Happy New Year

I am not ambitious.

I do not want to climb corporate ladders. I do not desire to be a CEO or CFO. While I often contemplate my ideas and abilities, I am not sold on entrepreneurship.

Of course, I have personal and professional goals. I can articulate a vision for myself and my future. I see and consider paths to realization.

Still, I do not believe myself to be ambitious in the connotative sense of the word.

The majority of my heart's desires are neither tangible nor objective:

Inner peace

A happy home

Safe spaces & relationships 

Connection 

Contentment

"Belovedness"

Mental health 

Wholeness

A stable inner life

Authenticity

Self-acceptance 

Reconciliation

Congruency

Freedom

Freedom from debt

Freedom from stories

Freedom from shame

Being a liberating presence

As I write and consider, I think "Maybe that's ambitious afterwall." When I consider the direct, generational, and collective traumas I have, the existence I envision is miraculous.

I also see how I press towards these things. In therapy. In reading and self-study. In parenting. In friendships. In relationships.‭‭ "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but" I move in the direction of the "truest, most beautiful life I can imagine."

Someone recently told me, "One of your strengths is that you see yourself as water and not concrete." Sometimes it does not feel like a gift, but being fluid has brought and taught me so much. I prize the ability to reinvent.

This year I am refraining from plans and resolutions. 2021, 2022, and 2023 proved that, like life itself, I am ever-changing. As we go into 2024, I will simply remind myself, gently, ever so gently, to do more of the things that keeps this human watered and flowing.

Happy New Year, Friends! May we be "liberated from our own fear." May "our presence automatically liberates others."

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. 

- Marianne Williamson

MJ Chronicles - 6 Months Together

Today I've been excessively tired. My unstructured days are like this. When we're free from our work and daycare schedules, all the energy mustered to be timely, efficient, and effective leaves my body. 

Then it's just MJ and I.

This sweet boy with wide brown eyes, curiosity, and a crescendoing voice...

This exhausted woman with a tender gaze, anxieties, and an evolving worldview... 

We've been together for 6 months. 

My life has taken a shape I couldn't have imagined one year ago. I am a single mom. That's wild.

My entry into this path; the uncertainty it holds; and the love I have for MJ is often overwhelming. Doing this day in and day out without a partner or family proximity is a challenge. I am eternally grateful for my community of Aunties (and Uncles); their support is special.

My boy is sleeping. I should clean the bottles. I should put the toys away. I should fold the laundry. I should take out the garbage and finish January's  budget. I should ...

The to-do is long. But, I am tired. MJ is sleeping. And I can take a moment, as many as I can, to rest and relax. Among MJ's needs is a healthy grown-up.

Motherhood is equal parts beautiful and taxing. It alters bodies [of bio moms], lives, homes, plans, finances, and relationships. Children touch everything. Their presence is powerful; it is shifting. Some moments feel like a freight train; some moments feel like a cleansing, calming rain.

Whatever comes next, I am grateful MJ arrived in this Earth, home, heart, and life. 

- Same pants, different milestone

The Color Purple | Alice Walker

Shug say, Albert. Try to think like you got some sense. Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.

He look at Sofia. She look at him and laugh in his face. I already had my bad luck, she say. I had enough to keep me laughing the rest of my life.

It ain’t me, she say, and her look say, Fuck you for entertaining the thought. She reach for a biscuit and sort of root her behind deeper into her seat. One look at this big stout graying, wildeyed woman and you know not even to ast. Nothing.

Dear Miss Celie

I write to express my gratitude. 

You bore shame. You experienced oppression, violence, degradation, and suffering. You wrestled with jealousy. You wrestled with comparison. You wrestled with understanding, worthiness, womanhood, sexuality, and even God. 

Your life told from your point-of-view resonates with this poor, black, maybe ugly, still here woman. You see and validate me. Like Sofia, I know there's a God because of you. 

You affirm that I am neither alone nor hopeless. I can be the redeemer of my story. You prove that sisterhood strengthens. I adore you for this. I love you for existing. 

You, dearest Miss Celie, are a master class in surviving and thriving in spite of unnecessary insults. 

Amen. 💜

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult. 

- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 

Miss Celie's Wisdom & Understanding:

But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.

He look at me. It like he looking at the earth. It need somethin? his eyes say.

Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown. She say, Miss Celie, You better hush. God might hear you. Let ’im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place, I can tell you.

All my life I never care what people thought bout nothing I did, I say. But deep in my heart I care about God. What he going to think. And come to find out, he don’t think. Just sit up there glorying in being deef, I reckon. But it ain’t easy, trying to do without God. Even if you know he ain’t there, trying to do without him is a strain.

But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don’t want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it. Amen.

One look at this big stout graying, wildeyed woman and you know not even to ast. Nothing.

I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here.

She got a right to look over the world in whatever company she choose. Just cause I love her don’t take away none of her rights.

- Alice Walker | The Color Purple 

Merry Christmas

I hope you are in good spirits and company on this Christmas Eve.

Today I "discovered" a poem that stopped me with its poignancy. I read it silently a couple of times. Aloud a few more times after that. Tears streamed down my face as I sat in the beauty and truth of these masterfully arranged, simple words.

Moments like this make me glad for language, literacy, and comprehension. What a privilege to read. There are still poems, books, lyrics, and art to happen upon at the right moment in time. It is fortuitous. Apropos. Magical.

I now know what my Christmas wish is for myself and all of you:

May we live "with a full moon in each eye" and speak "with that sweet moon language" today, tomorrow, always.

Merry Christmas!

❤️ Kechia & MJ

Admit Something

Admit something

Everyone you see, you say to them

"Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud;

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,

This great pull in us

To connect.

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying,

With that sweet moon language,

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to Hear.

- Hafiz 

Released

You are no longer on my mind's pedestal neither are you in effigy.

Awareness Is A Mother

I know my path to wholeness includes (1) loving and accepting me and all my parts (2) seeing myself as worthy (3) determining what I truly value and want instead of what I'm supposed to value and want, and (4) learning to live peacefully with self. 

I believe that when I am better in these areas, I can share my life and self with someone else in a committed, long-term capacity. Then it'll come from a place of desire, not desperation to prove anything to anyone or create any idea or ideal.

In the meantime, I have to be honest with myself about the capabilities, limitations, baggage, and gifts I bring to every interaction and relationship.

I also have to be honest about wanting a traditional family/life for my child versus actually wanting it for myself. 

Sheesh. Awareness is a mother. 

It's Not You; It's Not Me

Part of my work - the ongoing healing, growing work - is recognizing triggers; understanding them without judgment [of myself and others]; accepting who I am; and changing what peace necessitates.

This morning I sit in bed thinking about the ways I was triggered yesterday. I see a theme. Every instance of a negative emotion brought up feelings of inadequacy.

I am not _________ enough.

So often it comes back to that.

Deficiency.

I am not enough.

That's the story I've been telling myself for a myriad of reasons for decades. That's the perception that tints these gray-col​ored glasses. That is the feces I wade through.

I wonder what it is like for those close to me as I process external and internal stimuli mid-conversation while trying to be/feel/respond like a "normal" human who is not overly stimulated by too many people, too much noise; too many thoughts. 

I wonder if less chatter - mental and external - contributes to being a homebody. 

I wonder if we are all having the same or a similar experience. If we are, it's not you. It's not me. It's all of us. 

I also recognize how I used the tools in my box. I did a round of EFT (tapping) before leaving home. I got sunlight. I "put some respect" on sleep and hunger. I listened to books and podcasts that uplift. I brought awareness into the spaces I entered. I asked myself questions that led to deeper understanding and grace. 

While I may not change the story in a day or year, I challenge it. I am aware of when it's speaking with authority and conflating with truth. I am actively listening to solutions from within and confident they are there.

Wisdom, knowledge, and creative power lie on the inside. Contrary to the story, they are not buried deep - tantalizing and unreachable. The noise - from within and without - may get loud, but it cannot uproot the gifts. We will not be shaken out of peace.

...

If I am, if you are, singular in experience, a quote from Harry Potter comes to mind:

"Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

We are still real.

“Late Fragment” by Raymond Carver

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

...

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Stories

While stories are part of our dream of reality and we give them their due, we must remember that they are only reflections of the truth—not truth itself. As you will soon learn, the truth you seek is inside of you, and these stories, as well as your own story, can only point you to that truth. 

Wisdom is the realization that you have a choice in your story. If you don't like the story you are living, I invite you to write a new one. Let the wisdom in this book be your guide to doing so. 

—don Miguel Ruiz 

author of The Four Agreements

Elevation Sundays

It's cold, but I'm covered.

1. He will reach me. 

2. He will wrap me.

3. He will raise me.

 

- Steven Furtick