moved away from home, your specter was invasive. I saw you in everyone I met who so much as liked the same sports teams. I spent a lot of time remembering back then. And it was these sudden, forceful memories that I came to resent the most. How you couldn't just stay 600 miles away where you belonged.

But 12 years is a long time. And I no longer think of you because of a man wearing your style of sunglasses or dripping the same brand of condescension. Now I only think of you when we're talking, which we seldom do. But there's something about the casual way that you dismiss the past that tells me that whoever this new you is, they aren't that removed from the old you. You'd resent that if I said so. But I'm waiting for the version of you that listens to any of the words that I have to say. I still haven't found him. So go ahead, tell me about how new you are and how much you resent my distrust. 

I'll wait 12 more years if I have to. And 12 more after that. Because mapping your habits kept me alive once. Even though I don't see your shadow everywhere, I'd be a fool to turn my back on the intuition that  saw me through the dark years to where I am now. 

There are exactly two types of people in this world:

Forgetters and rememberers. 

In all the nuance, diversity, and complications of life, I have never found someone who neither remembers nor forgets...or who remembers AND forgets. 

You are a forgetter (in case it wasn't obvious). And I? I am jealous. 

You say that you forget because you are a new person. I'm curious. What is it like to be new?

Do you feel less broken? Do you feel younger? Do you feel more hopeful. I imagine so. With all of those years that have suddenly gone missing. I have been the rememberer more times than I can count. These memories leave me feeling old and tired, but I remember less often these days. 

I am not surprised that you can't remember. It was always only a matter of time. This story was written long before we even met. All the while as you made mistakes, it was already decided that you would forget and I would remember. I don't know why that is. And I would change it if I could. Doesn't it seem better if the person who was hurt gets to forget and the person who does the damage gets to remember? You wouldn't even need to feel guilty since the hurt would fade with the memory. We could both be free. 

Instead, some of your worse mistakes are frozen in my memory like a museum that neither of us want to visit. What an injustice that those who make the mistakes so often get to forget.

Unless, of course, you do remember and you're just afraid. 

And maybe that's the difference. Maybe those who forget just aren't as brave as those who remember. That can't be it though, because I've never valued bravery over staying unhurt. Maybe I'm also afraid then. You're afraid to remember and I'm afraid to forget. 

Tell the story

before you're healed

before you have figured out the right words

before you practice to perfection.

Tell the story.

Tell it because it happened.

It was real. 

And now it is over. 

There is a world of healing in those two thoughts: 

It was real. And now it's over. 

Draft 3 - New

We're standing in my driveway when you begin what amounts to the second apology I have received from you in nearly 20 years. It is the same as the first and just as insufficient. You are a new person and are sorry about what the old version of you did. Truthfully, you don't have very many memories from the time before rehab. Truthfully, I think about how much I'd like to talk to the old you instead of new you. We have some unfinished business.

Maybe I'm petty. 

Maybe I'm bitter. 

Maybe I'm just a bitch. 

All I can think is, "it must be nice."

It must be nice to be new. It must be nice not to be able to remember. 

I want to be new. I want to forget with such totality. I have asked God, but even as I asked, I knew the answer. 

This is my inheritance. Your mistakes live in my bones. While there is so much more to me than this inheritance, it is still here and still mine. 

So I guess the only thing that I have left to say is this: 

If you don't want to remember, leave me be. 

I don't hold these memories because I hate you but because I cannot forget. If you keep asking me for forgiveness, acceptance, or reassurance, your sins will come spilling from my lips. Your regrets will tumble off my shoulders. Your mistakes will surface from behind my eyes. So keep your distance. Leave me be. 

Because I am not new. I am the same. 

And I don't think I will ever be new.

Draft 2 - New

It must be nice to be the new person instead of me, the same old person with the same old hurts. Instead of me who has been working for 12 years to get better--whatever that means. It must be so nice to be new and to not remember. But your newness doesn't give me those years back and it doesn't undo the damage. 

Sometimes this "new you" feels like a gag in my mouth and throat telling me not to be who I am. Your newness says don't speak of the past. It didn't happen. It didn't hurt. I didn't survive it. I wasn't formed by it.

When you apologize, I feel the weight of your expectations. How you want me to accept you, how you want me to hold that newness in my fingers for the fragile thing that it is, how you seem to need me to protect it as impossible as that is. When you apologize, I see how badly you want me to be new too. 

And this is what I cannot quite work out: how do we put the new you and same old, raggedy me into the same space without exploding? I am vinegar. And you are baking soda. And we are definitely going to bubble over. I am abandoned gunpowder and you are a fresh match. There is only one thing that I can do. I want to be water, cool and life giving. But I am not new. I am tired and old and damaged. 

I am the boxing gloves you don't need anymore. I am the armor that I don't need anymore. I am the set after the play is over. I am warehoused weapons in peacetime. I am the booby traps after the pirates have already taken the treasure.  I am the watermelon rind after the picnic, bite marks still visible and all of the good parts consumed.

I do not want to be this way but what I want has never seriously mattered, not then and not now. If you want to apologize, start there.

Draft 1 - New

The problem is that I don't' feel like I have a place in your new life because I am not new. I am the adult who was the child who was formed by the choices we made back then. And I will be living with those choices for the rest of my life. I cannot tell you how badly I want to be new with you. But I am not. I am tired and damaged and raggedy. I want to forget but I do not. I want to start over but I cannot. I want it to hurt less but it does not. 

The apology is always for the drugs and the alcohol and whatever may have been done while under the influence. I do not know how to tell you that the influence was only a small part of the problem, that those years were the easy years because there was finally a reason that made sense. How do I tell you that the worst scars are the ones that I gained while everyone was sober? Nobody is apologizing for that.

Visiting home earlier this month was hard. Ever since I moved away, I have been feeling a slow severance from the place that raised me. If the last decade has been a slow stretching away, this last visit was the snap when the rope gave way. I have read about this shift. For some people, it is immediate. For others, it drags on and on. I call Montana "home" now as a sort of respect for the elder that raised me, but it hasn't truly been home for a long time now. Twelve years. Twelve years as of this week that I have been away, uprooted...re-rooted. Transplanted. 

And I love my city. I don't think of myself as a city person. But I am also not a country person. I'm a "grow where you are planted" person. I had plans to leave Portland after graduation...but then I didn't. I stayed and stayed and 4 years of college suddenly turned into 12 years with no plans to leave. Portland is a city of contradictions. Maybe every city is. I don't know. But my contradictions agree with Portland's contradictions and this is the city, the place, the home where I feel most myself. Portland made room for me at several critical points in my life when I wasn't sure where I belonged or who I wanted to be. It is a city of contradictions, conflict, and maybe even chaos. But it is mine and I am Portland's.

I would be nicer if it made me feel better. 

But it doesn't.

Being nice is what got me into this mess and it definitely is not going to make the way out. 

The truth is that I would burn down every world if it kept the abuse cycle from starting over. 

I know you are waiting for my fire to burn out before you approach me, but I should tell you that you will be waiting for a long, long time. 

I would be nicer if that kept me safe. 

I would be nicer if I wanted to. 

But I don't. Not now and probably never again. I don't even recognize the girl who used to think being nice and patient and communicating politely would solve all of the problems. And there is part of me that wishes the hurt never happened and that I could still be her.

However, anger is better than despair. 

I've learned that sometimes anger is what keeps you alive. 

I would rather be alive than nice. 

I've had a book rolling around inside of me for the past 10 years, but there were things that I needed to learn before I could begin. There were questions whose answers I needed to live before I could pick up my pen. Suddenly and slowly I feel like maybe I have something to say. 

Whatever else it might be, it is a story about rebuilding and remaking yourself as many times as you need to because every life is yours if you are the one living it. It's about dreaming and choosing a new dream. It might be about giving up. And about how journeying and how if it really does matter more than the destination, it's ok if the destination changes...even if it changes frequently. It's also about prophecy and the way some truths resonate in your bones. About knowledge, how it changes you, and what you do with it. It might be about the role of the prophet and how there is never one around when you need one the most because so many important truths are by nature inconvenient. It might be about growing up. Not about a youth becoming an adult, but rather about transforming from one adult into a different adult and all the sacrifice and blessing therein. 

I want to write the kind of book that could be a metaphor my younger self might understand about the future and how it doesn't always go as planned even if you have a very good plan and are a very nice person. Sometimes the world tilts sideways.Sometimes you get handed loaded dice. Sometimes you have to make choices with far reaching consequences based on nothing more than a hunch. Sometimes your dream threatens to destroy you. None of this is making sense. But I'm writing a story for my younger self so she'll know that when everything goes wrong, it's not her fault and even though she has to build a new set of wings fast, she will do it. I'm writing because I drank stories in like water. I used them to raise myself and make a definition of success that few around me shared and I wish that I had known more. But only a little more.

I wish I had known that sometimes people choose to be your enemy for no reason other than they need an obstacle to overcome. I wish I had known that you are not going to win over those people and that it's ok to tell them to F* off especially when they try to ruin your life for God knows what reason. I wish I had known that being very good at guessing the future won't save you from the unknown. I wish I had known that rebuilding is a skill that everyone expects you to have but no one teaches. I wish I knew anyone who could speak on the paradox of celebrating successes that you've found even as you grieve the Dream you didn't achieve. There are not enough hands to hold all of the complexities of human experience.

There's the way a garden looks, say, in a picture and then there's the way it feels. We use more senses than we think we do at a given time. The goofy birds that will never let you photograph them playing. The swaying breeze. The way the cool air pools around your feet in certain areas or how the stepping stones stay warm after dark. The herbaceous, clean smell. The background hum of bees. Damp dirt. None of it photographs well. But it all weaves together into a certain ethos.

Every garden I've ever planted has been at least 50% chaos, but it gets there gradually. From sleeping seed pod to high summer, my garden and I take steps toward unrestrained chaos one or two at a time until it is a full gallop. I'd be lying if I said anything other than I love it. It makes me feel like I'm part magician, part mad scientist. Manicured, well behaved gardens are for someone else.

I have always felt time passing like sand in the wind. Fast and abrasive. But there's something different about this decade. In your twenties you feel the weight of every decision, whether or not to go to college, which degree, which first job for your "career", where to live and put down roots, if/who you marry in the great wave of everyone pairing up, whether you want to start a family young, wait, or skip that. And everything feels like a race to keep up with your peers. It's hard to hold onto what you want and what's important to you. 

This new decade is heavy in a different way. Time still passes like sand in the wind, but now there is a growing pile of time that has accumulated at my feet. Learning to live with the consequences of the choices that my younger self made is a different feeling. The career that didn't work out. The job that called at the wrong time and the one I found on accident. The man I married and the life we've built to this point. The children we chose not to have. The house we bought. The flight school I never went to. The family relationships that I fought to maintain with different levels of success. The friends that I let go their own way and chose not to follow. The friends who became family. The master's degree that I always think about pursuing but keep putting off. The time and energy that I committed capoeira. The years I spent not doing art. The winter I spent reading nothing but gardening books and poetry. 

I'm taking all of this into the next decade. Sometimes I am proud and confident of the direction I'm headed and the pieces I have to build with. Other times, I wonder if I didn't leave something out. And maybe what I left out was an Important Something that will keep me from the life that I want. This is especially true when I realize how disappointed my younger self would be that "all I'm doing" is customer service for a coffee company. That I'm married and live in a suburb of Portland. That I'm not a prolific artist or doing anything with airplanes. If I had to meet my 18 year old self, I'd probably lie to her so that she wouldn't get too depressed to finish high school. So that she would still go to Multnomah and try her best for a life that looks like happiness. And I know that I would have to lie to her about the job, the husband and the house because none of those things were important to her. The only truthful thing that I would be able to say is that "it works out" which is another way of saying "nothing is wasted". 

Today, I feel the scrape of sand in the wind and I hope that the version of me 10 years in the future will treat this present version of me just as kindly. I hope I still believe and have evidence for "nothing being wasted". I'm not at all sure. But I hope I still like myself and my choices enough to say, "it works out". And I hope and I hope.

"How We Show Up" Pt 2

I finished Mia Birdsong's book, but it hasn't finished with me. I feel the lack of pages and words like a leaving of the nest. The next phase of learning will be uncomfortable because I have read all that was written. I will have to leave my bedroom and live the words into being. I will have to do it wrong before I really get it right. I know that I can always start again at the beginning, but if I don't engage with the text in the 3 dimensional world, then this book might as well be fiction. 

And I don't want it to be fiction. I want it to be my life. I want to be better at defining friendships and building community. I want to have better words for those who mean so much to me. Take my step mom for example. Her and my dad split in 2009. We weren't close before the divorce but we came to an understanding through the divorce and in the years after. I call her my stepmom still because she's still here and still family. But I don't call or text on mother's day. We've never been close like that. She's never been a mother figure. 

But we are bound together by our survival of those years and by the fact that when asked, we both chose each other in a time of uncertainty. And that choosing shaped us powerfully. We are closer now than we were in the 8 years of living together. And there is so much love. Where are the words to describe these kinds of complicated bonds. She's not really my stepmom but she's more than a friend. She's definitely family and a special kind of family at that. Many of my family member have never had to "choose" me and maybe they wouldn't choose me in a line up of possible family members. We're more stuck together than chosen. 

And that choosing is powerful but must be done by both sides. I can choose whomever I want but it doesn't mean anything if they don't choose me back. One of the most powerful things I've experience by trial and error is how "taking a break" from a family member can give you both space to re-evaluate the circumstances under which you would choose each other. My dad and I did that. I think it was nearly 2 years of mostly not speaking, pretty terrible communication. But the rule was "don't call unless you want to talk". 

That means don't call just because it's a holiday or it's been awhile. Don't call because you are lonely or bored (or drunk). Don't call because someone asked you how I was and you didn't want to admit that you didn't know. Don't call because you missed my call. Don't call because you feel guilty or obligated. And if that means a whole year goes by, don't call for a whole year. The silence was strange and sometimes unnerving. But it was also useful. I think we do our sense of guilt and obligation a disservice by always trying to bury them as quickly as possible. Sometimes doing nothing and proving to your guilty that no huge disaster happens is the best salve for chronic guilt. And the part that came after was worth the uncomfortable silence even though there was no guarantee that the silence would end. 

Being sure that you do want to talk and choosing someone and them choosing you back is powerful. Connecting because you want to. Sorting out your guilt and anxiety from your love. Loosening your hold on your relationships from "we're family we have to be there for each other all the time" to "I'll let you know when I'm ready" even though there's no promise that both of you will be ready at the same time. 

And I guess that's the scary part. I've been smothering some of my family members in my attempts to choose them and have them choose me back. But they aren't ready. And I'm afraid that by the time that they are ready, I will have changed too much internally and built a life that I don't know how to incorporate them into. But that's their choice. And they shouldn't take the future or the people around them for granted. I can't make them choose me back. All I can do is clearly communicate my love and my boundaries. 

So that's it. Just some musing on the power of choosing and being chosen. Go read Mia Birdsong's book and tell me what you got out of it.

Big and Small and Deep.

For a long time now I have felt this push and pull between what I have described as a "small life" and a "big life". Looking back over the years, the definitions have changed and fluxed with whatever pressures and choices I have faced. Sometimes a "big life" meant choosing a life devoted to ministry which would affect many people but which would ultimately be more uncomfortable. Sometimes it meant being involved in aviation. Ultimately, it really meant "whatever felt bigger than me" with all of the fear and intimidation that could carry with it. A small life has typically meant "what was expected". For many years that was defined by a marriage, a house, kids, and comfort. It meant settling down, shrinking until I was no longer coloring outside of the lines that had been provided for me. There has never been a time where I desired that kind of smallness no matter how comfortable. Not when I was 8, 18 or 28. 

These definitions have never been meant to make a comment on what other people choose, just a way for me to try to find my own path. And I'm starting to wonder if it isn't time to change the definitions again. Maybe "big" and "small" are missing the point. Maybe what I want is something more...connected, rooted. And maybe what I really want is better described as a "deep life". Not deep as defined by how much I overthink things (got that covered from day 1). But deep as a description for the roots in a the community that I hope to build soon. Deep as in inextricably tied up in the folks around me. Deep as in deeply interconnected. 

I didn't grow up that way. My dad was weird and my stepdad was abusive. Not very many people were allowed into our family circle because it upset a delicate balance and an agreed upon silence. Through it all, I think I've been craving the kind of connection that you can't have while protecting secrets about those you live with. The kind of community where you can say "help" and know that folks won't judge you or be surprised. The kind of community where people will ask for what they need also. Where our successes are caught up together and our problems are shared.

"How We Show Up" Part 1

Two chapters into "How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community" by Mia Birdsong, I already want to recommend this book to everyone I know. I want to say "this! This! THIS! This is what I have been growing inside me as I read and study and think about what I want in my life." Finally, there is somebody who has the words that I need. And I am ready for them. How beautiful is that? How strange is it to find the needle you have been searching for in a world of hay stacks?

Birdsong is talking about the American Dream and talking about whiteness and how unsatisfying both are. And by "whiteness" I don't mean light skinned people, I mean the culture that we have made by erasing our roots and separating people into how much power they have by the color of their skin. I mean the individualism, the consumerism, the worship of independence and wealth, and all of the other values that make up white America. 

Ever since I bought a house I have felt like I joined a club and I can feel the pull of the American Dream. The only problem is that I have never believed in the American Dream. Not when I was little and not when I became an adult. I couldn't say why it never appealed to me, but you can probably blame a certain body of literature for why I was always wary of the markers of status that indicate success for those who are purchasing the American Dream. 

I want a dream of fulfillment that doesn't have a price tag. I want a dream of success that is accessible to people of every life circumstance and income. I want the richness that comes with being known and loved. And I have always known that whatever else the American Dream was or wasn't...it was not a way to be known and loved. Plus, I am naturally averse to competition of nearly every kind. That being said, Mia Birdsong's criticisms of the American Dream resonate deeply with me. I want there to be another way, another metric of success, a deeper way of connecting.

Halfway through the book, I am beginning to feel like I have part of a map for that kind of connection. I am encouraged because it includes a definition of family that doesn't exclude my stepmom who hasn't been my stepmom for 10+ years but who is family anyway. Without name or title for our relationship. And if I choose to have a family, I'd want them to think of her as family. And as I struggle to figure out how much vulnerability to give to my family of origin and the family I married into, I find guidance in Birdsong's words. 

I'm finding that maybe my family doesn't get to have as much of my trust and vulnerability as I have shared for no other reason than because they don't reciprocate that trust and vulnerability. I show up as my whole, honest self and they show up polished and wrapped in their defenses. It's exhausting to maintain vulnerability that isn't reciprocated. It's also not safe. But part of the American Dream is a loyalty to family that transcends everything including safety, health, and accountability. And that is taking a lot of energy from being able to build relationships with people who will reciprocate my honesty and trust. I'm looking for people who will tell me when they need something so that I know it's safe to ask for what I need.

"The practice of explicit communication that she found there countered the fantastical ideas we learn about relationships. 'I think we have to deal with the idea that we learn from movies and from norms that say, "Oh, relationships are so organic. You don't need to say anything. Things so naturally happen." Well no, things naturally fall apart.'" And if that isn't what I've been fighting against all of my life, I don't what it is. There are plenty of people who bail at the first sign of needing communication and continuous effort. And maybe I've been one of those people if the type of effort and the season of my life didn't line up with what someone was asking for. Maybe if we had been able to talk about it explicitly, we could have made something work.

As I get older, I leave more doors open but I also leave through more doors. I'm both more confident in leaving when a relationship doesn't feel mutual and I'm trying to be more gracious about the fact that sometimes people can't give me what I need and it's not necessarily personal. They might come back in later years with exactly what you need. The world is both huge and very small. People who you used to know find their way back in unexpected ways. But being clear about what you need and want from your community helps avoid slammed doors, cut ties and loneliness.

Fresh grief comes in. 

A friend tells me more about another corner of the world and its suffering.

Suddenly strangers turn into the friend of a friend and the world is made small. So small. 

And the hurt is made large. So large. 

And I stop. I cry. I cry so often now. 

No one tells you how much being an adult is shedding tears for things you are powerless to change.

And I think to myself, "do I have room for this too?"

Surprisingly, the answer is "yes". Always yes. 

I will let this grief in. 

Grief stacked upon grief. 

A world hurting in a thousand ways becomes

A thousand worlds hurting in their own thousand ways. 

And I can do so little. 

They tell you to do "the work" but

They don't tell you how much "the work" is just holding the door of your heart open

Long after it is full to breaking. Broken and still filling.

Life happens stacked on top of death. Death on top of life. 

You can reduce your pain if you look away

Close your eyes, close your heart.

But your heart will shrink 

And you will know deep inside that the suffering is still there. Still there. 

And you, you have turned away

And added to it.

Today is one of those non day, days. I don't know how to explain it. One of those days where you watch yourself from outside of your body and wonder what it all means, if you make it through this season of your life, and who still sticks around for the next 10 years. You feel disconnected, disembodied. Unable to grapple with life's problems on the day to day level. Maybe this is just what happens when your spirit is too tired, too full up on the world's suffering. 

It feels like I'm stuck up in a mental tree, unable to come down and live because I have so many questions and the questions are how I got into the tree in the first place but there are no answers so I don't know if there is a way down. And I know that if there was someone in this room with me that they would ask some kind of question that should have an answer like "how have I dealt with this in the past?" or something. But the truth is, I just wait for this to pass. And I know that it will because it always does but that doesn't make the urgency any less or the abrasiveness of the questions any softer. Because I would love to have the answers.

Sometimes art is a way out of the tree. Sometimes I make things and sometimes I enjoy other people's made things. Sometimes art is a way into the tree. Today it was the way in. 

I'm listening to a book by V.E. Schwab. And it is perfect. It is lyrical and abstract and wrought with human emotion (mostly longing and different shades of suffering). It is exploring the importance of human connection. It is asking over and over again "does life matter if you cannot make a mark?" and again "does. life. matter." And everything in me wants to shout "yes" because I am cut from the same cloth as the author and we are dreamers and jaded optimists who have met our devils and live mostly to spite them. And hope is a grudge that I hold against my personal demons like a knife in a dark alley. It is small and just as likely to hurt me as an attacker if I don't use it correctly and woefully insufficient for so many types of conflicts, but it is there and sharp and better than nothing. And it is extremely useful in threatening away minor attackers like depression and self doubt. And you can bet that I clutch my hope knife with a stubbornness that has been known to unnerve those with larger, more efficient weapons because I am clearly out of my mind if I think I am winning any fights and, being out of my mind, self preservation might not be my goal which makes me unpredictable and unpredictable is dangerous. 

Anyways. 

The author is brilliant and my mind is spinning out in all of the directions of my life while carrying these themes of human connection and love and loss and purpose and hope. And it has lead me up into this mental tree where I sit examining my own life. Grieving the human connections that I've lost. And thinking about how this week so many people were killed by police while we awaited the Chauvin trial and when will we ever realize that we need each other? When will we all really know in our bones that we can't do this life alone and we have got to come together? And how do I move humanity closer to some sort of peace or hope or purpose? How could I possibly help when my own human connections are so complicated so full of lost loves and miscommunication that we just can't seem to clear up? How is possible to want so much better without being able to do any better?

And I sit in this tree looking down at my life. The family I've come from but don't know how to relate to anymore. The family I'm trying to build. This house and this garden with so many hopes that I'm terrified to admit more days than not because while hope is my knife in the dark alley, it works best if no one knows you have it until you need it. And I know I'm not really making sense. This is how it feels to be up in the tree. To be able to see the whole of everything but not be able to process or describe it. To feel the weight of how everything is connected and one decision made can be the fulcrum that moves you along a path you didn't know was an option, but knowing never makes it so you are be able to choose better. 

Most days, I would never want to know the future. And there are a thousand reasons for that. But today, today I don't remember any of those reasons and I would love to know who in 10 years is still an important part of my life, whether I am able to build the community in this neighborhood that I want to, if I am happy and loved. I walk through life with a certain amount of faith that makes it easier to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But on days like today, that faith deserts me and all I have is this deep longing to make something, to feel connected, to see how everything fits together. And it hurts because I am asking for things that I cannot have. I am too small to fit the whole world inside of me, much less to orient humanity towards our commonality. But I want to so badly. 

 I don't remember how to get down from this tree.

"Take Care of Your Self" by Sundus Abdul Hadi

Discovering AK press books has been a huge blessing and a huge rabbit hole for both time and money. So many radical topics that I've wanted to ask questions about and examine but that no one wants to talk about with someone like me who is only radical compared to my extremely conservative upbringing. Anyways, let the reading begin. I've started a few books from AK but I'm dropping everything and digging into "Take Care of Your Self" for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because it's the shortest page count in my stack. 

Even the title causes a swirl of emotions. Responses to the words "take care of yourself" range from "Yes, tell me how!" to "take care of yourself because no one else is going to. Because if you can't name what you need, it will be your fault that you're hurt. Because if you ask for what you nee, they will tell you that you're asking too much." 

 And I guess I'm not alone in interacting with the title this way. The author seems to have similar experiences and yet still believe that care is the answer to the oppression we see in the world. Liberation is good too. But what do you do before and after liberation? You take care of yourself. You take care of your community. You let your community care for you. But creating spaces in which care can happen is actually much more difficult than it is to to talk about.  

This book was a beautiful look at why care is needed and how care is curated. Like art. Through art. How art takes care of us and how it helps us to have conversations that we may not feel ready for but desperately need to have. How art can make space in this world for those who feel like there is no space for them. How much more deeply we can care for ourselves and our community once we extend care far beyond bubble baths, vacations, and things you can buy. How care is truly and literally something you make with your hands and your heart.

At some point in our lives, our parents will fail us. I don't think my parents failed in especially huge or or unique ways, but I also couldn't call my childhood a success except that I am still here and still loving. Into the gaps left by our communities and families, some of us learn to stuff art to help with raising us. There are albums and poems and stories that fostered me when it looked like I had been left to fend for myself. These are now roots as deep and firm as anything else that raised me. In some ways, they are more real because they shaped my inner life and even as I drop off talking to my family to a few times a month, I carry that inner life at all times about to spill over and no living person can take credit for it. 

For example, Bradbury didn't send me his stories to keep my mind safe. He wrote them for his own curiosity. But Bradbury's work found me and saved a part of me that would have surely been lost if not for that meeting. U2 and Thrice didn't compose music for me. Joss Whedon didn't direct for me (and I'm not even sure I'd like him in real life). Emily Dickinson and Zora Neale Hurston wrote in their own time and places and died before my parents were born. None of these artists will ever know my name or the demons that they saved me from, but they saved me none the less. They raised me in the moments when I was left to raise myself. 

And I do mean "raise" in a literal if abstract sense. There are artists who you enjoy and there are works that raise you up. They did more than just educate me. They validated my experiences and my creativity. Bradbury was a shield against the assault of "reality" which was really just a small piece of a whole. Without him, I surely would have suffocated some vital piece of myself. The Beatles were much the same. And ever since then, I have been seeking out shields and props to keep my inner life from getting beaten down and trodden upon. This world is only too ready to do that. 

I've added to their number over the years. Paulo Coelho, Anne Lamott, Nayirrah Waheed, Joy Harjo, Bell Hooks, Asimov, Neil Gaiman, capoeira, Jose Bonino, Oscar Romero, Gregory Porter, Janelle Monae, Laura Mvula and so many others. I don't know who I would be without them. And that's humbling to think about.

Family Responsibility

It starts so young. And I can't remember if this is a memory I actually have or a memory of you that I have fashioned from watching dozens of first born children being taught to hold their newborn sibling while their parents say, "are you going to be a good big sister? are you going to take care of the baby?" You'll probably do it to when your second child is born. And in that small way, you'll participate in the long history of eldest siblings receiving their younger siblings as small, helpless bundles and being ushered to protect, care for, and to take responsibility for them. 

If I have children, I will charge the younger ones to take care of the older ones just as much as the older are tasked with caring for the younger. It may not make the burden equal and may not avoid the mistakes I made, but at least then the younger ones won't be surprised that the eldest feels responsible. 

But like I said, I don't know if this is what our parents did. I do remember more clearly what came after. See, you don't remember our parents being married. You were 3 when they split. I was 7. And I remember the prelude to the divorce -- the shouting, the way you cried and it took a long time for the adults to look your way because they needed to finish shouting whatever they were shouting or wait for you to get louder before they'd comfort you. But I was there and comforting you was the only thing I could distract myself with. 

I was 5 years old the first time I found dad crying. I don't know why he was crying exactly. All I know is that I found him in the garden racked with deep sobs. And when I asked him what was wrong, he told me about his father and the abuse and I comforted him. This is the moment that I know that I was never going to have a childhood like normal children, whatever normal is. I was 5 years old and here is my dad telling me about his abuse, how it still hurts him inside and making me swear that I will always ask for help if someone treats me or you that way. 

 It's only in adulthood that I wonder if he had these conversations with his other daughters or only his firstborn. And maybe this is why I am the protector and the fighter that I am today. This early knowledge of the world being askew. This first look at a trauma that would define so much of our lives. This deep and desperate longing from my dad to be loved but being so afraid that all love is like his father's love. This task of protecting myself and you from people like the grandfather we would never meet. The way he would always after this strive to not be his father even though that would often mean that he was no kind of father at all. 

And then the divorce. I laugh now at how stupendously understated the divorce was. But I can picture where I was standing near the front door of the house near Woodland Park with mom who I think surprised herself by picking this moment to have a conversation that she must have been dreading enough to need to sneak up on. She told me that her and dad would no longer live together, that it wasn't my fault, and that I would need to choose who to live with. And I know that I almost said dad but that I changed my mind at the last second. But more importantly, I would go back to this moment again and again in the years to come and wonder what would have happened if I had made a different choice, what life would have looked like. After years of trying, I cannot imagine living full time with dad. He has never been that consistent, sleeping through the time to pick us up from school, forgetting which day of the week it was, skipping Christmas, and so on. But maybe you would have thrived more at his house than at mom's. No one asked you since you were a toddler. I wore the weight of that decision around my neck every time our stepdad lashed out at you.

So here we are. Me not even 10 years old yet and you just learning to talk and already I am making decisions for the both of us. Already I am dad's caretaker and confidant. Before he started dating again, it was me who comforted him and made sure the gaping vacuum of needing to be loved was filled. This would go badly for us later when I would grow up enough to shy away from such unhealthy boundaries, from giving my approval and unconditional acceptance to someone who would give me so little in return. The guilt from how this hurt me would eat him up long after I had done the work to forgive him and rebuild myself. But that is still 10 or more years in the future. It hasn't happened yet.

As we grew up we would only add to my responsibilities as the oldest. For the most part, I would take these on eagerly because I was so desperate for both encouragement from our parents and for some amount of agency over the chaos that surrounded us. So I became a planner and a forecaster who knew not only both of our schedules but also how to predict and navigate the many volatile moods of both our dad and stepdad. I became versed in how many ways all 4 of our parents could break the English language into dialects so that each was incapable of communicating without me to translate. I learned what information was vital to pass along and what I should leave out. 

And with every twist and turn of our upbringing, I took on whatever responsibility I was asked implicitly or explicitly to take on. I remember feeling at times like I didn’t have a choice and at other times that while I did have choices, they were all garbage. There was no good or perfect option. So I tried to hurt as few people as possible and forge something like stability but I was faking it. Always. And to make it easier I told myself that what I wanted and what I needed didn’t matter. And in a way, they didn’t. Or they couldn’t. If I had let my needs and wants matter, I would have fallen apart. I used to fantasize about getting a terminal illness so that I could have a reason to rest and give up on trying so hard. But I remained healthy so I kept trying long after it was healthy or good.

When our stepdad started picking on you, I found my voice. You might not remember, but I was pretty quiet growing up. I would have liked to remain that way. But our stepdad made silence intolerable. I couldn’t stand his arbitrary rules or watching him tear into you. And then dad started changing before he was diagnosed with diabetes and the mood swings that would come with high blood sugar and alcohol and I needed more words and more bravery for that too. So I learned to fight, to protect, to communicate. Over and over again I learned the price of not speaking up and I began to resent paying it. It's ironic now that our family wishes I was quieter because they made sure that there was never any hope of that.

Do you remember the day our stepmom found out about dad's affair? How I packed the bags so we could escape? And how dad came to me afterwards seeking permission to divorce her? How he stayed and pretended to work things out? And all that time I wondered if I had chosen badly. If I should have let him go. I was 11 or 12 when he asked that. The next 6 years were a brutal unraveling of their marriage. I realize now that dad might not have talked with you about his marriage in the same way. And he probably didn't ask permission to leave our stepmom. Just like he didn't ask you what you thought when he moved away. And I know you wish he had asked at least about that, but I never wanted the responsibility of being his conscience or confidant. Still he asks about you and our younger sister to this day and I know his implicit question is for my approval and validation that he has done something right, anything at all. But my opinion has never mattered or made things better. It's all of the responsibility without any of the power you think might come with it. 

I could go on. All of these memories are tangled up like thick spiderwebs and once I start wandering through them, it's hard to stop and extricate myself. I have years of feeling responsible but powerless stored up in these bones. I was pantomiming adulthood and parenting by imagining what I wished I had. And I didn't want any of that burden. It was so lonely. But I had to try to make things better. Because if I gave up on that, I wasn't sure that life was worth living. And so, in some way, taking care of you and our other sister kept me alive. And I've always been grateful for that. Not that you can't be hurt by my failings. You have been and I accept that. I did the best I could and it's ok that it wasn't enough for you. It's ok that you're angry. But don't ask me to apologize for trying.

Turning 30 has had me more than a little introspective. I've started several journal entries, notes and blogs as I think about my 20s, as I celebrate them closing out. I enjoyed my 20s more than my teenage years. But truthfully, that's not saying very much. Even though I have tried to embrace my growing up, to confront the wounds it left me, and to celebrate the peculiar strength it imbued me with, I breathe a sigh of relief with every year I put between myself and those dark years. I would feel guilty for that if it wasn't such a stark, unchangeable truth. I would apologize if it felt like something I had agency over. But I feel that relief like a breath inhaled in the quiet of a yet undisturbed morning. 

I went through my 20s hoping for answers, for permission, and for validation. I found only the crumbs of those things and I had to learn to make those crumbs enough or go without. 

Answers. I thought I would be taught by some outside force what I was meant to do with this life, what I was good at, and what I wanted. This last decade has been a slow peeling back of layers as I discover that no one, not even God is going to answer those questions. That I have to answer those questions as honestly as I can. That I have to mine the answers from deep inside of myself. I may receive help or encouragement from any number of sources, but I will never receive a meaningful answer from an outside source. 

Permission. I wanted to be interesting. I wanted to make things. I wanted to matter. I wanted to have a career or hobbies that I was deeply passionate about and that made my soul hum with purpose. And I was waiting for permission. It wasn't until I was first working in a job that could have been my dream job had the people not been so miserable and then fired from that job  (and relieved to be fired)...only then did it occur to me that permission wasn't something I was ever going to get. In fact, the whole idea of permission was a little bit of a farce. There are just people who do things and people who don't. There are people who follow their gut, plans, and/or heart and people who wait for someone to tell them what to do. And what happens when what you're told is "no"? What if, over and over again, no one gives you permission to be yourself?

Validation. Again, I wanted to be interesting, to make things, and to contribute in a meaningful way. But 2 out of 3 of those things are highly subjective. And I was waiting for an outside source to accept my contribution. I wasted a decade on judges who don't exist. I wasted a decade waiting for "someone" (anyone) to recognize my skills and contributions as unique and meaningful. And that waiting made the rejection in my career heavier than it would have been if I had chosen more carefully who got to have input on my worth. 

I mourn the way I wasted so much of this decade appealing to people and things that were not qualified to give answers, permission, or validation. But I celebrate with hope the idea of having learned better. And I know that many people in my life will look at who I was in my early 20s and miss her. My insecurity, my eagerness to mold myself into whoever and whatever someone needs me to be, my bone deep need to be useful. And that knowledge gives a small sense of dread to the next decade because I know that I have left those things behind. I do not need everyone to like me anymore. I don't need to be understood. And I'm not so desperate for validation. I've learned how to make do with the questions and answers that I have. And I know myself so much better than I ever used to, my limits, my unkindness, my generosity, and my selfishness. I take comfort from knowing that while I may be less likeable to the passing stranger (or even to family members), I am more at home in my skin than I have ever been. And when people don't understand me, it's their job to ask questions instead of always and only my job to make myself understood.

Austin Channing Brown

I wanted to write something today. I've got words rolling around trying to come together. But then I opened my email and read the newsletter from an author I respect immensely, Austin Channing-Brown. And her words settled my rolling words. I want to include them here, because they talk about me (and a lot of folks that I know). They speak to something I have struggled with for a long, long time. 

"As someone who pursues racial justice as a speaker and writer, I am regularly faced with questions- immediate, emotional questions. Sometimes they are questions folks have been sitting on for awhile- especially when the question is situational. But for the most part, I hear the questions before there is a filter, before they’ve been completely thought through. So if you have heard me live or virtually, you know I do not give short answers to questions. And I dont want to. I give loooong answers because I want to offer folks not just a quick response, but a framework, examples, context, metaphors…. anything I can do to deepen our learning together. But in doing this, I sometimes run the risk of accepting the premise of a question that should be challenged.

For example, before the pandemic I gave a lot of lectures at Christian colleges. And almost without fail, a student would ask, “Can you make the connection for me between the Gospel + race + justice.” Because this is an extraordinarily common question from white evangelicalism, I often responded with examples or a list of authors who have been addressing this topic forever. I mean, the list is long, folks. But there was one day, when a student asked with all the earnestness he could muster (and I am a sucker for students who lean all the way in while Im speaking or who laugh at my jokes), so I was ready to give him a 10 minute master class. And just as I started to move backward to the white board behind me (I mean I was about to lay it out, yall), I paused. I realized there was something about the premise that needed to be challenged. This is what I said instead:

“I get this question a lot, and I want you to know there are many wonderful books written on this topic. You should check out Brenda Salter McNeil, Lisa Sharon Harper, Drew Hart, Jemar Tisby. If you want to go further back you should read James Cone or Howard Thurman. And if you want to talk about the relationship between white evangelicalism and (in)justice there’s another set of books devoted entirely to this topic. But what I want to tell you is that I only get asked this question at predominately white, Christian institutions. The Black church doesn’t ask this question, because by the time we get to the second book of the Bible there is a whole story dedicated to God freeing the enslaved. And this is important. I want you to understand that while you may be “wrestling” with the connections, there are people of color in this room and far beyond who have never known any other kind of Gospel except one that easily and obviously encompasses social justice.”

I needed to challenge the premise that the connections between the Gospel + race + justice are difficult to find, or require “wrestling” at all.

I share all of this because I’ve come to fully realize that there is another question I receive without fail from nice white people in corporations, nonprofits, schools and churches that I need to start addressing differently.

Here is the question: How can I overcome my fear of speaking up?

Of course the question is not always framed this exact way. [See also: How can I start using my voice as an ally? What do I do in xyz situation? In what ways can I be an ally to my coworkers of color?] But regardless of how the specific words change, the premise of the question typically remains the same, which is: I am scared to speak up, and I need to know how to overcome my fear.

I am no longer accepting the premise of the question.

Dear Nice White People, its time for you to honestly answer the question, “What are you afraid of?” because there is a reason you are scared to speak up and its not some vague notion of inability.

Let me get you started.

You are afraid to speak up because you know there will be repercussions for doing so. How do you know this? Because you have been watching it happen. You are not afraid of a ghost in the closet or a monster under your bed. You are not a child afraid of some intangible, imaginary outcome. You are afraid of being on the receiving end of the oppression you have witnessed.

You are afraid they will talk about you, the way they currently talk about your Black, female co-worker.

You are afraid that you will no longer be invited to the secret white people meetings where decisions are being made.

You are afraid that you will fall out of the good graces of those with power.

You are afraid that you will be labeled “the problem,” the person who is “not a team player,” the one who is going to ruin a good time.

You are afraid of not being invited, of not being favored, of not being liked because there are benefits for being liked.

You are afraid of challenging the system, the supervisor, the policy, the conversation because you have participated in the destruction of others and now you are afraid that you, too, will be destroyed.

If you are afraid, then you know there is danger in speaking out. And if you know its dangerous, you have either been complicit or you have been a willing participant in allowing others to face that danger alone.

You see, Nice White People, you have believed your lie longer than anyone else. You have believed that you could maintain the status quo, reap the benefits thereof, and if you are nice to people of color perhaps they wont notice. But we can see you. We can see you better than you can.

We can see how you always manage to fail up. We can see how you use niceness to make yourself feel better about the injustice(s) you’ve witnessed. We can see how you have taken positions, created positions, skipped over qualifications and done all manner of systems changes to get what you want when what you want is whiteness. We have seen how you manage to find your voice when you are asked to praise the system or enforce the system or justify the system.

And your weaponizing of niceness is so complete that you get mad at us, when we reject your niceness. You are mad when you apologize privately for something done publicly and your apology is rejected. You are mad when no one makes you feel better for confusing the only two people of color in your department for the fourth time. You are mad when no one wants to have coffee with you to discuss how your niceness sickens them. You are mad when you don’t get a pat on the back for your niceness. You are mad because we see your niceness for what it is- a desire to believe you are good, even as you uphold a system that oppresses.

And then I come speak at your MLK celebration, and suddenly your niceness takes the form of shyness, frailness, an inability to know how to speak up, a feigned ignorance that allows you to believe that the reason you wont speak up is because you don’t know how… when the core issue is that you don’t want to speak up because you know it will cost you.

If you really want to be in solidarity with Black people, it’s time to answer the question: What are you afraid of? Release all the bullshit answers about your own frailty, and get honest. Your hands are dirty. And they wont ever be clean unless you start being honest about the dirt you’ve been involved in or witness to.

Your niceness serves only you."

If that's not a word, I don't know what is. I feel pressure to be nice. And some days, I want to be nice. But, increasingly, I have found that being "nice" is not the same as being "kind" not to mention honest. The are often at odds. All sorts of dishonesty hides behind niceness. But there are penalties for not being nice. There are penalties for choosing to speak up about injustice, especially to white people who want nothing more than to focus on their small lives and ignore the suffering of black and brown siblings. They'll never say it that way. But that's what they'll communicate with their complaints about how you make "everything so political" or how "angry" you are. Or how obsessed with social justice you are. With the way they have zero curiosity about what their role in helping to address injustice could be. 

The consequences can be especially pronounced if those white people are your family or your supervisor. And it is lonely. I think the loneliest thing I have ever done is choose to not uphold empty "niceness". And that is wild to me. Nearly unfathomable. In all my upbringing, I was never prepared for what happened if you stopped being "nice". Which is another way of saying "quiet about the things that make people uncomfortable". Another way of saying, "don't rock the boat even if the boat next to you is sinking". Another way of saying, "love your neighbor and your enemy, but do not defend or protect them." Another way of saying, "it is normal for some people to suffer more than others." And what kind of love is that? It has taken me at least a decade to fully realize how profoundly unloving "niceness" can be. 

I keep thinking of Cain and Able. God is looking for Cain and Able but Cain is hiding because he killed his brother. When God finds Cain, he finds him defensive and evasive. Am I my brother's keeper? And I can't help but hear so many people close to me responding to the injustice around them in the same way. Am I the keeper of Black lives? Am I the keeper of immigrant health and wellness? Am I the keeper of my brother even if my brother is gay or not a believer? Am I my brother's keeper even if the problem and solution are political? A thousand times yes.  Your brother's blood cries out from the ground. 

When I was 18 or 19, I told my mom that if I ever had a tattoo one of my options would be to get the word "impossible" tattooed between my collar bone and shoulder to help me remember how many things I had already done that shouldn't have been possible. She told me that I was being arrogant. 

And that was probably the first time that I realized that she did not understand as well as either of us thought what a war my growing up was. At 19, it felt like a miracle that I was alive and still happy and hopeful. And I wanted to remember that feeling of having made it to adulthood. Despite the statistics of young girls from broken homes, despite the years casual sexism in my school, despite many long nights strategizing about how to organize and survive my upbringing, I became an adult and achieved a new level of autonomy. Nothing I have done since has ever been as hard as growing up.

Now, at 29, the list of miracles grows. I'm so proud of how I have handled my trauma. I'm proud that I still talk to everyone in my family and that I have become the kind of daughter who will reciprocate whatever kind of relationship my parents are willing to build within the boundaries of what is healthy for me. I'm proud that I know what those boundaries are. I've survived a failed career and the harassment that came with it, but I'm still me and still growing. 

It's still a miracle that I am alive, capable of happiness and hope. I've known anger and disappointment that I thought would consume me, but there has always been a voice inside that knows much more about endurance than I thought possible. Part of me wishes that I had gotten the tattoo. Part of me still might. There are still a lot of "impossible" things to do.

I Took God's Name Out of My Mouth

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure that I was using it correctly. I imagined Isaiah with the burning coal that cleansed his lips and I swallowed and, in swallowing, scorched my insides. 

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure He wanted to be called. I imagined Deborah and thousands of other women who walked with him in confidence. 

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure that there was anything I could say that would help. And I imagined Job's friends whose best advice was their silent patience before they said anything at all. 

My prayer day and night has been that God would be patient with my questions, my doubt, my pain. My promise has been that I would not leave unless he sent me away. I know plenty of people and churches who would have sent me away.  But I remembered Ruth and Hagar whom God kept. So I listened to my questions but did not look for answers yet. And I listened to the doubt, the pain, the fear. I did not send them away. I let my bones rattle and I did not ask them to stop.

All this time, he has not sent me away. Hope has been rising and I have been learning a new way of being with God. I am making peace with my questions even when they don't have answers. And I am learning to live in this body, in this time with a God who blesses me even when I do not speak his name. There's a new intimacy even as I haven't found all of the words yet.

You can repeat, "I am grateful. I am grateful." to yourself like a meditation but if what you're grateful for is hurting you, your "I" will get smaller and smaller. One day, you will be just a vague wisp of gratefulness with barely any person-hood left. 

When you finally stop smothering your heart in drummed up gratitude, the weight of being will likely knock you down and you will wonder if you are strong enough for all of this existence. When the dark corners inside yourself are no longer closed off with fear. When there is no path in your mind that you have not traveled. When all of your emotions sit at the table as equals. When wholeness matters as much as holiness. At that time. In that place. The real work begins. 

It's scary. And it will be made scarier by the fact that people will fear you, fear for you. They will worry about your soul and your sanity. They will miss the person who was just thankful to exist instead of this new person who comes screaming into existence asking for health and wholeness, for boundaries and abundance. They will miss their expectations. They will miss your tranquility. They will miss how they used to understand. You will miss that too. 

There will be grief so great that you cannot imagine edges to it. I don't actually know if there are edges to it yet. But I trust that there are, because I refuse to believe that the only permanent thing is this feeling of loss. 

But the truth is you cannot bring them with you. No matter how much you love them. No matter how much they love you. This is the hardest lesson I've had to learn about my friends and family. I'm someone who used to think that communication and education could solve everything. That ignorance was always overcome by information. That differences could always be reconciled if you explained yourself. But I have spent long enough trying in vain to prove that point. 

You can't make them curious. And you can't answer the questions they're not asking. 

You can't bring them with you. Not on your back and not on your strength of word or will. But if you're on a similar journey, you can walk together. 

I'm reaching a point where I don't have the energy to explain or defend my thoughts and beliefs to folks who aren't curious. Most days, I also don't have the confidence. I'm realizing that explaining and explaining isn't a sustainable mode of living. So I'm looking for folks already on the same journey and for folks invested enough to ask questions and share the burden of vulnerability. But I'm also grieving all of the relationships that didn't turn out how I thought they would. Not just the people I've lost, but also people that I expect to lose. Not just the people who left, but the people who stayed but didn't stay close.

I know that I am depressed when my therapist looks at me like my happiness is a question I’m supposed to answer. She keeps on looking. The silence grows thin and transparent. It’s hard to explain. But I say something that I immediately forget and she looks at me. She looks at me and I feel how blank my mind is, how badly I want her to say something that makes me happy. I only expect my therapist to make me happy when I’m depressed and out of ideas. It’s then that the emptiness settles in my gut like a hunger long overdue and long ignored. It's then that I realize how ridiculous it is to think other people can feed me when I can't feed myself.

I’ve accepted what I believe is Seasonal Affective Disorder in pieces over the last decade. I used to just think February was cursed. I guess SAD is an improvement to a supernatural indictment. Technically. But it doesn’t really feel any different. It does, however, explain why no one else thought that February was cursed despite copious amounts of annual evidence. It’s just my brain tripping at the start of the race.

At the point in the year when everyone I know is starting exercise plans, cleaning sprees, and other New Year’s resolutions, I’m just beginning to wonder why I feel different, less relaxed, tight...exhausted and empty. By the time February arrives, I’m wondering if I’m ever going to feel like myself again, whoever I was. If that person was even real. 

This year is probably the most vivid that the descent to February has ever been. While I'm certain that the pandemic doesn't help, I wonder if things are getting worse or if I just know myself in excruciatingly small detail now. I feel the days when I skip my vitamin D like a loss of gravity. My skin is so thin these days that I avoid people for fear that they'll hurt me on accident and I won't be able to explain or make it make sense. If I could sleep through the next 5 weeks, I would. I know that it's just a waiting game for the sun to come back and I'm taking a lot of comfort in the fact that I've been here many times before. Every time, March comes and a light switch that I didn't know I had is flipped on. But today, I wish I was different, someone else.

James 1:27

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

This verse has been on my mind for a few days now. I'm chewing on it as I do. So here are some thoughts.

Things that I would expect are "pure religion" from the various churches and spiritual trainings I've participated in: 

• Praying - a lot. Multiple hours a week (not while multi tasking). 
• Going to church - also a lot. Plus leading/serving/doing something extra while at church. 
• Reading your Bible. Frequently. Probably every day. At least weekly (not counting church). 
  
• Controlling your emotions. Not feeling too angry or depressed, focusing mostly on peace and joy. 
• Submission to authority. 
• Following the rules/keeping the commandments. 
  

Personal habits that you would think prevent me from participating in James's "pure religion":

• Swearing. 
  
• Finding 70% of church folks super annoying. 
• Not trusting anyone who speaks too often on the importance of trusting/following/obeying authority. 
• Being curious about anger. Also, having a lot of it and not knowing what to do with it. But knowing that, when I ignore my anger, depression usually takes over so "just letting it go" isn't a realistic option.
• Free Space. There's probably more. You probably know betting than me. 

And yet, pure and faultless religion is "looking after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

I don't know very many people who have spent any time with orphans and widows. I can name a few. Mostly foster care parents, but most of us will only meet a few orphans and widows in person in our lifetime, especially with the way society is organized. It can be hard to find those in need because they aren't in our immediate circles. But I think James calls us to look for them, not passively but actively.

I do think that it's probably fair to look at this verse and note that orphans and widows were the most vulnerable people in James's day. They had the least agency and power and were very dependent upon their community to make sure that they survived. Even though we still have orphans and widows and they are still vulnerable, I think it's important to look at our own culture and include all of our vulnerable. 

James says "do it". Take care of the helpless, the powerless, the ones most vulnerable to exploitation. Even though you may end up giving and giving (possibly for years or decades) and they will not "earn" it or pay you back. For me, when I read this with that in mind, I think of immigrants, the homeless, and foster children. I think about the systems of racism and the opportunities that we have to organize and vote in new policies that will take care of the most vulnerable. I think of the Black Lives Matter protests and the hate crimes committed against Asians and Asian Americans during Covid19. I think of the trans people who have been murdered in my own city. I think of the immigrant detention center that was exposed for performing hysterectomies on women who did not need and did not want those surgeries. I think of the families separated by our immigrant policies. I think of this last year and I weep looking for a sign that the religion that James describes is out there. 

The other piece of Jame's pure and faultless religion is to keep yourself from being polluted by the world. And I will admit, I avoided thinking about this phrase. It makes me uncomfortable. (See the list of personal habits above.)  Because I love this world and all that it has to offer. I love the music and art. I love food and drinks. I love dancing. In the club. With the sinners. And I love this world so much that I don't even know how to feel guilty about it. (But I can feel guilty about not feeling guilty. Don't worry.) Again, if I was going to write a list of things that count as being polluted by the world it might have a lot of the things on my "personal habits" list. Plus something about sex, the 10 commandments, and probably more things about sex since Christians love talking about rules about sex. 

However, proper Biblical interpretation is not performed by reaching for pop culture, Christian truisms, or your personal guilt. As one of my professors used to say, "First, use the text to interpret the text." So I submit to you that rather than treating this verse as the last verse in chapter 1 of James, we treat it like the the heading with chapters 2-5 as the list of things that explain how to avoid being polluted by the world (and how to practice a faultless religion). As much as I love the book of James and could go on and on, I'll close with a list of topics (pollutants and ways of practicing perfect religion) actually covered in the book of James for us to meditate on. 

• Favoritism of the rich over the poor. (Apparently, showing favoritism is as good as breaking the whole law.)
  
• Faith and deeds (with the example of the uselessness of only saying that you hope those without food and clothes would find them). 
• Teachers will be judged more strictly.
• We should not praise God and curse men who have been made in God's image.
• Selfish ambition vs peacemaking. 
• Greed/jealousy/judging your neighbor.
• Rich people will be judged for exploiting their workers.
• Patience in suffering.
• Prayer of Faith/the importance of confessing your sins to one another.

There are a lot of things on this list that don't receive very much attention in church. I've still never heard a sermon about the importance of not exploiting your employees despite many church goers being business owners and managers. And I've heard precious little about our responsibility to take care of the vulnerable, to actively try to counter-act the world's tendency to show favoritism to the rich. When I hear James taught, too often people focus on the perseverance of chapter 1, land briefly on how we need to have deeds to go with our faith (but deeds means following the 10 commandments or something similar not taking care of your neighbors who are poor), a stop on how "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" and then a wrap on the importance of prayer. But there is so much more here. There is so much that the church in America needs if it is to escape the judgments that James also teaches.