A Journey Begins…
A Spiritual Journey always sort of creeps up on one. It’s never clear that this is what’s happening until one is totally engulfed in the lessons, the learning, the stories, the growth, I’ve never known one to be painless or without some level of challenge to ones character.
I knew I had to go. I knew my kids were experiencing their own growing pains, those pains that one has to try oneself out, see what one is made of, see who one is needing to be as they move through life. most of all the need is to prove oneself to oneself, to show that one can do it, can be resilient, can do the right things.
It was no different for myself, the only difference was that I can’t even name or number how many times I’ve found myself at this point in my life. It seems it often started with a deeply painful and life-changing event, that necessitates a movement of some sort, which leads to shifts and more movements.
Back in the fall, I realized that I needed to leave the state I’d been born in and lived in all of my 67 years. I, like my Mother and Grandmother before me were drawn to the Southwest. They chose Phoenix, I Albuquerque. I knew that the cold of Colorado had bitten into my being for the last time. That bite, and the actions of a member of my household who decided to also take tiny bites out of me were draining me of my life force and actual will to live. Prior to that, a breakup from a man who also had taken big chunks out of my spirit was wearing and weathering me in ways that my spirit knew were no longer sustainable.
There I was, feeling like Swiss cheese and holding a dawning awareness that to stay would be the death to my spirit, if not my body as well. So, I prepared myself for leaving. At first I wasn’t sure where I was going to land. Phoenix felt too daunting for me given the intense heat and need to live in air conditioning for a good part of the year. Having asthma, I’m sensitive to AC for some reason, even indoor heat in Winter is drying, but I have learned to work with it.
I looked at prices, various towns and cities–too expensive, too remote, too lacking in something I needed, and I knew in my spirit somewhere what that was, but not on a conscious level right away. I was drawn to Santa Fe and Taos, yet they both have wintery weather, and they are sadly almost as expensive as Colorado.
I have a dear friend in Albuquerque, so started looking seriously. I didn’t know that it seemed to hold what I was looking for until I got here. So I began to plan…
To be continued…
Where am I now?
I’ve visited but never lived in the Southern US. From what I remember, it’s very lush there, very lush, and humid. I have not thrived well there due to the molds that thrive in moist places. Along with that, my memories of the 1960’s, even though I was a child, still haunt me. I could never imagine living in a place where my people are hunted and treated in less than humane ways. While I know this happens in the cities of the North as well, it is more direct there, more blatant, more historical.
To my knowledge, none of my family have ever chosen to live in the South, in fact, except during the times of the enslavement, we lived in the West—Colorado, California, Arizona, now, me in New Mexico. This fact makes my family unique, as we, except for those who married in, have no roots in the South to speak of. Even my Great-great-great-Grandmother who was directly from Africa, escaped the Southern enslavement shortly before emancipation. We do not know exactly where she landed, but she and my Great-great-Grandmother were headed North.
As far as Colorado, with that information, my family has lived on that land for 7 generations, including my Granddaughter. I do not truly know or understand why my Mother and Grandmother both left there for Phoenix, but I have a clue, now that I am close to that land. There is a calling from the Southwest that offers our spirits a place to find rest, to find a place where retirement is a real thing, to find a place where we can breathe and be warm. Women of my bloodline are not keen on the cold—Colorado is all about that throughout the Winter. Biting winds, piles of snow, temperatures below zero sometimes. It isn’t an environment wherein we can thrive, much less survive very well.
So, here I am. I actually considered Phoenix, like my foremothers, but with asthma that plagues me, the idea of being in mandatory AC for half of the year, as I was before I left Colorado, gives me the shivers just thinking about it. You could say the same about the cold in the Winter here, but, with my arthritis, being indoors and being warm with shawls and mini heaters is blissful to me. Yet in Colorado, there comes a point in about mid-January, where your core temperature can only be raised by being in a hot tub or with many blankets and small heaters. Go figure.
All this to say, after 2 months, I’m beginning to become acquainted with this desert place. It is said that nights in the desert are around 45 degrees, that seems to be true. Mornings are cool, with breezes until about 10 or 11, then the afternoons are pretty warm, although as the sun goes down, it begins to cool off pretty quickly. I got here at the tail end of Winter, which was surprisingly mild. I experienced a couple of snows—if you could call them that—given what I know of from Colorado–a dusting really–that was gone by about 10 or so, then chilly the rest of the day. Yet, due to the dryness, the chilly isn’t the unbearable chilliness of late Winter/early Spring in Colorado.
I recognize that I am making ongoing comparisons, but please understand that I was born in Colorado, and while I lived in various towns, I was in Colorado for all of my 67 years of life. This change is truly epic for me. I am being fascinated by the changes, by the differences, by the new way that my body is responding to this new land. I enjoy discovering the new trees, cactus, flowers, birds, animals, I shall keep you posted, and share pics as I go.
Also, none of this is to dis the state of my birth. I will always honor and love Colorado as my birthplace, and the land where my people came to live. As I’ve said often, I know Colorado, I know the trees, the red rocks, the way it feels and smells as the seasons change, the way the rains smell, the look of the clouds at different times of day or when the weather is about to change. Those and so many other of the ways of my home state will always be near and dear to my heart, and being close, I’m likely to visit when I can, it will always be my first home. Indeed, both of my closest foremothers returned to Colorado near the end of their lives, after their husbands died, and later there made that final journey themselves. Not in step with tradition, I came here alone, I have no intentions, or thoughts currently about what I will do, or where I will go when I sense that time in my life—I know—am told by spirit—that I’m not ready for that time yet. So, on I go, exploring, enjoying a new kind of life and energy here in this new place that I now call home. My heart is open. My spirit is open. My being is open to what is to come.
Mother’s Day 2023
After my mom passed in 2009, I was understandably distraught and went to see a therapist. This therapist said one sentence that has stayed with me all these 14 years since then, because they hit home. I have also shared them with my clients and those who are close to me over the years. The words were: “You are grieving two Mothers: The one you had, and the one you wished you’d had”.
My relationship with my mother was rocky throughout the years. She had me in Colorado and left me to be raised by my dear Aunties who were an amazing triad of strong, loving, fierce women. For a few regretful years, we didn’t speak or see each other–long story that I won’t go into here. At the end of her life as she developed and eventually was overtaken by Lewy Bodies Dementia, I got to care for her and we were able to repair some of the damages to our relationship. When she left this life, I believe we both felt some peace, forgiveness, and a whole lot of respect and love for each other.
Sure, I wished so often that I’d gotten to have her in my life when I was young. I wish we’d not had disagreements that kept us apart for years at a time. I wish things had gone differently from my birth, though, again, I’ve always been deeply grateful for my aunties. They in turn helped me over the years to be grateful for her and loving when eventually she would return to my life. My great-great-auntie would always say these words, that stuck with me as well. As a youngblood, I didn’t really understand why she said them so often, but now, many years later–I do. She would say: “Take all mistakes as Love”.
As for my own daughters, I realized that during their young years, I divorced their dad, lived dirt poor for a few years then moved us from Colorado Springs to Boulder, all on my own as a single Mom. Later, I was going to Grad school, then after graduating, starting my private therapy practice while working 3 different other jobs to support us, all done with a deep desire to make our lives better.
Of course, I wasn’t the best Mom either, given all I was trying to do. I was away from them a lot more than I wanted to be, and the stress of all that I was trying to do was wearing and weathering on me over time. Yet, I loved them with all my heart, mind, body and spirit. I am also deeply proud of the beautiful young adults that they have become, and I know I did the best I could, though at times I’m sure they may think it wasn’t good enough, or that I failed them in some or many ways. I hope in some way, someday, they too can take all mistakes, missteps, lack of awareness, etc. as love.
I know that no moms are perfect—none! Some are dealing with their own wounds that keep them from being their best selves, or even cause them to not be able to show up for their kids in any way. So maybe we all wish for and grieve that mom we didn’t have, the one we saw on TV, but know wasn’t real.
If your mom is gone from this life, bless her for all she did for you, you are still here, living and breathing. If she’s still alive and you are in contact, let her know who much you appreciate her. And, in the event your relationship with your mom wasn’t ok, and perhaps you don’t speak to her or have had to cut her out of your life—bless yourself, get therapy, and become your own mother or adopt women into your life who will love you unconditionally. Either way, enjoy this day, and don’t forget the Mother we walk on each day who gives us what we most need and more. Happy Mother’s Day.
Rest, child, Rest…
5/21/23
This morning my Grandmother spoke to me in a journey. She came to apologize for all of the ways she had hurt me, my siblings and my Mother and Aunts. Her parting words were those. Those words are significant coming from my Grandmother, because during her lifetime, she was known for vast amounts of criticism, one criticism being that I was lazy and needed to do something instead of sitting around. Given that she was also religious, the other admonition around idle hands and devils work (whatever that was) also played into things. Sadly, I realize that my Grandmother was colonized. I have more empathy for her right now, but the harm will require a lot of repair, her apology from the other side helps.
I am choosing to continue to do Somatic Abolition work with Resmaa Menakem, as I have been since I first picked up his book My Grandmother’s Hands over 2 years ago. We had a “Communal Consultation” yesterday with Resmaa and his two team members. These particular meetings are for Black Bodies, Indigenous Bodies, and Bodies of Culture. (Resmaa speak for what has been called in recent years “People of Color”) At various points in the meeting he fields questions from us. I can’t speak to other people’s experiences, only mine. This week, one of the themes was around rest. Not surprising that this book, written by a Black Bodied woman: Tricia Hersey came up, as it has become the new bible for many of us–that and the “Nap Ministry” she has created.
During the course of this discussion phrases and words are mentioned–called, elicitations–meant to bring to mind images, thoughts, feelings, etc. that allow us to practice our ability to better hold the ongoing onslaught of racism, White Bodied Supremacy, and Colonization that has affected all of us in many various, and most often, traumatic ways. This was about the reminder that we as Black Bodies Indigenous Bodies, and Bodies of Culture have ancestors who were never allowed to rest. My enslaved ancestors would have had to deal with the constancy of being on, being harassed, raped, beaten, watched, made to work for many hours without rest, proper food, proper shelter or clothing, etc.
Even when enslavement ended, many entered into indentured servitude which meant that they still couldn’t rest, because it was then more about having to keep working to pay the “company store” which meant they never got it paid off, because poverty was a constant. They were forever “beholden”, always owing, never progressing, no way out of the piles of debt, no freedom, nothing to call their own that didn’t somehow belong to “the man”. Another intergenerational trauma.
From going to college on scholarship, not having rich parents to back me, to later on being a single Mom with little to no support, fast forward to being an elder on SSI, working because I want to, just so I can survive, this hits me hard. Never ever having enough (“you could have saved Soltahr”– saved what? Saved when, Saved how?) I also hate being beholden to anyone for anything, Yet…
Bodies of Culture and Indigenous Bodies have also dealt with their versions of running and lack of rest–chased off their land, dying while building railroads and the rest of America, held at the border in cages, lynched, removed from their homes and put into camps, murdered, massacred, burned out of homes, chased out of towns, fleeing genocide–all because we have melanin in our skin, all because we don’t exist in White Bodies.
My first images were of my Great-Aunt Dodie who I speak of often, she was my Grandmother’s eldest sister, who was truly more like the Grandmother I have always wished my own Grandmother had been able to be for me. My Aunt Dodie told stories of being on her knees, scrubbing the floors of the Broadmoor Hotel–the play palace for the rich White Body elites who came to visit Colorado Springs. She dealt with arthritis in her knees for the rest of her life. My other relatives spoke of the various menial jobs they had, overworked, underpaid, no days off with pay, etc. etc. As a White Bodied person, you could say, “well my parents and grandparents were poor too, and they also had to work under those conditions”…And I would remind you that they didn’t have to deal with continual racial slurs, harassment, fear of being set up to lose their jobs because of the color of their skin, no promotions or career futures, and always living on the edge, sometimes falling off.
All this to say, they never got to rest. My Aunt Dodie worked into her late 80’s. When she retired with her pittance of Social Security, she and her husband, my great Uncle, couldn’t rest even then, because there was now the worry about how to continue to make ends meet. Multigenerational households are workable because the expenses are spread around, and making it becomes feasible, never luxurious, but feasible. Now that I am living on my own, I am tasting what my ancestors dealt with, the aged body, weary from working since I was 16, raising my twins by myself after divorce, living on welfare, food stamps, making sure they had shoes, clothes, school supplies, foregoing dental work etc. I often didn’t eat so they could, all while watching my mind to make sure I’m not succumbing to the dementia that overtook my Mom and my Grandma because at the end of their life, there was too much of life to process–better to check the mind out.
The weariness, the weathering was constant. I took out a loan to go back to grad school, only to be thrown into the “cauldron of wisdom” called Naropa, to be put to the fire, to fight for my education, to fight to be seen, to be heard, all the while working to make it better for myself and those coming after me. Every year I still see young Melanated students and LGBTIQ students struggling to get through the Institution, many end up leaving–no one talks about that–they leave because they were chased away. I started as a student and went on to work there–3 jobs just to have a living wage, and raising my daughters. Becoming a professor, I was never respected by my peers, and many of my students. (Of course there were many students who I still hear from to this day who saw what I was trying to do, and have gone on to be successful therapists, with sensitivity about racial and cultural issues.)
I am grateful to have gotten my Master’s degree, as it offers me the opportunity to keep working, which, to survive, I will plan to do until I can’t anymore, as I have no retirement, no 401K. I left jobs because of racism, I couldn’t stick it out working for the government like my Mom did. I deeply love the work I do. After a fall down a flight of stairs and a couple of accidents, I can’t work as much as I wish I could, the falls created various spinal injuries, severe chronic pain that I am under medicated for–because I have a Black body, and that’s how medical care works for us. We have to fight for everything we get–literally everything. I’m not sharing all of this for sympathy, but for understanding of what it is truly like to live in a Black or Brown or Red body in America. Does all of this all make you want to turn away? Does it make you feel weary? Does it feel like I’m being dramatic, or…do you actually believe me? This isn’t written to be a personal attack on anyone, it’s me processing a part of my reality that I couldn’t totally access until this time of aloneness. This sharing of my process is my healing. It’s getting it out of my being where it’s been hiding in dormancy for many years.
During the group yesterday, Resmaa spoke of the “Leisure Class”. The first picture that came up for me was a pair of White legs, drink in hand, painted toenails, ocean in the background. Leisure. What’s that? I’ve only been off Turtle Island once in my life. I have a goal of making it to Africa somehow before I die, to simply kiss the land of my ancestors–me, another of the stolen hands, stolen children of Mother Africa.
Leisure? Hmmm, right now I want to have a car that runs, healthy foods, pretty flowers on my little balcony, and an occasional chance to sit quietly, to read a book, listen and dance to music, watch sunsets, laugh, sit by the river. Leisure for we melanated looks very different. White Bodies have the leisure to be in their yards, their homes, on the street, in their cars, on planes–literally almost everywhere in this country or beyond– without being harassed, harmed or killed for no reason. I seek leisure.
My ancestors had to give up bodily autonomy, as “Master” had 24/7 access to their bodies, they knew nothing of leisure. They knew nothing of having their bodies to themselves. Had to keep living, keep working, keep doing, doing, doing. have always felt that I needed to be doing something. Sitting here writing this feels like leisure–kinda, it fills my spirit.
So, this is what I’ve been weeping about, sitting with, wondering about–how I could take more time for myself, tend to myself more. I am joyful that I am able to do my joyful work sitting down, holding hearts, minds, and spirits. That’s not what’s hard. What’s hard is allowing myself to sit down to rest, allowing myself to feel my body relax, to let my tight shoulders fall, to see how it feels in those moments when my nervous system settles for longer periods of time. After the group yesterday, I took a nap. I’ve not really been a nap sort of person. I think I’m going to learn to be one.