Can I Live?

I’m honored to be part of The Feminist Wire‘s brilliant forum on Black academic women’s health. While this essay is specifically concerned with the health of Black women in the academy, I hope that the principles of self-care and healing resonate with people of various races, genders, academic affiliations or lack thereof.  Here is my essay on wellness: Can I Live?

thanks for reading!

Freedom is…

Freedom is accepting my own eccentricities and particularities… Smiling because no one else needs to understand them, and maybe no one else ever will.

Freedom is enjoying the process of self-discovery… simply noticing, without judgment.
Freedom is excitement about the privilege to do difficult, accountable work.

Freedom is honesty without fear of change.
Freedom is learning to let myself take risks and experience joy… practicing in my dreams first before trying in waking life.

Freedom is ashtanga yoga before the sun comes up, vanilla bean ice cream with cocoa fudge long after the sun goes down, and mizuna mustard greens with fuji apples and lemon, any time of any day.

Freedom lies dormant in the fabric of minutes and moments… somehow always only a pause and a deep belly breath away.

Sunset Therapy

I struggled my way into 2012 feeling deflated and weary, and I decided that if I was actually going to sustain the people and projects that I am accountable to in this life, I had to implement a self-care regime.  Like really implement it… not just talk about it like I love to do.  So, on my list of new year’s resolutions, in addition to things like “listen to new music” (which I’ve done, and loved), and “write something, anything, everyday” (which I’ve also done… if emails and texts count), was to make sure to “catch a sunset” –at least three times a week. Whether I watch it in its entirety from my favorite spot: the shore of the Pacific Ocean, or simply catch slivers of it in my rearview mirror while driving (with caution), I let the colors and once-in-a-lifetime patterns remind me to breathe deeply, to be present in that moment and to be thankful for it.  I practice Sunset Therapy to remind myself that moments are fleeting and we never get them back, so we’d better make the most of them.  Even if I don’t blink, the moment still passes before my eyes… just like each day, whether good or bad, will eventually end.  There is something about the way that the sun burns its last traces across a darkening sky that always brings my own life back into focus, revealing my all-at-once importance and insignificance in the world.  And I just can’t think of a better to seal in the day, accomplishments, blunders and everything else, than to watch the live art show that the universe offers nightly, free of charge.