On Doing What is Right and Not What is Easy

I.

On Wednesday, now that one class is officially over, the professor emailed me and told me that he appreciated and learned a lot from my work this semester that had a social justice focus, and asked if I had recommendations for his future classes as it relates to the intersection of race and disability.  To say that I was humbled and honored is a profound understatement. In high school I was told I wouldn't be able to get into college (#feralkids). Receiving an email from a professor of a grad level program asking for my text recommendations for his future classes filled me with a deep honor. It was a very humbling moment. I'll be asking people who know more than me on this one. Let's be real, here: It was a true compliment, but I know enough to know that there are people in my life who know a lot more about this that I can glean from.

II.

I've been thinking a lot about doing what is right as opposed to easy or fast. It's a topic that applies to a lot of this week.

Here is what is true:

Be compassionate with yourself; be compassionate with other people.  Be very tender with yourself; be very tender with other people.  It is not always the fastest or easiest thing. But it will always be what fills your life with the love and light and comfort and care that you deserve. Have difficult conversations with the people you love in the time they need to take. Take the pressure off of yourself to be in a space that you aren't so that you can show up being your best self. People who care about you will want that for you. They'll know it's what is best for you both.


III.

I'm looking forward to my trip later this month with A. I set it up to talk with him about organizing matters. He's someone I respect a lot personally, politically, and heart-wise and I don't know why it's never occurred to me to just interview him about the blind spots I have in certain aspects of organizing.  I know he will have things to say I can learn from.  He is like a Panopticon as it relates to views of current organizing, a reference he would hate for the prison implication, but love for the kink factor.

IV.

There continues to be deep shifts happening around the bully/liar duo I dealt with almost two years ago now. The fact that people are addressing them on individual and community levels leaves me completely without words. One of the more important pieces that happened today was a person I like and admire who was in community with me eight years ago when things happened contact me and tell me things that it was so goddamn healing to hear.

I feel endlessly grateful for the relationships I have and what we who have them have done to tend to and maintain them. It's not just that you end up having good people in your life.  You also end up having people in your life who hold your history. People who knew you when this or that impactful life event happened. People who serve as witness to your growth and your change. But more than that, and here is where I get emotional, I can say without hyperbole that some of these relationships have literally and singularly altered my experience of the unspeakable happening. I will never forget the feeling that washed over me when one of my best friends in the whole world walked into the courtroom that day having just driven through stupid traffic from her town to mine. It was an instant, entire, and visceral wave that washed over me of knowing that everything was going to be okay. Now that she was there, everything was going to be okay. I think of A showing up to basically every one of the court cases and even intervening with the opposing counsel's asshole tactics. L and X and J and J and everyone else.  And now, in this fucked up 4th 5th 6th round of bullshit, its people from long ago and it's people from 4 years ago and it's even people from just the beginning of Fall.

(pause)

I think the misconception is that you get this level of love with nothing. That you can simply coexist with someone and, magically, it is built. Co-existing or existing in proximity. Yes, people will know your history. Yes, they will witness your joys and your indescribable griefs.  That is of immeasurable value.  But love like this, love that goes deep and does courageous shit- love that never shames or belittles- love that always gives a shit about how each other are feeling - this love is worked for. This love is grown. And, in turn, it becomes one of the most glorious gifts your heart and mind and even your little toes could ever possibly imagine.

To all of the enjoyably incredibly complex people that I know and love:

I will never cut corners with you, nor wish you simple. It is by virtue of your grand complexity that a thousand angles of light are reflected within my life.

V.

Lastly:

I broke up two fistfights this week. One was infinitely scarier than the other. I know that there's that whole "don't get involved you could end up hurt" thing.

I don't have much to say about that.

There's no big moral or statement I have about why I did it and tend to do it.

I think it's just a reflex from home.




be well; be loved,

k.


P.S. The tarot card I drew earlier this week for this week was Strength. Because of course it was. The lion's ability to hold a rose between its teeth. It could rip it to shreds but, instead, chooses to hold it gently in place. Strength is the decision to deal with things gently- to have strength and power under control- because you know, in the end, love wins out. 

(image: Study of Hands c1485 Leonardo da Vinci via secretcinema 1 tumblr)