If you want to change the world...

If you want to change the world, love a man

Time and Space of My Heart

These days my heart is filled with so much vibrancy of color and complexity of sounds and radiant light.

I just want for this heart to burst forth onto a multidimensional canvas that moves and reflects light, and where sound can be seen heard and felt!

The piece would be abstract with colors of sound dripping everywhere while it dances with light.

But.
This canvas is not yet.
And I feel this weightiness of heart,
a good weight,
a grounding weight,
an anchoring weight.
A weight that causes the colors and music and light to to be pipelined into distinct spaces for each sound each color each wave of light.
Patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) I watch each of these elements of my heart find their individual places.
Like a supernova I want for this all to explode forth.
But.
I see the purpose of waiting.
Space is being made.
It's with a steady hand that I'll be able to pick each color, each sound bite, each light ray to begin to create the most beautiful of dancing fractals.


...
In the meantime I think I'm going to start watching monks make mandalas... ;)

Because most times, it's just about showing up.

Almost daily I park about a ten minute walk away from my school. Some of the girls I speak with there, won't park on the particular part of town because they're afraid. I try to help alleviate their concern by sharing that I not so long ago had elected to live with some friends right there in the midst of the "danger." I know that not everyone is well intentioned; however I choose to believe that all people are good. I see it at their cores. And it's from that place that I attempt to interact and engage.

And it's with that stance that I walk through this particular neighborhood. There is a one stretch block that feels so uncared for. And it shows. Debris from the mishandled dumping of the garbage cans to the garbage trucks ends up blown into the residents yards, boulevards, and run over in the street. In turn, it seems that people just add to it because of how it already looks. One day I caught myself wondering how people could let their community reach this point. Immediately I start to think of rounding up a group of kids to share the importance of taking care of what we have and doing a neighborhood beautification day. But this would require, time, and investment to rally the people. It's something I want to do, BUT I'm investing my time differently these days that don't leave so much space for these sorts of efforts just yet. I'm working on being able to do this very thing with a few more letters behind my name... Go figure.

I caught myself with the words, 'why don't they....?" And I realized that for someone to be able to take care of something they have to see it's value- they have to see their value. We care where we see value. Immediately I was overcome with the raw unseen value that each resident had buried under the litter of their social stigmas. Wanting to counter this marginalization, I asked for a plastic bag and gloves from my place of learning, and cleaned my way back to my car, Atsidi. Picking up the debris left behind by others and those who lived in these houses, I felt that with each piece that I was unearthing something deeper within this neighborhood. Because I see it as beautiful, full of good people. I choose to see it that way. And this little seemingly insignificant act bears so much more weight. I'm attempting to let the residents know that I see them in their beauty, and I hope to help others see the beauty I see in this place by removing the debris that impedes their vision.

It's the little things.

I understand that this action isn't the most sustainable of action. But. For now, it's all I've got- so I'm givin' it.

Other

An assignment for class that I feel merits a share, given the themes of conversations had within the last few months. May you embrace the fullness of your otherness and of those around you.

N.A.

þ Other

Lopez Lyman in her article, We Got Issues: Cultivating a Women of Color Consciousness (2014), shares her experiences of having been both singled out and isolated in the school environment she grew up in; however, she forged a community after finding herself again alone within her collegiate journey. Alsultany in her article, Los Intersticios: Recasting Moving Scales, shares many accounts of how she has been [mis]identified within social contexts and placates to this misidentification, yet yearns to be seen for the fullness of who she is—unfragmented. As Alsultany, Lopez Lyman, and I have taken time to explore our identities, we share three common experiences: the pain of feeling displaced within scholarly contexts, wrestling with a place of belonging, and influencing change in how we as people see one another.

As a result of the difficulties Lopez Lyman faced with being singled out in school, she sought to create a place of belonging within her college that she found so readily within the pages of books. To start with, Lopez Lyman felt singled out and isolated for being different within her journey of education. She recalls times in school when, “all eyes landed on me anytime race was discussed” (Lopez Lyman, 2014, p. 56). Having been singled out, Lopez Lyman found herself alone and desiring a sense of companionship within this space. Later in her schooling, she discovered a sense of belonging through the works of authors who have lived through similar difficulties. Lopez Lyman (2014) describes her source of encouragement: “Having combatted a deep loneliness for years, I found companionship through the work of Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anazaldúa, Audra Lorde and others who gave voice to isolation and hopefulness for survival” (p. 56). Once we are able to find a source of strength, so much more can be achieved. Moreover, Lopez Lyman was able to play a key role in bringing about change on her University’s campus. She recounts the need she encountered on campus: “What became essential to the collective, however, was our understanding of multiple identities and our commitment to centralize our lived experiences, both of which became catalysts for creating change on and off campus” (Lopez Lyman, 2014, p. 57). We must be able to recognize within ourselves and within one another the complex beings that we are. When reconciling our identities with the struggle we’ve encountered from our past, we can create a new place in which to belong.

As Alsultany has explored her identity, she navigated through the pain of displacement, wrestled with a space in which to belong, and now seeks to reshape the present molds from which our society views one another. First, Alsultany struggled with the categories that people projected onto and omitted from her. This can be seen when she shares, “Those who otherize me fail to see a shared humanity, and those who identify with me fail to see difference; my Arab or Muslim identity negates my Cuban heritage” (Alsultany, 2014, p. 62). Unable to meet people’s clear-cut racial (or other generalization) paradigms, we can find ourselves caught in the places in-between, in los intersticios. Additionally, Alsultany wrestles with a sense of belonging from within los intersticios. She describes this feeling of not belonging: “We carry this pain with us as we live in los intersticios. To ‘belong’ we must fragment and exclude particular parts of our identity. Dislocation results from the narrow ways in which the body is read, the rigid frameworks imposed on the body in public space” (Alsultany, 2014, p.64). After focusing so much energy on how she is framed within certain contexts, Alsultany advocates for more. Consequently, Alsultany instigates change through dialogue. Her heart for the matter is conveyed when she shares, “I seek to decolonize these essentialized frameworks, so that I can move through public space without strategizing a performance, selecting a mask for each scenario. I want to expand los intersticios, creating a space. for us all in our multiplicities to exist as unified subjects” (Alsultany, 2014, p. 65). She invites us to enter into spaces that may be uncomfortable in order to expand los intersticios that we encounter within our own lives. Furthermore, Alsultany not only encourages us to expand these intersticios but to also shed light on where people are feeling displaced in their own sense of belonging in order to instigate change within our own communities.

Similar (and different) to the struggles Lopez Lyman and Alsultany faced, I too have faced the pain of feeling displaced, journeying to a place of belonging, and working towards creating a safe place for others to belong as well. The feeling of displacement was evident in each of my Minnesotan and Costa Rican schools.  My heart was shattered when I found grotesque writings about me in the boy’s locker room in Costa Rica. This mirrored the pain I had endured when being ostracized by jealous schoolgirls in Minnesota, which had at that time caused me to fragment and reject of the fullness of all that I am. Because of this, I was caught in los intersticios, I wrestled with who I was and where I was from. Seeking comfort I encountered a Biblical verse: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Ephesians 2:19, New International Version). Finding these words and those that preceded it left my heart at ease as I pictured my passport cover’s gold crest as an ornate heavenly image and within its pages the two citizenships that I hold within an earthly realm. From this place, I recognized that everybody belongs- everyone is beloved. When walking with a friend, he questioned my desire to say hello to everyone, and I responded that it isn’t a desire but a need.  I need to acknowledge those that I encounter because I don’t know who they are or what they are facing, and my acknowledgement of the gift of their passing presence within my life is sacred ground. Throughout each day, I desire to and implore others to join me to take a step back, to notice those around us, to extend a place of belonging and to be the influence that combats that which seeks to destroy our sense of identity. 

References

Asultany, E. (2014). Los intersticios: Recasting moving scales. In C.K. Farr, M.M. Phillips, & N.A.  Heitzeg (Eds.), The Catherine core reader (pp.61-65). Acton, MA: XanEdu.

Lopez Lyman, J. (2014). We got issues: Cultivating a women of color consciousness. In C.K. Farr, M.M. Phillips, & N.A.  Heitzeg (Eds.), The Catherine core reader (pp. 55-59). Acton, MA: XanEdu.