Facebook Publication Date: 3/17/2018 11:03

Hello, dear community.

This is a thank you letter. With some things that might upset some sensibilities, so I will give you all a content warning. Here it is.
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Exactly one year ago today, my husband attempted suicide, in one of the most gruesome ways he possibly could. I was there. I wrested the instrument of his attempted destruction from his hands, wrestled him to the ground; held his neck intact with my hands and the hands of kind neighbor.

The night before, he had told me I was not loved; had not ever been in the 23 years of our fraught alliance (Our anniversary had come five days before). That basically he had married me for utility. Intellectually, I knew that it was his illness that was talking, but it still cut me to the marrow.

That he was white, and I had been neck deep in issues of race since even way before the election, to be told what white people eventually tend to tell black people, and have always told black people, in ways large and small, and so bare and bluntly, created a crater of a wound as large, larger actually, as the wound he would inflict upon himself the next day.

Still, he was sick. And I am human, with an internal compass that, while it has sometimes been off by a few degrees, still generally points north. So, because I knew he was not well, I did my best by him. We were going to eventually go to a place i knew would be safe for him, where he would get better care than he had received the month before. But that was hijacked by a lie. A lie told in pain, but a lie nonetheless.

While I was dressing, he promised to sit tight. And when he said he was going to the porch to sit on the couch with Tikka, I believed him. But no. And then the neck, and the red drops and red vehicles and kind policewomen. And then they were all gone.

In a town with millions of people I had no one to call. After the particulars were played out; Robert in an ambulance, neighbor back to the tranquility of his own property, I sat in the kitchen, no shirt or skirt. They had been used to stanch the blood. No people, except the recently departed police. No functional family. Old friend groups, who, because of the 2016 election, held no succor. They thought I judged them for electing a madman into office.

They were right. I did. Even with tentative tries towards some semblance of friendship and connection, the fissures could not be mended. So by the time Robert was spirited off of the property, and and I was sitting in my underwear in a very real sense, I was utterly alone.

Where’s the thank you? you might well be asking about now. It’s coming. It’s coming.

It’s here.

What I did have was a group of women I had known for a couple months online, and a somewhat decent reputation as a person who could string together a sentence or two in a halfway competent fashion.

When some of them read my stark Facebook post, they came to my aid, sending an emissary from that group who lived in San Diego as well to usher me to the hospital, make sure I had food afterward, and settle me into a hotel room for two nights so I would not immediately have to deal with the residue of Saturday morning. It was a blessing indeed. I will always be grateful to that group for providing community and tangible support for me on that day a year ago. It made all the difference.

Later, because I was in a precarious state, the community came through for me yet again, raising funds so I could have a measure of security while the chaos continued. Real Fact: I would not be sitting here in my home absent all of their help, and for that I will be forever grateful.

The experiences of the last year, led me to create Lace on Race, and drives and galvanizes me still.

I hope I have brought good value to this space, and to you, these last two months. Not just as a thank you, because racial justice and relational ethics are everything to me, and I have not written with you and for you only as a crass transaction. There are so many reasons why I write. Mainly though, I write for you.

Because I do, I do, see faces as I write for this space. I do, I do, imagine voices. I do, I do, imagine lives changed to the depth and durability to which you all have already, in this short time together, changed mine.

In the intervening 12 months much has happened. I have continued the work in that group and others, and have been privileged to carry the work here at Lace on Race and into other places as well. The work continues, and will continue, with your engagement and your support. Utility, right?

But also heart, and optimism that this work has staying power and that online lessons can be internalized and carried forth into offline lives. That the relationships forged in this crucible we have created together can actually mean something. And these relationships we are forming, and storming, and norming, and cherishing are what drives outward praxis, both for ourselves and for all of the people we touch in both our individual and our collective lives.

I hope I have served you all well, and even though our walk together has only just begun, that I have already begun to equip you at least a little, and that you will allow me your ears, minds and hearts to do even more. I am grateful for the support that some of you have offered to this space that has allowed me to do this. It is a testament of your faith in me, a faith I hope has been honored.

As to the rest of my story, I have not mentioned it much over the last year, and will not reference it often here. Not least because there is no ‘happy ending’ yet (and there may well never be. Another lesson. Neither I nor you are, not in any way, entitled to happy endings, and it is not now and will never be an excuse to abandon the work. One can do the work in the midst of marrow deep pain. I can testify to that. Saturday lesson, delivered).

Nor do I ever want my personal crucible to overshadow and take precedence over this space and ethos and community that we have created together and where I have hopefully served well, and will be allowed to continue to serve.

I continue to care for Robert, but from a substantial physical remove. In the ashes of Robert, I found what I thought would be my last great love, and drank deeply, and lost decisively and soundly. I still grieve daily and deeply.

But I am still here, and still walking. I admire the courage of all of you as you continue to walk as well with me, with each other, and out in your worlds and spheres of influence, and–most crucially for this work–as you do authentic soul and heart work with yourselves, so you can do this work, this life, this call, with integrity, commitment, relentless reliability, with joy and abandon and fearlessness and with zero fucks.

Believe me when I tell you that you, that we, are on the right path. Believe me when I tell you that we are to trust the process. The community is already here. The resources to make our audacious goals manifest will come. All we have done in, as of exactly today, two scant months. And we are just beginning. My heart is broken. It is also full. My heart carries multitudes. And it carries this space.

So a year later, I am sitting at the table in this house. Again physically alone. But with a body of work I am at a little bit proud of, and some soft days here, even in the midst of bitterly hard lessons learned. And a promise of more, if you will allow me to continue to serve you.

I can, and do, imagine the now almost 1600 here, who have already touched me deeply, and, again, who I hope I have brought a small measure of value to as well. I see you as I write. I see you as I speak. I see you as I strive to be the woman I have dared to become, and still dare you to become and to believe in and to stay.

Thank you all for walking with me. Steady on.

With love and gratitude,

Your Lace

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