I am who I am doing what I came to do – Audre Lorde
These days, i am learning. Softly. Embracing what i don’t know. Realizing some of my own blind spots. Especially as it comes to marginal groups in the my own community. It is easy to overlook or dismiss people when you don’t have their lived experiences. I never want to become what i seek to destroy.
So i am learning and listening to those who are wiser than me. Those who have been doing this work for longer than I. And to those who have already become ancestors. Their stories weaving through mine. My stories weaving through theirs. It’s not about homogeneity but a common core. A unwillingness to be willful-ly ignorant or anti-intersectional. anti life-living. A willingness to embrace all of our lives in multifaceted lights and hold them as sacred and valuable because they are…they always are.
The other night, I had a dream about one of friends. A gay man, who i had not spoken to in ages (life, distance, etc). And it was about his safety…and our other friend’s safety and my safety. And i just want us all to be safe. To be able to pursue our version of happiness, however that looks to the world.
Some of my greatest teachers have looked nothing like me on the surface- religion, age, class, ethnicity, gender expression or sexuality but Have inspired my soul to be better in this world…in an embodied way…which is really the greatest gift.
And i don’t know why i am writing this. Maybe I miss my friends and I hope that they are okay and that not too much time has passed for us to rekindle our stories. Or maybe i just want to release my love into this world. Maybe i am thinking about the power of radical love.
How it is revolutionary and it leaves you better than it found you. Maybe i am remembering who i am really. Not who i have prescribed myself to be…not the comfortable little box i like to live it but me.
The me outside of space and time. The wild heart beating in the center of pine trees and coyote songs. The me who watched perch dance on my grandmother’s fishing line. The me who would take old ice cream tins and gather berries and salt them down for consumption. The me who would always get red clay on her good clothes. Who lived in that old house. That was really a shack. Who didn’t know all her people. Who wanted to be special but didn’t know she already was. But somehow these other people found me and loved me in a revolutionary way that made me feel seen and held. That made me remember that i was a person worth knowing and loving.
Why am i thinking about this today. Maybe I miss my grandmother.
The last thing she did when i left home for good.
was kiss me tenderly on both cheeks and say, you will be fine. You are love able.
And I love you.
my daughter is a wild one. Like my grandmother. Like so many people who have found me and made me remember my own soul. It is not their responsibility but they can’t help but bring your humanity out.
So here i am all human and squishy.
maybe i am writing the truth so that i never forget.
love changes everything.
molecules.
And i want to be better than i was.
Better than i have been.
not because i want praise from the world
but because i want my soul to be right
inside of me.
A soft
a revolution.
Continuing.