When I shared with you the difficult conversations I and the Lace on Race team were having about sustainability past the end of the year, I was serious.

Serious about working on two tracks: both gearing up and doubling down, and also facing the real possibility of, even after all of this, closing up and shutting down.

Working on these two tracks has been anxiety producing and nerve wracking.

Also liberating and galvanizing.

December will make or break. I am looking at that with a certain detachment, even as I am energized. We will make plans as though our future is assured; create groups that will launch into full force in January, our two year mark. We will continue on our various series, which I have grown to love, and also ignite our Mentorship program as we learn to durably lock arms as we walk.

In this, all of this, I have this community firmly in mind. I am so proud of all of you who have made the choice to walk, and look with anticipation for those who will begin to walk more durably, less intermittently. I can see us in a year, in five years, even in ten years.

I see how we are influencing the conversation, both within this community and without. Both in comments and in personal messages, I am hearing of small, and not so small heroic acts, both internal and external. I have seen changes in so many of you. and changes in myself, that would not have happened absent this space.

If that is to be our legacy for the last two years, I will count that as a win.

But. as always, I want still more.

I want change, not just for you, but for who you touch. I want people to see what it can look like when people love each other into wholeness and congruence.

I want to see you grow.

So.

Remember the four tenets? You should; they’re prominent on the page at the new website.

Lean In.

Plant Roots.

Grow Up.

Grow Out.

This December we will consider each tenet closely. We will be asking more of you, and you all need to remember why you are here, and what we are constructing together.

Marlise, my maven, has reminded me that I can only drop one ‘big’ post a day, so I will not drop all of it at once. But we need to be reminded, all of us, including me, that this season is not one for dropping of balls, even through the holiday season. Hopefully, through this, we can also find tools to be more present in a season that is hectic for most, painful for some, and fraught for all.

So I hope you will continue to walk here, even in the coming winter. As it happens the deadline for sustainability is at Winter Solstice. That carries meaning. We will walk in snow and rain and wind, but then the days will slowly become longer, and we can imagine and then live out gestation, can imagine growth, can imagine promise.

My greatest hope is that I will be with you–and you with me–in January. I am walking in faith, somewhat ahead of you, clearing a path, hoping, perhaps foolishly, but still hoping that there will be fellow walkers I can hear crunching gravel and snow right behind.

Keep walking.