Lace on Race

Hold Another Well

I wrote this after a particularly trying day. Being at the end of my third pregnancy, I am wholly tapped out some days. My children still needed me, and I was not holding them. I was clenching hard when I saw Lace taking her time, love, and attention to walk with someone who was being particularly challenging. I was reminded of *why* holding another is a skill that is worth practicing. And that…well…it requires practice.

Reflecting now, I am hyper aware how often I demand BIPOC to hold me. Not just relationally as an adult, but as an infant. Someone who does not have the skills to hold them back, AND who couldn’t possibly be expected to learn those skills. I expect to have everything done for me, while I get all the nutritive benefits I am sucking away. Away from a living breathing person.

This is the flip side I need to recognize in breaking the cycle. I hold another well, while not demanding I be held as an infant. I hold another well, because I am responsible for when they were not. By generations before me, by the systems, and by myself.

As someone who did not feel particularly well held growing up, I can feel myself clench up. “When is it my turn?” The problem is my idea of holding is based on power and transaction. That isn’t being held well nor does it translate to me holding another well. I have my hands tightly grasped to a vision of holding that is inadequate, destructive, and lacking sustenance.

Until I release my grip, I will be hurting others and hurting myself. I have to stop seeing and using relationship as scarcity.

*************************

Hold another well.

Not so I am held well. So they might be able to turn and hold another well.

Hold another well.

But I’m physically exhausted. Do it anyways.

Hold another well.

But I am scared of everything around me. Do it anyways.

Hold another well.

But I feel forgotten. Do it anyways.

Hold another well.

But I hurt. I am broken. Do it anyways.

Hold another well.

But.

Do it because.

Because the cycle needs to end.

Marlise Flores

21 responses to “Hold Another Well”

  1. Rhonda Eldridge Avatar
    Rhonda Eldridge

    I want to take away my own excuse of ‘but I might not be able to hold another WELL’. It is my white privilege that say I get to judge what holding another well means. I will hold another the best I know how and let them decide whether or not it was well. There is no excuse not to do the holding.

  2. Konstanze Avatar
    Konstanze

    “how they need to be held”.
    My older child is about to hit puberty and her needs shifted from what I can give without effort. Her needs as a Preteen, but also as a Black Preteen and a Black-Teen-to-be. As a white mom me holding her has limitations, we’re both aware of what I can not give her, but we’ll stay close because of what we can keep building together, with me holding her the best I can. Working on staying present and paying attention to what’s actually there, not what I wish was there.

  3. Ingrid Good Avatar
    Ingrid Good

    This is my second day here. I’ve been going through weeks of depression, having to do with unhappiness with my partner and feeling lack of close relationships. Boy, do I ever want to be held! From my reading here, I’ve started to think about how I am acting like a child. “Who can I call to listen to me cry?” I messaged one black friend just before the Floyd murder that I needed a friend and he responded with love, but has since stopped responding. I felt hurt. Now I am ashamed at not knowing how to offer something. “I hurt. I am broken. Do it anyways. Hold another well.” What is “hold”? I’m reading a lot of what I see as jargon here: Clench, pivot, hold. Trying to learn what exactly is meant. I will keep reading.

  4. Chris Keady Avatar
    Chris Keady

    Hold another well because we must break the cycle. Yes! Equally important is to respect that my offer to hold might be met with distrust, skepticism, and disdain by BIPOC. I think my offer to hold will be received with open arms based on my whiteness. I need to prove myself a worthy ally by being resilient and reliable. Thank you, Marlise, and best wishes on your pregnancy.

  5. Emily V Avatar
    Emily V

    These words…

    “Reflecting now, I am hyper aware how often I demand BIPOC to hold me. Not just relationally as an adult, but as an infant. Someone who does not have the skills to hold them back, AND who couldn’t possibly be expected to learn those skills. I expect to have everything done for me, while I get all the nutritive benefits I am sucking away. Away from a living breathing person.”

    I often tell myself that I am not sure I truly understand what it means to “hold someone” (anyone) but I know what it is to be held by someone. Pivoting to race, this is the thinking you described exactly:

    “I can’t figure out how to hold BIPOC women when they are being human–expressing trauma, anger, grief.” So I must get up to speed quickly. Applying relational ethics is urgent for me.

    “There are so many unsaid rules and time time bombs when BIPOC women are being real with me.” So I must get up to speed quickly. Applying relational ethics is urgent for me.

    “I don’t know when to hold space for BIPOC women.” So I must get up to speed quickly. Applying relational ethics is urgent for me.

    Returning to your first sentence as my arrow–I must make it a way of being to be hyperaware of when I am demanding that BIPOC hold me in any way but especially as an infant.

  6. Marlise Avatar
    Marlise

    Karina, that for me is the deepest conviction. That me learning to do this well will still benefit me, even after all the pain I have caused to BIPOC. That me holding another well is still a choice I make for healthier living not for survival. There is another thread I need to confront which is that my offering of holding does not have to be accepted. As a white woman, I don’t get to barge in insisting I will hold a Black woman and be mad when she says no. Because safety, because history, because patterns. And I think we can often turn “holding well” into another white saviorism move. -always dig into what my actual grounding is-

  7. Marlise Avatar
    Marlise

    Whew! Erika, I think I hit the child clench at the same age. Once three hit, I suddenly struggled to hold my daughter as selflessly as I had prior. “Can’t you do it yourself? When do I get even a moment?” I have had to seriously confront how I made even the commitment to my children transactional and limited. As white women, especially as parents, I think we see how one can disappear because holding is never returned but expected. I know we carry this trauma and pain outward to anyone who has less power than we do. Our entire system is designed around false scarcity. Lace refers to this as offending from the victim position.

  8. Marlise Avatar
    Marlise

    Ah the trap of busy and hurry to try and make up for the lack. I often rephrase holding to “am I give a person wholeness or taking it away?” If I apply that to the white concept of self care, I start to see clearly how we have turned it into temporary fulfillment that simultaneously makes BIPOC less whole.

  9. Marlise Avatar
    Marlise

    Yes! As a white woman, I think I can easily use how the patriarchy has not held me well to then turn and perpetuate it. That is vindictive and individualistic. I grew up having to hold my mother. At some point, that cycle must be broken. And it requires me to also look outside just personal relationships. I need to look at the systems I participate in that do not hold BIPOC. That reminds me of the self care conversation we had on the Facebook page. Did you see that one?

  10. Erika Stanley Avatar
    Erika Stanley

    Kathy, this is the part of Marlise’s words that feel emergent. Thank you for expanding above – “not about my comfort, reciprocity, my healing in this moment though [being able to trust] that will still come elsewhere”
    I’ve been engaging more again with my family of origin since starting to walk here. Practicing holding someone close to me well so that they may hold another well. Breaking the cycle is everything.

  11. Erika Stanley Avatar
    Erika Stanley

    I am drawn to this as a cycle breaking, a radical softness. I also recognize the deep and fundamental ways that I want my turn to be held after carrying my daughter through pregnancy and holding her for these first almost three years. The consistent experience that I have when I set aside my clench – tired, frustrated, impatient to address something else that is not her in the present – I can get really present to how much/ how long I am able to hold, and that my strength is not diminished by doing so but by holding myself apart.
    Pivoting to race holding well calls me to get really present to the human needs of black and brown folx and to set aside my own goals or ideas about how they need holding. It feels important to really power up my imagination about what they might be experiencing AND to ask if and how they want to be held by me. And to hold well because love is an action.

  12. Karen Avatar
    Karen

    You’re welcome

  13. Emma Noonan Avatar
    Emma Noonan

    I feel the clench in thinking about giving without expectation of reciprocity. That feeling of “when is it my turn”. I feel the exhaustion in this, Marlise, and I feel it too at the end of a long day with young, energetic, needy children.
    And I am taking time to sit, in the quiet at the end of the day, with why your words feel hard for me to internalize. Why it feels like “giving up my turn” to think relationally in this way. How transactionally do I behave, in all honesty, in my relationships with my spouse, with my children, with my friends, with you, with Lace? I don’t know. I hope you get a good sleep, mama. You know as well as I how that may be in short supply soon.

  14. Rebecca Avatar
    Rebecca

    I am often caught in the clench, “When is it my turn?” I have most often thought that means I am not doing a good job balancing my own self care which I have now learned is a white construct. I think it’s a clench I need to spend more time with. At the same time I am often told by others I need to slow down. I thing the holding Marlise talks about here is that slowing down and being with I need to do better.

  15. Christin Spoolstra Avatar
    Christin Spoolstra

    “Relationship and community and love needn’t be framed by a scarcity model” – this is helpful framing for me. Thanks, Karen.

  16. Christin Spoolstra Avatar
    Christin Spoolstra

    “As someone who did not feel particularly well held growing up, I can feel myself clench up. “When is it my turn?”” I see this clench in myself so often. I see it when I fail to pivot. I see it when I personalize into narrative. I see it when I’m waiting for my cookie. I see it when I wait for someone else to make the first comment. I see it when I scroll past a difficult post. I see it when I don’t know how to respond to the pain I’ve caused Lace. For someone who uses the white trope of personal responsibility against bipoc, I sure do often excuse myself from it.

    I love this poem. “Do it because. Because the cycle needs to end.”

  17. Danielle Joy Holcombe Avatar
    Danielle Joy Holcombe

    “Hold another well. Not so I am held well. So they might be able to turn and hold another well.”

    For most of my life I think I’ve been trying to hold others so that they will hold me (and in the way I wish to be held). I’ve had breakthroughs recently (and with the help of this community) that help me see how transactional I’m making my relationships and also how controlling I am. Your words will go on a post it, or on my desktop or somewhere where I can be reminded in the day to day.

    This clearly pivots to race and the interactions I have and the control (and power over) that I exercise but if I don’t internalize this in my familiar relationships, I don’t see how I can expect to live it out more broadly .

  18. Megan H Avatar
    Megan H

    Oh I love this and needed it. I need to keep moving beyond the idea of holding as based on power and transaction. It feels like an honor in a way to be responsible to make up for generations before us. I too feel exhausted at times, from not feeling held myself. But that feeling comes from a sense of scarcity, and I want to keep flipping it to a sense of abundance- there is holding all over, and the more I do, the more I make room for others to do it, and so on. Thank you Marlisle and best wishes in the final stretch of your pregnancy

  19. Karen Batten Avatar
    Karen Batten

    Relationship and community and love needn’t be framed by a scarcity model. This brought up a lot for me. I think I have approached my connections with other humans like that- when I am angry and hurt at a lack of reciprocity by someone in my life I know doesn’t have the skill for that, or when there’s been an opportunity for connection I haven’t taken because of assumptions there’d be no reciprocity. And, when I have held others well, it’s been so beautiful. And I have absolutely demanded others hold me, when I have offered nothing back but more neediness, and I’ve done this when I was capable of more. It becomes a habit, because it benefits me, to not understand or really listen to what people of color say they need in a white ally. If I ignore them, don’t do the reading, “don’t have the time,” I can pay lip service, performing what I think is anti-racism and not bothering to look further. I can, and have, and do not do the work, not join the walk, not use my time and energy, and that’s White privilege, and excusing it for all kinds of “poor me” reasons is white fragility. And I do no holding of anyone all the while. Here, we are called to participate and contribute, and Lace models holding another, and tells us how to start to hold her back. I will continue to show up here, to contribute in words, thoughts, energy, vulnerability, work, and with PayPal. I have already seen results in my relationships, both close ones and acquaintanceships. I will show up for the people of color in my circles, think more of my impact, and continue to work with all of you to lessen harm to BIPOC. I repeat these things in lots of my comments, as I’m trying to get them to be automatic thoughts and behaviors for me. I have forgotten and ignored and dismissed my impact too long.

  20. Karina Miller Avatar
    Karina Miller

    So beautiful, Marlise. I am learning this here, finally–to see and hear and recognize others, and to hold others so that they can hold the next, and especially Blown and brown friends, family, neighbors and communities who have been so harmed in the past by me, my family, ancestors, and white cohorts and are still often willing to hold me in hopes that I will someday learn to truly love without harm.

  21. Kathy K Avatar
    Kathy K

    Hold another well because…..

    Breaking the cycle is everything….

    Not about my comfort, reciprocity, my healing in this moment (Though that will Still come elsewhere)

    Hold another well because….

    Breaking the cycle is everything…

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