The Return
Normal never was. And yet we pine after it.
As the serum of experimental vaccinations courses through the veins of those privileged to receive it, or for whose values it aligns, and the sun begins to shine a few hours longer, allowing sprouts to erupt with their fruits abundant, we too are re-emerging and re-negotiating in the haze.
Everyone is experiencing the range of emotions from an almost manic-like “I gotta do everything and see everyone” to overwhelm and longing for less stimulation. We have been suspended in our silos, our self-selected or designated pods, for enough time to have our perception of what life is, what normal is, to change. We are also being rushed out as businesses reopen and the Fall looms with its back-to-school propaganda. Let me be the millionth person to say, it’s normal to have all the feels and it’s normal to have your own pace as you discern your needs.
As the fierce Goddess Toni Morrison said, “You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.” This as a moment of truth. This is a moment to integrate with what aligns with our highest, most whole selves. This is the moment to remember and not allow the frenzy of “normalcy” to strip us back down to fragmented selves serving a white capitalistic machine. This is the moment to expand and not dilute your lives to still frames, pixelated violence, or gifs.
Although Black people in particular, have captured photos and videos to stun the masses into a moment of justice, I invite you to reflect on how you have stunned yourself into radical change? What have you captured of yourself the last 16+ months? What have you decided is worthy of shifting within yourself? Within your relationships? Within the ways you move in your home and in the world?
In my work, I have been blessed to intimately watch many BIPOC and QTBIPOC leaders renegotiate and realign, to slow down and pause, at times for long periods many thought only the sentence of retirement or death would offer. This pause has allowed many to get free and shift whatever doesn’t fit for the fulness of their being - change jobs, careers, go one sabbatical, launch new business, write a book, etc. So in this space in-between, in the gap between that former period of knowing yourself and the world around you into this knowing, allow me to be guide and doula to your experience. We are co-creating this new world and I am here in support of the practice of a new way of being, of integration, of wholeness. As you go out, let it be in choice. And know that this is just the beginning.
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Photo Credit: Taken by C.R.Glasgow; Unknown Street Art Fruitvale, CA 2021