Persistence as a bedtime story.
When my boy was a baby, I made up a story about how he and our cat, Jetgirl, went to McCarren Park in Brooklyn to help the sun come up with a lasso. A few years later in Hong Kong, I made a second part for that story where LK and Jetgirl took a small boat to Nim Shue Wan Bay to help the moon rise.
In each story, they bring a rope and in each they repeatedly fail to lasso the sun and the moon. In the story my boy gets frustrated at the failure, but Jetgirl encourages him. “Keep trying,” she repeats again and again. And he does. Jetgirl puts her strength into it as well. He tries until he succeeds. Together they have a snack of buttered bread with anchovies to celebrate success.
Through the stories, we tell on the precipice of their dream
states, we teach our children about never giving up, about
fostering healthy and respectful relationships where we
encourage one another when things seem impossible and
celebrate one another when success is found.
We teach about looking toward a higher standard outside of ourselves. We teach about recasting our lasso as often as it takes. Failing, yes. Expecting to fail. But never giving up. On oneself, or on each other. Yes, Persistence.
So it is this pair of stories, I now reference while explaining how we need to be strong together and get through this pandemic. To take care of one another, even when things are tough, as we give up seeing our friends, reshape our family life and respect our neighbors and frontline workers by wearing masks when we are away from home.
I reference these stories while I share the excruciatingly long struggle, clear eyed tenaciousness and unending solidarity with our social and racial justice movements. We, all of us together, have failed again and again by not living up to our ideals of equality and justice for all. Black Lives Matter.
With these stories, I’m able to mark these past weeks for him as a shift in our collective consciousness, because I believe it has been.
Like Jetgirl did for the boy in those stories, I explain to my child that we will stand together with colleagues, friends, and neighbors requiring equality for all people and forever.
Racism won't be gone anytime soon and it exists around the globe in different ways and in all countries.
I can hope long before my child is telling these persistence stories to his own child(ren), we have succeeded. We must.
If you have not heard of the work of therapist and trauma specialist, Resmaa Menakem, I encourage you to listen to his recent (recorded in March) interview with OnBeing.
I am currently working with the materials in his book titled, "My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Bodies" wrapped into my ongoing study of Somato Emotional Release work. Manakem's work is built on the Vagus Nerve theory of Stephen Porges and that of Peter Levin - Somatic Experiencing.
To read more about the work I've trained in with Upledger Institute called Somato Emotional Release, link to this entry or this one or this one.
At its core, the therapy I offer is about inclusively supporting every individual to find peace, in ones body and in ones life.
This includes every single sacred person.
Thank you for being here and hopefully soon, again in session.