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Art by Monica Trinidad. Image from Restorative Posters: “We have to pre-figure the world in which we want to live. Through this project, we are disseminating a different set of questions that might transform our punitive mindsets and perhaps push more people to embrace a more restorative model of addressing harms.” Image description: Pen and watercolor image of a brown woman looking into a bathroom mirror. Sticky notes on the mirror say “hurt people hurt people,” “Admitting wrong is strong,” “You are not your worst mistake,” and “Be Vulnerable!” Text above reads: “What exactly are you sorry for?”
“We will face social and political storms we could not even imagine. The question becomes not just how do we survive them, but how do we prepare so when we do suddenly find ourselves in the midst of an unexpected onslaught, we can capture the potential, the possibilities inherent in the chaos, and ride it like dawn skimming the horizon?” – Walidah Imirsha, quoted in Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown.
Almost every morning, I walk alongside a strip of dirt, grass, and gravel. Next to the tidal Neponset River, it sometimes floods at full tide. For years, I never paid this specific patch of ground much attention.
But over the spring and summer of this pandemic season, whoever is in charge of mowing it left it alone. It grew weedy and wild.
Wide, delicate blossoms of Queen Anne’s lace turned their faces to the sun. Elegant white clover stems and mugwort stalks reached for the sky. Plantain by the dozen shot up their single, proud flowers.
Our 15-year-old dog took to trotting through the green and white tangle, and every morning I delighted in its wild gorgeousness.
When we turned the corner yesterday morning, I gasped. The patch had been mowed and shorn. All that was left of the fairy jungle was sparse grass and bits of stalk already turning brown in the summer sun.
Reader, I cried. Tears ran down my cheeks and sorrow gripped my chest. All for a patch of weeds?
~~~
The truth is, I used to cry a lot. I cried when I was sad. I cried when I got angry, when I felt shame, when I felt fear. I cried.
But as I grew into adulthood, I realized that my tears painted me in a corner of weak womanhood. To hold my own in this patriarchal society, I needed to appear in control of my emotions, especially those that made me vulnerable like sadness and fear. So, I practiced holding back tears. I practiced building walls. I practiced interacting with people in a way that prevented me from being vulnerable. I learned how to be defensive, distant, ironic, sardonic.
A few months ago, I was at a virtual gathering where a participant shared the grief she was experiencing with all the pain and loss of the moment. As I listened, I realized that I had felt many things since the start of the pandemic—anger, frustration, fear, and sadness—but nothing that I would call grief, nothing that reached the depth of emotion that word implies.
There was so much to grieve. Why didn’t I feel it?
~~~
I used to be afraid of change. Once I had found a place I liked, a routine that suited me, or work that I was good at, I resisted any change. I didn’t like disrupting my routine, didn’t like moving, didn’t like having to adapt to new circumstances.
I believed my life was on a linear path toward some (albeit fuzzy) destination, at which I would arrive through an orderly and linear progression. Change and unexpected developments disrupted this orderly progression. Change freaked me out.
But eventually I started to suspect that there actually was no linear path for me to follow, no destination to arrive at. Change was inevitable, and becoming more adaptable would help me find more ease.
The 2016 election crystallized this for me on a number of levels. I came to see more clearly than ever that this world is not stable because it is not just. It is corrupt to the core and too many people are harmed by the systems we live within. Of course, I knew this before. But I had been under the naïve and privileged illusion that we were slowly but surely progressing in a linear order toward a just society, in which I was playing my part.
The election of the current occupant of the White House shattered that illusion. I realized (along with many other privileged folk) that Dr. Martin Luther King’s “arc of history” does not bend toward justice inevitably nor on its own. It could and does easily bend toward injustice. And so we must put the strength of our creativity, power, and compassion behind the forces of justice and liberation.
This crystallization helped me get clear about my purpose, my true north.
I began to understand on a deep level that we are not guaranteed comfort or safety in this life. In particular, the podcast and writings of adrienne marie brown and Autumn Brown helped me see that we are only guaranteed opportunities to respond, to grow, to change.
“I keep coming back to response and reaction as the place where I have the most agency. … I am moving towards the horizon of the end of my life, I am generating as much liberation as I can on that journey.” – adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
As difficult conditions arose, I started to search out ways to reorient to my true north, find community, get (more) involved in radical-change work, and keep pushing for liberation.
I started to lean into my resilience, learned what adaptability felt like in my psyche and my body.
Now, I am much less afraid of and disturbed by change. I know I can be highly adaptable. After a few freaked out weeks, I have adapted to the COVID-19 life. I am looking to the November election and knowing that the worst possible outcomes—a stolen election, a military coup—are real possibilities. It’s horrifying to think about, but I feel like I am ready for what we will have to do as a movement to resist and push, tear down and build.
~~~
If I can become adaptable, I know I can become more vulnerable. I believe both individual and collective adaptability and vulnerability are necessary skills for the new world we are building. Honing these skills feels like necessary preparation for the social and political storms ahead of us.
I believe vulnerability is foundational to creating a world without the carceral state, to end policing and the prison-industrial complex. Vulnerability is necessary to create a culture of accountability. A culture without policing means that we are accountable, we hold ourselves and each other accountable. We learn to apologize, to hold the ways we have caused harm, to do the work to build trust again. This requires an enormous amount of vulnerability.
Or, as Mia Mingus, one of the foremost thinkers and organizers for transformative justice, puts it so beautifully:
“For most of us, we have been taught to fear accountability and struggle to know how to conceive of it outside of punishment or revenge. Accountability does not have to be scary, though it will never be easy or comfortable. And it shouldn’t be comfortable. True accountability, by its very nature, should push us to grow and change, to transform. … True accountability requires vulnerability and courage, two qualities that we are not readily encouraged to practice in our society.” - Mia Mingus, “The Four Parts of Accountability: How To Give A Genuine Apology Part 1.”
I know that if I can move from being rigid and inflexible to adapting with intention, I can soften my fear of being vulnerable. I can practice vulnerability and courage.
To be vulnerable means you ultimately have to believe in your own resilience. I know from my practice in adaptability that I am resilient. Which means I can be vulnerable.
So I’m starting by letting my tears flow when I encounter the loss of a wild space I have grown to love. I’m practicing saying how I really feel—when I’m hurt, or scared, or ashamed.
And, I’m opening up the comments on this newsletter. I’d love to know:
How do you practice vulnerability? What have you learned from your practice?
Prompting:
Close or soften your eyes. Take three deep breaths.
Spend a few moments calling to mind objects, beings, qualities, sounds, and colors that signal softness to you. Then, call to mind objects, beings, qualities, sounds, and colors that signal strength.
Write a poem, story, or essay where they are one and the same.
Engaging:
What else I’m reading/listening to/thinking about:
Getting educated on the issues of reparations. I listened to this episode of Scene On Radio on the Reconstruction period, where I learned just how thoroughly my understanding of that historical moment was shaped by white supremacy—and how today’s racial wealth gap is a direct result of the forced failure of reconstruction. I paired that up with some deep dives into William Darity’s proposal for how to close the racial wealth gap through reparations.
Staying fired up. I found Amna A. Akbar’s op-ed to be a powerful summary of how we on the left are remaking politics—and how we must keep our eye on the prize. And I’m thrilled about a new Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities project, as they ask: “What are the radical possibilities of catalyzing cross-racial feminist solidarities, imaginations, and substantive realities?”
Getting inspired. I’m loving Junauda Petrus-Nasah’s vision of a world without police, a world where grandmas make what’s wrong right. And, I watched a beautiful breakdance/jazz improvisation under a weeping beech tree.
Community/announcements:
I’m taking a little break this month. There will be no newsletters, audio offerings, or video poems coming to your inbox in the next new and full moons. Enjoy the lushness of August!
And, because today is my birthday, I am celebrating by offering a little something to you, dear readers. I’ll randomly choose three paying subscribers to get a poem and your choice of one of two teas I’ve been making in this pandemic season, “immune-i-tea” (mullein, thyme, red clover, and mint) or “peace tea” (lavender, lemon balm, skullcap, and mint). So now would be a great time to become a paying subscriber. And also, if you can’t subscribe but want in on the drawing, just let me know. I’ll happily put you in the mix!
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