Being called an “Oreo” as a young girl and throughout adulthood was a dagger thrown at me for existing in a Black body while cranking my head to Nirvana; knowing all the lyrics to R.E.M.’s Green album; shopping at Lululemon; dying my hair purple; dating white folx; making vegan mac and cheese; being addicted to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer; swirling like a hippy at drum circles in the UCSC forest; busing to Whole Foods in Redondo Beach from Inglewood at age 15 so I could eat organic; and so on and so on. I never saw these activities as “white” but that label was used by those whose perception of black people was simplistic and narrow-minded. In all-white spaces, I felt perpetually misunderstood and undervalued. In all-black spaces, I was goofy, aloof or just plain weird. I have come to understand myself as complex, broad-minded and thirsty to try new things; thanks in part to my mother’s acceptance of my B-52’s obsession and her common refrain, “You like it…I love it.” I can also thank a hodge-podge of friends and found family throughout my life: black, brown, asian, indigenous and white; jewish, christian, buddhist, atheist and pagan; queer, gender binary and not, trans and cis, fat and thin, and living with mental and/or physical disabilities, for helping me feel at home inside our bubble of collective complexity.

Over the years as I lean more into mindfulness practices and deepen my connection to spirit, I am making more conscious choices about which workshops/courses to pursue, teachers to study with and spiritual/creative adventures to leap into. I find myself pausing at the entrance wondering if I will encounter the exhaustingly familiar space of being the only person of color, or one of few. Even as I experience sacred connection and value in relationship with white spiritual leaders, I can’t shake the feeling that I am opening my soul to folxs who have no idea where I am coming from as a black, queer cis-femme in America. Even growing up in Inglewood, California, going to high school in East Los Angeles, through higher education, yoga teacher training, meditation instruction and now the study of Judaism, my teachers have mostly been white. Frankly, I get tired of learning from white people. Inhaling the savory teachings of sages and mentors of color like Sonya Renee Taylor, Aria Sa’id, Amanda Nguyen, and others, acts as my continued resistance to the monotone view of the world that is often purported as universal truth.

Coveting spaces with other bipoc is not about exclusion, it’s about being able to release the pressure of explaining what cannot be explained to people who have no way of understanding. Just as I cannot understand the internal unfolding, resistance and self-acceptance my beloved trans and non-binary friends have experienced, white people cannot put themselves in my shoes and then walk with any semblance of how to take that first step. Being Black in America means that I carry an overbearing load of historical trauma fueled not just by the racism of individual people, but by the institutionalization of that racism in every system I touch. No one puts down a copy of White Fragility and leaves with that takeaway. Even my partner, who is white, couldn’t get through it, deciding instead to read Resmaa Menakem and Ta-nehisi Coates to further their understanding of her role within systems of oppression and how to do better as a white ally.

Right now I am so grateful to the community of Jews of Color who have welcomed me with open arms to learn and experience unity as I continue conversion with my local queer synagogue. And I am especially thankful to pioneers like Rabbi Sandra, who are raising awareness and creating community like Kol Hapanim for JOC and allies to practice together and be supported in our faith and in our experiences as BIPOC. Their first Zoom Shabbat is this Friday and I am ON FIRE about it!

I expect my blog posts to become a bit more sporadic because I am starting a course at the Writer’s Studio in two weeks, and I also hope to be accepted into a program examining the dharma through an anti-racist lens, the work of which will consume most of the limited free time I now enjoy. Considering myself a lifelong learner, I know I will not always find classrooms that are balanced in leadership and participation with regard to race, gender, and other forms of diversity. My mind and my heart crave diversity because within it I feel seen, valued and respected, rather than invisibilized, dismissed as an or peddled as the magical Negro for having insights that seem profound, but are simply the result of living with substantially less privilege than the average white person. I intend to stick with my current yoga teacher (he’s deep and hot.. sorry, not sorry), and Chani will forever be astrology bae. But I will never stop seeking that sanctified space: an inclusive tribe of alt rock-loving hippies who do yoga to soul music, dig mystical Judaism and binge-read prose and poetry written by a cadre of anti-racist, multicultural thought leaders. #SquadGoals

Originally published at https://www.montrescher.blog.

The first time my mom heard me curse I was 18 years old. The neighbor’s son had come over to ask me on a date. He offered to take me to McDonalds to which I replied, “Fuck your McDonalds”. As my mom rounded the corner where she’d overheard my retort, I could hear her slow clapping. Her eyes were wide and mouth agape in adoration and surprise. “Now that’s MY daughter!” Though I was not one to turn down a free meal, I was pretty sure this dude dealt weed so he could have at least offered to take me to Sizzler. What’s more, I had just finished telling him that I broke up with my high school boyfriend and would be starting college soon. Flattered by his desire to swoop in before other suitors could run up, I was truly heartbroken, so I did not take his advances well.

Talking about my youth in a public setting can be a little tricky, because like 43% of adults in the U.S. I grew up around alcoholism and substance abuse. Some common characteristics of Team ACOA are relentless self-judgment, being hyper responsible (or irresponsible), and seeking constant affirmation that one is worthy of love. I never really examined these traits as a teenager or in my early 20s, primarily because I felt like my experiences in life, especially the difficult ones, helped to shape the inquisitive, deeply spiritual, compassionate, and downright cheeky person I’d become. Fast forward to my 30s and erm..40s, I could see relics of my inner child toolkit blocking the path to truly enjoying myself and my life. Not that long ago, I found it inconceivable that someone could simply make peace with a quality in themselves they were ashamed of. Radical self-love had yet to appear on my radar, but I’ve been grateful for it’s arrival ever since.

Last year, a good friend introduced me to a book called Awaken Your Genius, by Carolyn Elliot. In it, she offers ways to reach into the parts of ourselves that most of us are coached to ignore or repress. This wasn’t my first exposure to the concept of shadow work, but it was the first time I’d been offered a way through writing to examine this concept within my own life. One of the exercises instructed me to write a letter to my heart, telling it all that I was struggling with; for me this meant the torment of unmet goals and its sidekick, shame. Then, I would write a letter back to myself from my heart but with a style of language that I will describe, so not to plagiarize, as Woo-Woo. Get the book — Carolyn describes it best.

This is what my heart had to say:

Beloved Reisa,

Why scuttle your mind with such unpleasantries? Leap up and out. Over death flagellating your breast. You smell like autumn. You taste like moonlight. You look like green ponds under stars. You sound like honeybees floating too close. You feel like warm oil against cold flesh. Swallow this knowing and stay full.

You are Ouroburos carving, curving, coiling and captivating. Medicine flows from your throat, creeps from the corners of your eyes, and wants to make itself to the village. Let your safety drop out! BOOM till it crashes into a thousand pieces. Let roaches and caterpillars suck up its remains. Emerge weightless. Pour blood into the earth. Burrow yourself between the tallest redwoods and listen. Tremble in the cold water. I will not let love destroy you, but I take you to its edge breathless. This is how the next opus finds you.

Kiss your grandmother’s cold cheek. Press your face into the crust of her chest. Eat the cake on the counter. Smell the humble perfume. Dance to gospel and boop-boop-bi-doop. Sing loudest in the bedroom. Belong to truth and let it echo into the sound of Osada. Surrender poetrydrunk into laughter. Sail from this into that.

With never-ending love and adoration,

Your Heart

I trembled writing this letter and collapsed into tears upon reading it back, as if I wasn’t conscious of the words while they fled from my furious fingers. It was one of the most profound writing experiences I’ve ever had. It stirred in the pot of my journal pages, and I expected to edit it eventually. But each time I reread it, or shared it with a loved one, I could find no synonym to swap out, no grammar choice that needed rules to ring truer, nothing wrong at all with what had poured directly from my heart — It was my truest heart song. With this permission to let go of all the ways I felt unfinished the “what-ifs” of my life gave way to a newfound excitement and zest for “what’s next?!”

Turns out that F-bombs are vital to my lexicon and I still have lingering ACOA proclivities. Like sometimes I recoil from my truth when I fear hurting someone’s feelings; I criticize my partner’s driving, calling their occasional illegal turns, or incorrect use of the passing lane, acts of “caucasity,” and I want EVERYONE to love me. But I also know that I have a gift for writing and it’s easier these days to be proud of that and take a compliment without a self-effacing response. I know I am NOT responsible for anyone’s emotions except my own. My partner is an excellent driver and her privilege comes in handy sometimes. And I am not for everyone. It’s all copacetic. The more I lean towards self-compassion with my own shadow, the more empathy I have for others when they don’t live up to my fanciful expectations. TBH, it’s exhilarating to accept my own imperfections. When something pokes the prickly skin of an unresolved hurt I can be petty AF in response, and I can’t read a fucking map to save my life. So what?! My imperfections can be adored as preciously as the parts of myself that I display proudly.

Over the years, though not all consecutive, I have had the privilege of regular psychotherapy. Weekly sessions with my current therapist have been très nécessaire the entire time we’ve been in this panini. Sometimes during our sessions, my therapist feels compelled to remind me that I am lovable and worthy of love. We met in person before tele-health was the norm so I know she can see my eyes roll incredulously as I murmur: How do you know? To which she always calmly replies, Because you are loved.

Originally published at https://www.montrescher.blog.

Rosemarie tapped my shoulder to whisper, It’s time. I leapt to my feet and sat on the edge of the bed taking Grandma’s hand as she took her last few breaths on this planet. I softly sang Blessed Assurance, her favorite hymn, sobbing silently as we approached the inevitability of goodbye. After the nurse pronounced her and recorded the time, I calmly walked into my mother’s room to give her the news that Grandma was gone, so that she could go in and say her farewell. I heard my spouse, Janie, stir as well, seemingly also sensing the gravity. I returned to the space where I had been sleeping on the floor next to Grandma and as if some protective layer of coping armor melted from my frame, I erupted into what I can only describe as an out of body grief attack. I hurled NOs into the air, violently sobbing, rocking back and forth, and banging on the bed gate, in protest to the truth. Janie swooped in to wrap their eagle wings around me and to try to calm me down from the uncontrollable wailing. I was starting to hyperventilate and she was afraid I might pass out, or have an asthma attack. On my right, I could see my mother and the hospice nurse, Rosemarie, crying as well and I wanted to come back to them but I also wanted to follow grandma wherever she was going. I thought we’d have more time. We had so much more time. Didn’t we?

Grandma trusted no one to give her a bath, except me. Whenever I visited I would sit her on the plastic chair in the shower, and use the attachment to pour warm water down her body while she soaped herself up. I knew she was slightly embarrassed to need my help in this way, but I felt honored that she trusted me to care for her so intimately. When I tilted her head back and poured water from her forehead down her scalp I could see her ecstasy. The squint of delight on her nose, and her cheek-to-cheek grin still graze my memories. Though my family has always been working-class, in those moments I liked to think she felt like she was at a high end spa being treated with kid gloves. A luxury she wholeheartedly deserved. Making sure she never got too cold during bath time, I warmed a robe in the dryer to wrap her in for transport back to her room.

I learned to make sweet potato pie on one of my earlier trips. One never realizes how important it is to record stories, memories, recipes, etc. until you are staring at the possibility of their extinction. I have only one video of my grandmother; she is mixing up sweet potato pie batter and talking to me as I film with my iPhone. We are making familiar jokes about me eating all the pie before anyone else can get any. As a kid, I was known to polish off grandma’s baked goods to the dismay of my grandfather and other visitors looking for a piece of cake or a cookie. But grandma secretly loved it and thought it was hilarious, so I never felt the need to practice restraint. I have her recipe for sweet potato pie and macaroni & cheese in my head. Her recipe for Sock-it-to-me cake I make from a combination of memory and instructions from the internet. And for her tea cakes, I found a basic recipe online, which I tweaked intuitively until I found that familiar flavor. I do miss getting tins full of cake and/or cookies in the mail. Always one to stretch a dollar, she refused to purchase those tins, so she’d wait to be gifted something in one that fit the bill for mailing, and then she’d get to baking. We were both livid for months when someone had the audacity to steal a cake she’d sent me in the mail. Every time I talked to her on the phone after it was lost she’d inquire about it: Post office ever find your cake?

When I got to Los Angeles that Saturday in January, Grandma was in her hospital bed. Her dirty glasses sat on the night stand: no longer of much use since she was now mostly blind. I caressed her head and asked if she was hungry, then I swooped off to the kitchen to make her a bowl of grits. When I came back she delighted in eating as the nurse carefully fed them to her. “Don’t waste my grits! I love grits,” she snickered. I watched joyfully as she ate, then I combed her hair with my fingers and put it into a top bun. She ate the whole bowl and finished it off with water, then she laid back to rest. As I prepared to drive my mom to her doctor’s appointment, I knelt down to kiss grandma on the forehead, whistling Be right back Grandma with a goofy smile. She cooed a jolly okey dokee; then we headed out.

When we returned a few hours later, grandma was sleeping. She didn’t wake up for the rest of the night so I slept in a small room next door. The next day I woke to greet her and she was still asleep. This is when the nurses alerted me that she was likely actively dying based on her vitals and other factors, and that we should start considering arrangements. Hearing that was like a sucker punch to my gut; one that I wanted to return full force, though I knew the nurse was just doing her job.

When the entire day went by without grandma waking to eat or drink, I decided to sleep on a mat next to her hospital bed so that I could be near her, in case she stirred and was willing to drink some water. During the day, I helped clean her body and turn her to prevent bed sores. I also misted her face with rose water and massaged rich cream into her skin. I cleaned and trimmed her nails, and helped the nurse clean her hair with a no rinse shampoo. Sometimes I played episodes of the Golden Girls on my tablet; other times gospel or African music; sometimes we just sat in silence or I sang to her, or read passages to her from her Daily Bread magazine. My mother and I sat with her often throughout the day, and occasionally friends came by to visit and say goodbye. I had read that the dying sometimes need time alone so I tried to leave the room and go do something else for a little while too each day, but I spent the majority of the time in that room sitting in a chair next to her bed, or asleep on the floor mat with my hand propped up between the aluminum gates of the bed, holding hers.

After Janie calmed me down and everyone else left the room where my grandmother’s body lay lifeless, I went over and kissed her forehead and cheeks. I helped Rosemarie clean her once again and put her into pajamas in preparation for the mortuary to retrieve her. As we waited, I held her hand and placed my head on her hip, staring up at her face almost wishing for a miracle. When they arrived about 40 minutes later, I was still holding her hand as two men entered the room to offer their condolences. I sat up and then lifted myself to stand at the foot of the bed. Janie later remarked to me that she could see tears in those mens’ eyes as I stared at them in disbelief of what they were there to do. As they pulled the sheet up over her face, an action I refused to perform, I sensed my fist curl, but before I could lunge, Janie ushered me out of the room to prevent me from bearing witness to my beloved being wheeled away. Janie, seeing me flinch with every squeak, wrapped their arms around my ears to muffle the sound of the gurney being wheeled down the hallway. Then as soon as the van pulled away, I went to lay in her hospital bed until the men arrived an hour or so later to pick that up too.

I didn’t want to write about any of this. I have barely written about this experience even in my journal since last January. But in the wee morning hours of January 7, I woke up crying and couldn’t go back to sleep. This grief experience is in my bones; so deep in my bones that I know I will never get over it. I wish I could say it has gotten easier, but I believe I may be years away from the getting easier part as well. My mother and I share beautiful memories of this precious time with Grandma, but we also share trauma that we have been unable to adequately process together since we have been apart due to COVID since last January.

While researching this week for ways to honor the memory of my grandmother, Sylvina, for her upcoming yahrzeit, I came across a beautiful article. In it, a husband describes his experience of making his wife comfortable as she is dying from ovarian cancer from the comfort of their home. He also talks about his decision to keep her body at home until she is laid to rest. At first, I was shocked, but then I remembered how hard it was for me to say goodbye in the less than an hour I had between the time she was pronounced dead and the time those blokes came to fetch her. My instinct told me to never leave her side. Throughout the dying process and even into her death, I wanted her to know how much she was loved, adored, cherished and OMG how much she would be missed. I hope she knew. G-d, I hope she knew.

I also think it is fitting that the Torah portion leading up to her yahrzeit is about names and naming. Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, the name G-d gave themself when asked by Moses, translated in my study group to mean “I am what I will be” feels quite astute. I realize that there is so much more to this portion to be examined, but study of the Torah will take a lifetime; and there is more commentary on Jewish texts than in any Reddit channel I’ve ever seen, so allow me to wax poetic about just this itty-bitty bit.

My grandmother was born a sharecropper’s daughter, on a farm in Louisiana. Betrothed to my grandfather (a story I learned during one of our weeks together last Fall), then fell madly in love with him anyway. Lived ninety-two precious years, celebrated a 50th wedding anniversary, raised three beautiful children, nurtured six grandchildren and loved nine great-grandchildren. Made the entire block where she lived feel cared for, along with anyone else she ever encountered, unless you were triflin’ — then watch out! Who she was at 10 years-old, or 20 years-old, or 57 years-old, or 91 years-old is not who she was. She became more than anyone might have ever imagined she would or could be.

To me, she was Grandma. That moniker with its infinite possibilities changed me; nurtured me into a kind and gentle person, a dangerous way to inhabit a soul as a black girl, but a brave one as well. At her funeral service, her pastor, Norman S. Johnson exclaimed, “She knew her name,” this after learning that most members had been calling her by the wrong name (Sylvania) for fifty years. He came over to ask me how to pronounce it and I said SYL-VI-NA, then he looked at me dumbfounded. “Why didn’t she…” and before he could finish I replied, “She’d never bother.” She did know who she was, so much that she transcended the name given to her here on earth. She is living inside the hearts of those who loved her so dearly and were touched by her service and her courage to be open-hearted in a closed-minded place. I don’t necessarily want people mispronouncing my name, or expecting me to be passive or completely selfless all the time. But I would like to believe that the complex legacy I eventually leave here on earth will be rooted in loving kindness and that it will spread and flourish in those whose lives I have touched, whether or not anyone ever remembers my name.

Sylvina Porter transitioned in peace on January 9 at 1:36am. May her memory be a blessing.

Originally published at https://www.montrescher.blog.

Blessed Assurance was originally published in Growing Grief on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I got off the bus one stop early so that I could take the shortcut down Guerrero to 18th. By providence, I caught a stranger’s eyes on me as I exited the bus. This was no typical glance to appreciate some part of my figure; it was a deeper gaze-one that startled me. In an instant I decided to take a different route. I would walk down 16th first, then down Valencia, with lots of people around just in case.

Going to high school in the 90s, I had been told that I was “pretty for a black girl”. A lame-ass validation of my attractiveness from curious white bois who had no idea how to speak intelligently to me. Still, thanks to teen magazines, television and all manner of societal indicators, I thought of myself as homely looking, plain and too thick to consider myself beautiful. That day, I was wearing a pencil skirt, with a cute blouse and mid-heeled boots; an outfit inspired by a new foray into “dressing for the life I want”. Sadly, in this moment I regretted not choosing the frumpier outfit I originally picked out; baggy jeans and an oversized sweater. My inner bell hooks tried to dodge that thought with a host of “fuck that hetero-white-patriarchal nonsense,” but my inner child who endured terrifying and demeaning catcalls since I was 12, just wanted to hide.

I walked at a comfortable clip in hopes that the moment would disappear, and I would turn around to find he had vanished. But he stayed behind me, block after agonizing block. I kept turning to check if he was still there, only to catch him averting his eyes from a few feet behind me. Even as I passed a police station I couldn’t bring myself to go in. I figured they would never take me seriously. I mean who stalks black women anyway? So, I barely paused, passing the station on my way to the Women’s Building.

Little did this asshole know that years of study in the genre of detective/crime-solving/murder mystery shows had prepared me to deal with this situation allbymydamnself. Murder She Wrote, Scooby Doo, Inspector Gadget, Wonder Woman, Criminal Minds, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all the shows on the ID channel, and of course, , taught me the tips and tricks of scoping out a perp, finding my Unsub and sniffing out the who-dun-it.

Yet, even though this crazed man had followed me now for a few long blocks, I still wanted to believe I was imagining the whole thing. Slyly, I stopped to sit at a bus stop, figuring he would walk on by, and I could take my paranoid ass to my event finally. But he didn’t walk by. He stopped. He looked straight into my eyes and then looked away again. He stood awkwardly against the building on the corner. And in this moment I realized he really was following me; waiting for me to walk somewhere where he could grab me, attack me, or who knows what, without anyone noticing. For the first time in this now 20ish minute ordeal I believed that I was in real danger.

Doubting my intuition has caused me to stay in many situations that did not serve me. Even if they were not dangerous to my physical self, some of them did damage to my soul. Searching the landscape of my lived experience, I contemplate what sets off this cycle that immediately reduces my judgment to the cellar of skepticism. Was second-guessing myself some sort of survival strategy, secretly implanted in my psyche, so that I’d never ask too many questions and risk alienation? And even if it was, could it actually save my life to be silent, or could my silence equal death, just as easily as my bona fide questioning.

I sat on that bench, occasionally looking over to see if he had given up and left. After what seemed like another half hour, I caught him off guard and managed to run across the street out of sight, and slipped into the building without him noticing. I shook off the shock of what had just happened, and crept into the room where other youth advocates were waiting for me. I spent the next two hours networking and giving mini presentations about the leadership programs at the agency I worked for. How I managed to sequester the traumatized version of myself that had just endured over an hour of panic and fear, so that I could smile, teach and be an ally for placed-at-risk youth I do not quite know. Being in this mixed community of queer/straight, gender-expansive, bipoc, differently abled and aged folx fueled my spirit and helped me release my shoulders and ears down to breathe normally again.

Leaving the event, I had almost forgotten about what transpired just a few hours earlier. Still I didn’t bother to comb my surroundings too deliberately while walking back to the bus stop to board it for home. As the bus departed, I looked over my right shoulder and caught his eyes on me again, this time seething and direct into mine as the bus pulled away. He glared at me, angrily chewing his words like he was preparing to spit. Without warning I felt tears drift slowly down my cheek, as I made out the words in his mouth, “Fucking bitch!” The bus carried me home to safety. Eventually, the boots ended up in the Goodwill pile, after attempting then refusing to wear them for months. I don’t think I ever wore that outfit again either. Before I decided to share this story here, there were few people in my life who even knew this happened.

Being followed doesn’t happen to everyone, but sadly it happens enough in our society that an interwebs search will locate more stories like mine; ones with much graver outcomes, no doubt. But it still haunts me that I was followed during the day time, in a hipster neighborhood, with people in every crevice of its tapestry of restaurants and boutiques; yet my fear, my pain and my peril went completely unnoticed. This happened many years ago, and thankfully I haven’t experienced anything like it since. I am grateful to my intuition and quick thinking that I was not physically harmed that day. But, I think ALL Black women deserve to live in a world where we are believed, we are seen and we are cherished; instead of made invisible by the false narrative that we are strong without limit and maniacally independent. That day I needed someone’s help and I did not feel safe enough to ask for it.

On Friday night, I learned a beautiful song in Kabbalat Shabbat called Min Ha-meitzar. I do not pretend to fully understand the depth of its meaning. But a wee bit of research and nascent interpretation suggest to me that it is a meditation on feeling small, or confined then seeking guidance from creator to find the space to set oneself free. I was moved by the song without even knowing what it was about. After further inquiry, I realized that I am still holding on to self-doubt in areas of my life. And I am still throwing knives at my intuition, when it’s just trying to show me who I really am.

The world may not be any closer, hashtags withstanding, to honoring the sacredness of Black women. But I pledge to myself that I will no longer participate in the cycle of devaluation by doubting my own instincts. I remember that it was that voice, the one that told me to change course that day as I stepped off the bus, that probably saved me from an unrecoverable trauma. I find gratitude in this knowing and as new discoveries about myself emerge, I won’t be afraid to greet them, sit them down and listen to what they have to tell me. Next time I need help, I will practice pushing past fear to ask for it; in the hope of being pleasantly surprised by a humanity in recovery from itself.

Originally published at https://www.montrescher.blog.

A year from yesterday, I sat quiet with my grandmother on the couch in her living room. It was before the nurses were there around the clock. Before she was bedridden; yet she was still so frail that I couldn’t bear to take my eyes off of her. It already pained me that I’d have to leave in 2 days and return to work. I had been coming down to SoCal from SF in one-to-two week increments since September to help care for grandma, and to give my mom respite from the backbreaking work of 24/7 elder care.

Grandma and I mostly humphed at the TV, or laughed at a particularly funny commercial. MSNBC managed to stay fixed on the screen, except when Judge Mathis came on at two o’clock. I had been there for 7 days, and as my return home drew closer, I took to holding her hand sometimes as we watched. I was grateful for my recent fascination for Black hair YouTube videos, because of this, I would braid her hair, and even give her a shampoo and blow dry during my visits. All, of course, while watching the boob tube.

Television has been a theme in my life for so long and that has become really apparent to me during this pandemic because I find myself actively avoiding TV. Not because I don’t enjoy the occasional show, or movie. I love lots of shows and movies! Recently, I realized that in my family television was often the axis of human connection. We gathered around screens to celebrate, to entertain, to learn, to laugh. Some of my sweetest memories of spending time with Grandma are of watching the Golden Girls and hearing her roars of laughter after Sofia said anything! (I would move heaven and earth to hear that laugh again…) We laughed so much, and that laughter made me feel loved, safe and like I belonged.

But Grandma also liked to go outside, she hated being cooped up in the house. She spent hours gardening. When I was a kid, and mom would drop me off for the weekend, Grandma and I would hit the town early, in her green Cadillac, and spend all day fetching ingredients for Sunday dinner. Though our time on the couch was precious, she would still send me out to play with other kids, to ride my bike, go to the track with Grandpa, to vacation bible school, sometimes she’d even have me tag along with her to visit the sick. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” she’d say.

When I arrived at the house last November I had planned to stay one week, but extended it for another week when I saw how frail Grandma was getting. I made her an appointment with her GP so that he could assess her health. A few weeks prior to my visit, I had also bought her a walker on Amazon, with a front basket for her mini oxygen machine, hoping that it would give her more independence to get around. When I arrived that Saturday, I found it in the basement with the tags attached. I figured it would end up in the pile of gifts from years past that were “ too fancy for Grandma” (her words, not mine). But after a few days there, I noticed that she kept trying to go outside. Due to her condition, that was absolutely not a good idea. She had a respiratory illness and dementia, a scary combo if she got out of the house without anyone knowing. We hid the keys and I even installed this loud-ass alarm with a motion sensor that would go off if she managed to leave her room. My mom was glad to have me in the adjacent room whenever that sucker went off so she could get a full night’s sleep.

I wasn’t sure how we were going to get grandma to her doctor’s appointment, but I was determined to give her the chance to try out her new walker to see what was possible. On the morning of her appointment, mom and I got her ready. Then I slid her little (but heavy as hell) oxygen tank into the front pocket of the walker, arranged the tubes so that they would not get in her way, or get pinched while she walked, and led her down the front porch ramp to the car. She smiled really big and exclaimed: wellnow — this thing is cool. As I drove I caught glimpses of her in the backseat, smiling and looking up at the sky during the trip to the doctor, and as I took the long way back home. He placed her into hospice that day. When we got home, grandma was all smiles for a while and we all laughed about her getting a good clip with the walker, almost too quick for us to keep up. That was the last time she got to go outside before she died.

I learned to love going outside from my grandmother, Sylvina Porter, daughter of Selener Jacobs. And from that introduction I fell in love with nature, especially trees and kaleidoscope skies. Since January, I have started baking again as a process for my grief and because she taught me to love that too. I try to get into nature whenever I can, though this year it’s been particularly tough. And I hope to go on some hikes with Outdoor Afro, when it’s safe again. My grandmother wasn’t perfect — she didn’t really like that I am queer, and would probably guffaw at the idea of me becoming a Jew. She did love that Rachel Maddow, so maybe she wasn’t as intolerant as I think.

When my grandmother died on January 9, 2020 I realized that living the life I want is completely up to me. There is no one, no thing and no time to wait for. Every choice is complex, some are fucked up and some are impossible — but they are mine. One of my first actions for self care was to turn away from the television and other screens. Not all the time, but when I know I’m just finding a place on the couch, or spending hours on FaceBook, because I assume that’s the only way to connect, I am learning to make a different choice. One that’s still about connection and based in unconditional love. The choice that I have been afraid to make in my life many times. I choose me. Right now, that means finding ways to connect that align with my need for movement, stimulating conversation, time in nature, spiritual bonding; even shared silence.

When I recite the Mourner’s Kaddish for my Grandmother in January 2021, I plan to do it outside, somewhere green and pretty where she would have liked to sit, eat tea cakes, look up at the sky, and laugh.

Originally published at https://www.montrescher.blog.

I am a queer, overweight, black woman over 40 trying to break into an industry that primarily values straight, thin, white men under 30. When someone tells me some version of “Don’t worry about it. Just think positive,” I feel angry, ashamed and invalidated. As I listen to the stories of other midlife women looking to transition or advance their careers, especially Black women, I know I’m not imagining any of my experiences and I also know how much emotional energy, courage and audacity it takes to have these experiences and keep on keepin’ on.

So when someone tells me that the answer to all my problems is positive thinking, I start to feel a throat punch coming on. But recently my therapist helped me see how I was stuck in negative self-talk. And that while positive thinking can act as a wonderful band-aid to negative self-talk; the antedote is actually self-care.

When our conversation turned to body image, I really got into my feelings. She asked me to imagine my five-year-old self saying aloud “I’m so fat. I hate my body. No one likes me”. Then she asked me what I would say to soothe my five-year-old self and I was stumped. In the back of my mind, I thought “well when you are five you don’t have to worry about it but if you are still chunky at 13, then we may have a problem.” It wasn’t that I didn’t have compassion for this little me, but that I couldn’t let go of the idea that my being overweight was wrong. Being overweight feels like something that is fundamentally wrong with me, something I should be putting tons of effort into changing as though solving this conundrum will suddenly solve a host of other problems in my life.

So what does body image have to do with career transitions? For me, this conversation made it very clear to me, that I had been practicing negative self-talk for years and not realizing it. And if I was doing it about my body, which seemed like a completely legitimate reason to criticize myself, then I was surely doing it in other areas of my life. But, somehow, try as I might, reciting affirmations or placing inspiring quotes on the wallpaper of every device I owned was not quite hitting the mark or making me feel better.

I realized that in addition to speaking more kindly to myself, it was equally, if not more important for me to act kindly towards myself as well. As disabled women, women of color, queer women, fat women, gender-fluid folks, it’s hard to remain hopeful about the future when you are regularly depleting your store of emotional strength, fighting against the messaging that tries to convince you that you are not enough. In addition, there are ways that we work to deplete our own stores. Here are some examples:

* Staying in a job that depletes our soul because we have bills to pay or a responsibility to remain employed. That’s an eight to ten-hour energy suck five days a week.

* Taking on most of the household chores because we feel it is our responsibility.

* Offering help to friends and family because we love them, but then realizing we do not get the same level of support in our relationships.

* Choosing to skip yoga, spin class, /insert physical activity here/, because we don’t see it as “me time” but instead view it as another chore.

* Being fearful of difficult conversations because we are afraid of revealing that everything is not okay and that we may need help or a change in the status quo.

As I work towards making self-care a daily priority in my life, I am making different choices. As hard as it may seem to get some exercise in, I focus on how good I will feel in my body and how proud I will be of myself for doing something kind for myself and then I make it happen.

Another way I take care of myself is by seeking out therapy. It’s the gift that keeps giving. There are sliding scale options available and you can also use insurance, or an FSA or HSA card. Ask your partner to pay for it in lieu of other gifts. If the idea makes you cringe a little, call it “Girlfriend Tuesday’s”. Therapy has been an incredible gift that I’ve given myself several times in my life when I feel like I need extra support or just to work out some issues that I don’t really want my friends weighing in on.

By taking exceptional care of myself, I am less likely to let this world tell me what I am worth or how productive I have to be in order to deserve a soulful, fulfilling life and plenty of money in the bank. I’m not saying to delete your affirmations folder, however, when it comes to loving myself, what has pushed me to the point of building a powerhouse of emotional fortitude has been pretty simple; Don’t Talk About It, Be About It!