[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/05/17/mid-may-ask/

 

Mid-May Ask

Discussion

[Christina Sonas]

I like the part of “we’re waiting for you” — and also, we’re not waiting, right? My walking needs to be resolute and relentless, no matter who is or is not walking with me. So we’re here, building a community, as well as being a community. My engagement is in!

[Clare Steward]

Thank you for this reminder Christina. You are right, we can welcome others in and the door is always open, the pot is always on AND we have to be in the kitchen chopping and seasoning and washing dishes etc. Our being in community is not something that should wax and wane

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

I think the difference is the idea that “waiting” is a passive action or an action in which nothing happens. But I think there’s an action in the waiting too, that you can wait in anticipation for someone while also moving forward in a way. It gets back to that both / and mentality instead of the exclusionary either/or.

[Christin Spoolstra]

Engaged on the first. Pouring a cup and enjoying the company.

[Laura Berwick]

Twins! 🙂 The company is so great.

[Christin Spoolstra]

Twins also in regards to your post about catching up post abdomens being split: I can either look at the mountain and freeze or I can tackle it step by step. In waiting for 100%, I’ll never move – it’s the won’t masquerading as a can’t. I can take my pace now and shore up those weakened muscles and bit by bit they’ll strengthen and my pace will quicken. Thanks for pointing out that engagement is not only financial.

[Shara Cody]

“Reliability is key” – Consistently showing up with my contribution to both financial and community engagement are fundamental to me becoming a safe-ish person for Black and brown people. If I was just reading along or intermittently engaging I wouldn’t be changing my behavior to lessen harm to BIPOC, I’d just be thinking about it and I’d also be exploiting Lace. I’ve engaged financially for May.

[Clare Steward]

I was just thinking about how I had no idea the impact that Lace and this community would have on me when I read my first post almost a year ago. The ethos of this space is not intermittent in my life by any means now. I am constantly looking at everything in my work life, family life, online life, my relationships- though a differently lens. I am constantly processing information within the frame of the NS and because my internal thoughts are focused on lessening and mitigating harm, I am able to recognize harmful behaviors and mitigate them or take action to lessen them. I am starting to find courage and conviction. I can feel myself moving in this world differently.

[Shara Cody]

@clare I’m also moving differently in the world but awkwardly. I’m reflecting on and practicing the changes in behavior but often still feel like it’s disjointed. Although I’m always thinking of the North Star and identifying harm around me (including my own) much easier, I have a long way to go to putting it all together to lessen and mitigate harm in a way that’s confident. That sort of feels like I’m leaning towards perfection but I mean that I want to be more reflexive and reliable.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

I really appreciate so much of the language and concepts that Lace has given us in how we relate to others. I definitely reach back to the vocabulary of “staying in the car” and “fictional imagination” when I try to think about how to have hard conversations around racism.

[Laura Berwick]

We keep walking. I’ve completed my sustaining engagement for May. I have some catching up to do in my engagement here in the Café. The feast looks delicious, and the company is dear.

When I fall a little behind, it can start to look hard, to catch back up. Maybe it starts to look TOO hard… But I’ve come to realize that the difference between hard and TOO hard is me, not the work. It’s me leaning toward a carve out, on the way to a quit, if I’m not careful.

The quick answer is, start walking. Maybe slowly, maybe not at a catching up clip, but at a falling less behind pace, while the muscles strengthen again. I had surgery, and they made small cuts in my abdominal muscles. Man. Those are NOT supposed to be cut. They’re supposed to be well-knit and continuous and whole, even when they’re kinda flabby and untoned. It has been a hike to get even back to the sort of 75% level that I feel like I average at over all. It would be so much easier to look at that 25% and give myself permission to take it really easy, imagining that in another week, or maybe the week after that, I’ll come roaring back to 100% automatically and effortlessly.

But that’s not how it works. While I was resting my belly muscles so they could heal, the rest of me started to atrophy a bit. And the longer I go without motion, the weaker I get overall, even if I heal and gain ground in specific ways.

So I keep walking. I’m still behind, but I have faith that I’ll pick up speed and get back in the swing of things sooner if I just keep walking.

And maybe I’ll be a little late to the table, but there will still be plenty for me, because we don’t run out here.

So if you, too, feel like you’ve fallen behind, whelp! Start walking again today. And tomorrow and the day after it will be easier and easier to get back into the flow of things.

[Rebecca McClinton]

@laura-berwick Hoping you heal quickly! I had some surgical cuts to my abdomen too this past year, and was kind of amazed just how much we use our abdominal wall/muscles for, mylanta! Hope you’re feeling yourself soon. People talk about those abdominal muscles being “core” muscles, and dang, that’s true, most noticeable once compromised. I think about those being our praxis muscles here, the ones that hold up our trunk, our values and beliefs. Seems silly to shore up muscles no-one else really ever “sees”, but they are pivotal to everything…posture, heavy lifting, all that stuff needed for me to act reflexively in this space (and outside). I wonder what are those core muscles if I name them? daily practice, looking for who’s voice/input is missing, looking for harm caused/focus on other rather than self are a few that come to mind. I have more core muscle building to do!

[Clare Steward]

Thank you for this Laura…It is helpful to hear that the difference between hard and TOO hard is ME…..it is me leaning towards an out to not pick up and get back in to the work. It is that persistent mentality inside my head that change is too big of a task, that I can’t make a difference, that I can’t find the time…..I can come up with a million cant’s and recognizing they are CAN’TS vs WON’Ts is what shifts my mindset.

I am happy you are on the mend and am in your corner and you are on my mind as you do the painful work to strengthen and heal. I also want to let you know how much I appreciate you in this community- your unique way of expressing your thoughts, your deep personalization, the way you can cut to the heart of the matter…..YOU resonate with me and I am so happy to be walking with you here.

[Julia Tayler]

I’m behind too. I find myself saying I don’t have enough time now. I’ll come back later. A bite at a time. I was also afraid about not being able to catch up. Just keep walking is what I need to remember.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I will remember the part about the difference between hard and too hard being myself.

[Jessie Lee]

Thanks for this encouragement and (kindly candid) kick in the pants.

I’ve been noticing that when I feel like I’ve fallen behind and start to dwell on that feeling instead of just taking a step, looking my seatmate in the eye becomes more and more daunting. Like when my muscles atrophy, I get stuck in these ego-driven thought distortions of how I imagine my seatmate is viewing me. Like you said, “the difference between hard and TOO hard is ME.” Not the work, not other people. Me. The funny thing is, if I put those thoughts aside to focus on the work instead, their volume dies down naturally.

I missed your presence and insights while you were recovering, and am glad to be walking together again.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Enjoying my cup of tea and the company here to walk and learn with and from. Also simultaneously acknowledging this is not a space meant for my growth or entertainment but to lesson and mitigate harm to people of color perpetuated by people like me. I have engaged for May. I love the imagery of “keeping the pot on”. I’m also thinking how I have to do that internally…welcome new growth, new steps to climb inside myself, to maintain a beginners mindset.

[Clare Steward]

I love this…keeping the pot on for ourselves…keep it cooking and simmering so that the ethos of this space is part of who we are and we take it everywhere….grow in to grow out. No, this space is not aimed to be a space for personal growth alone but that growth is imperative if we are to acknowledge the harm we cause and the harm that is woven in to everything and then make changes to lessen and mitigate the harm. Without internal growth, there is not effective outward praxis.

[Clare Steward]

Thank you for welcoming us into your living room where we can enter into relationship with you and each other. The North Star of lessening and mitigating harm endured by Black and Brown people as perpetuated by white people and whit supremacy can not be done alone, it must be done in community and engaging with each other with our whole authentic selves is key.

I used to think reading and watching engagement from a distance would be enough to spark a change in my own behaviors…that I could process and internalize and then effectively apply what I have been watching from the sidelines when a situation arose that required action. It does not work that way- not in the heat of the moment. The right words and behaviors do not come reflexively unless I have put in the work for that to happen.

The work is in commenting, engaging, using my voice, setting aside my ego and ingrained behaviors and being open to course correction, and laying down my weapons and learning new tools for effective communication and actions. I can not act with courage when I have not practiced that courage.

This space is a practice space where we can learn under the guidance of Lace and in community with each other so that we can be effective and focused and move differently in this world. Community members who have been here a while- as a community we did stumble when we were not collectively able to apply the tools and behaviors to very real harm. We allowed that stumble to continue and impact our actions in the form of silence and withdrawal- lurking from the sidelines. As individuals, we can pick ourselves back up and realign with the NS by acknowledging that we fell down and call ourselves back IN to the living room and back in to the work and back in to sustaining this space financially and relationally.

I look forward to continued walking and movement ever towards the NS.

[Kelsi Watters]

Clare I can resonate with this, I too used to think that reading and watching from a distance was enough to change my behavior, until I realized that was consumption without applied practice. This is a practice space and I have to be consistent in order to build my muscle. But, it’s so much like white supremacy for me or any of us to think that we can do this work through comfort and consumption, isn’t it?

[Clare Steward]

Yes, it is WS to think that consumption of other people’s labor = personal labor, progress and development- profiting off of the hard work of others. I have to really think about what situations I fall back to taking a passive and consumptive role vs rolling up my sleeves and doing the work.

[Julia Tayler]

I too used to think that reading was just as good as doing. Obviously I was mistaken.

[Laura Berwick]

I myself did a lot a LOT of reading, and felt that I was getting a good understanding of the problem. To me that felt like progress. And… I guess it was… for my own self-improvement purposes?

I still try to read, but now I speak, I listen, I vote, I engage… and yeah, I get now that people’s lives are on the line, and that’s more important than what I know and understand in my cozy vacuum. I’m glad we’re here.

[Julia Tayler]

I’m glad we are here too. My phone doesn’t show notifications so I need to login on my desktop more often 🙂

[Clare Steward]

Please don’t forget to cross post to FB. Posting and commenting in the “takeout window’ is how we encourage the lurkers to participate and how we can help draw new people in to the living room. The more activity there, the more likely that the posts can be seen and people can be reached 🙂

[Christina Sonas]

Thanks for this reminder, Clare. Post here, C&P there.

[Julia Tayler]

Thank you for sharing your kitchen and living room with us. Love tea too. I engaged at the beginning of the month but will look at finances again.

[Rhonda Freeman]

honored to engage financially. More honored to walk with all of you to mitigate harm to brown and black people perpetuated by white people.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

The commitment of Lace to this space and this work is what draws me back again and again. Knowing that you are here for the long haul helps me be here for the long haul, knowing that this community is founded and based in resiliency and consistency. Thank you for your example and for speaking truth and pulling no punches about the importance of regular engagement.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Our co-commitment as walkers is so valuable. At the same time, I hope that we can also reach a place where we could continue to be relentlessly reliable and committed on our own too, where we can take full responsibility for ourselves.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

Absolutely. We need to be reliable no matter what anyone else does, including Lace.

[Author]

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