Take Care
Hi,
No one ever said change was comfortable. Change can feel like a shock, the world closing in around you all at once. The warning signs were there, but were we listening for them? Change can feel like a cracking open, an eruption of centuries of pain. None of this is new, but did you see it? Change can feel like nothing when denial is invited to the party. Your eyes are open, but are you awake yet?
Change is here for us all, ready or not. Kick denial out. Denial has overserved himself again and needs to go home. There is always more to do, and read, and watch while endlessly scrolling, so when you're already *very* late — as in, generations late — to the party you better choose a job and do it with gusto. Don't congratulate yourself for getting there. Pick up empty glasses. Refill the punch bowl. Definitely bring snacks. (Side note: remember parties? Now they're just memories and metaphors.)
Change is happening both fast and slow. We have to make space to recognize progress without losing track of the vast span ahead. Systemic racism and injustice don't start or end with police brutality and murder at the hands of law enforcement. Recognizing my priviledge and role in racist structures and the ways white people have failed to uphold the humanity of Black people in this country is work to be done at a personal level. We must also hold the structures created and designed to support white supremacy accountable (hint: that is all the structures and definitely #defundthepolice) and dismantle those together while dismantling our insides, too.
You've heard this before, so try it on again: I'm not going to get this all right. I have not gotten it all right already. I definitely messed up many many many times. Reprogramming your own brain is a doozy of a process...and we know this because we have all done it before.
We've quit things and learned new ways of thinking and grown up. Along the way, we've felt it all. There is room for everything when you're honest. The truth will always set you free, even when that truth is shitty behavior that makes you feel shitty about yourself to think about. You'll survive that. When you realize denial has overstayed his welcome, there's room for the emotions to do their thing. Feel them. Address them. Be better. Emotions, even the hardest ones, don't last forever. Your feelings make you human. Your fortitute also makes you human.
My role here is not to be a leader. Instead, to be a resposible follower. I know that my job is to take care of people, cheerlead like hell, speak up and out about the work of others, and to be here. I will continue to improve with every decision I make and through the words that I choose with care. There's that word again: care.
I've been thinking about care and about all the forms it takes in our lives. We talk about self-care and taking care and caring. What does it actually mean to care? True, heart-led caring isn't in the zoomed-out perspective. The instagram activism and public allyship put power behind momentum. Still, the actions you exhibit in your daily life have a larger impact on the communities in which you exist. Share on social media AND take stock of your personal and professional behavior. Take care of each other. Take care of your people. Speak the hell up. Take care to protect and celebrate Black joy and Black rest in any way you can. Do it when no one is watching and no one even knows. Stated intent means nothing without real life impact, so can decide where to show your care.
Being a Capital A Activist is a lifelong, intensive commitment. We need to support those who have been leading this movement and will continue to for as long as it takes. What each of us can do on a person-to-person level is do more than just follow the leaders, activists, and civil servants. Give directly and consistently to the humans you believe in. For people I don't know personally, that means supporting with tools like a monthly Patreon commitment (here is a very short list of womxn to learn about: Rachel Cargle, Rachel Ricketts, Layla Saad, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Dr. Akilah Cadet, Luvvie Ajayi Jones). For people I do, that can mean food and, hopefully someday soon, a massage. Be a ray of sunshine in someone else's life. Right now. While asking for nothing in return. Be a normal friend to your friends. No need to be weird about it.
Self-care has taken on a life of its own in the world, used by brands (including this one) to sell a lifestyle, products, a mindset. In the past few weeks, for all of us self-care is a nonnegotiable. We are stressed and agitated. We are emotional and angry at the world. For those of us who are this late to this party, it is noone's job but our own to soothe our own unrest and discomfort. So find the ways that you can be in your feelings without causing further harm to yourself or others. Read beautiful books, go on long walks, and let your mind exist with no external inputs for a bit. That last one costs nothing, which means more $$ for the supporting. And: food and sleep, don't forget about 'em.
Tomorrow is Juneteenth. We have finally caught up with the importance of this independence day. There are many ways to honor and acknowledge it — including lots of protests in the Bay Area — don't let it be just another Friday in 2020.
Saturday is solstice, the start of another season and our longest day. Go outside, move your body, and tell the sun you love her.
It is also PRIDE month. It looks a little different this year, but don't miss the chance to celebrate the LGBTQ people in your life (especially if its you!).
As for this place, The Assembly, change is a challenge and a reality. I will do my best to handle it with care. Thank you for reading this today and for being here always. I hope to see you soon. If you have something you want to share or respond to, I'm here. Take good, good care.
xo,
Molly
Permission Granted
Nothing has made me want to get back to traveling, exploring, and finding hidden gems more than this CN Traveler interview with Cheraé Robinson, founder & CEO of Tastemakers Africa. (Someone get her a suitcase sponsor, stat!)
I don't know about you, but my wine glass collection has not fared well through shelter in place. (It's always during the dishwashing, I swear!) I'm simultaneously embracing color in decor, so planning on ordering a set of these stemless glasses from Estelle Colored Glass, a Black-owned luxury glassware company.
I am 100% for buying high-quality, forever products to counteract the bullshit tax on women's personal care (see also: the great period cup rant of earlier this year). Two years ago I invested in a OUI the People razor, which is not cheap but lives in my shower to this day and will save you in the end. Truly, Gillette does not deserve your money. Now OUI, which is also a Black-owned and founded business, has a whole line that is designed to take care of all your shave needs.
De-colonize your spices. Diaspora Co. is a queer, WOC-led business creating incredible spices and putting money and equity into the hands of farmers. I had the pleasure of sitting next to the founder, Sana, at a dinner last year and we hosted her for a Chai workshop in April. Anyway, Diaspora is perhaps best known for their Tumeric but do not sleep on these Sannam Chillies, which I bought whole and have been throwing in everything.
Kids book to some, coffee table book to others (it me). Kamala and Maya's Big Idea is out and selling out again and again, so get in line. The author, Meena Harris, is a founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, activist, and very funny lady. Support her new Phenomenally Black campaign (there are shirts for accomplices & those working in allyship as well).
For summer, it might be time to transition from tie dye sweatsuit to tie dye shorts set...so I'm a big yes to this duo from CBAAF (Come Back As A Flower).
Three podcast recommendations: Journalist Phillip Picardi, former EIC of Out Magazine, just launched his new show about faith, spirituality, and god Unholier Than Thou and it is stunning. The first two episodes both brought me to tears (tbh, not *that* hard to make me cry these days).
Next, listen to this episode of Gee Thanks Just Bought It with Danni Mullen, owner of Semicolon, the only black-woman owned bookstore in Chicago. Come to learn about and support the work she does to bring the experience of buying and owning books to kids and stay for her sense of humor and realness: "Listen, honey, I am a Black lesbian with a PhD in Literary Theory. Being understood is not a thing."
Assembly member and friend Jo Piazza launched a new podcast last month in partnership with Tribeca Studios. It's called Fierce and it's stories of women who changed the world — start with the episode on Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American to publish a book of poetry in the colonies in 1773, or Christine Jorgensen, the first trans woman in the US to publicly announce her gender confirmation surgery.
Pull up the podcasts and go on a walk while you listen. Outside. See you soon.