Anxiety and a Break

I realized a few weeks ago just exactly how much I am struggling.  My house is a mess and I can't find the energy to correct it or care.  I miss people, but I feel so anxious each time I'm in a public situation (including work), that I cannot find ways to reconnect in person that make me feel safe.  I don't know when I will enjoy being at shows or at a bar or party again.  My kids are struggling to get along with each other at home, and with peers at school.  There is an anger seething on the surface of everyone, which of course is grief presenting itself with armor.  We are sad.  We are depressed.  We are grieving, and still unable to celebrate and mourn together in the ways that are most healing. 

I preach mental health all day, everyday, to anyone who will listen, and of course it has been hardest for me to take my own advice.  But in my daily struggles with managing my life, it's really hard to make the time and space for myself, and I need to see this as a fundamentally flawed way to exist.  I cannot sustain this anymore.  I finally got myself to the doctor last week, and asked for a referral to begin therapy again.  I started meds for the first time since I was in my early 20's.  I realized that as much as I've been holding it together, I am not functioning well, at home or at work, and I needed to take action to care for myself, truly... not in the vapid, consumerist ways that we talk about self-care, but in the deeper ways, the difficult ways, doing the things we have been avoiding for so long. 

So, here I am, fumbling in my anxiety and on my computer on the first day of break.  Do I know how to rest?  Do I know how to take care?  Let's find out. 

Reflections on Q1

        I don't remember any other quarter in a school being so tough.   We are understaffed, exhausted, and all meeting'd out.  We are trying our best as human beings stretched thin, caring for our own families and our school family.  This is the prime place for students to begin to have some ownership over their school, and where leadership can begin, but it also feels like we're always on the precipice of disaster.  Adults are in reactive mode instead of thoughtfully planning longterm, myself included, and I think what we need to do is quietly reflect and sharpen our craft, instead of create the turmoil of change, again.   

     Everyone wanted to return to school so badly, myself included.  We also knew, and planned for, the trauma and pain that students would be carrying when we returned, but it is a deluge more powerful than I have the words for.  I can't talk about resilience when there's still so many funerals, some for COVID, but many for the gun violence that our community is experiencing, daily.  We are hardest hit by multiple pandemics, and many students don't know how to navigate it all.  Adults don't either.   

    In week 4 of the quarter, we had a circle in the media center where a young person spit the truest game I have heard in 14 years of teaching.  She laid out a play-by-play narrative of why students don't engage in school and what they're actually dealing with during the rest of their day.  I will think about her often throughout my life, and her challenge to educators to build lasting relationships and actually be there for students in a meaningful way.  The rawness of her grief allowed me to share my own and to remind myself of why I'm here.  I placed myself here for a reason. 

     All I know how to do is to keep showing up everyday, and keep trying to build relationships, to show that I care, to check-in and be consistent.  All that I know how to do is infuse power into the young people I am blessed to be in front of, and I weigh this quarter as successful if they see that within themselves.  Maybe they won't yet, but I'm confident that we have planted seeds that they will sow later.  More than anything, I hope that they remember ACCE as a place where we tried to take care of their whole selves, while healing ourselves.   There is so much more work to do, but many hands make light work. 

20 years.

this year, we had an early soccer game, a play date in the open, breezy air at the park by the river, and it was rather lazy and uneventful.  i am grateful for the distance, and the reflection.  it truly feels like another life, but my body remembers each year.  

different details open up in the corridor of my memory, this year i am thinking about the ways that we tried to volunteer in the days afterward, trying to give our helplessness a job, trying to think of others instead of focusing on how we were feeling and doing.  with kids sleeping on my floor in Union Square, and dorms unable to access, with mental health on edge for each person in the city, we didn't know what to do with ourselves, with all the time of classes cancelled.  trains not running.  phones often busy and cell phones unreliable.  the smell of fire hanging in my nostrils for weeks, but blowing that first day toward Brooklyn and then uptown.  if we had open windows, we all had the silt coating our windowsills and mantles.  the ghosts were all up in our conversations that first night.  we were out in Union Square, attending vigils, rallies, there when the antiwar marches began, and through the next few months as countless families of those missing told us that they did not want retaliation, for more sons and daughters to die. 

a few panels from a zine that Jenna Freedman of the Barnard Zine Library unearthed for the anniversary this year. 

this is what i'm thinking about most this year, in a never-ending quarantine - what do we do with our hands?  we tried to give blood, they didn't need any.  tried to donate food/water/supplies for the rescue, everyone kept wanting to go downtown and i couldn't go there for years.  so I bought dog food for the rescue dogs. 

in 2003, taking the path train into the open carcass of the wreckage unexpectedly set off a panic attack.  20 years later, there is a haze over the direct route to the terror of that day, I have closed off corridors that are harder to navigate in my memory.  collective trauma brought us together, but I knew that I would need to write it down, because I forgot much of it.  still feel this way about ghosts, and they're still here. 

the missing posters are something i've seen in dreams for years.  the North tower falling, the plumes of smoke.  i keep wishing for a new revelation to surface, after 20 years of reflecting, and it's the same thing.  tomorrow isn't promised, we never know what tomorrow will bring, if it will come, so we have to be prepared to look death in the face.  take the afternoons to sit by the river and spend time with good friends.  keep fighting imperialism, oppression, terrorist tactics perpetrated by individuals or governments, systems that reinforce white supremacy. keep questioning the media, keep doing your own research, protect ourselves in the face of a ravaging pandemic, take care of each other.  envision what our world can look like if we take climate change seriously and act with urgency. 

xo

lo

groundhog day

we had two months, a sort-of-summer of maybe we can return to society, a small glimmer of hope, and now a new COVID variant puts cases at over 100,000 in the U.S. yesterday.  we hover around 50% vaccination, just crossing 70% in my county, a fairly progressive county in Southeast Michigan. we are in trouble, and in for more death.  school is happening in person, and while my district is mandating masks, many in Michigan are opening fully without mask precautions, quarantine or testing/outbreak mitigation protocols.  are districts making protocols for this year?  we are headed for another winter of outbreaks, and back and forth to in-person and remote.  again (for those who went back in person last year, we were virtual until May).  like groundhog day of last spring/fall/winter, which increases the trauma that students, teachers and families experience. 

this was preventable, and that's why the anger seethes through so many people.  data is showing that hospitalizations and deaths are over 99% people who are unvaccinated, and while children are less likely to contract COVID than adults, the Delta variant is more aggressive and transmissive.  i respect that there are many reasons people cannot or will not get vaccinated.  but the correlation of those who will not vaccinate and those who will not stay home and abide by mask mandates is evident.  let's value each other's lives and vow to keep each other safe, at the very basic level of common humanity.  this seems too much to ask in America.  

i don't know what this means for what my school year will look like, but i recall a meme about the first year of quarantine, and whew... am i feeling the weight of that today. 

last year, we tried to focus on joy and freedom dreaming toward what the future could be like.  i know that work and writing will continue this year, because to focus on the dystopia of our current world is too much, but it's hard to keep the positivity up.  i think it's worth it to spend the time with young people envisioning what the future could be, as well as giving them space to think, write, process and seek out more help if they need it.  normalize talking about mental health, telling stories, getting through conflict with words.  know that it's okay to not be okay, and that we'll try to be there for each other, but we will all have dark days.  these are dark times, and we must grieve.  we will have new leadership, so much of my year will be about navigating change, god is change, and how we go with the flow of that, and shape it to be what we want it to be.  if anyone can do it, it's the ACCE team. 

august is a monthlong Sunday.  i try to relax but feel the fall behind me, lurking.  i can't truly rest.  i get inspired, write things down, look for readings, songs and videos to play in class.  get excited about school and seeing students and colleagues (hopefully in person for awhile).  scurry to see people i love, miss and didn't see all summer.  run all the errands, avoid all the school supply shopping until the very last minute. it is easy to get caught up in the frenetic energy of Sunday.

this year, i will try to keep the priority on me, firmly, as it has been all July.  i became a master of not paying attention to work email and doing what i want to do more often.  i want to carry that into the rest of the year and make the space to love myself each day, separate from screens after work and truly be in the present moment.  there will be change, and we will keep winning, inshallah.  this is how i will get through the 2nd year of quarantine.

summertime sadness, part 4

if i were to scroll back through my blogs over the past 25 years, i'm sure that i write a post like this every year, or at least write it in a journal entry offline.  with summer always comes sadness for me, but especially these past few years.  in 2018, the summer after losing my father, i was intent on healing and focusing on myself, but my mourning continued long past September, as grief is an everyday struggle that continues to this day.  in 2019, i was just getting a handle on grief, and wrestling with adulting, so the sadness turned inward as i tried to understand why i was struggling with growing up and being responsible.  last year, COVID and the loss of so many folks i love strung the grief out, but i continued teaching summer school, even though i should have rested.  so this year, i have said that i'm not working this summer, truly giving myself the time and space to rest and focus on healing and myself.  

and that's ugly.  it sometimes means not caring about the everyday things.  it sometimes means ignoring others and hiding so i can attend to myself.  it sometimes means losing my phone, or not being reachable or reliable.  always, it means getting sick.  my body has held itself together throughout the year, and mask-wearing + quarantining has meant we haven't been exposed to illness in the same way.  but eventually, my body tells me when I need a break, and it is now.  (and it's just a cold, thankfully)

i've been struggling a lot, as the world opens up, with my anxiety around what that means for socializing.  after 16 months and, people really give no fucks about safety at this juncture. i am still wearing masks in public spaces because my children cannot be vaccinated, and i must vigilantly protect them.  i am wanting to be around people and missing them, but feeling paralyzed and unsafe when i do hang out.  i cannot imagine dining or being indoors at a bar for a long time, or seeing live music, and this is what i loved to do to relax before.  what new ways can i work on being together with people, and feeling safe enough that i can enjoy the time together?  for the summer it can be outdoors, but what about in the fall and winter? 

i also realize and remember every summer how terrible i am at not working.  i keep picking up projects and deciding to "do more", even in the face of an obvious need for rest and disconnection from screens.  my husband, my children tell me how much i am engrossed in a device instead of the people in front of me, and this needs to stop.  as work became digital this year and as i used social media for work and personal reasons, i am always finding new ways to work, and disrupting my own rest with a need to feel connected.  what will the cost of this addiction be, and is it vanity, or something else? 

in the midst of this sadness, i am reminded that these are "champagne problems" as Jerome Nichols of The Butters says -- or high class problems.  i have a beautiful community of people who love me.  i have a home, a vehicle that is reliable, a job that i love, a husband and 2 beautiful children.  paid time off.  my health.  so many amenities and beautiful things about my life.  it is okay to recognize this AND also sit in this sadness, contemplate its purpose, its location, its lesson.  

i will continue to find my way to heal in these ways: being around and fully present with people i love and miss (outside, masked up), connecting with water and letting it teach me about perseverance, basking in the sun, loving on my family, feeling unapologetic about the need to rest and set boundaries.  the sadness is necessary to recognize and appreciate the joy.  

archaeology of self

 I believe in dangerous women

 (a love letter to my favorite writers)

I am a sponge, and I try

not to appropriate, 

not to ‘eat the other’,

but appreciate, uplift

and amplify the work 

of geniuses that history

does not always name.

say her name.  

I believe in dangerous women 

who care for themselves and 

their community like Audre,

prolific poetry-theory of hooks,

I am screaming 

Teaching to Transgress 

from the top of Kilimanjaro

and traveling to new galaxies, 

freedom dreaming through

Binary Stars, with Octavia.

Black women will be the mule

no longer, as we cherish, 

and love you, Toni, 

from the margin to the center.

we have been doing a series of professional learning with Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, and she challenged us to write yesterday an "i believe/i am" poem, using a list of everyday tools/objects, people who inspire us and things we believe in.  it was also mixed with a consideration of the continuum of whiteness, and i was drawn back to "eating the other", and how in college, that had been such an important concept to me as i listened to hip-hop, lived in NYC, went to shows, and engaged with the culture.  i wrote a lot in zines about wanting to be respectful and not appropriate, and i walk that line all of the time, still 20 years later.  i teach about hip-hop, and Black music, all of the time, and i have to be careful to appreciate and share my love for it, but not claim ownership over it.  talks of the self and others have been consistent in my classes all year, and all i can really do is be honest and transparent with my students, and with myself.  

as I dig deeper, in what Dr. Sealey-Ruiz has titled "the archaeology of self", I was talking to Sampson today about doing anti-racist work with white students.  I hope that my work is not construed as white saviorism, but I wonder, as I finish up year 13 of teaching, beginning in Detroit, then the Bronx, and now Ypsilanti, how can I bring this work to the people who need it most?  this is why I like to work with professional development and staff, as we know that teachers are mainly white women, but I also want to work with white students.  I've started to find small avenues, through trainings and side projects here and there, but will I make the shift?  and if not, why?   

today the New York Times cover is a visual of 500,000 American lives lost to COVID-19.  i commented "I don't know how we begin to recover from this magnitude of loss and Mulay reminds me of societies who have.  Genocide is not new.  Grief is not, either.  We must remember our old was of healing and forge new ways to collectively grieve.  We need each other."  this is where I am, coming out of the deep solitude of winter, into wanting to be safely together (still virtually, and maybe outdoors soon) to hold space for each other.  we have all lost so much, and the only way through is to feel it all, fall apart, pick each other up, take care and rest, and get up again.  we have to keep fighting, because we are alive to do so.

on white supremacist terrorist coups

this is what i posted on facebook on thursday, as i spent Wednesday evening on English teacher pages of the interwebs, convincing teachers that they should indeed talk about terrorists taking over the Capitol on January 6, 2021.  

educators, please talk about domestic terrorism at the capitol today. fuck a lesson plan. show an image and ask them to journal, or ask what they're thinking about. answer their questions, be honest, if you don't know something... look it up with them. (or say "I don't know" and then come back with an update later) model how you research. give them links and resources to research and process on their own. and just listen to them. young people need places to process the white supremacist violence they see.  

we must understand it to dismantle it.

 i understand the reasons that teachers, parents, white people may want to "continue as normal", but silence is complicity.  if you don't know what to say, at least say something before you continue with your lesson plan.  allow the space for processing.  tell them that you don't know what to say.  read articles together, and learn about it side by side, become a student with them.  show them how you research.  even if social studies isn't your content area, you should still acknowledge this event.  talk about why it happened, who lit the fires of white supremacist nationalism for the entire 4 years of his presidency and campaign beforehand. 

please do not rely on statements like "this is not who were are, as Americans", because it's precisely who we are.  present to them other moments in history in which white supremacy has been allowed to flourish and be violent; there are thousands of examples that we can access easily on the internet.  google is free. 

on this very same day, my aunt Reni (Maureen Flynn Sieminski) passed away after a fierce fight with a rare blood cancer.  i dealt personally with the overwhelming grief of loss as i watched in horror at Capitol police just opened the gates for violent terrorists, who ended up killing 5 people, and reports are starting to show, intended to do much worse.  Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office immediately.  now Twitter finally decides to block his account permanently, and now he is finally blocked from other forms of social media.  too little, too late. 

i will post separately about my aunt, and grief, but i have felt numb these past few days.  trying to be a parent and remember to feed, bathe and love my kids.  checking on my mom.  leading healing circles, which is the only therapy i have right now, so i will utilize it as much as possible to reckon with my own losses and see my own humanity.  my colleagues in the Restorative Justice Collaborative of The DRC reminded me this week that we seek to hold a mirror up to ourselves and see each other, which is the only way we can seek to challenge white supremacy in our conversations.  we can, and we must, but as a white practitioner, i have less risk in terms of beginning this conversation. 

i am excited more about The Collaborative than anything else right now, because we are working together as practitioners of restorative (read: transformative) justice... where we break down systems of oppression and institutions that have harmed people in Washtenaw county.  Courts and schools are two places where we need to work, and this group will allow us to be in schools, in the court system, and in the community, which is where the values are.  we need to collaborate with other groups in our area to maximize our impact and i'm excited to watch our work grow.  

the vaccine has arrived, and i will hopefully be able to be vaccinated in the next month or so.  i am willing to wait my turn to keep our most vulnerable folks safe and vaccinated first.  both Amy and my mom have gotten their first doses.  Mulay will hopefully be able to in the spring, so that we can travel.  inshallah, when it is safe, we hope to finally bring him home this year, for at least a few weeks. we can't control when it will be safe, so we are preparing in the ways we can.  it would be lovely to get away, but we don't want to harm anyone else, and will not endanger our friends and family, but 20 years is enough and he needs to go home. 

stay safe and healthy.  wear your masks.  keep distanced.  limit travel and gather virtually.  hug the people in your circle and remember that tomorrow isn't promised.  and if you're tired, full of grief, unable to move much, as i am, rest yourself and take good care so we can begin the fight again tomorrow. 

xo, lolo