We should do the things that help us remember ourselves.

A late night listening to the rain fall after curling up on Tracie's couch to talk of depression and how to get unstuck, how we begin to believe that pursuing a life of passion and engagement is impractical. I've been feeling lonely lately and at the same time in need of vast spaces of quiet. I've been retreating into studying Spanish and visiting my parent's home to spend time sitting with them or running errands, drinking coffee, walking around the yard to spot the budding crocuses & daffodils with mom, or curled up in my childhood bedroom reading old journals.

Reading Anthony Doerr's exquisite short stories... 

“To consider water on any scale was to confront a boundless repetition of small events. There were the tiny wonders: rain drops, snow crystals, grains of frost aligned on a blade of grass; and there were the wonders so immense it seemed impossible to get his mind around them: global wind, oceanic currents, storms that broke like waves over whole mountain ranges." 

I'm reminded of how much I have to be grateful for, how much leaves me dizzy with euphoria or nostalgia and the luminescent unnamed degrees of joy the heart buzzes in and out of. 

A student told me Wednesday, "This is the best day I've ever had."  The smallest things-- unusually warm days, blue painted houses, neighborhood playgrounds. That evening Claire, Amelia, and I shot hoops on the abandoned courts, scaled the jungle gym, and embarrassed ourselves trying to do pull-ups.  Playing is a thing that helps me remember myself, exerting energy into the world, saying yes to "Ms. Meg can we play the stew pot game." I am constantly learning to go slower, to re-engage my imagination, to never tire of chalk on sidewalks, or lying in a sunbeam, or turning a cartwheel in the grass-- to never tire of being amazed. 

fragments

I keep thinking of Chinatown, lately-- of the faces of the people I knew there. I remember a warm breeze blowing silk against my legs through my bright yellow skirt while I was standing in Remi's front yard looking back at the house. It had been condemned and it sagged into the dry grass as if it was weary-- there were too many holes in the fences, too many stray cats wandering the hallways, skittering past our feet. We'd only been able to walk through the back room before water-damaged hoards cluttered the way. Remi had wanted to return one last time. I remember her standing barefoot in a hospital gown outside Dorothy's. She and Gloria were the first friends I made on the street, in on the homeless community. As he always did, Ellie was busy making her smile, a conversation I couldn't hear. I remember looking back, him holding her frail arm, the social worker a few steps behind them. These memories unravel out of nowhere, like the teal blue strands I used to find stuck to my sweaters months after I'd cut off my hair. I feel suddenly homesick for Salinas walking on Broadway when I pass the Mexican store and mariachi music swells out the open doorway. I've been sketching a picture of Lupita, wondering if Juan is still in school, if Connie is still lugging her trash bags back and forth between the day room and the doorway. That life seems so far away, four years past.

On the way home from school today, still in the neighborhood, O. ran out to greet me and threw his arms around my legs, telling me all about his day since I didn't teach him today. The affection of small children always amazes me, wins my heart.

For awhile I'd been thinking that falling in love is just a desire to propel ourselves out of boredom, to impose a drama on our narrative. Yet, listening to a friend this week made me realize that yes, love makes us do reckless, impulsive things-- but it isn't just to escape the ordinariness of living... love (in any of its forms) is about drama, about the narrative of meaning in our life (as the poets remind us over and over...  it all comes down to love.) Love of people, or a place, or even an idea is a creative force, it can unhinge us from our own expectations and norms, it makes us brave enough to re-imagine our story lines, to risk, to believe again in magic, adventure, and wonder-- even to willingly sacrifice ourselves to remain connected. Our love stories are about encounter, a point of connection and relationship (even if directed inwardly)-- and whether momentary or enduring, whether familial, romantic, amiable, environmental, or spiritual- I suppose it is our love stories that give us meaning.

Dorthy's Place, Chinatown, Salinas is a place I loved-- in all those realms-- and I am still discovering what I learned there. The other day I searched google maps for the driveway off Jefferson street that swept into our yard, beneath that thin willow. I hopped through photos-- down Alisal toward Cesar Chavez park, the bend of concrete where I balance beam walked during countless calls to the East coast. I can still taste warm dust in my mouth, hear the sparse grass of park crunching underfoot and the bark of the scraggly dog that always raced the perimeter of it's fence with aggressive possession, the icecream man's jingle and the shouts from the soccer pitches-- all this background noise to my own thoughts or a friend's voice on the other end. I couldn't trace my paths through the neighborhoods, along the creek and the fences to the skate park, crossing the long roads that stretched to the migrant fields and the Gabilan mountains, east of Eden.  Those paths belonged to the bone-deep sentiments I'd try to loosen by footfall, to the static chirping warning the distance was overcoming me-- despite all that was shifting inside of me as I made my daily treks the feeling I was left with was a determined strength that seemed to be growing, I was okay-- there, marooned in the world of men, piecing myself together, I was okay-- pulling my spine erect, my head lifted.

Love only makes us wider.
Love will be left over. 
Yes, Love will be left over. 

our hands imbibe like roots

School is a constant source of failing and learning and adapting. Tracie pointed out today that even the most life-giving work is also sometimes exhausting or causes us to sigh deeply with relief at the end of the day. I'm growing fond of my kiddos, and the classroom; I'm excited that I'll be there next year. I think they've actually convinced me that I want to pursue teaching credentials. But the future's still far away.

Meanwhile, life is full of poetry, letter writing, reading, coffee and dinners with the house and kindred spirits, celebratory walks in the thawing weather, weekends at the prison, riding the metro, caffeinated/insomnia inspired bursts of research & grant/application writing, netflix binging, sleeping in too late, Spanish lessons, and speedy carpools with bursting jams/cold draft of wind from the driver's window and the bittersweet acidity of smoke (which makes me feel younger and nostalgic for experiences not my own.)

houses

It's a rainy beginning to December.  "You live up in the sky," David says when I descend three staircases to the warmth of the kitchen to put on the tea kettle. Some days I wear gloves in my cold bright bedroom while I sit at my desk.

 I am grateful to be in this house -- it is the most diverse community situation I've ever lived in... we are young and old, American and African and European and hyphenated existences, Black, White, and Asian, queer and straight, conservative to anarchists, religious to spiritual to uncertain. Living together revolves around the kitchen table-- endless cups of tea with a changing cast of housemates while we process our days and desires and fears. 

Realizing I am in Baltimore for the long haul has felt a bit daunting-- the full responsibility of belonging to a place-- and exhilarating. 

Adulting.

    On Friday I found out that I didn't get accepted into a program I'd pretty much been banking on since the beginning of the year. I was already imagining my life immersed in Spanish again and what it would feel like to be on the airplane to Colombia come February. Turns out, it isn't my future. I'm still processing the loss of an imagined version of myself but more so, I'm leaning into what staying means. For so long there's be school or a program or re-defining experience glittering on the horizon giving shape and limit to the spaces I inhabit, sheltering long-term decision-making and responsibility. Baltimore has suddenly become not the place I'd think about returning to but the lead contender for where I will call home.
       The past month, in this space of waiting, I've felt more grounded and secure than a lot of last year-- largely due to relational time. There is always so much pressure to be defined by our work but that's such a small part of what makes my life meaningful. I've wanted time for the past two years-- time to create, to know a community, to show up in my relationships, to continue being at the prison for my friends there, to develop my Spanish. I'd rather live with a little more uncertainty and simplicity then sacrifice these times and spaces. I'm probably going to take a part-time position later today.  Now the project is to listen to this directive moment... a moment of staying here.
   
       

Granted.

Adriana and I are beginning our grant work on anti-oppression ministry in the church, specifically anti-racist ministry. The past week has been like Christmas with brown packages of books arriving on our doorstep and phone chats and coffee dates with an incredible woman whose been part of the resistance to white supremacy since SNCC.

This is work that stabs into my heart. This summer while working at Peace Camp in SE Baltimore one of my campers and I were walking to the park when he said, "I know what God looks like, I saw him in a movie. He's your color." I was startled to hear a five-year old Black child tell me that God was white like I am. As I attempted to explain to him that movies chose actors but that Jesus was most likely his color, I recognized how Christian media and his church experience had already entrenched the idea of a white God.

Just this week in Baltimore there was a hate crime-- vandalizing the anti-confederate statue that had been installed at Wyman Park (and removed by the city 22hrs later). The womb of this statue was kicked in and it was spray painted with the word "nigger."  At the same time in Harford County the KKK burned crosses on private property so in their exercise of free speech the neighborhood was terrorized and there was no legal ramifications. These are overt expressions yet the systemic and subtle persistent white supremacy, structural, institutional, and systemic racism of the U.S. remains too often ignored.

As I continue my reading and this grant work I'll be reflecting here.  Today's thought from Perkinson connects to the idea that ally and anti-racist are not nouns but verbs/adjectives describing actions... "In my estimation, only a lifetime of unrelenting struggle against the ideology of white superiority and the materiality of white control (struggle "for," i.e., redistribution of the power, property, and privilege that white skin has assembled for itself historically in this modern world) could ever qualify one for embrace as an ally. I have not yet proved worthy."

confessions of a conflict avoider

This week I did a 40-hr training course in Mediation & Conflict Transformation skills from the transformative/relational framework, which is a theory of conflict resulting from fracture in interactions and the human spirits yearning for understanding & respect where restoring the quality of interactions leads to shifts in empowerment & recognition. (Brilliant.)

One of the many things I am still thinking about was a chart that had styles of conflict and that avoidance was low on personal goals and low on relationship goals. For a long time I thought of avoidance as highly relational, I was after all saying nothing because I wanted to preserve the harmony and I'd take responsibility for how I felt, what I could do better, etc. It's taken me a long time to realize that avoiding conflict or ignoring it or choosing only to deal with my internal side of it isn't a relationship bridge- it's a barrier of its own. It doesn't allow the relationship to grow or for the other participant to acknowledge harm, clarify, or simply have agency in how they'd respond to my emotions. I have suffered a lot of things over the years because of avoiding the way I'd been disappointed, hurt, had trust broken, etc. and being willing to "forgive & forget."  One of the trainers of the course defined forgiveness as extending the possibility to rebuild/regain trust. I thought about how often in avoiding conflict, I haven't given people a chance to recognize how they've broken my trust (I'm looking at this one-sided because I also tend to be accommodating so if the conflict is originating in someone else catching a feeling about something I did I'm quick to apologize.)  I woke up from a dream about a friendship that dissolved almost 5 years ago and I felt a sense of grief, that I have lost so much because I didn't know how to be direct, how to say even "this hurts me." I've been a champion (for the past few years) of asking for what you need, saying what you want, etc. but the slowness of making that my own reality, and the cost of not seeking to grow through a relationship by directly exploring our conflict is settling on me in a new way.  I'm thankful to feel more empowered and certain of my voice these days and excited to approach my conflict more directly, seeking collaboration and understanding of the deeper roots, instead of turtling up in my shell.

love only makes us wider

I have never liked change, which is perhaps why I fling myself into it-- drastically, sometimes impulsively, other times reluctantly-- as if I could lessen its power and constancy if I throw myself into it enough times hoping to change Change into a constant familiarity that doesn't unsettle me.

Americorps is racing towards an end (with still a month of summer peace camp to come and anti-oppression lessons to plan and endless paperwork and, and, and) and I am grateful for all that I didn't imagine would be part of my life that Notre Dame Americorps and the nuns vision has drawn me into... like the life of this city, the sense of home here and that this city's struggles are mine. "My liberation is bound up with yours." The interwovenness of community work and life... running into families I know while wandering the neighborhoods of the Southeast, being invited birthday parties and graduations, seeing kids from one program with their siblings at another-- running into them in the park, the library, even protests, Cameron running off the school playground to hug me on the sidewalk, of my co-teacher telling me to call her if I'm in the streets-- this is the way I have wanted to become part of a community.  Harrisonburg and Salinas and Baltimore-- the smallness of being known in a place.

Yesterday, I had an unexpected evening off and sat in my kitchen with the windows open drinking cold coffee while my jasmine trees fragile stalk swayed at the lightest stirring of the hot breeze. I have been thinking about "chosen family," about platonic love, about transience.  The past two years in Baltimore have been some of my happiest and busiest, full of connection and spaces of constructing and deconstructing my ideas. I'm grateful for the radical spaces here.

I felt the conviction of this yesterday:
Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

:  the sense that no matter, I can accept love as a condition of my existence.  In accepting this condition, I can be freed from trying to get others to affirm/prove to me my value, worth, favorite status.  I can love without demand or insecurity, can appreciate and seek deep connection, affection, and intimacy without fear.

We exist, therefore we are wanted and needed in the universe and this is what it means that we live immersed in love, this is how a God who is a radical love that erases boundaries shows up in the world-- through relationships, through poetry, through struggle, through sorrow, through living.

re-reading letters

I stumbled across this letter, from three summers ago and thought of how my poetry teacher told me I would likely struggle forever over the with the theme of in-articulation and of one of my favorite poems by Jacqueling Berger... The Failure of Language.

memory/or defining god to your agnostic lover... 

Mm. I love the thought of the incarnation as God becoming a creature. I don't think I'd ever thought of it in exactly those terms before... it seems very apropos to deep ecology and God's presence as an element in all things.

You asked me a couple of weeks ago what I mean when I say God... I am still struggling to articulate that and I'm not sure... I mean a lot of things when I say God:  the force, mysterious, of Life, of birthing, of beginning, the essence of consciousness-- as beyond my grasp as how a redwood tree grows or the intelligence of mycellium or electricity and movement creating thoughts and sound and sight. Is God like the internet, containing everything but more-- conscious of all that is contained in a way we can't understand. An afterlife. What does that mean? Yet when I sit and pray I know deep inside myself in the truest way that I am connecting with a thing outside myself. I ache for God, and for mercy to have patience, to accept the revelations the Godself willingly gives, to accept the limitations of my own animal body and perception. Jesus. Not the fullness of God in a way we can comprehend, because we can never hope to comprehend and contain God in our understanding-- but the fullness of God- to me an incarnation... maybe that is the mystery of Christ, learning to incarnate full-animal-body humanity and divine spirit, non-dualism. The incarnation of Hagia Sofia.

Yesterday I sat in my friend's empty house with the patio doors open and woodwind music playing and witnessed a rainstorm gather, one solitary drop at last falling on the melon-orange tiny petals and rolling lavishly off the the thick tongue of a leaf below. Then a chorus of fine mist as thin as wisps of waterfalls carried off by wind. It climaxed in a brief exultation of lush, heavy beads-- fat and extravagant-- throwing up tiny applause of splashes and just as suddenly dissipated. The sun reached its palms to cover the entire porch as if it were a lover stretching out to press against everywhere the rain had laid down. It felt like a private, intimate gift between the sky and I to watch it quiet and still. "As for me I know of nothing else but miracles."

(What miracles have you seen today?)

God. It's an empty word (like love or f*ck, useless words.) But, maybe the emptiness of the word-- the nothingess and everything is in a way another way of knowing 'god.' I like to refer to God as Uncreated One, Ein Sof, etc. Maybe when I say God I mean... this mystery that we can know pieces of.

The sort of thing I think about...

A quote from Kenneth's f/b.. "Earlier this week my little girl attempted to explain to me why black is ugly. Not all black just the real dark black she clarified. She also told me that she wanted to be just like her teacher, who of course in this educational system is a white woman. "I can see a lot of my future in her" was her exact quote.

This is the part of our development that too often goes unaddressed. In 5th grade (in spite of having PRO BLACK Parents) my little girl is learning that black is somehow inferior to white. This devaluing of black life is intrinsic in our white supremacist social institutions (Schools for sure).

I responded "girl you are crazy, dark skinned blacks are amazingly beautiful." Grabbing my own locks, nothing is more beautiful than your natural look." I love myself to much to think black is anything but great. You need to learn to see yourself in yourself and love what you see."

Not wanting to be lectured to, she said ok and changed the topic.

I know my role, and how I have to constantly give her a different script to read and believe in. I have to convince her that black is beautiful in a world that begs to differ. I have to introduce her to many successful black women and hope she finds a hero in one of them. But too often my words become the small print at the bottom of the worlds narrative." 

***

My thoughts:

This is tragic and the reality of this makes me not know my place in the world, because how do I live in such a way to be part of dismantling that narrative when its perpetuated just by my physical body if I am in spaces where I am working in communities of minorities? How do white people actually dismantle white supremacy in institutions and culture? It's like rape culture- so pervasive there has to be active and intentional disruption. 

It's also problematic in that I don't think the ideal is black communities/white communities/asian communities/latino communities broken down and then broken down again and divided into their smaller minorities-- religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identities, etc... but, how do we live together in communities and work towards valuing all the different colors and cultures and ways of being in ways that validate and affirm so that white supremacy isn't perpetuated? What stage are we in now? Do white people need to take a step back from communities where they are over-represented in positions of power/authority? What are the steps I could be taking? How do I support youth development and anti-oppressive, anti-white supremacy in the work I do among kids that I don't look like? and among kids that I do?

here.

I move or the air moves, stirring the moment. Everything is moving. Outside a siren's sound swells in the air smothering the soft notes of a song. Someone dies a violent death almost every other day in this city. But that is only part of the city's story. The grid of streets in southeast Baltimore is becoming familiar, the stretch between Patterson Park and McElderry wearing out my shoes. The people I run into at workshops and lectures and in the community, are becoming expected, affinity and connections sprouting.

I spent last weekend at the prison with AVP. This week, Coach Carter cooked us crabs and we walked to the river with him and his son, later we watched spoken word poems in the 'man-cave' before the football game. "I wanted you to meet my family because we are going to be family. We're going to work together, cry together, struggle together and celebrate together."  Over the week, I listened to people in the neighborhood, especially youth, share their experiences of racism and participated in community art. Listened to lectures by Davon Love, the Baltimore Algebra Project. D. Wight, and Eddie Conway-- discussions of structural/systemic racism, of inheritance, of race and pride, of whiteness, of the prison industrial complex and isolation, of what it has meant for black parents to raise black children and police their behavior so the police won't, of counter-histories, and the importance of remembering.

"One of the things that makes a community strong is their ability to pass on knowledge."

"We have a responsibility to remember..." to disallow the disappearances from history (of entire cultures, of protest and movements, of people), to remember the stories that the system does not want us to access. I never know where to begin this remembering all the stories I'm entrusted and the encounters that need to held on to... this living is so immense.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." - Rumi 

Baltimore and I are becoming more entwined, and its scary for me to look at a place with the idea of longevity. I'm frightened when I am moved by this city and feel a sense of belonging inside myself, frightened of the lives I might say no to by saying yes to being here, by giving myself to this community-- and frightened by the weariness of insider/outsider dynamics-- but the discomfort whispers of growth.

What is church?

A conversation:


Me:  Yesterday really wearied my soul about the church. I feel disheartened that our churches are so disconnected with the mission of God (and/or overwhelmed with other concerns) that not one of the churches said... let me talk to my pastor, let me see if we have funds to help, I could call a friend, "are they hungry?" i could give them food, etc.  It just made me feel heartbroken and disappointed in some way

granted I only spoke with 10 churches but people were so short and dismissal

 A:  Yeah it is really sad. I guess it just is something that has changed in church culture. Before the church was the institution that took care of those people in need because they saw it as their mission and because there was no one else to do it. The government didnt reach out to those people. There werent non-profit organizations. The church was the non profit. Now that governments have taken on the task and non profits are in place provide services for those in need, I guess the culture or manifestation of church aid has changed dramatically.  As far as providing shelter and keeping clothes on hand are concerned. It is definitely no excuse for a church not to ask "What can we do?" or provide anything that they can

there are plenty of churches that rush to aid that way. But I suppose it is just not the majority. Which means we are in a really sad situation. I think my church growing up was more that way. They went and fed under the bridge every saturday. They had clothing drives and if someone came by they could find something for them or there was food in the kitchen that they would make for them. I blame it on watered down American Christianity.

 Me:  yeah, I feel like non-profits have let church culture off the hook in  way that is actually really detrimental to our mission of community, it actually cedes a lot of power from the church to demonstrate Christ ... I mean there are lots of models of Christian communities existing as spaces of mutual aid and resistance... I've just been thinking a lot lately about the simple way, worship as activism, a church that is planted in a place and is a community center...like reading Dorothy Day's book about the catholic worker (and the place I worked too-- which was set up to be like that)... it was just like, if someone with need shows up, we pitch in to do what we can- and the simple way community in philly operated the same way, occupying an old empty church building and refusing to empty it.

Me: I know there are places doing the work, I just feel betrayed by what Christianity can look like, like you said-- watered down/institutionalized church that kind of follows rules of what church does and doesn't exist simply asking "how would love be manifested in this situation?"

Jesus' life and teachings demand a response that if taken seriously would be radical... and I am still learning how to respond faithfully

 A:  It's true. I dont know when it happened or how it happened but  I think with the dissolution of true community, a consequence was the dissolution of the community church. I dont know which came first. I have actually never seen what you are describing before. Which is really sad.

We have like three churches on one block where I am from. there are churches on every corner. there was never just one that served a place but like bunches all over.

And my church was in like a baptist minsiters union so we did have connection to other churches but never the ones right next to you which is probably a product of denominational separation. I really dont know.

But like a church as a community center, I cant say that I can name one but where I am from, we dont really have communities to speak of  but that's beside the point, I think the problem is that American churches do not emphasize service as a means of serving God. He says time and time to take care of those in need. And we either ignore it, or just focus on evangelizing, or focus on working within the church, or simply focus on ourselves :/

 A:  Well I think Amazing Grace Church is an example of that. They are completely engaged in the McElderry Park Community. They provide services and resources for people in the neighborhood and I thihk they do an amazing job of being a service, community oriented, outreach as mission kind of church.

 Me:  yes to all the things you said- Amazing Grace is fantastic, they're what I'd call a community church, I should of called them. And New Song Ministries runs Martha's Place and an Arts center.

I think there are some churches doing their best. and Alex mentioned too how churches having lost their younger groups makes it so they have a lot less money to work with which is true. (ugh, money.)

There is a church where i went to school that was also a homeless drop-in center... and at church on Sunday there would be homeless folks, children, college students, community members and even cats and dogs

it was fantastic.

aerial poems (somewhere between Chicago and Baltimore)

To the Baltimore I do not yet love,

be patient with me

I dream of the beloved community
where power has been disturbed

and all are at the table

I dream too of the other places
I could be, of the desire to escape

your struggle, to ignore that

life and death are a day's currency

I dream of the forest, of an

already come, of the Black Panthers

and MLK and Dorothy Day and 

the names that I should know by 

now- the sparks of faith

and those whose histories are lost

who fought

to see an incarnation

of justice, of mercy, of love

Who yearned and grieved and toiled

and got up weary and went to bed weary

for a dream yet come

Baltimore, I do not want to belong

to you. I seed my heart to the 

free coast, to the garden, to 

the community I know.

I do not want to stay for you.

Don't be a place that roots me.

But I hear the Spirit speak- in

the voice of Andre... don't come and go,

You can't love a place like that

You can't serve if you do not 

see it is life and death

and he is right but I do 

not want to know

Eventually, one must come to rest.

I do not want you as a birthright.

I do not want a city as a home.

... must mix their blood & sweat

with the land.

Must be in place

to see the dream 

when all awake. 

"because the heart narrows as often as it opens."

It's been difficult for me this winter to find the space I need to process, or hold on to the time that I need for it in the face of so many possibilities to spend time learning or building new friendships. This weekend at the Forum for Theological Exploration conference for leaders in discernment, I felt like pieces of my identity were re-centered and reawakened.  Before I arrived, I read Mary Oliver's poem Red Bird and the particular line that is the title of this post laid on my heart all weekend calling me to grace.

I didn't know what to expect from the weekend but what I found was a space to enter into the beloved community and I am still surprised and moved by the incredibly reality of the covenant we made to each other. Despite the diversity of theology/tradition the space was safe and sacred-- which surely isn't my every day experience. The spirit of generosity wonder, hospitality, and listening was tangible. It was a space of encounter and conversations surfaced for me that I had been processing mostly in my own experience without others to discuss with-- especially around queerness and my role as an outsider to the community I work in. Both those topics are complex, so I am going to begin with an easier thing... this weekend reminded me that I need to write. 

Introduction to Incarceration 101

Last week, I had my first workshop in the correctional facility. In some ways it wasn't what I expected (I guess I expected prison to be super rough and for everyone to seem different than me... to look a certain way.)  Which was dumb, because they were all ordinary people with their own stories and context. The weirdest part was having to wait at doors with cameras watching, knowing that you're being watched and guided through by some invisible oversee-er-- it's almost like highschool except those mysterious locks and barbed wire fences... and when they want to they can make you wait, or forget about you, and you just have to wait and pass through the maze of doors-- it made me think of Palestinian's passing through checkpoints-- especially when inmates where not called off their blocks to come to the workshop and neither we nor they really have any power to change that, they just get there when they can.

They all seem like women I'd meet in any setting of my life. and then there's things like "I have nine years, plus time served." Nine years. It doesn't sink in. How could it in one day? I laugh with them, their hands popping into the air at once to ask questions about their cases (there is such an intense preoccupation with their individual dramas and case-- I guess all the time to lends itself to that-- so many of them have a sense that their judge or lawyer personally hates them or that they aren't being represented fairly.) Their hands pop up again- in response to how many are mothers, how many have kids under 18 (nearly all of them). "I lost visitation rights here. permanently. I won't have another visitor while i"m here." Again this doesn't sink in... how could it? No visitors for years?? I don't see their rooms, their day to day life, the violence and prison mentality, the power struggles... I do see the cameras, the "movement of hold", the doorless stalls in the bathroom.   I hear in their stories similarities to people I sat with at Dorothy's. People with trauma. People with substance abuse issues, people who are sick, people who made bad choices, people who resorted to violence... there are several women who blatantly have mental illness and have limited medication in prison (no narcotics)... all normal people. How did they get here? I guess I wasn't expecting them to be so normal-- daughters, sisters, mothers friends, lovers, caregivers... people who were nurses, one had a bachelor's degree-- though most of them got their GED in prison, come from situations of poverty... etc.  There is no clock and I forgot a watch so I felt anxious of time the whole first day... Sarah says she thinks it could be a mechanism of control to stretch the day, to make it endless or make it feel short. 

I looked at their faces-- some pretty, some tired, some older than they are, some younger... I look at the faces and I realize, I don't know a thing about it... about the path to prison or the path out? I walked through the front door easily.

"It took me thirty-years to learn to love myself, now isn't that ridiculous? Thirty-years." Some of them... of us... women... will we ever learn? Can we know how to knit ourselves back from trauma, sexual abuse, physical, emotional abuse or neglect or detachment, from lovers that trampled through our skin, from the way life never seemed to bend in their favor as their taught it can for some people, how some people have all the luck? 

I don't know how to be anti-racist. I don't know how to be a good feminist. I don't know how to work against these systems of oppression, of institutional racism, of unequal power, of trauma, of prison systems that don't rehabilitate or set people up for success... I don't know how to keep remembering that if you're white, you have to pay attention to your skin opening doors, unlocking opportunities, and to be actively supporting others.

Today a few of the women shared stories and participated in activities where they opened up and one broke down crying in an activity and couldn't go on...  and I thought about how strange it is that we can encounter someone we don't know at all and in offering them an opportunity to safely express their emotions -- so many people don't have that and are so eager for those moments of vulnerability. I think for me the best part of my work is just having genuine connections with other people, even if they're miniscule in the grand scheme of things... it just feels important to have interactions where I really acknowledge and pay attention to the humanity of another person. It was sobering and also hopeful-- because there are opportunities for them to find support and move on with their lives-- it felt good to be able to be part of giving them concrete links to what they need and just to listen, to put into their hands forms and contacts and resources.

September

Two weeks ago I began my time in Americorp by taking an oath to “get things done for America.” Probably the most nationalistic thing I’ve said in, er… ever? I’m used to thinking of the work I do as community building, used to thinking of helping people, anyone, never as work for a nation.

As an Americorp volunteer when I’m representing them I’m not allowed to endorse political parties, rally, support unions, etc. (things which, not surprisingly, I have to remind myself not to do).
I was sitting next to a Latina woman who works for a partner organization. She said that listening to the marginalized and helping make their voice heard—through voting or protest, whatever means necessary, is essential to the work. We talked about her experiences of sexism, of flipping the gender expectations—when people ask her to take notes, she decides to facilitate the meeting, when people suggest she go first to ‘soften the crowd’ she closes the deal, she suggests others whose gifts make sense, she speaks up. “When there’s a worthy rally I tell my volunteers… “Oh, you’re feeling sick today? ‘Wink, wink.’” She is one my new heroines.

Intersectionality. Gender. Race. Class. So many things flitting around my head in my new position. I am working for Alternative Directions, as a coordinator of resource workshops at a women's prison and coordinating a mentorship program for children of incarcerated parents.

Today I had coffee with one of the community organizers from my office—she told me how a Jewish man had been afraid to enter her black community but when she said she also had ignorance that led her to fear his community (and had experiences of unfriendliness, etc.) his immediate response was defensive and to blame her, devalue her experience or legitimacy of her fears. She pointed out it was the same fear he held. “People need to have conversations, to listen, people need to collaborate to learn from each other."

I was delighted to find my anxiousness of what the people volunteering with me (training but at different placement sights- ah confusing hierarchy of organizational affiliations)—proven wrong. There’s diversity—of race, gender, class, experiences, and to some extent age. I had worried that I’d be alone in my lens of power relations, gender, race, non-violence, international experience, etc.  but the spectrum is broad.

I’ve been reading a lot of Paul Kivel (Thank you, Jacob!) and thinking about what it means to be anti-racist in my work, who are my allies, how am I supporting others? Chris Parks dubbed it the Jacob Mack-boll lens—“THIS IS SO COOL! How can I be constantly involved in everything and support and network?" A lovely lens to have picked up.

There is so much to say already... highlights:

* Affirmation (AVP) Exercise with my Americorp Buddies

* The Baltimore Book Festival-- the radical pavillion, Chris Crass, hearing Azar Nafisi speak
* Local Natives concert with my Chilean cs friend, Juan.
* Exploring the city when Brookster visited
* Murals all over Baltimore

* The kids I am working with

* Sharing an office with Sarah.

* Sharing a house with Claire.

* Sharing a state with Jess Sarriot & Emily Harnish. <3 p="">

* Visiting Harrisonburg 

I need to write more often, so I will try too.

For a New Beginning

Today I remembered a line from a poem that one of my friends & fellow 'Companions of the Way' sent me from our intentional community in California with as a blessing. Today it came to mind as so many of you, dear ones (& myself) are in moments of transition:

                                        'For a New Beginning' | John O'Donohue

In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Family

We pulled into the parking lot of a park in Ohio and got out nervously. I played with the hem of my dress, lingering so my mom would reach the hall and sign-in table before me. As she approached the table she realized who the middle aged twins were. "I played with you when we were young! You two are the only people I know here!" She exclaimed with relief as they recognized her as Charlie Papp's daughter and came to hug us. I know my grandfather through stories-- that they called him 'twinkle-toes', that he was the life of parties, that my mom and her sisters went to weddings when they were young where there were still Hungarian folk dances, that he was "from the wrong side of the tracks" literally, that he swore in Magyar, laughed easily, ran an radio shop where my mom worked for him for the summers.
       A dark-haired lady came out of the hall and embraced me, "You must be Meg! It is so good to finally meet you." We'd been exchanging photos and stories on the website since she located our family in her ancestor search-- she immigrated to the US as a child during the Hungarian revolution of the 50s. Suddenly I was pulled into a room of strangers-- relatives, family... kin-- pouring over old photos, connections being made for me, stories being told-- about Hungary, about my great-grandfather and grandfather, about the family's immigrations, Ohio, Portage Lake. I met 2nd cousins in their 80s who I've known of by childhood pictures. We ate sausage, pickled peppers, apple strudel. A relative living in Turkey invited me to come stay with her.  One older relative, Vaughn, couldn't speak but wrote out stories on a flip-pad of paper for my Mom and I. Earlier my mom and I visited my grandmother's oldest friend-- they had known each other since kindergarten. She pulled out her wedding album and my grandparents, in their 20s, smiled out at me.
     Belonging always overwhelms me-- like collapsing into a raft after having tread water for hours-- there is a sense of relief in coming to rest, of being part of something.  

     Home. I am never quite sure of what that word means, like love, it's used commonly and to express the deepest sense of intimacy and connection. My definition stretches from coast-to-coast, arcs off to foreign countries-- for the geography but more often for the people-- the connections by blood and the connections by experience. There are so many sources of family, of belonging-- some chosen, some inherited and I knit my sense of home around these hearts that move in and out of my life. I think of the tattoo of sketched roots around my arms-- remembering that these connections are wild, fleeting, grounded, dumb-blind luck, and the hardest, messiest sort of work... love. 

     

Home.

"And I am struck once again by the unutterable beauty, terror, and strangeness of everything we think we know."
-Edward Abbey

I walked across the backyard barefoot to sit under this bush that's grown into a tree. My grandma and mother used to sit here mornings and drink coffee together. This morning the wind rushes through the leaves of the tulip tree stirring a gathering hush, hush. On my way to the glider I peeked between the thick squash leaves and spotted survivors of my lazy gardening and felt proud (for the little help I offered the magic that seeds unfold and grow into food.) The summer has settled into itself-- rich, full, slow-- and lent me grace to wait for the slow lessons of ordinary life. I grasp the strands of my dreams as they slip out of memory and realize I am less anxious, less afraid of this year-- of remaining in one place, especially this hometown that has always felt more like a launch pad then a resting space. Does it matter? Does your birthplace have to become a home at some point? Probably not. But, there is a quiet sense of calm in me-- that this is right, that I have much to learn from this place, from my family, from the way the past is never quite finished with us.

Earlier today I read a piece from Vela about a year spent in Mongolia and wondered along with the author at these worlds I carry along inside me:

 Mongolia changed everything – how I live, how I see the world, how I see myself. When you travel, you tend to cultivate a persona different from that of your everyday life... I remember thinking: one, what if I lived with the same persona I traveled with, and two, if I could manage here by planning only one step ahead instead of ten, instead of trying to see the whole road – well, couldn’t I manage my life like that too?
...It makes me think that perhaps, my facility with the language had less to do with having a “good ear” and more to do with being so open: without buffers, so that everything around me in Mongolia came right on in. Did I go there without buffers or did the buffers disappear when I arrived? Is it the place that opens the traveler or the traveler who opens because she is traveling to that place?

This year I'll be working for Alternative Directions, helping run a mentorship program for children of incarcerated parents and facilitating re-entry workshops at the women's prison.  I am full of anticipation for this fall, for the newness and oldness of this place... (especially to move past being 17 years old when I am here.) I feel hopeful. I want to continue experiencing this place with the magic of a traveler, with buffers down, full of curiosity, risk, listening, and patience for myself and others.

Lari articulated wonderfully a tension I have been living this summer-- the struggle of feeling like an injustice-tour-guide, the way church has flooded me with positive and negative emotions, the constant awareness of white privilege, the wondering at when I can offer my voice-- "if we are too politically correct at the expense of our relationships, we will never do anything for fear of the bias we will bring up.  So I'm glad to be conscious, but am so glad that that is a result of living with people and reflecting on that, and want that to keep being the case- that my reflections come from real experience with real people, and that I can be in work, living, and social settings where I can ask my friends- what does this mean to you?  as opposed to making my own judgment."

My mind is on a handful of thoughts-- changing with people even when paths diverge, relationships, what it means to work in my context, new communities, what it means to make commitments to my friends/to place, navigating desire, navigating my hyphenated identity, prayer, ¿Quién es Diosito? I am thankful for the thoughtful questions my friends are always asking-- questions that help me understand myself and who they are in their own mapped territories, questions that narrow, widen, or focus our scope and questions that hack through brush to open up uncharted lands... so many questions to live into continually!

Who we are instead

My yoga routine this morning included a meditation on "if my heart were planted what would it grow?" I imagined sprouts of hot air balloons taking to the air like dandelion seeds.

The house is quiet, another afternoon spent alone at home and I fill my time with collages, letters, and books. Words and images. When my head grows tired I stalk around the block, a few streets that feel more like part of my own backyard then a neighborhood I live in. Streets that are worn over in my memory with layers of people and conversations held while feet pounded against this pavement, the playground court, the swingsets. Lately we've been venturing into the thin band of woods while we weave our lives back together over and over, from everyday experiences.

I feel joy.