Coming Home

I've been quiet during this ominous week. Even when we still thought Hilary was going to win I found myself walking the city streets and murmuring to myself - "this is not good, and I don't know what to do." Little did I know how much worse it was about to get. 

I've stayed away from social media, jumping on from time to time mainly to seek the healing wisdom of people like Adrienne Maree Brown. I know it's not the time to retreat. I've just been so angered by it all. Not just the fact that it happened or the fact that the whole game is rigged, but also by all the "knowing" on our side, the so called side of the just. We are fighting about safety pins? WTF???

I came home. Deep home. I came to Puerto Rico and sat at the feet of my 90 year old Abuelo, I sought his wisdom and perspective. "My heart is for people" he told me "countries are not what is real." 

I went to San Germán, to the town where I was born, stolen by the Spanish 500 years ago. I spent my time there alone. It was 30 years to the day since my family picked up and moved to the mainland United States. I needed to remember something. I needed to touch this piece of earth. I needed to touch the waters of the Caribbean Sea. I'm seeking to understand, to learn something that I don't yet know.

The tears have come in waves that make little sense to me. This is a deeper grief, something that was here before all of this.

There is so much I don't know. But I know we are of this earth. I know that we still have elders and that children are born good. I know that hate feeds on fear and that Trump voters hurt too. I know that binaries are both simple and seductive and they never hold the truth. I know that we must turn to one another, that we must care for each other, that we must love in the most radical ways.

I know people will get hurt. That the most vulnerable have reason to fear the worst. That we must take our stance to protect and to defend. I also know that it is in the worst of times that we show up as our best. And I trust us. Even when I'm mad at us. I trust us. We know what it takes to be free.