On the New Year

 It's been a quiet year for me. Looking back, the blog post I thought I wrote over the summer, I wrote in January. I posted in April and after that, nothing. I knew it had been awhile but nothing? Ten months? It took me by surprise. A quiet year, as I said, though if you could read the posts in my head, you'd know I've been busy. But, as I wrote years ago, "thinking writing" is -- surprise, surprise! -- not the same AS writing. 

But here I am. 

This "new year" we are about to ring in at midnight is arbitrary. Like so many of us in academia, we tend to agree that the Jewish New Year is a better marker. But like all rituals, they offer the possibility of both meaninglessness and engagement. Today, I engage.

I saw a Facebook post this week with the question: What gave you hope in 2022?  

It made me stop. It was a weird year, but really, they all are. Just weird in different ways. For the last five or six years, I've approached 12/31 with a fatalistic attitude. I know some use the image of a dumpster fire for the year passing, eager to get to this new date that will make all the difference. But I laughed. WHY would a different year change anything? The freight train of hate that began barreling down the tracks in 2016 seemed to have boundless fuel; it poisoned me. It brought out the worst of my cynicism. 

You may never have seen that side of me. That's because I work to rein it in. 

As my Dad used to say when he would go to bed at 9 on December 31st, "Tomorrow is just another day" which is to say: It's not magic.

But there can be something to stopping and taking stock.  The question: what gave you hope in 2022 made me realize that I had an answer for the question. 

For the last year, the house at the end of my street has had multiple MAGA flags flying, including that included the words: Make liberals cry again. Think about that. Think about the raw fury and those bullying words, flapping against a fence. 

I am a Unitarian Universalist. Our First Principle is the "inherent worth and dignity of all people". I struggled. I still struggle. The best I could do was to pass by with my dog and not encourage him to do his business there, in front of their house. 

By the evening of November 7th, I surrendered to the exhaustion of anxiety. I went to bed, offering up Buddhist Metta meditations. The next morning, I avoided the listening to the radio. Bad news would find me, I figured. Why rush it? That red tide was going to end democracy. It's what most of the pundits were saying. 

When I got to the office, co-workers were smiling. The early news was encouraging, and Maura Healy had made history. By the afternoon and evening, the truth revealed itself: most of the MAGA candidates were losing. Predictions were wrong. Young people came out to vote, motivated in record numbers. 

I was astonished. I still am. I remember my Dad telling me that in politics, the pendulum swings back and forth. That's just how it works. In my life, that's been pretty damned predictable, especially in midterms. Except this year, the pendulum didn't. Yes, the House has flipped but only by a very small margin. And not to put too fine a point on it but the reports about the budget bill being passed seemed to happen only because there were politicians who met in the middle and made compromises. Is it perfect? No. Is everyone happy? GOD, no. But I think the spirit of John McCain is smiling. 

So this, my friends, is my long answer: the midterms gave me hope. 

I am not a person who does resolutions on New Year's Eve; I am a believer of life-long changes which mean a commitment, not a laundry list. 

But today, I DO make this one resolution to you. I resolve to do better. I resolve to not sit in my silence. What I also know is that in the darkness of keeping it in, cynicism breeds. By drawing myself out and engaging with you -- though blog, through conversation -- we connect and share our pain and our vulnerability. We can have hope and we can make a better world. 

Whatever you do tonight and the rest of the year: I send you hope.

Peace

-Leslie

On Rest and Resistance

 A confession: there is a moment, pretty much every day, when I am in bed, the snooze button has been hit a few times, and I look at the clock and wonder: can I do it today? Can I actually get up?

But that’s not the confession. The confession is that many times , possibly half the time, even though it’s already “later than it should be”, I sink back down and literally pull the sheets over my head. Perhaps you know what I’m saying? There used to be posters and mugs with sayings like: Not a Morning Person Doesn’t Begin To Cover It. And we laugh because it’s so funny. Except it’s not. And on the days when I’m going into my physical office, there is also always a moment of surprise for me when I’m riding the train, realizing: okay, I’ve done it again. I got up. It’s kind of a surprise though it also comes with wondering what I forgot in order to get out of the house. My lunch? Check. Makeup on? Check. My phone? Check. I’ve forgotten each of these over the last few weeks, so I check off the basics and let that be enough. There are connected ideas here. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a Night Person . In my perfect world, I’m up until 1 or 2 am and sleeping til noon. Pre-pandemic, I was working 9-5, in the office, 5 days a week. I sucked it up, imagining that someday things might change. The complete surprise, of course, was that things changed. Everything changed.

I have no way of knowing the stats on this but it seems like we night people are in the minority. Early birds are great for jobs with 9-5 schedules. And that was how it was in the Before Times. Lots of us Night People working hours that were unnatural for us, five days a week. When we arrived at work late, even with kind coworkers, the underlying assumption was that we were outliers, which also meant those of us who aren’t are perceived as lazy or weird.

But then, it was Covid and we were all home, all the time-- a complete upheaval.

Last summer, I offered up a sermon at my church: What Covid Showed Me. It was a numbered list of items and number 1 on this list was titled: I Don't Have to Be Chronically Exhausted. It offered this observation:   

 I discovered had extra time in my day and didn’t dread every morning. It took several weeks for me to realize what was happening but one day last June, I told a friend: I’m not chronically exhausted anymore.  It was a revelation – and I hadn’t realized it was possible.

For me this was -- and still is -- a miracle. But here's the thing. I am a person who knows how privileged a world I live in. I am grateful to be able to now be more able to give my body what it needs, when it needs it. For so many in the world, this is not a possibility.

There is a woman in Atlanta -- Tricia Hersey -- whose Facebook page: The Nap Ministry caught my eye a couple of years ago. I assumed it was a call for those of us who were tired to take naps, which it does -- but more importantly, it is a call for us to resist the Grind Culture, for people of color especially.

She has been working on a book which will be published in October called Rest is Resistance. I have already preordered my copy. I cannot do justice to the power of her words, though I try to live up to her mission every day. In the description of her book, she is described this way:

    Rest Is Resistance is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism,     somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in     Hersey’s lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and            performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action, a battle cry, a field guide, and a     manifesto for all of us who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be     liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.

I listen to her words because she is dead-on right. The Grind Culture can only kill us. Certainly it means we don't live our own lives. We are addicted to a system that profits off of us. That is not life. 

This is powerful stuff. If I truly care for collective liberation, how can I not answer this call?

If you are interested in reading more of Tricia's work, here are the links to her book preorder.

Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey | Little, Brown Spark (littlebrownspark.com)

Listen to your bodies, friends. Take a nap. It's good for the soul.

Peace

On Gender

I have a non-binary child.

I've been thinking about writing about it for awhile, and the time is now. One important note: I am not a expert; I am a mom.

First of all, in spite of what one might think, people didn't  start talking about gender identification last year.  It may *feel* trendy and it may be something that you never thought about until last year or the year before but that doesn't change reality.

It’s not a trend. It’s not new. What’s IS new is that it has entered a current moment of conversation. 

So my non-binary child legally changed their name this year. Yes they use they.  Now I use they. I used to teach writing and grammar, so I understand about plural and singular pronouns. Is it "hard"?  One may perceive it as hard, but honestly, there are lots of things in life that are only as difficult as you make them, and this is one. If adjusting your language to respect what someone is asking for in the name of mental health is the most difficult thing you're doing, then you have a really easy life. In other words, get over it

Here's my position. This is MY KID. I love my kid. My kid says; "I identify using they, which isn't exactly right but I'm figuring it, so bear with me." So I say; "Okay, I’ll use they."  Which I do.

I have friends who say to me: "You NEVER slip, using they" which I wish was true.  I do slip sometimes and the kid and I have had to talk about this.  At first, they took it as dismissive and disappointing when I slipped. But we've progressed. We've had to work it through.

The last few years have been hard.  Getting appointments during a pandemic has added a layer of stress on top of the usual, but I am unbelievably grateful to be living in Massachusetts where we have access to amazing medical care and resources. So many people don't.

As I've entered this journey with my child and gotten myself educated, it's been heartbreaking reading the stories of what trans and nonbinary people have endured to be themselves. Going broke just to get medications and surgeries. Living double lives to be safe. 

I am so proud of my beautiful, creative kid. This kid has bloomed in the past year. Finally able to express themselves with their clothing, make-up and hair, their joy is simply contagious. And as for the hair! I have told them that I need help with my hair! Their ability to cut and color is amazing --and they certainly didn't get that gene from me. 

If you're wondering about how much I worry about them, the answer is: more than I'd like to.  Parents worry; that's our job -- but this is different. Any parent watching their child go out the door  who worries that their child may be a target just because of how they look gets it. And there is plenty of that going around. It's partly why I wanted to write. 

As we know, representation matters. It won't fix everything but getting an understanding that the world is more than we know -- or certainly, more than we've seen in media and perhaps even been directly told -- can begin to open minds. We need open minds. 

If you haven't thought much about folks who are non-binary, I would ask you to keep your heart open. 

Life is too short not to get a chance to be yourself. That's true for all of us.

Peace.