The Weight of a Phone

My phone weighs 143 grams. I keep it in my pocket when I'm not using it, which means it's almost never in my pocket. When I click it on, sometimes I wait to unlock it just so I can gaze into my fiancé's eyes on the screen. They're blue, highlighted by his glasses, which darken when the sun shines against them. In the photo on the lock screen, his face holds a soft smile. As I type in my passcode, I can see that smile widening in my mind's eye.

On the home screen, our cats are curled up on my old heated blanket, the warmth of my phone mimicking the warmth of the throw. I imagine Casper purring me to sleep, his soft belly under my ear, and blink my eyes clear from a tired blur.

Under the images of cats sit five folders, each with a variety of applications. In one, there are 11 chat programs, each holding words from friends and family and people who fall somewhere in between. The messages come in from around the world. On one chat program, I talk mainly to a cousin in Dubai. In another, I reach out each day to a few people to tell them I love them, and a few reasons why. I don't want anyone I love to feel alone.

I know what it's like to feel alone. It spills out in text apps, in journal entries and memoirs and odes to the healing journey. Last year, I submitted one of them to a contest. A story of trauma, survival, and how my mind stitched itself back together from the bleakest of nightmares, "My Brain: A Love Story" won first place.

My phone's case weighs 20 grams. In the past, my phones have ended their lives battered; screens cracked, stories faded. Over time, I learned from those dents and fissures. More than bruises that phone and body grew all too familiar with in younger years, though, I've learned from the books my phone holds. When I was a child, paper and ink pulled me to safety. Now that I'm grown, the LEDs behind my screen spell out words and worlds of healing.

I open the camera app. I may be tired, but I am alive, and glad to be. I snap a photo, looking up at the lens with eyes that have seen both joy and pain in equal measure. As a smile crooks one corner of my mouth, I'm proud of the smile lines faint around my eyes. I had so many reasons to lack them. But there they shine, just like the light from my phone. Just like the light in my grin. I am alive, and I feel alive.

Silence Feeds Violence

There are so many thoughts in my brain, jumbled and tumbling over one another. I want this to be a space of healing, but there is no healing possible without giving voice to experiences of oppression. Silence feeds violence.

Lately I've been trying to step back to hear and read the voices of others, especially black voices. I've been too complacent in my own life up to this point, content to settle for using my own experiences of oppression as a proxy for empathizing with others rather than doing the hard work of examining the history of systemic injustices embedded within the institutions and culture of the country in which I live. While finding points of connection is important, understanding the history and framework in which various forms of oppression dwell is essential for creating effective change, as is elevating voices beyond just my own.

The past is a painful place to gaze upon, but that doesn't make it any less necessary to see it. To that end, I wanted to share some resources that have been pushing me to grow, even when they've been uncomfortable or painful to hear or read.

The first is a podcast series called "Behind the Police." It discusses the history of police and policing in America, and it's been eye-opening for me.

The second is a book by Angela Y. Davis. Titled "Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement," it's helped me to conceptualize intersectionality as more than the intersection of individual identities, but also as the intersection of collective movements, often spanning the globe.

The last thing I want to mention today is a podcast episode of "Unlocking Us with Brené Brown" featuring Laverne Cox. A (rough) paraphrase of a line that keeps repeating in my head from it is "At the end of the day, I'm fighting to make sure no kid gets beat up on the playground." There's a lot more to the episode, but whenever I get overwhelmed by the number of battles there are to fight, I am both galvanized and centered by that succinct summation.

What are some resources you have been finding helpful lately?

Homes of the Heart

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of home. Is home where I rest my head? The space in my heart my cat fills? Him snuggled up next to me?

Is where my fiance rests home for me? Waking up with him next to me? Is home my apartment, with its many rooms and meditative space? Is home his house, where so many happy memories dwell? Or is home his cat, who we picked out together shortly after we started dating?

Is home the lake by my apartment I sometimes watch the sun rise over? Is it the nearby tree, scarred by lightning, that has greeted me every walk through the park since moving across the country? Is home my parent's house, where I spent most of my formative years?

Maybe home is found in all of them.

For the first time, though, I'm ready to give one of those homes up.

The first night I fell asleep next to my fiance after beginning to move my things into his spare room, I woke up in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes full of wonder at the fact I could wake up in the same house as him from now on, and snuggled closer, falling back asleep with a smile on my face.

Then a second night passed. A third.

I keep waking up smiling.

I brought my cat over. He's been purring on his heated mat when not curled up in my arms. My fiance's cat, skittish and shy, is still adjusting, but seems cautiously happy about the changes.

There is so much that is new about this. Sharing space is not a thing I am accustomed to, but I feel so lucky every day I wake up near this amazing man. So lucky to have so many of my homes colliding and combining. So lucky to be alive in a world with cats and the family I've built. So lucky to be here, in this moment, alive.

Love, Values, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Every morning, I rush downstairs to look at my indoor herb garden. I planted it a couple weeks ago, carefully placing seeds for rosemary, sweet basil, oregano, garlic chives, and sage in the soil, as well as some catnip and cat grass seeds for my cat. Each day since, I've started my day gazing at the soil and the herbs as they've begun to grow, love filling my heart.

As I gaze upon the growing herbs, I ask myself questions, running through a checklist in my mind. Is the soil dry? Are the grow lights positioned correctly? Does anything need pruning? Do the herbs need repotting so they have more space to grow? I take care of the plants, tending to their needs, feeling alive and energized by the presence of life.

When I love someone or something, I am present and attentive and consistent. Every few days, I reach out to a few friends to remind them of things I love and cherish about them. I make time to be there for them and to spend with them, and I share the vulnerable parts of myself, wounds and joys, with those I trust as well.

I do this not because I feel I have to, but because it brings me joy and reminds me of the people I cherish and why. Just like with the plants, it is not work, but love.

Often when I struggle to maintain a habit or work toward a goal, I feel like I "wasn't passionate enough." I'll try to learn a new language or try a new form of exercise, and I'll stumble and not restart, and I'll tell myself a story about that attempt: "I don't really care about this thing." Over time, that story grows into a narrative about myself. Often, though, I do care. I'm just telling myself the wrong story about why I'm doing the thing in the first place.

In those moments, I try to remember to return to my values. I remind myself that my narratives for action, and my actions themselves, need to be based around the values that I hold most dear and the visions for the future those values create. And I try to examine those values, as well, to ensure they still fit with who I am and what I want. Then I venture forth in love and act.

#reasons #habits #love #selfcare #stories #values #vulnerability

Engaged

This past week has been a whirlwind. On April 11, I proposed to my partner. He said yes. Every ounce of my being has been radiating joy since that moment.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have him in my life. I didn't know it was possible to feel joy like this, or safety, or to have someone reciprocate all the sweet gestures that I make as a matter of course without treating it as a burden. I hadn't grown along with someone like I have with him before, in ways that made us both stronger and better and more confident people. We trust each other. We love each other. And we communicate.

I wrote all my feelings for him in a poem, and titled it Symbiosis. On Saturday, I shared it with him.

"I didn't understand symbiosis until I met you.
I had forgotten what a scale looked like when it was balanced,
how kindness returned can almost feel like floating.
I had never tasted safety until I kissed your lips,
never grew better for the growth I granted others.

Then there was you, and the way you looked at me.
The feel of your hand in mine, the thoughtful gifts:
Art for art, love for love. I grew stronger every smile,
started dreaming of your touch, started dreaming
of forever. I didn't know that I could love like that.

Love like a steady rock in a storm, like roots
growing intertwined, like fairy tales, only better,
because we talk through our fights and grow closer.
Love like holding each other up in rough seas of life,
because the world is sometimes stormy,

but our love is all sunlight. Love like vitality,
like a wash of warmth revitalizing my life,
like "I can do anything with you by my side."
Love like a ring glimpsed in a dream
of a future I am grabbing with all of my heart.

I didn't understand symbiosis until I met you.
Now I can't imagine life without you by my side.
All this a metaphor-heavy way to tell the story of
the four words pounding in my every heartbeat.
'Will you marry me?'"

As I read the last line, I dropped to one knee and pulled out a ring.

The moment he said yes ranks as one of the best moments of my life, but it wouldn't have been possible without the time and trust and love we'd built. I've been thinking a lot today about all the little moments we were there for each other, and how it feels to be confident in love. To be better for knowing and loving someone, just as they are for knowing and loving you. I've been thinking about how we could be confident in each other because we had the hard conversations, and we did our best to always do so in a way that made both of us feel safe while still being honest with each other.

I've been thinking about how love alone isn't enough, but love and effort and reciprocity, communication and trust and compatibility... all those things can build a home in someone else's heart. I'm glad I didn't settle for less than that joy.