Transitions

We’ve arrive at the time I’ve looked at for years as a time when my life will change drastically. 

Both children are now in school.

For years the majority of my time and energy has been devoted to raising little humans.  Now they will spend time being trained and educated by others. This marks a dramatic shift for their lives and mine.

Ryan grew up so much this summer.  He got taller. Outgrew his shoes and most of his clothes in the seven weeks we were on the road.  But he also got much more independent. I started giving him more room as we drove West as the landscape around us got more open and expansive.  The transition started when we were staying with friends who live on a beautiful piece of land in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin. Ashley’s job is raising three amazing little humans and they are intentional about raining change-makers.  The kids have so much freedom to play and experience joy, fall down and figure it out on their own. Their littlest, not yet two, taught me that it’s OK to give my little one more room to be free.  He may fall, but that’s OK. He won't break. In fact, the falls are important lessons he can only get if he has the room to try.

I’ve thought a lot about this throughout the summer journey.  As we were in the woods and more rural settings I let the children roam.  They directed their days- choosing to dress or not, bathe or not, climb or build, run or crawl.  Their days were their design.

I was not dictating strict guidelines.  I wasn’t worried about how we were perceived.  Fear did not drive me. And without the fear, we all had more freedom. 

Freedom to be our full selves.  To flow. To express. To be.

It is hard to get a taste of that freedom, to ritualize change, and then come home to confined and preassigned days.  To again navigate busy streets and bustling sidewalks and to again feel the weight of others' judgement. To return to set schedules and deadlines.  To answer to other people’s priorities and the overly designed structure of school.

Annabelle has resisted.  She straight up told me she does not like routine. On our last day of summer she said that all she really wanted was to go back on the road.  To have home base be the car, to have space to daydream and then also to land at someone else's home.  To be amidst something different and connecting with different people. In reality, we had routines on the road, but they were designed to allow for constant motion. 

I seek to keep that motion.  I am trying to design days that allow all of us to continue to change and expand, even while we stay in one place.   How do we design our days so we change our surroundings as we expand, rather than allowing the routine to confine and define us?

I hold so many questions as I explore this new phase in my life.  My little brother and sister-in-law are about to finish the Pacific Crest Trail, where they walked 20-30 miles a day for over five months.  On one of their recent report outs, Kendra named the importance of marking transitions. Finding rituals so that your expanded self can occupy old spaces in a new way. 

The end of my pilgrimage, the end of this year of child focused days, the end of the era of having young children under my constant care is here, upon me now.  It feels like a time in my life when I need to be clear about my own needs.  It is a time to be expansive.  In order to do so I need and fortunately have newly acquired space.    

Space to breath.  To write. To think.  To be creative.

Space to design, create, craft. 

Space to grow. 

I want to grow my own consulting and leadership coaching business.  I will create something beautiful and flexible that allows me to connect with people and create with them.  I love designing programs and participatory decision-making processes. I love facilitating and being amidst change. 

The transition to having school aged kids is here.  The movement toward creation, design and prioritization of my work is here.

I bring the freedom we found this summer. 
I bring a presence and attentiveness to this moment, a gift my children continue to give me.
And I bring a longing for something more.  
It is time for me to let my light shine. To create the work I long for. To dream big.
To jump. To run. To fly!

And, I’ve learned from my three year old; when I fall, I’ll brush myself off. Take stock. Learn and take the next leap.

I found a love for writing this summer and will find new ways to share my writing in the weeks and months ahead.  While this marks my last post from my summer pilgrimage it, in so many ways, is only the beginning.

Our Nation's Capital. My Home.

Our first day home in DC was the scheduled Unite the Right rally, where white nationalists intended to parade fear and hatred around our city.

Black Lives Matter DC and other organizations led by people of color had been gathering for days.  In DC, training, education, and organizing filled the days leading up to August 12. People were prepared to defend the district from white supremacy. The resistance was strong, coordinated and alive. 

Alive.

As I biked toward the rally in Freedom Plaza, my eyes filled with tears. This is the place I am supposed to be.  DC is the place that keeps me awake and alive.

I am woke to the pain and struggle caused by racism, patriarchy and capitalism.

I am woke to the potential coming from organized black power.

I feel alive when I am in the throws of tensions that tug at the core and open up possibilities beyond what we can see. 

I am alive in this city. 

The pain is also palpable.  I often struggle to cope with it.

A man came up to us the other day asking for water.  He had been digging through the trash in our alley while I buckled the kids into their car seats.  I’d seen him out of the corner of my eye, but I had places to go and we were running late. As I clicked Annabelle’s seat-belt,  he came to the end of my driveway. Calling me Ma'am he asked if he could ask me a question. He first asked for food. I tried to send him to the free lunch spot down the way, but he then asked for water.  It was 90 degrees and I could get him water in my house, which was right there. But the kids were already buckled in. I wondered, how do I keep my kids safe? I locked them in the car, cracked the windows and ran into the house.  Fear overcame me. He was between me and my children. I left the door open and couldn’t walk away from it long enough to fill an entire nalgene. I had to keep checking on him. I was disgusted with my thought process and knew that the kids were taking all this in.  I had given them messages that you can’t trust someone and these were not messages I wanted to give. But the questions Annabelle asked were about why he doesn’t have water. Why would someone not have access to the basic need of hydration? And why did he call me Ma’am.

We ended up in a conversation about inequality and how some people who don't have a home can't even get water without asking for help from others. And we talked about slavery and power and how Ma’am is a form of respect but how he may have also felt like he needed to call me Ma’am because I am white and have the resources he needs.

She asks such good questions and takes it all in.

This is why I want to raise kids in the city and why I am also challenged by raising kids here.  As long as people struggle for their basic needs I want Annabelle and Ryan to know this to be true.  I want them to use their creative power to contribute to a world that treats people differently and they can't do this unless they know how it is now. I too need to stay present to today's struggles.  I can't work toward a more equitable world unless my eyes are open to the harshness that currently is.

My blind spots are why I struggled to trust myself.

When Trump was elected I was shaken.  I did not think someone who was so explicitly racist and sexist could possibly win an election for President.  I was blind to the degree that racism can still be used to divide and build power. In the wee hours of election night, when the verdict was clear I made Greg promise that we wouldn’t become complacent, that we’d figure out ways to stand for justice and support Blacks, Muslims, Latinx, women, LGBTQ and all the people under attack during the Trump campaign and who would be under attack once he began directing policy. We cried. 

We sobbed. 

I was scared and shaken to my core.  How could my country elect someone who espouses such hate.  I was not new to thinking about the damages of institutional and systemic racism.  I had devoted my career to undoing racism and building structures and communities that shift power to people on the margins. 

Yet I was blindsided.   My white privilege kept me from seeing the degree to which racism is used to secure power in this country.  

I was trying so hard to see and still I was blind. 

It shook me.  I became fearful of my every step.  I lost my ability to trust myself. I wondered about the depth of my ignorance. I worried that every step I took meant more possibility to harm people of color. While I showed up to more organized forms of resistance, I was also shrinking. I felt the ground shifting below me.  I was burnt out and didn't have the creative answers needed.

I had nothing else to give at work.  I was co-leading the Racial Equity work and trying to uncover white supremacy culture that seeped into this well intentioned, thoughtful organization.  There was so much to change, yet the platform seemed so small. I couldn’t stay there anymore. I left.

And I started mending. 

I mended my relationship with my kids first.  Last summer we also took off together and traveled around New England. My goal was to find the joy they bring.  I found it! My home felt nourishing again. My closest relationships became guiding posts as I sorted through which pieces to put back together. 

Intention.

Space for creativity.

Relationships. 

I spent the past year raising my children.  Loving on them. Allowing them to call me into the present moment.  This summer was a beautiful culmination of this past year.

I realize that I need ways to get fed, rejuvenated and lost in joy.

White supremacy has misshapen our politics, our institutions, our culture, our relationships. In order to stay present to reshaping and re-imagining, I need to be grounded in who I am. This summer gave me that space.

It was fitting that I returned just in time to attend the resistance rally against white supremacy.  A resistance that's strength and spirit and love shine bright.

I am in the place I need to be.  

I learned to trust myself again this summer and my faith in people is renewed.  

And it is good to be home.