Rhena Writes

Category: Daily Writing Prompt

  • I do my very best.

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you unwind after a demanding day?
    View all responses

    I try to not get wound up in the first place. Sometimes this means recognizing what I can and cannot control. It means that I try to have touch-points through the day when I can check in with myself.

    When I am getting wound up, I try to figure out a way to unwind myself as soon as possible. How? Moving, breathing, creating, eating, resting. I might go for a walk or just stretch a little, dance or shake it out. Check in with my breath. Sometimes I write in my journal. Practice the guitar. Listen to some music. Light a candle. Read a book or a poem.

    I recognize that it’s not the day that’s demanding, it’s myself that’s demanding of me. The demands I make of myself are completely in my control.

    I affirm myself. In every moment, every day, I’m one hundred percent confident that I did my very best because that’s what I tell myself. I have various phrases that I can go to if I’m having a hard time unwinding. I am alive. I am human. One I learned from Black Liturgies by Cole Arthur Riley: I am no one’s savior. I am no one’s burden.

    Yesterday, I had various activities outside of the house. It might be have been a day that could be considered demanding. In the past, I likely would have come home and spent the evening fixating on how I did through the day and likely judging myself not too kindly. Maybe I was late arriving at different places. Maybe I didn’t get enough exercise. Maybe I was too chatty or not chatty enough; too helpful or not helpful enough. Oh! I shouldn’t have said that. Or maybe I should have said this. That person probably thinks I’m unkind or weird. I didn’t get enough reading done or clean the kitchen. With each thought, I’d wind myself up tighter and tighter.

    Instead, I wrote in my journal that I was really proud of myself for doing my best. And it’s true.

  • Is this what alignment feels like?

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you use social media?
    View all responses

    I’ve been responding to the daily writing prompt every day for about the last month or so. It hasn’t be a goal that I set, but it has played nicely into my larger goal of getting to one hundred posts. The daily prompts have gotten me into a nice rhythm of daily writing and posting, which I value and enjoy. Most days, I check the prompt in the first half of the day and then write my response later on. It being Easter, today has already felt like a full day. We spent most of the morning at my parents’ place for an egg hunt and lunch. I didn’t have the chance to check the question. And as we arrived home, I was having the internal debate, “do I want to post to the blog today?” It’s Sunday and even God rested. I was already pretty tired and wanted a nap.

    Well, turns out that all of these things are possible.

    I checked the daily prompt and saw that it was on a topic that I’d already posted about. No choice needed to be made! I promptly fell asleep on the couch and hopped on the computer once I woke up.

    Yesterday, I posted about rest. One of the things that I’ve realized is that when I’m doing something that I enjoy, it feels restful, even if it’s active. When I used to have to write for a deadline or for an assignment or for someone else or for money, it didn’t feel restful. I didn’t enjoy it. I was tense. It was draining. And so, for a long time, I believed that writing was something that exhausted me. It wasn’t the writing, it was the context, the subject matter, the lack of control and freedom. When writing is something that I choose, I find it energizing. And it turns out that the universe (or maybe at least word press) is in agreement. It sent me a daily prompt that I’d already answered, after all.

    So what does this have to do with social media? My previous post that I mentioned about was about how I took an indefinite time-out from social media. It ended up being a difficult sacrifice to make, but it was definitely the right choice. The daily prompt asks “How do you use social media?” “Use” is an important thing here. I don’t think I was using social media back when I was on it. I was allowing myself to be used by it. I wasn’t very active. I would scroll and scroll and rarely, if ever, would I create anything. I was very passive. Surprisingly, this also wasn’t restful. In fact, my brain was over-stimulating. Maybe one day I’ll have a reason to return to social media. If I do, I’m going to use it, not be used by it. It turns out that, for me, consuming is exhausting, and creating is energizing.

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

    Here’s the text from my blog post about not using social media anymore, in case you don’t want to click through:

    I deleted Facebook years ago and Twitter a few after that. A few weeks ago, I the last of my social media apps: the mostly image-based Instagram and their partner text-based Threads. Social media, the whole of the internet, is, I believe, mostly a gift to the world. But my brain, my whole person was formed before the internet, much less social media, existed. In other words, I’m not equipped for handling it. My mind simply doesn’t move fast enough to keep up and, in attempting to, I was doing damage. It was as if I was lining up on the track next to Florence Griffith Joyner each and every day and expecting myself to keep up. My hamstrings – nay my whole body would have taken a beating if I ever even dreams of going up against Flo Jo but, more importantly, my self-esteem would have been obliterated. And it was. 

    I wasn’t too keen on the idea of deleting social media. The other day, my six-year-old son was staring out of the car window into the massive sky above. “Mom,” he said, “I don’t like to think about the universe.” I told him I get that. He confirmed that it’s the vastness that makes him feel small. It’s dark and lonely out there in the universe. I was so used to having and being on social media that I thought that deleting it would untether me from the earth and send me out there into the universe, alone, cold, and in the dark. 

    When I first came across posts on social media by patients in cancer treatment, it made me feel less alone.  Somehow, in spite of the fact that I wasn’t really looking for it, I’d come across people posting about their experiences with cancer. There was even a woman preparing for her mastectomy at around the same time that I was. I wasn’t alone. 

    Perhaps you can see where this is going. As soon as I clicked on a couple of cancer posts, the algorithm latched on. Soon, a good portion of my feed was cancer. And I couldn’t help myself but read and click. I’d try to close the app and just the c-word alone would catch my eye. I felt an obligation to consume it all. 

    One of the prayers that I had when I was going through treatment was this: that my suffering makes someone else’s a little less. There are certain aspects of Catholicism that are engrained in me and that’s one of them: offer it up. Offer up your suffering so that it has meaning if not for you, then at least for someone else. For the most part, I was thinking about my daughters in those moments, praying that somehow me going through all of these trials would save them from a similar fate. In the early days of my treatment, the genocide in Palestine was dire and so my prayers were also for mothers there. In my moments of pain rooted in my own body attacking my breasts, all mothers and children and their bonds and their bodies and suffering all became mixed together. 

    And some of that responsibility and connection carried over to my fellow cancer patients on social media. Somehow, it was my duty to keep reading all of these threads. But reading, engaging them seemed to created more until everything was cancer content. It’s about as much fun as it sounds. 

    This was all in the midst of me, in-person, going with some regularity to a literal cancer center where I would sit in waiting rooms nearly full with other people who possibly also had cancer. And at one appointment, my doctor mentioned (without violating HIPPA) that he’d been recently seeing more of the type of cancer that I have. Later, as I moved into the recurrence prevention phase, he mentioned that he had a patient in a very similar situation to me. At the very least, it’s possible that the doctor was able to use some of what he learned treating me to better care for the other woman. 

    These are connections that I couldn’t get on social media. 

    And so it was that I had it all wrong. When I finally cut the tether, I didn’t float out into the vast, cold universe. Rather, I floated back down to very real, solid, warm earth. 

    Visit my Ko-fi page to drop a tip in my cup.

  • To rest or not to rest.

    Daily writing prompt
    Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
    View all responses

    I’ve been thinking about rest a lot this week. Maybe it’s because the kids are on spring break and I feel like this is my opportunity to also take a rest. I’m conflicted between going out and doing and sitting around and not doing. I’m plagued by the idea that I might use my time poorly. And I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that in the society I live in we have little control over our time. When given the “freedom” to decide how to use it, I am paralyzed with indecision.

    And this might be because I don’t really know what rest is for me, yet.

    I find the idea of resting so that I can be more “productive” to be terribly off-putting. I don’t want to live for productivity. And, yet, on the other hand, living in a permanent state of rest is also unappealing. The other day, I read someone’s piece of advice for going through cancer treatment: to stay active during the day so that sleep comes more easily at night. And while I’ve experienced the truth to this, I find myself getting trapped on this mental hamster wheel, going around in a rest and productivity circle. I find myself at times floating out in space wondering: how much is enough activity? How much is enough productivity? How much sleep is enough? Too much?

    For a time, I’ve been relying heavily on my watch and phone to tell me these things. I gave up the sleep monitoring when I realized that wearing my watch (and knowing it was monitoring me) was making me sleep less well. I threw caution (or perhaps the need to have hard and fast sleep numbers) and stopped wearing it at night. I think I’ve been sleeping better.

    I still rely on it heavily to monitor my daily steps and my activity (you know, those primary-colored rings to close in a burst of fire works when you meet your daily goal). I’ve reached a crucial crossroads where I’ve been meeting my goals every day for well over a month now. Do I increase the goals or, again, throw a bit of caution to the wind and decide to just trust how I feel, trust my body to tell me when I’ve had too much or not enough?

    My body happens to be a trifecta of identities that cause me to struggle to listen to it and to trust it: a woman, racially marginalized, and, now, a cancer patient. With all three, the society and culture I live in is often telling me about my body, trying to control it (more successfully than I’d like to admit) or the other extreme of completely ignoring it. And so it is that perhaps I rely on those little rings closing than I need to. And perhaps I spent a little too much time (meaning any time at all) on the internet trying to figure out my own body and how to take care of it.

    So back to spring break. We didn’t make any big plans even though I didn’t know I’d be in radiation treatment until a few weeks before it started. I also didn’t know how exhausting the treatments would be. Still, I’m trying to stay active. One of the funny things about radiation treatment is that you’re just lying on this table for the twenty minutes to forty minutes that it takes to complete it. It looks like rest. But it isn’t restful at all. The machine is whirring and humming and moving around you, the radiation techs are drawing on you, sometimes shifting your body a bit, but mostly they’re in the other room operating the machine. The position is awkward, the table is hard (in spite of the extra thick, cushiony sweatpants I’ve been wearing), and the whole thing is more mentally tiring than I give it credit. I’m trying to stay on top of taking care of my skin and sometimes a sore throat or just some discomfort in the area arises afterwards. Yeah, it’s not the worst of things, but it’s still not restful or fun by any means.

    So I guess that one lesson I’ve learned from going through it is just that rest can look myriad different ways to different people and in different times in our lives.

    The other day, I decided I had enough energy to go with my daughter to a Smithsonian museum one afternoon. It was a lot of walking and my feet were exhausted. But it was also, I don’t know, restful in a way. I got to turn off the part worrying part of my brain and just enjoy my daughter’s company and her excitement about history. I didn’t have to be a cancer patient. I didn’t have to make any real plans or major decisions. I did buy a book (George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy) and some chocolate before we headed home. And I closed all my rings, easily.

    The next day, I got to sit on the couch and read the book, which was stunning. And although I wouldn’t always say that reading has always been restful to me, it was very restful to read Asian American history.

    But I think that ultimately the aspect of these days of spring break that have been most restful have been that I’ve just let go and trusted. I didn’t feel like I had to make anything happen (exercise or trips or even time to rest and recover from radiation). I just let things happen. And the end result has been that I’ve been able to rest and (dare I say it?) be productive too.

  • Choosing myself

    Daily writing prompt
    Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
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    Every time I decide to choose myself, to prioritize me, to give myself what I need, I grow and learn.

    To be clear, I believe that growth and learning are inherent to human nature. And while there are systems and individuals that attempt to stifle human development, we will always find a way to grow and learn. For me, the primary way that I return to this path is by making the decision to center myself.

    I wrote a while ago about how I disconnected from social media a few months ago. This was not an act of self denial, this was an act of choosing myself over social media. It took profound trust in myself that I would be able to fulfill my needs (to feel connected, to be stimulated, to be entertained) without relying on the scrolling that had taken over much of my time and brain space. I do not view this type of choice as deprivation. It is indulgence.

    In the absence of social media, I learned about myself and I learned how to “entertain” myself. Turns out, I’m pretty good at it. I learned to rely on knowledge that I already have within me. Turns out, I know a fair amount already. And I’ve grown into being able to be present to each moment.

    The decision to prioritize myself is one that I can make over and over and still continue to learn and grow. Sometimes, it’s a really easy decision (when I decide to take a nap when I feel tired) and other times, it’s rather difficult as when I have to choose myself over my kids. A few months ago, I sat down to do some writing. I knew that my daughter was waiting for her dad to give her a ride to her friend’s house. She didn’t even ask me for a ride, but I caved and offered her one anyway. I drove her and in doing so, I abandoned my writing. Not only that, but I deprived her of an opportunity to practice patience and to potentially experience some independence (she could have biked to her friend’s house quite easily). I also deprived my kids of seeing an example of a parent who prioritizes herself. But I let the fear that I’m not a good mother unless I do everything for my children get the better of me.

    More recently, I was practicing guitar and my kids were playing outside. My daughter came inside to tell me that my son had fallen down and was crying and asking for me. Of course, the mother in me wanted to go right downstairs to check on him and make sure he was ok. But another part of me really wanted to keep practicing guitar. I’ve been really tired lately because of radiation and the thought of negotiating the stairs again was a bit daunting. And my daughter was so matter of fact in her reporting of the events that I was pretty confident that her brother wasn’t in any serious danger or pain. So I sat there a moment or two trying to come to some middle ground between these two battling voices. I turned back to my guitar.

    Sure enough, within a moment or two, I heard him open the front door and call for his sister, cheerily asking her to come outside again and play. Apparently, the mortal wound had healed itself. It didn’t even require the presence of a mom. I got to continue with my guitar and my son got to experience some self care and the confidence that comes with being able to get up and dust oneself off and carry on.

    Sometimes, making the decision to choose myself is more subtle than that. As right now. I have the choice between giving you, dear reader, the satisfaction of a neatly tied-in-a-bow ending to this post. Or I have the choice of getting hitting publish and getting myself another cup of tea to enjoy while I write in my journal. I love to say it: I choose myself.

  • Hawai’i

    Daily writing prompt
    What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
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    Here are a few paragraphs from an essay I wrote (and didn’t publish) a few years ago:

    I am not immune to the romance and draw of travel. In fact, I spent a fair portion of my twenties moving from place to place, exploring a few different countries and towns. My husband and I recently calculated that we had one year that we travelled twice internationally (Norway and Japan) and at least three or four domestic trips, all with our two kids, one of whom was preschool-aged. But in recent years, I’ve grown a bit more wary of travel and, perhaps, a little embarrassed at how thoughtlessly I travelled in my earlier years. Of course, I grew and changed as a result of traveling. I’m possibly even a better person because I travelled (there’s no way to know, obviously, as there’s only one of me and no telling how I would have turned out had I not travelled). But the question that I am really considering is this: were the people and places I visited better people and places as a result of my having been there? I’m having my doubts. At the very least, the carbon impact of the flights, cars, and even boats that I used to get places is irreversible. (The trains I travelled on feel not only more charming but less polluting per mile travelled.)

    Let us take a closer look at the example of Hawaii. In July of 2021, a former Hawaii state representative Kaniela Ing tweeted, “Stop coming to Hawaii. They are treating us like second class citizens.” According to an August 13, 2021 article in SF Gate by Libby Leonard, locals on Maui were facing water rationing and shortages due to water supplies being diverted to support tourists who were traveling to the islands in numbers which exceeded those pre-pandemic. I observed out-spoken indigenous Hawaiian activists on twitter asking mainlanders to stop visiting as those who live on the islands were facing both water shortages, which in turn impacts food security, as well as housing shortages. Of course, the response from many is that tourism brings in money and creates jobs. According to the Hawai’i Tourism Authority’s website, visitor spending in Hawaii in 2019 amounted to $17.75 billion and typically accounts for approximately a quarter of the state’s economy. But what is the trade-off between dollars and quality of life for the local people? In the same SF Gate article Napua-onalani Hu-eu, a Hawaiian activist and kalo (also called taro) farmer indicates that before water was being diverted away from farming, “much of Hawaii’s food was grown in east Maui.” Today, 90% of the food on the island is imported. Former Representative Ing also tweeted, “Tourism is a servants’ prison that keeps local people in a permanent underclass, in our own home. It’s a system that literally only works when the people who play here are richer than us who live and work here.” 

    I went to Hawaii about twenty years ago, before I’d taken the time to inform myself about the dynamics of the tourism industry there. It was beautiful and relaxing and I felt at home, in a way. Primarily, this is because being a multiracial-Asian person is not unusual there — or at least it’s not as unusual as in other places. When you’ve spent most of your life feeling like a bit of an odd duck because of the way you look, it’s very comforting to be amongst people who look like you, even if it’s just surface interactions.

    Still, my comfort is not a good enough reason to go back and visit when the indigenous folks there have asked that we not and when the dollars I would spend there wouldn’t necessarily be going to support and help locals.

    This daily writing prompt came at just the right time for me, as I’m currently reading the last few pages of issue #119 of Bamboo Ridge, Journal of Hawai’i Literature and Arts. This issue is titled, Kipuka: Finding Refuge in Times of Change and was published in 2021. From the introduction:

    “When volcanoes erupt, variances in topography create kipuka, islands of turf untouched by the flow of lava. While Pele’s fiery rivers caress its borders, its plants and seeds remain. It watches lava cool, then blacken. It witnesses pahoehoe break down into rich volcanic soil. And when the time comes, it seeds its surroundings, sets free former boundaries as genesis and legacy join. Na kipuka preserve and regenerate. They survive and persist. They anchor and hold life, ensuring in the end that nothing is forgotten.”

    While I was going through chemotherapy last year, I was often exhausted but paradoxically, I also experienced a bit of insomnia. This was possibly due to the steroids I’d been prescribed to help with the nausea. Regardless of the reasons, I often found myself awake late at night. This can sometimes be a lonely time, vulnerably time. I suppose it’s possible that it was in this state that I reached out on line. I don’t remember what I searched for specifically, but I found Bamboo Ridge on the other end of the line I’d cast out. In a flurry, I ordered six of their volumes and promptly fell asleep. Since then, I’ve read two of the six that I’d ordered.

    I’m not going to say that I feel as though I’ve vacationed in Hawai’i each time I’ve read one, because it’s something much deeper than what I could have experienced in a few weeks in a resort. I feel like I’ve come to know and connect to the parts of Hawai’i that the tourism industry ignores or, worse, feeds off of.

    I visited Pearl Harbor when I went to Hawai’i. The way that it’s set up now, for tourists and visitors, it feels as though Pearl Harbor is some sort of historical past. That it actually doesn’t exist in the present. In his three poems, Lee A. Tonouchi, brings the reader into Hawai’i’s militarized present.

    I’m sitting here typing, trying to figure out how to finish this post in a meaningful way. But the truth is that I’m in the midst of radiation treatment which has made me very fatigued. And I just took one of my anti-cancer medications that, if I don’t time it out, causes waves of nausea. Even if I wanted to travel somewhere like Hawaii, even if locals had not requested that tourists not visit, my body is currently demanding that I stay home. So I’ll retire to the couch to finish the last pages of this issue of Bamboo Ridge which I ordered in the lonely dark of the night. And art, words, poems, and stories will distract me and, yes, in a way transport me right when I need it. And for that I am grateful.

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

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. Even though I post about daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Exist. Be themselves.

    Daily writing prompt
    Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
    View all responses

    My kids, especially, just have a way of just, you know, existing and being themselves. It’s an example to me of how to be in the world. Spontaneous hugs, notes and drawings, and offers of help when I’m feeling crummy (see breast cancer) don’t hurt either.

  • Matt’s Bar in Minneapolis

    Daily writing prompt
    What is your favorite restaurant?
    View all responses

    Yesterday, my daughter showed me a meme. A girl with a shocked look on her face and the text: me at five when my mom told me she doesn’t have a favorite color. As my other daughter says: real.

    I’ve always thought that having favorites of things is a really funny topic of conversation. I remember being asked often through years of school about what my favorite things were. I suspect that the teachers were trying to connect to students, learn about their preferences at least and perhaps give them a little space to bring a bit of themselves into the classroom. At least, many years later, that was part of my motivation in asking these sorts of questions as a teacher in my own classroom. It’s strange that I didn’t remember all that was involved in answering seemingly simple questions.

    As a student, I remember that there were many dynamics involved in answering such questions in front of the whole class, especially if everyone was expected to answer in turn. If I repeat the same answer (blue was always popular as a favorite color), would those who gave the same reply ahead of me accuse me of “stealing” their preference? If I chose something different, would I be teased (brown, yellow, green, and pink being the colors of poop, pee, vomit/boogers, and girls respectively)? If I stepped too far out of the box (periwinkle? mauve? chartreuse) would I isolate myself?

    And perhaps answering a “favorite” question has become no less fraught in adulthood. Certainly, I cannot think of one favorite restaurant to answer this daily prompt. I have enjoyed and do enjoy a number of different places.

    So I guess that what I’ll answer is a spot that I miss going: Matt’s Bar in Minneapolis. When we lived there, we’d eat there once or twice a month even though the line for a table was often out the door even in frigid Minnesota winters. Like everyone else, we went there for the Jucy Lucy (yes, that is how it’s spelled), which is a burger with the cheese in the middle, meaning it was melty and molten hot. I had mine with pickles and both raw and fried onions and we’d get a basket of fries for the table. The ritual was to dig out a well-done fry and use it to poke holes in the burger to make it cool down faster. They always had decent beer on tap and the regular waitress always recognized us as regular neighbors. She sometimes even comped us the fries or a drink. It’s not the sort of place that can be recreated elsewhere. I’m pretty sure most of the flavor in the burgers comes from the decades-old well seasoned grill. I don’t think I could ever pick a favorite restaurant but Matt’s certainly ranks up there as a spot that holds a lot of my favorite memories.

  • Wait. What was the question again?

    Daily writing prompt
    Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
    View all responses

    This question reminds me of the fortune telling game that I used to play as a kid called “M.A.S.H.” It involved listing four options for your future in different categories. They were usually things like: career, first initial of your husband (it was usually girls we were playing with and very heteronormative), number of kids, income, names of cities, etc… The letters of the game stood for: mansion, apartment, shack , and house. And then some sort of little ritual was performed in order to come up with a number. The number dictated which items got crossed off each list under there was one item in each category remaining. Thus, our futures would be revealed to us. “You will be living in an apartment, married to someone whose name starts with a J, working as a nurse, earning $30,000 a year in Boston.”

    In retrospect, it was pretty unimaginative and actually a little depressing. Try as we might to include unexpected variables (types of pets! different countries! color of home!) it was difficult to come up with ideas outside of our experiences, what we could see. But I don’t think that that’s terribly unusual for kids.

    So, now, as an adult, how do I view this question of where I will be in ten years? It makes me feel like I’m sitting in a job interview and being evaluated.

    I checked the question this morning before I left the house and decided that I would think about it while I was out and write the answer on my return home, which at the time would be in a couple of hours.

    Today was a beautiful day. We went to the local Thai Temple to celebrate Thai New Year with family and friends and enjoy the performances and food. It’s not quite the country-wide celebration/ water fight that it is in Thailand, but it’s still fun. My daughters and I ended up spending several hours just sitting on the picnic blanket. We’d originally thought we’d go for an hour or so, just enough time to get some mango sticky rice and maybe a few others dishes. But we were enjoying it so much that several hours slipped by. Oh, and it turns out that Tammy Duckworth was there. So that was pretty incredible just to be near her and to hear her speak.

    On the drive back, I thought for a moment, “What was the writing prompt of the day for the blog?” For the life of me, I couldn’t remember. And it turns out, I’m glad I hadn’t thought about it the whole time we were gone. If I’d been focused on thinking about what’s going to happen in ten years, I would have missed the beautiful moments right in front of me.

  • Consistency, presence, and showing up.

    I was around a lot of shitty, oblivious people in high school. I’ve mentioned before that I went to an “elite” private school in Washington, DC alongside a mostly white student body taught by mostly white teachers and overseen by mostly white administrators in the white, wealthy part of a very, very Black city. To be admitted, I had to take a standardized test (similar to the SAT but for, you know, twelve year olds), write an essay, and do an interview. In the name of fostering a sense of community and equality, the school didn’t have class rankings, homecoming courts, valedictorian or the like. They didn’t need those things. Students had already shown a willingness to sacrifice our individuality, our passions, our very humanity in the name of academic excellence and the privilege of being there.

    It is only in retrospect that I can see what a messed up place that was, especially for young people with newly formed minds. I didn’t ever feel seen or noticed by teachers or adults (except for one male teacher who I thought maybe saw some academic potential in my until he made some lewd comments to me because OF COURSE). For the most part, I felt like I just sort of flew under the radar just kind of trying to make it through each semester, each week, each day.

    Except for on the volleyball team. It’s not that I was particularly good at it. But I enjoyed it. I looked forward to going to the gym each day after school and playing. I looked forward to time with my teammates.

    This is primarily because I had a really good coach. I realize that it may seem like the bar was really low given the, you know, sexual harassment from other adults. But what I’m trying to give you a sense of is that to create a space where a young woman feels comfortable enough in her body to be able to enjoy herself within the larger culture of sexual harassment is no small feat. But Coach showed up everyday and was present for us. She wasn’t one of the showier or flashier teachers around there. She wasn’t loud or brash like some were. She was even and consistent and encouraging. She didn’t make me feel like I had to sacrifice in order to be successful or even good at the sport. She figured out where I excelled and encouraged me in that.

    It might surprise no one that she was also the only Black woman who I had in the role of a teacher or coach. Yes. For my entire four years. In the Blackest city in the country at the time. It’s one thing when an institution lacks diversity. It’s an entirely other thing when that institution is located on an island in a sea of diversity. There’s some pretty willful pushing people off of the island when that’s the case. These places don’t just “happen”. There’s an intention behind it. And that intention is white supremacy.

    It was a hard place for a biracial (not Black) girl to be everyday. But I can’t even begin to imagine the sacrifices my coach made in order to show up in that setting every day. And it’s only now, many years later as a grown adult that I can even begin to appreciate what a difference her doing so made in my life. You never know whose life you’re changing.

  • Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!

    Daily writing prompt
    Describe one positive change you have made in your life.
    View all responses

    “For how else can the self become whole save by making self into its own new religion?” Audre Lorde

    It started with embracing this idea that Audre Lorde put forth in this quote: making myself my own religion. From that shift in perspective burst forth positive changes.

    I became curious about who I am. (How could I be the center of my religion without knowing myself?)

    I found out that I’m interested in a lot of different topics and I’m interested in connecting with different people and ideas at my own (rather slow and meandering) pace. This meant that I started reading more.

    I found that I enjoy being in my body and enjoy moving it. This led to simple stretching, walking, and exercise habits. And I’ve also started to embrace what my body wants to do spontaneously like dance and rest.

    I found like I have a lot of ideas, thoughts, emotions, and images that I want to express. This blog is a result of that. But I also create in other ways like playing guitar, painting, and writing. I try to create each moment to suit me and my needs. I’ve even started to sing around the house when I’m alone.

    I extend grace and am gentle with myself. I cut myself slack. I make mistakes. I see myself. I make myself laugh. I look for moments of joy and gratitude. I nourish my body with good food. I listen to myself.