september: work
The gap between theory and praxis might just be the void we joke about shouting into, feeling alone because we believe we’re only able to dream of a future we hope to survive long enough to see. I’ve been working through this “idea to action” process in my personal life, and I keep getting caught up in the fear of rejection or losing my self-awareness when I make new decisions. My community of origin (church, school, mean girls, etc.) is where I learned to have a hyper-self-awareness~ If I can get to my faults before anyone else can, then there’s no way for me to rub anyone the wrong way. Believing I could stop myself from causing the harm that, at the time, I didn’t realize was being caused to me.
Being open and authentic might just be the first tentative step into community...and I have a hard time writing sentences like that because they’re what you’d expect to find on a skinny white woman’s instagram. And I check all of those boxes, identifying the communities I came from, the ones that damaged me the most. But it doesn’t always mean those are the in-groups to which I align my present moral priorities. I don’t say this as a personal declaration of, “I’m not like other white women,” (because first of all, I am in many ways) but in a more general--where do your communities of origin put you in the world that has evolved and expanded around you? Have you stepped into this new world or are your blinders on, giving you a narrow scope of what exists?
What did you learn from your childhood about being a member of a community? Not in words, but in actions. How did you see people being treated? The written rules and lived experiences gave me contradicting ideals as I sat in pews, hearing moms critique the way that other families dressed for church. It is now my work to tap into my instincts and trust myself enough to build communities that function differently than the hypocrisy of the most readily available communal-model I had: a white-washed Catholic school running on oil money.
Here’s where I bite off much more than I can chew, jumping head first, rather than attempting to shrink the void before I leap into it. And by that I mean, I imagine the other side to be a utopia, or at least an organization where my skills are a perfect fit. But what I often fail to realize are the tiny moments of utopia available in my daily life. How can I breathe into a community-based society, when I still have trouble accepting the support from my friends? It seems noble or easier to jump over the tactical/present and into the ideal/future. But if we’re building community then we have to start with making the bricks--with trust, communication, vulnerability, acceptance, and lots of work as it shows up interpersonally.
What does the work look like? Well, what does the work look like for you, personally, where you are right now? For me, it is to consider how my comfort is derived from a sense of control and how stretching my boundaries to allow myself to be seen and accept the support that subsequently follows will inevitably open me up to experience tiny, interpersonal utopias in my day-to-day life. The nitty gritty, the steps that are right under my nose, are often the most terrifying because I can’t ignore them--the next best thing, the most logical course of action presents itself and I have no choice but to step forward into it after preparing for a giant leap from here to paradise.
The baby steps from intention to fruition often unfold as a mystery to me even as I notice the synchronicity of topics that fill my journals, grace the thoughtful conversations with my friends, and happen to come up in whatever I’m reading. Speaking, writing, and reading might not sound like work to you, but I’d argue that for the sake of community, exchanging and sharing of our thoughts and feelings is at least part of the process of building something that can take us from a culture of isolation to a society that understands the weight of our interdependence.
The weeks of work in this Year of Healing seem to rattle me the most--was American society ever set up for us to learn how to do things differently? And I often wonder if my instincts on work don’t somehow defeat its purpose. Then again, this project, as with all of life, is just one big experiment. I’m writing this to encourage you (and myself!!!) to try it out--step into communal spaces with a different rhythm in your body and song in your heart. It might “feel wrong,” but that just means your experiment is working, you are connected to what is around you and from this awareness, you may make new decisions.
Recently I went to the post office for some stamps and found myself in a rather off-kilter line, all of us agitated from being somewhere we didn’t hold the power, not knowing exactly what to expect simply because the post office isn’t part of our daily routine. I was enjoying the unfamiliarity of my errand, but much of the energy around me was twitchy and grating. Breathing in our shared experience of something ever so slightly to the left of our comfort zones, I made a note to myself about trying to alleviate the anxieties of such liminal spaces. I also wonder if any remotely liminal time (waiting for the barista to call your name, stopping so your dog can do their business, or even waiting in traffic) stirs up the sedimentary liminal-ness of surviving the ravage of a lethal virus that scientists are still studying in real time.
How we react to these communal experiences of slight discomfort are always really enlightening to me. Who do you become in these situations and how is your reaction informed by trauma? I know my project doesn’t span deep enough to unpack this with you, which is why I’ve been working to provide other, more in-depth and professional resources in the Healing Library. I’m only able to touch on these corners of our psyche(s) because of the internal work I’ve been doing with mental health professionals for over a decade. Which I know is an incredibly privileged resource and access to a healing modality that I am attempting to share. Year of Healing is a communal act. Or at least an attempted experiment of one. But I think that counts. At least for now.
Here are some other experiments I’ve been working on recently:
Letting people over in traffic/making sure the cyclist or pedestrian is more than safe on the road.
Taking the time, energy, and effort to be present with whichever service worker is servicing my needs at that time. Am I able to reciprocate with a kind smile from behind a mask? An extra tip? Or a simple and genuine, “how are you doing?”
Offering to help someone with a mobility device or a baby stroller. How can I provide support and add ease to someone’s day?
Telling my friends I’m thankful for them. And getting specific.
Being kind in emails, allowing for the weight of the pandemic to be witnessed even as we are told to continue trucking along. Humanize this experience of deep anxiety and loss. Don’t feel the need to normalize powering through.
I could go on and on and on about community and interdependence, but I think this last note can be enough for now: all of the aforementioned experiments require presence, patience, and gentleness.
Presence - awareness of yourself, your resources, and your wounds; and an awareness of your perception of others, their resources, and their wounds; and how these 2 entities brush up against each other even in an instant
Patience - allowing the other party to show up on their own accord and respond; not going in with any expectation or demand, but rather meeting people exactly where they’re at even if it makes you uncomfortable
Gentleness - accepting whatever happens; this doesn’t mean to allow your boundaries to be crossed or give into harm, but rather working through fears of interpersonal relationships getting messy during a time of cultural, political, and medical liminality
Sometimes, all we need to do to practice being gentle, present, and patient is sitting with our own thoughts or with others, often both.