Hybrid Nation

“If you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

There were many moments of my growing up that were far from terrible, far from Traumatic and traumatic. *Many, many wonderful things happened for me. I also acknowledge that the good happened alongside and within what I will subsume into “Ttrauma”, and I think to honor the incredible moments, the safe mundane moments, it’s important to also recognize the Ttrauma, the hard moments, the mud.

(In her 2024 book, Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma, Dr. Mariel Buqué discusses the difference between Trauma and trauma and I definitely recommend understanding these experiences and definitions by a trained professional.)

It’s no spoiler that I did indeed get out of what was a very stark situation. I will tell you about the getaway car that drove me away from the house I grew up in, police car in the driveway, another time. But I got out. The reasons I was able to get out, stay out and eventually, overtime, build a life that I adore are many. Many, many many reasons that come to my mind even as I write this. Ironically enough, many of the methods I was able to use to escape a difficult life situation as a young person were available in my home life. The very difficult muddy life provided sustenance to fuel my propulsion out, it provided rhizomatic flowers for me to leap onto, over, under and through that I think are worth noting. 

Stable Housing

I was housing stable. In Paul Tough’s 2012 book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, he notes that when children have stable housing, they are able to perform better in school and in life. When they are not moved around from place to place, from precarious place to precarious place, from school to school, they just do better. When they have at least housing consistency, they can do better. I had an advantage that enabled me to become the person I was supposed to be because my housing was stable. We moved to Maine in the middle of my 3rd grade year and I remained in that tiny house until the day I left with my dog Giovanni under one arm and literally a garbage bag of [winter] clothing swung over my shoulder in April 1998 with the police officer in my kitchen, my prisonbreaker friends outside waiting in their car.

Quiet Housing

My house, for the most part, was very, very quiet. In Mud → Lotus, I listened to my quiet house for the hours of what I now define as extreme punishment that I survived. In Grounded, I noted that there wasn’t a lot of talking happening in my house. My house was quiet a lot of the time. The fighting that my parents did was not loud most of the time. My mom had a TV in the kitchen and my parents had a TV in their bedroom and like the parents of Ross McElwee we observe in his 1985 documentary, “Sherman’s March”, they almost always had the TV on. We had a TV in our living room, too, and that was on when my stepfather said it could be on…and when I turned it on defiantly after school to watch MTV. Having a quiet home meant I could study when I wanted. It meant I could study when I realized in 5th grade after my friends made the honor roll and I didn’t and honor roll students were given a donut celebration just for them, that I vowed to always make the honor roll not just for the donuts but more for the inclusion, and the next quarter when I made honor roll, the donut celebration was discontinued and then again my freshman year of high school biology, thank you forever, Mr. Ham, I was supposed to study. I began to shape, even if at that time inconsistently, that education mattered and it got you things, like donuts and approval. Having a quiet home meant I could study, and in the act of studying, learn to focus my energy and my time without distraction.

At my house, when the TV wasn’t on, music was playing. Thankfully. Really, really good music was played thanks to my stepfather, as well as some really, really bad music (I thought at the time) also thanks to my stepfather. On repeat throughout my childhood played Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, M and Janet Jackson, Mike and the Mechanics, Kenny G, Garth Brooks, Percy Sledge, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Quincy Jones, Whitney Houston, Credence Clearwater Revival…and thanks to the influence of my older siblings, I tapped into rap music and R&B when I could, and thanks to my public library’s cd collection, Cat Stevens and Janis Joplin. The list of musical influences is deliciously long.

Older Siblings I looked Up To

Specifically my sister, Kim. I looked up to Kim in so many ways growing up. And, I wanted to know the things she knew and was learning in school. I took particular interest in the books she was reading and the vocabulary words she was learning and I wanted to know those words, too. I became that kid who just read the dictionary to find new words. I had a specific notebook I used to write words and their definitions I found interesting, and would figure out ways to use them in  sentences. When I was reading a book, I would underline any words I didn’t know and write the definition in the margin, a practice I continue to this day. It’s astonishing how many words there are, and astonishing that I can have been around this long and still encounter words that I literally have never seen before. I love that about life. My sister being someone I trusted and who allowed me to look up to her and who engaged with me with love and time nurtured my abilities within writing, reading and to this day, we share a passion for art and a curiosity for learning that I know was sparked for me because Kim is my sister.

Public School that Offered Arts

My specific circumstances were that I went to a public school in Maine that offered art and music throughout my tenure there. In my art classes, I was exposed to techniques, to makers and creators from all over the world across human existence; people who were self-taught and successful, people who came from affluent households and became successful, people who didn’t care if they were successful or known because of their abilities, they just wanted to make. And I connected with making and creating. I connected with art. A public library, siblings’ exposure, music and art classes were all tendrils in my life that continued to weave together around me and shape me.

Though I was not allowed to participate in these activities myself, I had friends who were in the drama club and as they talked about their experiences I was exposed and enthralled; I had friends who played instruments, who wanted to play instruments, and who were in the school band across the years. Our high school had a jazz band and I would go with friends during lunch to listen to the jazz band jam out, during that time, jam out to a lot of Stone Temple Pilots and I was exposed, and offerings were made to me.

Public School that had a Nurse

I wish I remembered if Paul Tough talks about the importance of having a school nurse. But having a school nurse has been correlated to student success. The entire time I was in public school in Maine, we had a nurse, maybe not a dedicated nurse, but we had one who was on the school grounds enough that I knew she was there.

School nurses dispense medication, are first to understand an illness is happening, can provide a calming quiet space for children, a hug, a smile, someone who says I believe you. It has been so distressing to me to see the budget for school nurses be reduced, reducing the actual nurse workforce so nurses are literally running ragged from school to school, or worse yet, cut completely. We are putting our collective brood closer to precarious situations.

I didn’t need to access my school nurse personally, but knowing she was there benefitted me in a way that I couldn’t even have perceived at the time, but now, knowing what I know, it was a huge investment my school system made for us all.

*One of my besties introduced me to the Buddhist thinker, Thích Nhất Hạnh. She shares his wise words within conversation better than anyone I know. One phrase, that I think may be common to a lot of people, is his sentiment, no mud, no lotus. Without the pain, without the struggle, without the hardship, we do not have the joy, the achievement, the peace. When she and I talk, we often sum up the story we’re sharing, “no mud, no lotus.” I’ve used this phrase in my writing, in my thinking and I say it often to others. In fact, I was speaking at a small conference in 2026, emceeing a segment where many people were telling their stories of overcoming hardship. At the end of one story, before bringing on the next speaker, I said to the audience what a compelling story we had just heart, and out my mouth came, “Like I always say, ‘no mud, no lotus.’” And I paused, for myself because, from what I could tell, no one in the audience batted an eye at what I said, but I had to come clean. “Wow, that rolled off my tongue, like I always say? Am I literally stealing the words of the incredible Buddhist Monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh?! What in the world! Like I always say? No, like Thích Nhất Hạnh says, ‘no mud, no lotus.’ Please excuse me. But this is how it happens, right? You start off with the quote, like Thích Nhất Hạnh always says, ‘no mud no lotus’, and then eventually, it becomes just the quote with no attribution, ‘no mud, no lotus’, and then after awhile,it becomes, like I always say, ‘no mud, no lotus.’” And I got a few chuckles out of that very public internalized wrestling with myself.

“This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.” –Maya Angelou

Talking about death

I recently turned to my husband and asked, “When someone dies, can anyone write an obituary for that person?” He replied with a raised eyebrow of curiosity and slight amusement, and a measured tone assuming I would go on, “I’m not sure.” I continued, “I wonder if I should write one for my stepfather…” I wondered if I should write an obituary for my stepfather as an alternative to writing and giving a speech no one has asked me to give at his funeral whenever his funeral takes place.

And I was wondering about obituary versus speech as part of an evolving dialogue I’ve been having with myself about my stepfather’s death. He’s still alive. And like many of our deaths, I have no idea when he will die. And because he’s old, I like to assume he’ll die before me, but even that is unknown. And if this musing about death and worse than death for many, public speaking, has temporarily created  a moment to be grateful for being alive today, this glorious day I have never seen before, I will take that moment and hope you do, too. Today is a glorious day. Today is a gift.

Daydreaming

Many months ago, I began to daydream about speaking at my stepfather’s funeral. As a creative person, I can’t say that I necessarily daydream as much as I did when I was a kid. Daydreaming feels so specific to me, an often unintentional mind wander that for me is not connected to my creative process in a way I can chart. My creative thinking and seeing generates my writing and my art. I feel I am driving that process. Daydreaming is a repetitive and inconclusive process that generates materials that I can’t seem to make use of in a way I know originates back to the daydream. I know there is a purpose for it, I know daydreaming has many wonderful benefits. I’m pro adults daydreaming. But my daydreaming hasn’t been a tool I’ve used to create or to act. My daydreaming maybe has created the matter, the materials I’ve used in other processes that have led to solving a [broad term] problem I’m facing, or maybe I daydream more than I realize unconsciously and it is part of my creative process that I just don’t necessarily consciously recognize I’m accessing as I do with other processes and tools.

Maybe it’s all part of the same process and I’m being too rigid about categorization. Daydreaming and wandering, thinking, touching, smelling, tasting, mind’s eye, seeing the future, sleep dreaming, remembering and forgetting, learning, talking, body movement.

Whatever daydreaming might be, I don’t think I daydream that frequently or that long anymore. I don’t often catch myself daydreaming. Before this funeral speech business, I couldn’t tell you the last daydream I had, let alone recurring daydream. For a daydream to form, maybe that daydream came out of seemingly nowhere. A recurring daydream, for me at least, means intentionally getting into the daydream state and to set in motion the same daydream. And a disruption: are some or all visions of the future daydreams? If a daydream becomes intentional, is it just thought? If a daydream is recurring can it only be intentional? Around the maypole I go.

I have found myself a little surprised that I have been engaging in daydreaming at all, though not surprised about the topic in which my mind has wondered: a public offering from me to an audience about my stepfather when he is dead.

The Daydream

In my daydream, I can never see the audience at my stepfather’s funeral, sometimes I’m at a podium, sometimes it’s just my mind’s voice talking. I know certainly it’s his funeral, though there is no casket or urn or any indicator the space is in honor of him. No one talks to one another or to me…not really. Maybe sometimes there is a sense someone talks to me. I never complete the speech, sometimes the daydream begins with me already in midspeech. Sometimes the daydream is an image like standing up over and over again, glitchy, repetitive. I know I am hesitant if I should give the speech at all, and sometimes I am actually not sure if I will, and other times, I already have a sense that I will give the speech and the repetitive standing up motion is part of my initial nervousness to begin. Sometimes the glitchy repetitive standing up motion happens and the picture continues onward sequentially, or the standing glitchy repetition will occur and the daydream moves to another moment in the daydream entirely.

I know no one has asked me to give a speech. I’m not part of the formal programming and sometimes I give myself a way to approach the podium when, vaguely, there is an invitation from…someone (again, no exact words) to the audience if “anyone else” would like to say a few words. Sometimes, there is no invitation and I know people are surprised I’ve approached the podium. The setting is formal. It is not a celebration of life, it is a funeral and it is sad.

I never fully conclude the speech in my daydream before my mind is taken elsewhere by an interruption from reality–a phone call, my dogs barking, someone calling my name, or I just stop the daydream. How much control do you have over your daydreams? Do you still daydream? What do you daydream about if you still daydream? Do you like daydreaming?

That I never conclude the speech feels like a sleeping dream, and a stress dream at that. You never make it to class, you never catch the bus, you’re running and don’t seem to make any progress, away, toward. But this daydream is not stressful to me at all. It’s okay that I never finish the speech, I don’t think that’s the point. I’m not sure what the point is, but it’s not that.

At certain times throughout the daydream, I feel the response from the audience I cannot see. At different times, slight shock. No one is clutching pearls or standing up to stop me, but they are like, ooohhh, shiiit, and a little confused. At different times, it’s grumbling when the audience begins to understand this is not a typical funeral speech and it’s okay to break the decorum of silence to ask your neighbor, what’s going on? The drum of the audience discussing the unfolding situation. At other times, again, silence as the audience listens to me. What I haven’t felt from the audience, or, what I haven’t allowed the audience to convey to me when I craft this scenario is a feeling of, don’t! Stop! Get off the stage! Not completely. And every once in a while is a feeling that comes to me, from the audience, of recognition, not of anger of what I’m saying, but of recognition, because the audience knows what I am saying is true. They know what I’m saying, they’ve known what I’m saying, and they’re not mad, they’re not ashamed they know, they’re not embarrassed, they’re not in denial, they just know. Not that the audience collectively knows every example or instance or moment that I am discussing, how could they. It’s the only time the audience has a semblance of individuality. The audience has enough exposure where some of what I am saying has been their experience, and extrapolating from the experiences they know are true into other experiences they do not know about firsthand, isn’t hard for them.

Daydreams really can be so deliciously uncomplicated.

In my speech, I do talk about the qualities of my stepfather that I like. But, talking about the best qualities of people, invited or not, doesn’t get an audience to say, *oooohhh, shiiit.

I daydream about the feeling of, I’m about to make up my mind to go up and talk. I’m still deciding. I don’t have anything written down, but I’m prepared. I am still deciding if I’m going to do it. For me, it feels like the feeling right before you plunge full body into water you know is going to be kinda cold and your head is the first to feel the water. Do you have that sensation too when you plunge into water? Do you know what I mean by this?

When I intentionally stop the daydream it’s not because I think it’s morbid and I shouldn’t daydream stuff like funeral speeches for someone who is still alive. I don’t think talking about or thinking about death and funerals is inherently morbid. I don’t have guilt or shame about picturing my stepfather’s funeral, which means I am visioning him dead. I am not wishing to expedite his death in any way. That might be a little morbid and asking for some unkind karma. He’s going to die at some point, we all are. And, I don’t stop the daydream because I think, eh, giving a speech at his funeral? That will never happen so what’s the point of putting in this mental energy. Which can be said about many of our daydreams, right? What we daydream will never happen. But in fact, I actually really do want to fulfill this daydream.

Translation

I don’t want to continue to daydream about the funeral anymore because more often than not, especially since it’s been a recurring daydream, I often mire myself in reality logistics that kicks me out of the daydream state. I’m looking for a piece of paper, or a specific notebook not nearby. In my speech, parsing out what is mine to say about my stepfather and what is not mine to say. How important is it for my speech to discuss parts of who I know him to be that are not my personal lived experience? Do I only want to stick to what I know and experienced? How vital to my speech are the pieces from someone else’s story? Do those pieces create a mechanism that allows for my pieces to work and become a working vision of comprehension of what I want to say? And if my speech cannot exist in the richness of communication I sense when giving it in my daydream without the parts that are not mine, I must get permission to speak these words and would those specific individuals be okay with me saying part of their experience? I don’t know. I have to ask them for permission. And then I think, well, before all that, what exactly do I want to say? What is the speech?

I’m not entirely sure what I want to say. I’m pretty sure what I want to say. What I vision of the speech is nebulous short snaps of a picture, it’s sounds but not always words and I know what I see in my mind’s eye, my daydream pushing into a different place of processing, comprehension and production where I am now engaged and shaping it, writing, talking externally to another person about it. When put into another mode of communication such as writing, now out of daydreaming into my mind’s eye and now into the writing process, often it’s not the same picture. How could it be? Why would it be?

The shore of my mind’s eye to the shore of my written word is expansive and the translation process is not just the waterway between shores, it’s the air, it’s the shoreline, it’s distant hillsides and a horizon beyond…And that’s just translating my mind’s eye. Translating a specific moment in a daydream that is muffled words and sounds, much unprocessed, anachronistic, repetitive, real, fake, imagined, intoned, protective and sheltered, raw, Hollywood-styled impactful and desired, oof. And have I ever consciously done this kind of translation before?

Action?

So then do I write my speech now? Do I write it later? When is later? Am I supposed to spend my time on this? What do I want to accomplish? What will happen if I don’t write this speech? Most likely nothing, but for how long will the daydream be intentionally brought up by me if I don’t act? Is the speech I may or may not want to write simply a healthy me prompting some processing in real life? Get the emotions out, tell the emotions in a story of feelings and then don’t hit send? I don’t know.

And here I am, intentionally going back to a daydream that just, from what I can consciously tell, started one day, a few months ago. I didn’t set my mind to that scenario of me giving a speech at my stepfather’s funeral. I hadn’t been thinking about him dying at that time, but I have thought about it at times–he is old. Just one day…I found myself daydreaming. But, I certainly set the conditions where I could daydream this specific daydream once it came to me the first time. And I’ve been going back, in short periods revisiting and exploring. And then one day I was questioning and adding logistics and making notes of things to do to generate this speech into my lived reality.

I will write the speech. I will ask for permissions should the final speech require permission.

So maybe I am solving a problem or creating conclusivity for myself where I would like some to be. And at some point, I had to know, what the hell is daydreaming, and found this happy article, “Daydreaming and Concentration: What the Science Says,” in The MIT Press Reader by Professor Stefan Van der Stigchel.

* And not to be missed is Joshua Johnson’s piece about “ooohhh.” Distinct from my oooh shiiit set up, but very on point.

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. — Audre Lorde 

Sherry

As part of my compensation package at Food Recovery Network, the Board of Directors said FRN would pay for an executive coach. As the only executive level leader at the young organization, having someone that I could ideate, strategize and figure things out with, would be important. A member of my Advisory Board offered the name of his Executive Coach, Sherry. When Sherry and I spoke for the first time, I hired her on the spot. I knew. She knew. We would go on to work together for the next 7 and a half years.

And because of her ability to draw out of me and enhance my skills, my tenacity, to pull down my vision for Food Recovery Network and generate action, to support my instincts and challenge me when needed, I have been able to produce a very long list of incredible accomplishments across those 7 and a half years. I am forever grateful to Sherry and thankful to have her in my life. Sherry is no longer my executive coach, she has since retired. And forever Sherry is part of my family.

Ancestral Wisdom, Ancestral Strength

I mentioned in Stars → Inheritance Rodney King invoked his ancestors as a way to protect himself spiritually and physically when he was being beaten by LAPD cops because he thought he was going to die. If his ancestors could survive unknown horrors, so could he, in the moment of that beating. At some point, the beating would stop. He drew from their ancestral strength to endure, to survive. And, from that moment on, I knew that I, too, could tap into an ancestral strength, and that I probably had been, tapping into that wisdom for moments in my life that were troubling without knowing where my ability to endure and keep going came from. Moments like that in my life were solidifying to me. An uncovered known becoming uncovered. Forevermore, I can access my ancestral wisdom and strength clearly, intentionally and purposefully.

That’s what ancestral wisdom can do to shape us during our journey. And, if we’re lucky, there are many other moments that shape us for the better. I also experienced a healing and positive life altering epiphany thanks to the wisdom of Sherry.

Girl What? A Realization

Across 7 and a half years, Sherry and I dutifully had one hour phone calls once a week for most weeks for the first several years we worked together. Eventually, the calls reduced to two times a month once Food Recovery Network matured and stabilized. I talked with Sherry on the phone more than most people in my life. The only person I talked to more than Sherry was my sister.

When we talked, Sherry often started our meetings with the question, “How are you doing?” and on this particularly life changing day, I said, “oh, I’m good!” I was very chipper. And in the same chipper voice, I went on to rattle off about 5 things that were very not good. Things that I was trying to figure out at FRN, and some things in my personal life that were strained. Sherry listened to me quietly and when I was finished said, “Kiddo, you don’t sound good at all!” And I was so taken aback. I stopped for a moment. I was actually shocked by the disconnect of what I was saying and Sherry’s response to it.

After a moment, I admitted, yeah, things were not great. And I kinda laughed to myself. Things were not great!

Importantly, I didn’t try to argue that sure, things were not great, but they weren’t awful. I didn’t try to make excuses that things were not great, but they could be a lot worse, so this must be okay enough. And after years of reflection, I can now see the same rationale with living in poverty. Things were bad, but I knew things could be a whole hell of a lot worse, so be grateful for the bad you have and grateful you don’t have that other kind of bad, because that is really bad.

It’s okay to not be okay, and it’s okay when things are shitty…for real

That meeting, Sherry helped me to just name a bad situation, full stop, without excuses. I never, ever considered that before. I was allowed to have moments that felt bad, or overwhelming, or were just shitty. I didn’t have to have a positive spin on the difficulty. I know that I was putting that positive spin on the difficulty because that is how I kept things together. Things had to be okay. I was in a pattern of defining difficulty as “okay”, even if I knew they were anything but. I knew at some point, the bad got taken care of and so what’s the point of saying things were bad when…it would clear up.

I hadn’t realized it, but I was afraid. I was afraid naming something accurately as it was, as bad or difficult or shitty might put a protective barrier around that difficulty, and with a protective barrier around it, that could mean I might not have the skillset to make it okay, let alone the resilience or fortitude to move from bad to better, to resolved. Better to just say it’s okay, it’s fine.

I talked with Sherry, caught in the act, about putting a positive spin on what was happening in that moment in my life. The conversation allowed me to put down my toxic positivity I didn’t even really know I was carrying. I could name a situation for what it was, and that didn’t mean my whole world was going to come crashing down on me. It didn’t mean the presence of a difficult situation, unless viewed as “oh, it’s fine!”, would immediately mean something terrible was going to happen that I wouldn’t be able to navigate into a good situation. I had to trust myself that I was in a safe place. And, by habitually falsifying the situation, I was actually causing myself more work by having to dig around the toxic positivity to get into the heart of the situation I needed to address. Naming things as they were accurately, helped me move further out of survival mode and into living mode. Bad things happen and I could say that and be okay, and I certainly did have the fortitude and mental outlook to weather through bad.

More and more, I was building spiritual safety. And by letting go of the toxic positivity, I was in fact, abling myself to acknowledge the safety I was capable of building, and to trust it.  And in that safety, I could grow my power by letting go of habits that were hindering me; that were slowing down my journey to get to a place in that journey that was further forward, that was more healed and authentic.

I’m grateful to Sherry. I wish everyone had someone like Sherry in their lives.

What didn’t you do to bury me / but you forgot that I was a seed. —Dinos Christianopolous

What do you think?

Have you noticed an increase in the frequency of discussions about Black joy? I certainly have and I love it. Knowledge of any topic, across moving time, shifts, grows, evolves, on a spectrum: you’ve never heard of it before; you’re kinda familiar; you’re very familiar and at the forefront of that topic. And another axis of another spectrum overlayed across moving time: you probably will not keep up with the topic; you’ll monitor the topic loosely; you’ll (continue to) follow closely; you’re at the forefront as part of the evolution of that topic; you’re generating subtopics. Another spectrum and axis: knowing about or learning about the existence of this topic makes you happy; makes you pissed; makes you hopeful; smug; confused; avoidant…what does it make you feel, what does it make you think?

When you hear the term Black joy, how do you feel? Why do you feel that way? Is how you feel about the topic how you want to feel or how you expected you would feel? Had you ever considered how you would feel about the topic of Black joy?

This is some of what I think

When I hear the term Black joy, some of the things that come up for me? First, how solidly multiracial I feel. Hybrids unite! I understand the very specific choice: Black joy. I appreciate it, I support it, it is me, it is my heritage and I still feel the pull to include my other dimensions. Trust Black women, stop killing Black people, protect Black children. I feel that deeply. That is me. And I am also a brown person. I am brown because for the most part, my mom is white and for the most part, my dad is Black, because of history, because of legacy that somewhere in my family some French, English, Native North American, continental African and Iberian folks got together and had kids. And for the most part, like Barack Obama, when viewed through the lens of less nuanced and impatient eyes, through the lens of enduring racial hierarchy dominance, I, too am Black.

The term Black joy is important to me, it’s life giving, it’s taking a stance, it’s taking psychophysiospiritual space and it’s an invitation. It’s an invitation into the past: our collective past, my past. It’s an invitation to the now of what’s always been here, and it’s an invitation into the future. Black joy. And, I love an invitation. I do. I say yes to that invitation.

When I hear the term Black joy, I feel ancestral. I connect into hundreds of years of people I do not know, but who are family. many were brought to this land where I now live and survived, many lived all over the globe and many still were born where I was born. Black joy and the ancestral connection means we survived, thrived, changed the physical landscape, dreamed, hoped, infused knowledge further ancient still than they, amalgamated knowledge to adapt, joked, invented, fought, created…created life, changed the trajectory of their families in ordinary ways and in ways that historian Stephen Greenblatt would describe as a swerve—forever changing the course of human history. Black joy is in part a bucking of a long oppressive demand, the insistence to only see Black people as cowered, as lowly, as fearful, as surviving on scraps in order to maintain a fairytale of “better,” of “superior”. Black joy is part of the lived experience passed down to me by a familial current; it is the truth of an existence, one which understands and understands deeply the fairytale told and reproduced by others to justify depravity and understands that fairytale is quite literally, the farthest from the truth.

I think my white grandmother would have read these books. 

A literary genre that I love is the Victorian and historical romance novels featuring Black female protagonists. I love them because my Meme loved romance novels. She had dozens of books with Fabio on the cover all over her bedroom in Massachusetts. Even when I got older and I was allowed to read them, I never did, but seeing this very old (and very profitable) literary genre emerge melanated, makes me so happy. I love that melanated Victorian and historical romance novels have uncovered yet more racists. Exposing racists is important and I am not sure these talented writers would have predicted that would be a consequence of their art. These racists demand there was only one way Black people showed up in history and therefore historical fiction and it is as enslaved, as illiterate, as poor and how dare these authors alter the facts and allow these characters to have dignity, and experience love and desire.

I love when racists are confronted with the reality of a whole group of people that they just cannot comprehend, period, let alone comprehend expansively, let alone comprehend that their comprehension is faulty to begin with. They get very uncomfortable. And like in the case of Black people singing country music, demand their racist comfort be considered and the offending narrative be rewritten to fit the fairytale they were told. And quite literally fairytale with the Little Mermaid being reimagined as brown, or Captain America as Black. The anger, the hatred that rises to the surface. I wonder if those people are ever shocked by their own anger. Not just their anger to maintain the fable they were told about racial hierarchy and history, and art, but just their anger in general…I wonder.

We could just assume dignity for everyone…we could.

At Food Recovery Network, one of my most constant messages, and one of my favorite messages is to remind people that, in chronic hardship people have found joy. They have. They have found ways to make art, to share their possessions, their shelter, their food, their hope. Even in chronic hardship, people maintain their dignity, their humanity, their capacity to love, their ability to wish better for others, to trust. I invite people, who may not otherwise, to think about the daily life of people who do not have the consistent access to the food they deserve and consider how similar we all are; some of us just have the food we deserve while others of us do not. In all of us are the same capacities, why wouldn’t there be? And in situations, some of us are able to still live as fully as we can with less. Living fully is the option taken. Joy is sought out.

James Baldwin discussed the concept throughout his writing and debates of the [learned, maintained, reproduced] ability/function of the dominant not to consider the lives of those constructed as other, as less than. He noted the complete lack of interest or consideration an entire group of [white] people had for an entire other [Black] group. It’s quite remarkable when you really think about what that means. And of course, he notes the other side of the dominant mindset: their assumption that all other groups not in their dominant group want to be in the dominant group…and the terror (often manifested in the form of racialized violence) when the dominant realizes that is not the case for many outside of the dominant group.

Some people are interacting with the concept for the first time in their lives that, during hundreds of years of genocide, suppression, oppression, violence, betrayal and lies, that people were able to find…joy. Today, some people are seeing videos come across their Instagram feed, or the nightly news, or in musical collaborations that are saying…huh…Black people are happy. For the first time, some people are considering that.

When I think about Black joy, I feel protective.

When I think about Black joy, I think about all of the things out there in the world to consider, to try, to see, to touch, to write about, to talk about, to smell— I feel revolutionarily ordinary. I feel the gift of the day, the invitation of just today, and I accept with love and with joy.

We cannot know how far we can soar until we are tested.” —Coretta Scott King

Willfully moving toward difficulty

Being a nonprofit executive director is a notably difficult role. The number of skills one must possess is astonishingly long. The demand for visionary thinking, fundraising prowess, productive people management and in the weeds task management can often leave one feeling whiplashed. And that is not even the extensive list of skills an ED is often required to have. And if the work is not accomplished smoothly, the blame typically wrests on the shoulders of one person and one person only. This kind of role is not for everyone, and this kind of role is definitely for me.

In 2013 I was able to attend a week-long leadership academy while working for an antipoverty nonprofit that I loved called LIFT. The program was designed with the individual in mind, agnostic of where the person worked. It was well-known that people often left their current employer to work somewhere else, somewhere better suited for their abilities or of a higher responsibility level as some point soon after having completed the academy. Having come from an individual leadership organization called Coro Center for Civic Leadership prior to joining LIFT, I was thrilled to participate in this academy and fully immerse myself in the opportunity to further work on my own abilities.

The blueprint knows

I had come very far from willing a very nascent goal as a kid into reality: to not be poor. I noted in my offering Hardship, through that moment of expression to not be poor, for me, a blueprint that I could access emerged. Very hazy, much of the design indecipherable in the first moments it was revealed to me. But it was there, and I knew that blueprint was me, it was my life and within my life, my purpose. As the years unfurled before me, my personal blueprint had more clarity to it as I moved along my journey. Not all of the details were sharply focused, of course. I would have to live seconds and minutes and days and years for there to be clarity through reflection. I’m certainly not clairvoyant. Each year, my blueprint, which also entailed my purpose became clearer and a distant future, though still hazy, became more substantive in its meaning; I understood more and more what I was aiming to do with my life.

It was during this leadership academy, when I was paired with an executive coach for an hour, that I externally articulated a goal for myself— for my career. A new goal. A new goal I knew I was going to achieve and in doing so, further clarify my blueprint. I knew I was going to accomplish the goal, I just wasn’t sure how I was going to go about achieving it…yet. My paired coach asked me where I saw my career in the near future. In a few years from now, what did I want to do? And I said, with my whole heart, “I want to be an executive director of a nonprofit whose mission aligns with my values.” PHEW! I said it. I said it without needing approval, without self-doubt that I was aiming too high. I probably drew my fingers to my mouth as if to say, “it’s out there, now I have to do it.”

When I began to steer my career path toward being an executive director, it was because I was ready for the challenges that kind of role demanded. I knew I was ready to make decisions and take on the responsibility of caring for a mission-driven organization. Importantly, I knew I wanted to be an executive leader so that I could specifically be the boss. It didn’t mean I wasn’t scared or nervous. I absolutely was. But I was also sure.

A boss was born

Why did I want to be the boss? Well, as I mentioned in Stars → Inheritance, I’m a Capricorn and of the many traits I identify with in being a Capricorn, it’s our strong desire to be the boss. And more seriously, taking on an executive leadership role was how I felt I could help more people. Across my many jobs and as I entered into my career in the nonprofit sector, I had gathered so many skills from those roles, as well as, importantly, from volunteering in my community and joining boards of nonprofits. I knew I possessed the hard skills needed to succeed. But, when I entered into my career in the nonprofit sector, I didn’t have a direct boss who Inspired me, capital I, who was a multiplier as described by Liz Wiseman: someone who drew from me more than I thought possible because of their leadership and vision. I had many nice bosses, and I had a fair share of toxic bosses and I knew my personality and leadership style would foster the kind of work environment that people deserved. Many of my friends across private, nonprofit and public sectors struggled with toxic work environments, lackluster bosses, problematic colleagues and so on. I had insight into several work environments, spent years at Coro, the individual leadership organization, to prepare people for a variety of workplaces, and I knew what I wanted to create.

My hour-long executive coach didn’t bat an eye when I told her my goal, and if I were being frank, from looking at my resume and hearing what mattered most to me, she was definitely gently pushing me to say what she could already tell. So, it was at this moment that I allowed for an articulation: I was a boss and I was going to be the boss.

Said a different way:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ― James Baldwin

Capricorn from New England

When I state that I am a Capricorn from New England, to me, that is shorthand for characteristics I believe I exhibit because I am a Capricorn and because I am from New England. It’s a fun way to think about myself. I know lots of people from lots of places around the world exhibit the same characteristics that I have and are born in different months and maybe don’t even believe in astrology. I’m not even sure if I believe in astrology, but I do know humans are supposed to know and see the stars every night of our lives. I believe we’re supposed to. Not believing, it’s all fair, but is it fun? Believing, it’s fun. Let’s have some fun.

I am a lot of things, but in the capsule of being a Capricorn from New England, what that means to me is, I am a very ambitious person. I set goal after goal with the expectation that I will achieve them. I have high expectations of people, but none higher than for myself. I value being intelligent. In Mud → Lotus, I reflected on how I came to be a deeply patient person who eyes a future distance, many, many years away, and is prepared for the long, long journey toward that future distance. There are many positives associated with this Capricorn New England combo, and there are of course, some disadvantages. I’m just going to stick with the positives for now. Later, in another offering, I will describe a disadvantage that emerged for me from all of these characteristics I was unknowingly carrying and had to let go of—unceremoniously, of course because Capricorns do not eff around.

Urgency with Serenity

I have urgency to end poverty in the United States by the means necessary that I have gathered, learned and crafted, borrowed and honed both individually and importantly, collectively. I was working poor for such a long time, I know the havoc poverty wreaks on a person’s mind and body. I cannot, in good conscience allow for the perpetuation of such an unnecessary station. And, as ambitious and talented as I believe myself to be, I know I cannot help everyone. It’s a reality that I have had to come to terms with over time, as I know many before me have also had to do. To be more effective in my purpose, I had to come to terms with this realization.

How do I move onward knowing that there are people who still need and need tremendously? There are adults who struggle because of illiteracy, children in foster situations that are anything but care, dogs, cats, sealife, and other animals suffering because of humans, humans who do not have enough food to eat? How do I not become immobilized by sadness? For me, to “keep it moving,” is a practice in calm, in resiliency, in accepting my lived reality for what it is, while I pursue methods to make it what I think it could be.

As part of my practice, I remind myself that as I am working in my career and my personal pursuits to end hunger and poverty, to help ease our burden on Mother Earth, others still are also helping through their legal practices, their art, by being teachers and health practitioners, by being scientists and journalists, and librarians, by starting tool shares and community gardens, by car pooling kids and being mentors. I am surrounded by people who’ve similarly dedicated themselves to helping. That gives me calm…most of the time.

Serenity with ancestors

But, when I’m being honest, understanding that others are helping too, sometimes doesn’t make me feel better about the suffering I see around me. When I am not calmed by knowing so many incredibly talented people are using their gifts to help people and communities out of poverty because I see the numbers, I see the numbers of people and their families being lowered into poverty, or their lives being forever negatively altered because of medical debt, I look elsewhere for solace and calm. Because when I can work with my very old and very loving amygdala to say I am physically okay, I’m just very sad and emotionally scared, I can be calmed, steadied and therefore most consistently effective.

When I see the numbers of unhoused people getting larger, electricity bills and the cost of eggs getting higher and higher because of corporate greed, or people making difficult decisions in their budgets to make ends meet in the most creative of ways, when I see that racism, transphobia, antisemitism, misogyny and their cousins phobia and isms out in these streets without a mask on, I am afraid. I am sad. I am angry that I can’t do more than I am, it is in those times I think of my ancestors. I think of all of our ancestors when they were in deeply difficult circumstances with no end to their suffering near. My ancestors made art. They taught the youngers traditional dance. They sang. They intermarried and welcomed new, welcomed heterogeneity. They made jokes and cracked smiles. They took care of their elderly and their babies. Suffering is not inevitable, but neither is thriving. None of it is inevitable, and I have chosen to take a position to help. And like so many before us who were born into and lived through very difficult times that maybe didn’t lighten even through the day they died, I know many people laughed, and shared their food, and protected puppies and transferred knowledge.

More Weight

My thinking in this way was solidified by Rodney King. Many years ago, I heard part of an interview with Rodney King where he was reflecting on the moments when he was savagely beaten by Los Angeles police officers Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno, Rolando Solano and Timothy Wind on March 3, 1991. He said, the whole time he was being beaten, what gave him the strength and the will to survive was knowing that his ancestors had endured far worse than what was happening to him, and many of them survived the brutality brought down upon them. That surviving is active, it’s not passive, it’s willful to live and go on. If they could survive, so could he. That is an old, ancestral strength that he can draw from. And from that time onward having heard him impart that understanding, I knew I, too, inherited that strength. And that perhaps, those who are living in suffering right now, who may not be reached by me today, or the others who are working so hard to end the suffering we have manufactured, they too, are active, they are not passive. We are reaching toward one another.

“Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud.” —Thich Nhat Hahn

No mud,  no lotus

I don’t remember every distinct time I got grounded, but when I did, it was the same. The punishment was extreme, isolating, painful and incredibly long to endure. I remember one specific time when I was grounded. I snuck a book to help pass the time. As I mentioned in the offering Grounded, reading, just like listening to the radio or drawing, or playing cards, was strictly forbidden. I was instructed to just sit in my room with nothing to do.

I don’t cringe when I think about this time in my life anymore…not too much anyway. The memory will sneak up on me every once in a while and I’ll be able to process the memory and the accompanying feelings and keep it moving, and other times, like a few other memories I have, I’ll say, “oof,” to myself or out loud. It hurts. I cringe writing this, however. I cringe in the act of writing down such a horrible and painful thing to do to a kid, to me. I feel vulnerable writing this knowing people I do not know will read my experience. But, as I offered in the Introduction of You Talk About Race Too Much, I said, without baggage, as of late, I have felt I can and want to do more, and maybe you do, too. We get to decide for ourselves. I also said, I love a good journey. I love a good story. I love exploring and learning. And, well, my childhood is quite the journey that got me to where I am today, strong and powerful.

I do find myself in a well-worn habit of deflecting to this day when I reflect on my childhood and my journey out of being poor and working poor. Yes, it was horrible, but, other kids had it and have it way, way worse than I did. Yes, it was horrible, but at least any number of terrible things that could have happened to me, didn’t. Yes, my childhood was very difficult, but some people are actually in solitary confinement. Yes, it was a difficult childhood, but I also have very fond memories. When I habitually deflect, I don’t allow myself to acknowledge that when viewed alone, my situation was simply bad. That’s it, period. I don’t need to qualify. Do you ever find yourself deflecting a painful moment? If you do, is it to lessen the pain you felt, or to put the focus on something else, perhaps something more positive? If you do deflect a painful moment, when did you start deflecting?

More on the motivation

I have noted throughout this project, and will continue to mention, that I am very much a participant in this art project, just like everyone who is reading my words, viewing my photos, listening to my building soundtrack, and at a later time, reviewing resources that inspire me. For me, art is not linear and I anachronistically began the project almost in the middle. I didn’t know it at the time. The first several offerings I wrote, I realized, would need to come much later in the project for those pieces to fit the full concept taking form in my mind’s eye. I then began to play around with a notion: for you to understand my positionality for some of the things I want to tell you and ask you about, for you to understand how I came to think this way or present this way, you first need to know more about me, about my core. And if you come to see the stitchings and the weavings and braiding, palimpsest building, fermentation and the scarring of how I came to…be, that you will see I come in peace, I come in love with vulnerability, so when I ask you to participate with me, maybe you will. I am curious about your thoughts.

Invitation

Specifically, with my being grounded as a kid, and my memory of that grounding and the other groundings I received, they are a key, very, very important moment in my life. I don’t want to just share this with you, I am inviting you into this specific moment with me. The moment has so few details I remember, as I mentioned, but the essence of what was happening, I remember so distinctly. I remember and feel it as a very difficult time, but also it is undeniable to me that it was also a key moment in shaping who I am.

I wanted to share this particular piece directly on the tail of my offering, Grounded, as a way to deepen the feelings. To the degree you feel you would like to, please join me in this memory. It may be hard, so please make this decision for yourself with the love and compassion you deserve and need. I will remind myself to take deep breaths in, hold at the top, and a long breath out of equal or longer measure.

Kind of like a Ghost of Christmas Past, we can imagine and feel the moment, maybe even set a scene. You didn’t experience this with me, but I invite you to see and to feel with me. To be in this moment, as a kid, so angry, and bored, and frustrated. Grounded. Grounded with nothing but the passage of time to change the scene. Nothing but the passage of time. Nothing. But the passage of time. And listening to the sounds of my quiet house. For 10 hours.

For 9 hours.

For 8 hours.

Maybe I’ve asked my mom to use the bathroom at this point. Got the courage up to ask, parted the anger enough to talk and ask. And there was relief in walking out of my room, into the bathroom. The bathroom probably never seemed so interesting to me before. The window overlooking the backyard to the small purple and white lilac trees, the clothesline…the border of bramble in the backyard that gave way to some trees and then a field across the way that had one solitary horse in it for years; the bathroom tub faucet perpetually leaking, the hot water knob broken long prior and replaced with a small wrench so we could turn it on and off, but not all the way off. And then back into my room.

For 7 hours.

For six hours.

For five hours left until…bedtime. Maybe I’ve had a meal at this point.

For four hours.

For three more hours until it’s time to go to bed. Bedtime never seemed so exciting.

For two more hours.

One hour left until it’s time to go to bed. And I go to bed, and at some point, I go to sleep. 

The Earth rotates around the sun

Every once in a while, when I read the New York Times, there is an art prompt. Can you look at an image of a painting they’ve selected for 10 minutes? The idea being, many people, when we look at art at a museum, we spend about 33 seconds looking at it before we move onto the next piece, a kind of drive-by viewing. And when we do not give our focused attention to the piece of art, we miss perhaps a blob of paint here that may or may not have been intentional, or an expression on someone’s face here, or a dog in the corner over there., a seam in the canvas over there, scissor marks on cut out pieces of paper. We do not give our mind and our body a chance to relax, and just be with the piece of art. To just be and in the being, to look, to observe, calm in mind and body. I love that prompt and I recommend trying it yourself if you haven’t already.

And at some point, it’s the next day. And the countdown until freedom continues because the punishment is 24 hours, the clock starting at the command of, “go to your room.”

The god damn book

I wish I could remember the name of the contraband book I snuck. I was so starved for stimulation. I was understimulated and agitated. I remember there wasn’t a lot of activity in my house, my parents in their bedroom with the door closed, watching TV. I’m not sure where my sister was—maybe in the living room watching tv. I made the decision to read to help my mind, to speed up the drippingly slow passage of time. 

And I got caught.

I wasn’t fast enough to shove my book under my pillow so that as my mom walked by, out of her bedroom into the hallway, she had a clear view of me in my bedroom. It took my mom one step to cross out of her bedroom into the hallway, a second step to be already past my bedroom. Two steps. As she walked by, I almost simultaneously put my book under my pillow. Almost. I was too slow. How was she so fast? Where did she come from? How had I not heard the door open? Was the door not open, but then why would I have attempted to read with their bedroom door open?

I will never know the answers. But what I do know is that she saw me. She saw me putting my book away under my pillow. And what she said plunged me into a rigid, deeper despair. It was all one fluid motion: her walking by, one step, me putting my book under my pillow, and as she took her second step she said, “Another day,” and kept walking.

Despair, tight, rigid but with so much energy. Anger. Like the atoms inside a piece of wood: confined and solid, waiting for an opportunity to burst out.

Another day added onto my punishment, my grounding. Twenty-four more hours.

Twenty-four more hours. It was daylight, and then, after many, many hours, the sun would begin to set…

And, then, to protect myself, to help me in the moments of this grounding, I bring back my thoughts: This is survivable. I told myself that. One day, it wouldn’t be like this. It just wouldn’t be. I knew that to be true. But I had to get through this grounding first in order for it not to be this anymore. The passing of a day. This is survivable. Just get through it. It won’t always be like this. It won’t always be like this.
And the reason why this specific moment pearled an indelible part of who I am is because, in that moment, I settled into a depth much farther than my current despair at the situation, a deep, deeper still, depth of patience that I am not sure would have rooted inside of me. Patience. A gem. For me. Still water runs deep. I knew, because I knew I was going to survive this moment and other unknown moments. I would. I knew that. I just had to be patient. To look far into the future from where I am in this present moment, good or bad, but to know that the present moment, would at some point, become the past and that an unknown future moment would become my present. And that eventually, I would be making decisions for myself, for my life. But first, patience. I first had to get through childhood.