When I left,
I realized
that I did not miss you
at all.
And that,
is when I knew,
I had to leave.
9 to 56789
Bronx Botanical Garden, 2026.
What the Epstein files reveal to be so blatantly true about society.
“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” ― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Trigger warning: this piece contains sensitive content related to violence and rape.
I’ve gone through a long, yet rapid, arc of politicization. Many things - growing up on the South Side of Chicago, being Black, traveling around the world to see the impacts and effects of climate change, neoliberalism, and white supremacy - have stoked my disgust for capitalism. That disgust, at times, has landed me in jail. (I have been arrested twice, for standing up for what I believe in.)
Each of these experiences with the criminal justice system are revealing. That who get deemed criminals has less to do with the crime and more to do with…
Well, I’ll show you.
While young, as I watched the movies and news, filled with implicit tropes about Black people as violent, drug-dealing, gangsters, I watched in real time… during high school and college… as white men fit the true bill of violent, drug-dealing gangsters.
I heard stories (cause my Black ass would never be caught there) of the drugs, including ecstasy and cocaine, that circulated these spaces, both in high school and college. I watched as fraternity houses, the white ones especially, on campus acted as mini Epstein Islands in the making, where boys could act out violence against women’s bodies, with impunity.
But. It wasn’t just about race. It was also about class. The Black wealthy, too, could seem to get away with the same atrocities, of drug-dealing, of violence, of rape, that mainstream media pits on immigrants, on Black people, and on the poor in this country.
The Epstein files reveal to me what is so blatantly true about society… that the rules and law of the land bend, twist, and turn… if you are white, wealthy, and powerful enough.
I recently watched the documentary "All About the Money," which follows Fergie Chambers, a political activist, philanthropist, and heir (though ostracized) to the Cox Family, a wealthy family from Massachusetts. Money is the least of his worries. Dismantling capitalism and pushing communist revolution appears to be his MO. However, throughout the film, it becomes clear that despite his political leanings, he is able to avoid any form of accountability for his actions, largely due to his wealth.
There are many other examples.
That robbery and theft is a serious and violent felony, with up to 25 years in prison …. But when employers or corporations like Wal-Mart, Uber, or McDonald’s get to do it, instead of jail, they get accolades and boosted profits.
That reckless and illegal dealings, led by rich WHITE men, during the 2008 Financial Crisis, could send our economy towards a Great Recession… yet instead of jail time, which seems to be in abundance for Black, brown and poor people (and I KNOW because during my first court hearing in Delaware where I was arrested for the first time for direct action, it was filled with nothing BUT Black and Brown people), they got bailed out.
That some get the label terrorist, for bombing, rape, and pillage… yet when that rape, pillage, burning, and bombing are done in the guise of democracy and freedom (well, really in the interests of the wealthy)… they are called heroes?
That Indigenous people are called savages when in reality, “European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central, and North America.” (https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/world/european-colonization-climate-change-trnd)
That white women get to jump out of fear, clutching their purse and their pearls, when a Black man walks by. When it was white men, slave masters, who were the real psychopaths, beating, abusing, and raping Black women ad nauseam.
That white men like Scott Adams get to write books called How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big, by quipping about how LITTLE effort and work he put into his work (aka LAZY), while still continuing to climb the corporate ladder. (Only a white man could write a book, How to fail at almost everything and still win big. Jeffrey Epstein’s life, a college dropout who lied about his resume to get a job, follows a similar trajectory. How to do the worst and still get rewarded is the name of the game!!)
That DEI admissions is attacked, but legacy admissions isn’t?
What are the other contradictions you see in society? You won’t have to look far.
The rules of society are so obviously set up against most of us… to benefit the white, wealthy, and powerful.
So what is to be done about it?
…Is the question I’ve almost obsessively been thinking about since
Ah wrote this this am, sitting on my thoughts, will share more later this week.
A bigot and a "cookie-addict, aspiring photographer, lover girl" meet in an Uber in Park City, Utah.
On Utah, Uber drivers, the coastal elite, and the political makings of America.
From the cozy corner of the “coastal elite city” that I call home, Brooklyn, NY, I don’t often viscerally feel the political divisiveness that is pervasive throughout the country.
I chose not to surround myself with racists, bigots, or white supremacists. (Any sane person would do the same.)
But in a state like Utah, things are up for grabs. Uber rides are like a box of chocolates; you never know who you’re gonna get. And my Uber drivers around Park City have been nothing short of fascinating.
It has been a case study on the political diversity of America. I’ve had a front-row seat (or, really, a back seat, because I sit in the back of Ubers) on the inner workings of politics in this country while taking Ubers in and around Park City for the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
I’ve learned a few things on my Uber rides commuting back and forth between Park City and my Airbnb.
For starters, the people are chatty.
Unlike the occasional Uber rides that I take in NYC, which are often silent, my conversations here were filled with boisterous back-and-forth banter. I spoke with a man from Ghana who had been living in Salt Lake City for 12 years. He encouraged me to visit Accra. Nice, friendly people, he said, who want nothing in exchange from you. Unlike the Nigerians. (His words, not mine. I know Nigerians, they are lovely people!)
I spoke with another man from Venezuela. After chatting back and forth about Hugo Chavez, about Cuba and Fidel Castro, and about the current “political situation” (of course, he celebrated the U.S. capture of Maduro… I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the U.S. was not there to help the Venezuelan people… but instead to steal oil…), as we turned the corner to my AirBnb, he closed the convo telling me that I was misinformed… and that I needed to go do my research. (How dare he…) Little did he know I had a PhD in Latin American history… acquired from YouTube, Eduardo Galeano books, and my own travels through Latin America. Hah.
But my most interesting conversation was with Frank, a 80-something year old white man from California. Being from California, I thought we’d be… aligned.
Another thing I’ve learned, is to be vague about what I do for work and what I’m working on with the documentary.
Because according to Republicans. I might be what you call a woke leftist. A domestic terrorist. Antifa. I think a cookie addict, aspiring photographer, lover girl is more accurate. But I digress.
And several of my Uber convo have turned awkward, silent or tense after I tell them I’m working on a documentary about Black and Brown climate activists fighting authoritarianism in the country.
With Frank, I began to fill in the pieces of his political beliefs as slivers of the conversation revealed who the man behind the wheel really was.
He told me he was from California. “Why’d you leave?” I asked.
“Things really started to change.” Hmm. Change?
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, my sons had to go to three separate schools because California started integrating them. So we got out of there right after that.” Whoop. Noted.
We also started talking about Sundance. Trying to make conversation, I asked him, “Soooo, why do you think Sundance is leaving Park City?”
“Of course, politics.” He went on to say something about how the liberals were offended by the politics of the rest of the state.
Well, Frank, of course!! Why in the WORLD would anyone want to give their money to a state or to people who do not believe in their existence? (There were neo-Nazis walking Main Street, punching politicians.)
We also started talking about the snow. It’s been an unseasonally snowless winter in Utah. I brought my snowboard and was not able to hit the slopes in what I’ve heard is some of the most beautiful, powdery snow.
As we talk about the snow, I bit my tongue, going back and forth on whether I should follow up.
I did.
“Why do you think that is?”
Silence. He didn’t answer. And it could have been because he was partially deaf. He was 80ish. And much of our convo included him asking me to repeat what I said. Because he could not hear.
But this ALSO could have been the perfect time to NOT hear me. Because what could one say but climate change?
If you are still reading, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve never been this close and intimate with a bigot. I try to keep my distance.I had the urge to confront him. To be direct. To ask him with genuine curiosity in my voice, “So how does it feel to be a racist?” I waffled back and forth, weighed the pros and cons as one might play with fidget toys.
But after doing the math, I was in the middle of nowhere with this man, in his car, in his state. I thought I could take him on…in fact, I knew I could. But then I’d stand no chance against a gun. After all, it is Utah.
As I neared my destination, our conversation ended on an even more sour note, but a predictable one at that. “You know,” he said… “All the passengers from New York and California never tip.”
“Interesting,” I said. Well well well, I wonder why.
I went on to say something about how Europeans, I noticed, also don’t tip. Trying to quip back. It’s not a part of their culture. He chimed in, “Not just Europeans, the Australians, too.” Ok Frank.
As I got out of the car, I struggled with a real moral dilemma… should I tip this man? As a Black person, my own guilt and shame often guide me to be overly generous, to overtip, even in shitty customer service situations. Would the same logic apply here? What would Jesus do? Ahhhh.
As I rushed to my destination, I looked at the Uber app.
Would you like to give Frank a tip?
I would love to lie to you. And tell you that in that moment, I clicked NO. I stood up for myself and for all the people Frank obviously had a strong disposition against.
But I tipped him $6. And went about my day. As Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high.”
Fortunately, God had other plans for me!! Because when I got home later that night and re-opened the Uber app… it proceeded to ask me again, “Would you like to give Frank a tip?” The original tip, because of the horrible cell service, did not go through.
I clicked NO.
Becauuuuse WHY in the WORLD would anyone want to give their money…
You know.
Seven Sisters, Grenada, 2025. Photo taken by Dejah Powell.
20something...
“That is my greatest fear. That if, if I lost control. Or did not have control, things would just, you know. It would be fatal.” - Supermodel
CTRL by SZA was a defining album of my twenties. I started this blog in the summer of 2017, the summer before my senior year of college, a summer when two moments converged to inspire the birth of this blog.
CTRL by SZA had just been released, and tracks from the album defined key snippets of my summer. Moments blasting Go Gina, riding down Lake Shore Drive. Moments listening to Supermodel, sitting by the lake with friends, feet dancing in the cool lake water. Moments alone in my bed at night, listening to 20-something, terrified of what was to come of the rest of my 20s. Moments biking to work, Broken Clocks drowning out the sound of loud honks & impatient drivers.
This blog was born out of CTRL, and out of the job I had at the time, a summer I spent working at a non-profit urban farm in Chicago. I ended that internship, returned to Cornell for my senior year of college, where I studied Environmental & Sustainability Science, and then returned home to Chicago to start my full-time job at a non-profit consulting firm.
It was quite the adjustment transitioning from college life to moving back in with my dad and sleeping in the childhood bunk bed I grew up in. Also gone were the four years of pre-lims and exams, college parties, best friends across the hallways, and summer breaks, and in were 6:30am mornings to get to work by 9am, client meetings, and paying bills.
The thought of clocking in and out of an office job for the rest of my life, one downtown at the Chase Tower at that, depressed me. My brain thirsts for change and adventure the way a fish needs water; it was a way of life. To place a fish out of the sea is to destine the fish towards oblivion. Monotony would be the death of me.
Spiritually, I knew I would have to leave this job.
And so I did. I remember the exact moment when I blindsided my manager, a white woman whom I did not enjoy working with at all, and told her that I would be leaving to be a climate organizer. “An organizer?! Will you even have a career in that?!” Hah. I guess it worked out all right.
And so, the next big transition in my 20s came in the form of a new job, one that I've held for the past 6 years at Sunrise. (I could write a whole post alone for the impact Sunrise has had on my life in my 20s, but I’ll leave it as this; it is true what they say, if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.)
It was also in my 20s that I discovered I had an itching urge to leave Chicago. I’ve heard that a plant cannot reach its maximum potential in a container that is too small. I, too, was feeling the confines of Chicago to be too restricting for the dreams and desires I had for myself. After visiting New York City a few times in 2021/2022, I made the decision to move to Brooklyn.
I could also write a whole BOOK, alone, on my experience in NYC in the latter half of my twenties, but I will say that I’ve finally found a container grand enough to support me in flourishing into the artist, the organizer, the woman that I’ve always dreamed of becoming.
So 20somethingandgrowing.
“How could it be? Twenty-something. All alone, still not a thing in my name. Ain't got nothin', runnin' from love, only know fear. That's me, Ms. Twenty-Something. Ain't got nothin', runnin' from love. Wish you were here, oh.” - 20something
This blog has been a safe space to pour out every inch of myself, in my writing, in my poems, in my reading, in my photos. While I’m sad to officially retire 20something&growing, I’m not closing this thing out. It’ll get a new name… &growing. Whether I’m 30 or 40 or 50 or 90, I’ll always be growing, always trying to figure out how to do this thing called life. And the pages on the blog will get to experience it all.
And instead of 20somethingandgrowing.com, it’s just dejahpowell. I think that has a nice ring to it.
It has been an honor to pour my heart out, my brain, my mind, my reflections, to an unknown sea of people. To more of that in my thirties! Before I close this out, I also wanted to leave you with a few of the biggest things I’ve learned in my 20s. Enjoy :)
Biggest lessons from my twenties: What I would have told 20-year-old-me.
On purpose. “The secret of happiness is to find all the marvels of the world but never forget the drops of oil on the spoon.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist. Find your purpose and let it guide all that you do.
On thyself: “You can do this; I've got your back.” Don’t be your own worst enemy; you’ve got the rest of the world to deal with. (And believe in yourself, you are enough.)
On dating: If you are confused, he is NOT for you. (Whew, the things I could have avoided and the time I could have saved.)
On hobbies: Find them, especially ones that keep you social and physically active.
On unhappiness: If you are unhappy about something, change it. If you cannot change it, get over it. If you cannot get over it, you will be miserable for the rest of your life. (Take it from someone who has wallowed in my misery!!)
On external validation: The sooner you do things for YOU and not for the approval of other people, the happier you will become.
On results: Consistency and discipline. Wanna be good at something? Stay focused on it and do it often.
On depression: If you, for whatever reason in your twenties, are impacted by a mental health disorder, do not ignore it. Do not blame yourself. Do not assume you are the only person struggling with it. Seek healing (therapy, fitness, eating well, sleeping)... and medication if needed.
On growth: In an area where you are stuck, do the thing that you don’t usually do, the thing that might be unfamiliar or uncomfortable. You might find results there.
On money: Save more than you think you need to.
On reality: That nothing is guaranteed. But anything is possible.
Bathsheba, Barbados. 2025.
For the love of the sea
“Querencia: Spanish, from the verb queer, meaning a metaphysical concept in Spanish that describes a place where one feels safe, at home, a place where one’s strength of character is drawn - the place where one feels their most authentic self.”
“It is only when we still the mind that we are able to turn it inward where joy and wisdom lie. In this inner space we find how to live in peace and harmony. Surfing teaches us about this inner space and these inner moments because they occur regularly during the surfing experience.”
- Gerry Lopez
Alongside my fantasy to run away upstate (or to Sag Harbor) and start a farm/commune/retreat center… or leave it all behind to pursue a life of the arts (specifically of making doc films and becoming a photographer)... lay my fantasy to move my life to the closest body of water with any semblance of waves and learn to surf.
I’ve always been drawn to the ocean. It is, by far, one of the places on this Earth where I feel most at home. And as a child, after fishing trips with my dad – who found fishing a respite in the midst of working at FedEx and running a barbershop – after working at the Shedd Aquarium as a high schooler, after spending a week in the Bahamas living out my dreams as a marine biologist, after spending five weeks in Hawaii learning about oceanography and sailing for ten days around the Hawaiian islands, after a shark biology seminar in college dissecting sharks, skates and rays, and after a summer at Stanford studying marine microbes in Monterey Bay… there was no doubt I was being called to live a life deeply enmeshed with the sea.
But. That is not exactly how my life has panned out. A dream deferred, so to speak.
As my studies in marine science and environmental science deepened, so did my knowledge of the climate crisis.
And as I learned more, it felt much more complicated to selfishly pursue studies and a career based on my love for the ocean. I felt a duty and calling, both rooted in learning more about the struggles of my ancestors, Black radicals, activists, and revolutionaries, who fought for the liberation of all people. I also felt a duty as a citizen of America (whose country was mostly to blame for climate change), as a young person alive in what feels like one of the most pivotal periods in history… when the stakes and urgency of the climate crisis are as high as they’ll ever be… and the window of opportunity on action shrinks.
So I tabled my love, my dream, to waffle around in the ocean and follow my curiosity about sharks especially, and shifted course.
I developed a new love, organizing to stop climate change and bring about a world where people and the planet, not profit and corporations, thrive.
And while I love organizing, unfortunately, the part of my soul yearning to reconnect with itself through water/land, could not be quieted/quelled. And no matter where I am, I always find myself getting caught back in the rip current of my own inner desires. I am always magnetically pulled back to the water.
So surfing.
I went surfing for the first time in October of 2017. I’d gotten the Brower Youth Award and in addition to hiking in Point Reyes, they’d taken us out in Bolinas for surf lessons. In spite of the frigid cold water, which required us to wear a wetsuit, I was hooked.
The second time I surfed was most recently, on my trip to Barbados. It’s been a dream to learn to surf there, and I’ve finally decided to save my money and book the trip. Each day, I’d get picked up by my instructor Ken, a local Bajan semi-professional surfer (also a Capricorn), we’d head from Bathsheba (on the eastern side of the island) to the southern part of the island, and we’d spend three to four hours out on the water.
And I loved it. I loved the process of trying to carry the board, much larger than myself, from the van to the edge of the beach. I loved skirting into the water and putting in work to paddle out. I loved how present I was for, one small moment of inattentiveness could leave me injured. I loved the feeling of waiting for a wave… and then getting a gentle push from my instructor as I used every muscle in my body to stand up on the board and maintain my balance. I especially loved the feeling at the end, after I’d rode a wave to its end, where, relishing in my accomplishment, I could jump off the board and into the ocean and just float there for a few seconds. I felt so tiny, so small, and so held by the sea.
Eventually, I’d climb back onto my board, paddle out, and do it all over again.
I knew at that moment that I was beginning to fall in love with surfing. When we finished, I was antsy for the day to pass so I could start back over again the next day. My brain was buzzing with ideas and dreams, of surfing back home in New York every weekend this summer, and of finding ways to get to other shores across the world. Now, at home, far away from the beautiful waves in Barbados, I’ve been using YouTube videos and books (I just finished Surf Is Where You Find It by Gerry Lopez) to satiate my thirst for surfing until I can get back on a board again.
After returning to New York, following a trip that reactivated my love and desire for the sea, I’m reminded that while I love organizing, I love Sunrise, I love movement building, and in some ways, my work is a means to an end.
I joke that once we’ve dismantled capitalism and solved climate change (this is an optimistic take on the future), at 80 years old I'll return to my dream of studying sharks and working near the ocean.
My life’s purpose is not to stop climate change. I did not come out of the womb wanting to end the fossil fuel era, just as most 7-year-olds don’t say they wanna become organizers to abolish police or ICE or prisons. We, as children, presume a level of goodness of people, in society, until we will come up against the harsh realities of the world. I faced those hard truths in college and chose to organize so that someday we might live in a world where everyone is free(er) to pursue their innermost desires.
So. Surfing and the ocean and home.
Someday, I’ll return to the sea. I’ll get to spend all of my time, not the nuggets of free time I currently get, exploring and wandering the ocean. Maybe I’ll live on a boat and sail across the world. Maybe I’ll join a research lab in the Bahamas and study sharks. Maybe I’ll run a kelp farm business and merge my desire to stop climate with my love for the ocean. I have no clue.
But until then, I’ll seek out sweet escapes… through trips to the ocean nearby in NYC, through travels, through books, movies and films, etc.
I also find I’ll continue meditating on the question of, What of my selfish joys and desires are justifiable in a world that feels like it is falling apart?
Dreaming of...
A summer free of depression.
Saturday House with Huu Rock.
Climbing v4’s in the gym.
Running a ½ marathon.
A week in Barbados and Grenada, hiking, waterfalls, and the beach.
Mass noncooperation.
Zohran Mamdani as NYC mayor.
Snowboarding upstate. UPSTATE IN GENERAL.
Picnics in Prospect Park as warmer weather breaks.
Travel - to Azores, Iceland, Portugal, Brazil.
4,000 members (many many more Black and Latine) in Sunrise.
Feeling the fullest extent of love and intimacy with someone who is open and available for the same.
2024 in 12 songs.
Songs and tunes that got me through 2024. Listen to the playlist here!
Saving Up by Dom Dolla
“If you’re gonna be saving up, save your love for me.”
“All I need is for you to be mine.”
UFO by Olivia Dean
“I'm tryna fly a UFO. Don't really do this often. Plus I forgot all the controls. Me and my sexy problems.”
“No GPS no ETA, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I need somewhere to land, I might as well fall…”
Dominoes by Jungle
“Every day, so wonderful.”
Far by SZA
“How do I deal with rejection? I'm dealing with a lot of rejection right now. It makes me feel very small.”
7711 by Felix Ames
“For the first time in a while I wanna be alive.”
“Ain’t gone let life get the best of me. Ain’t gone let it break my heart, no no. Can’t let hate become a part of me.”
Bad Weather by Ama Lou
“Hurricanes can be the making of people.”
“And death will always happen. But we can't be born just to die.”
Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish
“I said I'd never think I wasn't better alone, can't change the weather, might not be forever, but if it's forever, it's even better”
Take Me Where Your Heart Is by Q
“I’m so into you, but I don’t know where I’ve been. I just want you to, to take me where your heart is.”
Agora Hills by Doja Cat
“I wanna show you off.”
Diamond Boy by SZA
“I’m addicted that’s why I keep calling you.”
“Usually, I can't let down my guard , it's the way you say shit smooth that got you far with me.”
Ojitos Lindos by Bad Bunny
“Y solo mírame con esos ojito' lindo'“
“Pero tú me tiene' enredao”
“Aquí no existe el pecado, y equivocarse es bonito”
Liquor Store by Remi Wolf
“And now I’m waking up to a nightmare… and I keep thinking you’re running away.”
12 meditations, reflections, and learnings from 2024.
One for every month.
Some things can’t be solved with the analytical mind: I am an overthinker; I have a whole blog dedicated to publicly sharing my tendencies to overthink and overanalyze…everything. Everything doesn’t need to be analyzed or figured out. The analytical mind will not solve all of my problems. Let some things go.
Create more: Creating - I love creating and it has been one of the ways I’ve been able to touch the undercurrent of feelings that I spend much energy trying to hide or cover-up. I’ve been writing so much more (essays, poems, short stories, etc.), taking more photos, and moving and dancing as a way to feel into myself and express myself. It’s been fun!!
Fear & courage & audacity: I’ll never forget the moments this year when I felt most alive and where I felt the most growth. It was when I was scared or nervous as shit, and did the thing anyway. Do the thing anyway!! Send that text!! Approach that man!! Go to that place alone!! Do the thing, even if it scares the shit out of you. In fact. Do the things that scare the shit out of you most.
The thing is often not about the thing: Often the things you and another have a problem with, are not about the situation but about something much deeper. Most people don’t have the courage to hit on the deeper thing. In life, do. Ask, what’s actually going on here in the situation? What’s underneath what appears to be the problem?
Be feeling forward: I wrote about this recently in a post about my parents, but I’ve struggled a lot with holding space for my feelings. So I’ve been trying to get more comfortable with asking myself, how do I feel, how does this make me feel? And then feeling it, not overanalyzing or getting stuck in my head with my feelings, but feeling them. And then communicating those feelings to other people instead of burying them deep within, where they’ll only grow back as weeds to haunt me.
See love in everything: I was on a walk during Thanksgiving with my brother and he shared that his real purpose is to experience the fullest extent of love on this earth. Which is funny (love you brother) because he’s the most left-brained/logical, Aquarius Aquarius, I know, and our convos center around crypto (🫠) and politics, not soft things like love. But in our convo, it struck me. That the true essence of everything I crave and desire is love. And I’ve really been feeling that lately. That love is everywhere and in everything if you choose to see it.
Say what you really mean: I struggle to communicate, especially in certain situations. And go through a sort of mental jiu-jitsu, filtering myself and my words and my feelings. We all do it! How often do we say what we intend to communicate? Say what you really mean.
Be specific with your shortcomings: I often tell myself that I’m not a vulnerable person. And it wasn’t until recently, sitting over lunch with a friend, that I again, made a statement “I’m really struggling being vulnerable as a person,” where he said, well from our conversation, you seem pretty open and vulnerable to me. And so I said huh, if I’m not not vulnerable, what is the actual problem? That prompted me to spend more time reflecting and I realized that for me, specifically, I don’t struggle with this vague abstraction of vulnerability, but instead, I struggle with asking for help (which at the core is a fear of needing or depending on other people and of facing rejection if they can’t) and I struggle with revealing my own emotions and feelings if someone has hurt me. It’s terrifying for me to admit that someone has power over me, power to ruin me or cause me distress. And yet it is also incredibly human. So I’ve been working on leaning more into asking for help and communicating when I feel hurt or sad at the expense of someone else’s actions or behaviors towards me.
Mindset: My depressive spells in the summer often inspire a deep tuning into the thought patterns (that often get me into that funk in the first place.) And when I took stock, there was SO MUCH to work on. Insecurities, the way I spoke to myself in my mind, the way I judged other people. And I realized that I didn’t want to be beholden to thought patterns that weren’t my own. And that weren’t energetically loving or kind or nourishing. And so I have been doing a lot of work to shift my thinking and one of the biggest shifts I’ve made (that I feel has paid off) is moving from a mindset of scarcity to abundance. The second I began thinking and believing that the world was abundant, the universe validated that thought and showed me how abundant the earth is with everything I crave and desire. And truly, in every aspect of my life, there was flourishing.
Not a machine, not a machine: I’m not a machine, and habits and coping mechanisms developed in the past to endure through suffering don’t work for the current context - I am incredibly ambitious, incredibly driven, and feel capable of enduring through most difficult things. And as a result in life, I tend to push through, to add more… at moments or times when I need to step back, say no, and take on less. Some of this connects to feelings, where if I listened to myself, I’d know that I could not, did not, have the capacity to endure through more. So, easing into doing less (when my body and soul call for it), resting, and saying NO.
Learning why I get anxious after drinking: At certain periods, I stopped drinking because I started feeling incredibly anxious the next day. Then I realized it wasn’t the alcohol that caused the anxiety, but the inhibition I felt while drunk. And the anxiety coming from a place of fear of having exposed myself too much. Or of embarrassing the shit out of myself. Of being too comfortable in myself and my body, of being too chatty or loud, or of dancing too much or too hard. And sitting with what it means to allow myself to dance horribly, say the wrong things, embarrass myself, and be ok with that. And to allow myself complete imperfection and messiness.
Choose the people that choose you: Some people will love you and choose you. And some people will not. Instead of spinning on the why why what is wrong with me…CHOOSE ME… tend to the people who do choose you.
So many learnings and to many more in 2025!
When did you first see your parents cry?
And what does it say about you?
I was 18 years old when I first saw either of my parents cry for the first time.
And I know this, because it was utterly strange, like seeing a dinosaur walk the streets of Brooklyn. My dad, hunched over with his headphones perched around his neck, tried to hide the tears falling down his face, as I moved my things out of boxes into my dorm room freshman year of college.
I didn’t, in fact, even see my mom cry. I heard it in the stories (and complaints) from my sister, who said that my mom had cried much of the drive back from Ithaca to Chicago, In the Lonely Hour by Sam Smith playing in the background.
What was most shocking about my parents crying, was that they didn’t. For much of my life, I viewed my parents as stoic, strong, and unemotional. And because of this, I often asked my parents if they really loved me. To me, love was emotion. Love was crying, love was vulnerability, love was softness. And my parents gave little to none of that.
Though they gave little of that, I’ve begun to see that love is more than passion and feeling and emotion. It is letting your daughters run a car wash business outside your barbershop. It’s taking your daughter alongside you on fishing trips. It’s putting your kids in gymnastics and ballet and tap dance and track and field. It’s driving 30 minutes downtown to pick you up when you missed your Metra train. It is, so to speak, “putting a roof over your head, food on the table, and clothes on your back.”
So what about you? And your feelings and emotions?
A therapy session inspired me to meditate on this question, of when I first saw my parents cry, because I’ve been digging and trying to figure out my own relationship, at 28, to my feelings and emotions and vulnerability.
I was a very emotional and sensitive kid. The slightest of offenses sent me into a spiral of tears. I cried about everything!
I’ll never forget in 3rd grade, my teacher had read through the list of students on the honor roll, and my name wasn't called. In the back of the corner, I sobbed. I was a failure, I thought. How was this possible, I was smart!! This must be a mistake. The tears came pouring even harder. It wasn’t until my teacher caught wind of my sobbing, and realized that she’d made a mistake, that I had made the honor roll, was in fact at the top of my class, that the tears began to dry.
I was a bonafide crybaby. And I was often chastised for it. “Don’t cry over spilled milk,” was an idiom often given to my sensitive, emotional, younger self.
But why does this matter?
My parents' relationship to their feelings influence how I’ve dealt with my own. At 28, I am a much tougher and hardened young woman. I learned that grieving over a breakup was silly. That depression was a character flaw, a sign of weakness, that the world would chew me up and spit me out if I didn’t toughen up. That silliness and humor were acceptable ways to mask or play down hurt and pain. That anger and screaming and yelling were valid emotions, but sorrow, grief, and sadness were not.
Because of this, my relationship to my emotions is… fraught. I’m an expert at invalidating my own feelings. Disassociating from them. Pushing through them instead of sitting with them. Distracting myself from them by piling on more things, more work. It's seeing feelings as inconveniences and thus seeing other people's feelings as an inconvenience as well. I can analyze and assess my feelings far better than I can actually just feel them.
And this has come at a high cost in my life.
At present
Sometimes I sit, in sadness, of who I might be, what I might be capable of, in friendships, in relationships (ah the emotionally unavailable man + why I often am drawn to or find familiarity in that), in love, in my work, if I had at least more support, at a young age, with people who were able to validate my feelings and emotions. People who were able to hold the complexity of my feelings and emotions and healthily express theirs.
But I don’t sit there for too long (well ofc because I struggled with my feelings!! lol), because I also feel called into the challenge of learning, of growth, of developing healthy relationships to my feelings. (And in some ways I love writing because it allows me the space to sit with, process, and share my feelings in a safe way.)
I hope to someday be a parent; I dream of raising little humans. And I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be emotionally available, especially from the people in my life, from friends, to past relationships, to family members like my aunt, who created safe havens for me to share my emotions.
I want to create a space for my children to express their feelings. To tell them that feelings are natural, human, they are good. I want to walk alongside them and help them navigate the terrain of their feelings and emotions, not invalidate them. I want them to be healed humans navigating an already difficult earth, wearing their heart (and feelings) on their sleeves, so to speak. I wish of that for everyone, I think the world might be a better place.
So… when did you first see your parents cry? And what do you think that says about you?
P.S.
To my parents, I love you all so much!!
I am incredibly strong and resilient because of you. And I dream of nothing more, than for you to find the crevices in this cracked world where you are able to soften, to be weak, to cry, and to have your feelings be seen, as well <3
Coward or courageous?
I’m gonna lay a provocative claim on the table for you. Most people are cowards.
Are you a coward? You’ll probably say no. No Dejah, how dare you call me a coward! I’m a moral person. I do good things in the world. I’m a good person.
I didn’t ask if you were a good person. I asked if you were a coward.
Coward.
“Someone who is afraid of doing something dangerous or difficult, or who is too eager to avoid pain.”
“a person who lacks the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things.” Oxford Languages
“one who shows disgraceful fear or timidity” Merriam-Webster
As Trump ascends to power as this country’s next President, and the threat of authoritarianism rises, I’ve been thinking a lot about sacrifice, cowardice, and courage.
So let’s talk about it.
I’ll start with myself because I too have been a coward! I am a coward (though becoming less of one)! I can think of many moments in my lifetime where I lacked the nerve to speak up or stand up for what was right. Once, as I waited on the train at the Brooklyn Bridge stop, transferring from the 4 to the 6 train, a white woman emerged from the crevices of the MTA subway system and began yelling at a migrant woman and her child, who were there walking around selling chocolate bars and chiclet.
“I’m calling the police on you! This is illegal, you shouldn’t be out here!”
The woman yelled, as a crew of passerbyers, including myself, looked on in shock. She yelled and berated this woman and her child, as I did nothing. I stood there afraid, afraid to step in, afraid I might become the new target of this woman’s rage. I didn’t want that; I was nervous enough as it was, headed to a date for the first time!
Before I could muster the spine to say anything, a Black woman standing on the platform stepped up and confronted the woman. “Get.the.fuck.out.of.this.woman and child’s face. She’s trying to feed her family… fuck you!”
The crowd on the platform, witnessing the drama unfold, cheered. Our cheering masked the guilt and shame I’m sure many of us felt at our inability to find the spine this woman had, to stand up to the Karen on the platform. We were…cowards.
What drives cowardice? What is the nature of fear and how it inhibits our ability to exert our power and agency? Why are people beholden to strong, invisible group dynamics that force people to cower? And why does it even matter that we’re cowards?
From my own story, my cowardice was motivated by a deep fear of being harmed and attacked. By a deep fear of stepping out of line with the invisible weight of social pressures. To remain quiet. To keep the peace. Like Courage the Cowardly dog, I often sit wrestling in my own fearful and anxious inclinations, about what I ought to do.
We are living in a fucking time. As the cost of living rises, the cost of goods, groceries and gas rise, the cost of rent rises in many cities across the country (as our wages remain stagnant), we just take it.
In 2008, when the banks, under Obama, were bailed out while working people lost their homes and thus hard earned wealth, we took it.
We have lived through disasters, whether it be COVID or hurricanes, or other extreme weather events, and we allow our government to do the bare minimum, while billionaires and corporations flourish. Like, thrive in the darkest of times for the majority of people on this Earth.
As the climate crisis rages on, we allow Big Oil to continue oil & gas production, continue throttling us towards conditions on Earth that have never been seen before, that will become uninhabitable for human life. All while we assume we can continue to plan for children, plan for our careers, retirement plans, and plan for stability when the actions of the oil & gas industry lock us into collective suicide.
In a time where bombs funded by our US taxpayer dollars obliterate entire communities in Palestine, we continue life, business as usual.
Life could be so incredibly beautiful.
Money could be invested in art programs so more students can create and heal through painting, photography, and dance. Money could be used to build green social housing, bringing communities together and providing adequate housing for all. Money could be used to invest in and expand local regenerative food systems. Money could be used to pay people to do meaningful, dignified work, from beautifying streets (lord knows my block in Brooklyn, littered with shit, piss, and garbage could use it) to expanding access to solar panels to taking care of children and the elderly.
I’m not naive (I’m a Capricorn we’re are practical, logical), but some will say what I want of the world is a wishlist. A cute little dream, because “hunnn we live under capitalism and it isn’t going anywhere.” When, no, we live in a corporate welfare state where our government subsidizes the shit out of fossil fuels, private housing, big agriculture, private healthcare, etc. Capitalism as an economic model has not been here forever (in fact, capitalism arose after feudalism during the end of the eighteenth century as industrialization began in Great Britain), evolved during the 80s into neoliberalism, and can evolve into something else in the next 20 to 50 to 100 years.
I know that a world is possible where every person is guaranteed a home, and every person is guaranteed adequate food. And every child born is guaranteed a future that is not plagued by war, climate disasters, or school shootings.
But we won’t get it in a society full of cowards. I’m afraid humanity has allowed itself to remain complicit in its own demise, and if we don’t change course, disaster awaits us.
Cowardice will not help us face some of the most pressing issues in society today. Cowardice will not get us out of a society on the brink of collapse. Cowardice will not stop Trump's fascist and authoritarian regime.
History is full of brave communities and individuals who broke through their fear and stood to bring about a great change in society.
I think of the story of Henry Box Brown, an enslaved man in Virginia who found freedom at the age of 33 by shipping himself, by mail in a wooden crate, to abolitionists in Philadelphia. I think of Fidel Castro, who at 26 years old, let his first attempt at revolution on the Cuban elite in the Moncada Barracks, and then who later, after years in exile, at 33 years old, pulled up to the eastern shores of Cuban in 1956 and started what began the process to overthrow Fulgencio Batistsa, a US-backed dictator, and began the Cuban Revolution. I think of Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda, who has shared, through the devastation of war and genocide in Palestine, what’s happening on the ground.
You might say, Dejah, I…….I’m not Fidel or Brown or Bisan. I can’t do that.
But you don’t need to be. You just need to be a little more courageous. A little more disruptive. Have a bit more of a spine; and if all of us leaned into that, imagine what our world might look like?
So.
As the world collapses around us, as Trump’s authoritarian tendencies arise, and as the freedoms you have over your life slowly slip away… will you choose courage or cowardice?
A Day in the Woods
“Cold Spring in a warm autumn.” 🍃
I went hiking a few weeks ago with folks in Sunrise and it was such a beautiful experience. I spend a lot of my time either at the computer, on endless Zoom meetings, or in deep retreats thinking about plans and strategy for the movement. Because of this, I often don’t make enough space and time to be in the world, to be outside, and to be in nature.
A few weeks ago, I did! And it was so incredibly beautiful, from the foliage to the leaves to the colors and everything in between. So I wanted to share a piece of that here with you :)
Dreaming & Scheming
Making real the inner world.
Open
I have always been drawn to people who are able to pull the ideas, images, and thoughts out of their mind and into the world.
Everything from the Kyle Abrahams Alvin Ailey piece, Are You In Your Feelings? piece, to TBC by Ama Lou to “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, to Sunrise, the youth movement that I’m organize with… were just concepts and configurations of ideas in people's heads, made real.
It’s magical, no? To solidify in the material world, machinations of one’s inner world.
Recently, I have been working to exhale a wild animal of an idea in my own inner world, waiting to be let loose and made real.
Why?
Before talking about what it is, [the wild animal], I wanna share a little bit about why this thing.
Organizing. First, I’m an organizer. I will be an organizer for the rest of my life. An organizer is someone who believes that when individuals (with their own dreams, desires & self-interests) are brought together into a collective, they are far more powerful than the institutions, governments, or corporations that claim to be powerful. There are union organizers, who organize workers in the workplace and fight for things like better working conditions and better wages. There are tenant organizers, who organize tenants in apartment buildings to push back against exploitative landlords. There are youth organizers, like myself, who organize young people.
As an organizer, I have begun to run into the limitations of the craft. While I dream of doing things like putting on massive Green New Deal demonstrations with enough people to fill out Madison Square Garden or the United Center, we have not.
Artists. Artists have figured something out about people and how to organize them. They have a way of awakening the hearts of people; making them feel. Organizers could learn a thing or two from this. Both, on figuring out how artists do things like turn out millions to music festivals, billions to theaters around the world, or thousands to local exhibitions, and on organizing artists to use their platforms -- the bases of people already organized in their fanbase -- for more dramatic change in society.
Healing. The other realization that I’ve come to the urgent need for healing & spiritual practices. I could be the best organizer, winning campaign after campaign, or the most influential artists, with millions, if not billions of followers, but if I did not have a moral & spiritual grounding, a way to process the trauma and limiting beliefs from my childhood, and roadmap to navigate the suffering that is inevitable as a human life, and way to live more in the present, I would be unable to do the work sustainably, over the long-term.
So first things first; I think organizers, artists, and healers have a lot to learn from each other. And I think something powerful could come out of them being in more relationships and practice with each other.
Second, I am a dreamer; I have a lot of visions about the world that I hope to make real. I did not always dream this expansively though.
Growing up in Chicago, I was deeply frustrated about the world around me. It pissed me off to see the stark differences in the way Black people and white people lived, the stark difference in access to resources, whether it be good schools or good food or good jobs. Though angry, I didn’t believe there was anything to be done about it. (Which was even more frustrating for me!!) We live in a world with a set of rules and a set of people in power, and there was nothing to shift those things; I did not believe it was possible to change things.
It wasn’t until I joined Sunrise that the belief began to disintegrate. I had joined Sunrise off the wave of momentum that was created when about a hundred young people sat in Nancy Pelosi’s office in the winter of 2018, demanding climate action from the Democratic Party. The group of young people, doing bold things, sparked a massive movement moment inside of Sunrise; hundreds if not thousands of young people were inspired to join, including myself.
What that moment did for me, and what many moments and interactions across my timeline of being in the movement has done for me, is agitate me to think bigger, and think bolder, about what I demand of myself, of the people around me, and of society. To have the audacity to ask for nothing less than what is necessary.
After joining Sunrise, the scale of my dreams and visions grew in orders of magnitude. And in my body & bones, that expansion in dreaming has felt gratifying, liberating, and empowering. I know that to thrive in the midst of the many crises we’re up against, we’re going to need way more people pushing up against the boundaries of what we believe is possible. And then having a community behind them to do it.
What.
So with that. The what. The vision.
To build towards a cultural, political, and spiritual revolution in society by bringing artists, healers, and organizers into community to connect, create, rest play and heal.
Who is at the core?
Black-led, multi-racial collective
My sister and I have been core dreamers but many hands (friends) are helping shape it!!
The foundations, who is the audience:
Organizers & movement builders: Those committed to transforming social structures and institutions to achieve collective liberation (e.g., organizers, activists)
Artists: Those committed to using art as a means for cultural revolution in society (e.g., dancers, painters, writers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians)
Healers: Those committed to the health, wellness, and spiritual development of the individual and collective (e.g., farmers, cooks, healing practitioners, yoga and meditation teachers)
Our core values?
Liberation & social justice: Commitment to re-imagining a new world, to creating movements and art that work to liberate and free all people
Creativity, play, healing: Commitment to personal transformation, to moving through blocks that get in the way of our self-actualization; a commitment to presence, mindfulness, and full embodiment of all we aspire to be; a commitment to play, laugher, rest, fun, joy
Community & collective: Commitment to building relationships, and strengthening the collective; deep understanding that what we can do collectively is far more powerful than what any one of us could do alone
Spiritual ecology: Commitment to grounding in the foundational role the Earth and planet play in one’s spiritual development; we come back to nature to come back to ourselves
Vision & boldness: Community for people to bring their wildest ideas & visions to life
What type of programming?
Retreats (free or pay-what-you-can scale)
Daylong: Theme around looking into past & stories on moments brought into work dong, present & grounding in body, and future & visioning and dreaming about what’s possible and sharing, in collective, the challenges getting in the way
Weekend retreat: Overnight experiences, think adult summer camp vibes, where people can to connect, rest, create, swim in beautiful lakes, dance & play, and think & dream big about their crafts
Membership Model (pay-what-you-can scale)
Online offerings include quarterly member online gatherings, member-led workshops, connection & network, etc.)
Physical space
Retreat center, has alternative house, gallery space, place to rest, relax, create
So. Back to the opening. I’m beginning to make this dream real inside of me, a seed that has taken root over the past ten years of my life (from working on urban farms, to swimming in ocean with sharks, to environmental summer camps for Black youth in Chicago to senior thesis on food apartheid to creating wellness offerings for Black communities in Chicago to joining Sunrise & being deep in movement building), with different experiences leading me to this point.
I don't yet fully know how we’ll bring this thing, in its totality, to life, but I know that we will.
I’ve been reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, and so will leave you with this quote:
“Ultimately, your desire to create must be greater than your fear of it.”
Jump.
On swimming with sharks, interbeing, and an unrelenting love of paradise.
It was July, smack dab in the middle of a scorching summer in the Bahamas. I had been living on a boat, the RV Coral Reef II, for a week or so with ten other high schoolers from across Illinois.
Our days were filled activities a young aspiring marine biologist could only dream of. We snorkeled, several times a day, and even got to do a nighttime snorkel through the SS Sapona shipwreck. We conducted marine research, collecting water samples and studying the different Caribbean reef fish, learning the difference between a Queen Angelfish, a Sergeant Major, a Rock Beauty and a Blue Tang. We explored several of the smaller islands throughout the Bahamas, traipsing around land so foreign and unfamiliar to the flat planes (Illinois) we were used to back home. We also got to know each other deeply, talking about the many things 16 and 17 years old stuck on a boat in the Caribbean would talk about.
One day, during the middle of our trip, our captain, Captain Dave, anchored the ship and gathered us near the front of the boat. As we got settled, he shared a few facts about the site we’d just anchored at. The site, Triangle Rocks, was a place boaters typically came to chum the water. “Because of this,” he says, “it’s common to see sharks. It’ll also be where we’re snorkeling for the day.”
Uh. My heart began to race.
Because. What I haven’t told you yet is that I had been obsessed with sharks. My fascination with sharks grew after watching the Deep Blue Sea for the first time with my father in the basement of our home. Every summer, I curled up on the couch to tune into Shark Week, where I glared amazed at episodes of MythBusters, at stories on shark attacks, and of documentaries about the Great White Shark. Later, in high school, I found a job during the school year at the Shedd Aquarium, where, on my breaks, I’d often sit mesmerized, meditating with the sharks in the background, taking in their mysteriousness, their grace and their power.
I eventually signed up for a High School Marine Biology Program through the Shedd, a 3-week program where high schoolers spend a week in the Bahamas, acting out and living out their dream of being marine biologists. It was a dream of mine, and I specifically wanted to study sharks.
So yes, I had a deep penchant for sharks. But while I loved sharks… I wasn’t so sure I was ready to get in the ocean with them. This defied all logic; sharks were to be stared at on the TV screen, where I sat comfortably on my couch. They were to be admired from afar through thick glass in an exhibit, not seen and experienced up so closely.
Also, what in the hell were my parents going to think?! Did we sign a waiver for this?
Back on the boat, as we lathered SPF40 sunscreen across our bodies, grabbed our snorkeling gear, and headed to the stern of the boat, I searched the faces of my friends for any fear or anxiety; I saw none.
I sat down to put on my snorkeling fins and that's where the real fear began to sink in. I saw a snapshot of the Chicago news back home, blaring “Chicago girl pulled to the depths of the sea by a Caribbean Reef shark.” I imagined the devastated faces of my parents and family; of all the ways to lose a child, especially a child from the South Side of Chicago, getting eaten by sharks was not one of them.
Fear consumed me, ate me alive sitting at the back of the boat. But also, another force taunted me. Because if it were true, if I really loved sharks as much as I said I did, I would do it. When else would get an opportunity like this? To see these species I'd admired for so long, up close. I would have to push past the fears, push beyond the ancestral warning bells designed to keep me safe, and I’d have to jump.
And so I did.
The sound in my ears began to shift, becoming more muffled, as I slipped into the water. I began to feel the current of the waves pushing me back and forth. A fogginess arose in my goggles, blurring the view and a mini panic seeped in because if I couldn’t see, I couldn’t survive in an ocean full of sharks. I quickly figured it out, clearing out the fog with some spit, as we were trained to do.
As I got settled, I looked down into the water, and not 20 feet below me, was a small gray shark, careening through the water with the gracefulness of a ballerina. I looked over to my right, to my left; in the background sat an expansive and vibrant reef, with a touch of coral bleaching, and all I can see were gray bodies torpedoing through the water.
My fear and anxiety slowly began to fade and another feeling took over; one of awe. Of euphoria. The ecosystem as a whole came into focus — the coral, the jellyfish invisible to the eye, the other Caribbean fish that call the reef home — and I felt an intense oneness with all life in that ocean. If the gates of heavens had opened and downloaded the most simple and pure feelings of interbeing, of interconnectedness with all things on life into my body, that moment was it.
***
After that experience out there in the water with the sharks, I desperately sought out more moments that would thrust me back into what I felt out there in the Bahamas. During my freshman year of college, I spent five weeks in Hawaii, traveling across the Hawaiian islands, learning about the people and history of the different Hawaiian islands. I traveled to National Parks in Costa Rica, explored volcanoes in Nicaragua. I went swimming with bioluminescence in Halong Bay, Vietnam, I explored the trails and waterfalls in the Caribbean island, Dominica. And I have many other journeys ahead, all motivated by a desire to micro-dose hits of this planet we call home. Hits that make me feel small, but in the best way possible. Hits that make me feely deeply connected to all beings and all life. Hits that leave me feeling inspired and invigorated.
Each of these moments helped me reconnect with a source of energy, the pulse of life, and helped remind me of how bountiful this paradise on Earth we live on is, despite the tragedy and devastation we see so often play out in front of us.
A quote, but one of my favorite Buddhists, says,
“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.” - Thích Nhất Hạnh, Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth
Especially during a time when the environmental movement, with valid reason, has left out a lot of the Earth/environmental/conservation framing (the polar bear climate narratives and Sierra Club’s of the world get a bad rap), I came to this work initially because of my deep reverence for nature. I’m afraid of what waits, for the species, for the oceans, for the forest, on the other side of a changing climate.
Also. There are times when I’m completely overrun by feelings of immense fear. Times when I am unable to overcome or navigate my worries. And I come back to this story, as a reminder of the courage that lives inside of me. That I have been, and can be, brave. That I can jump.
The work I do at present, work of organizing around climate justice and fighting to protect the planet, stems from that moment out there in the water. That moment of pushing past my fears, jumping into the unknowns of the ocean, and swimming with sharks.
Heaven on Earth is a Place in My Mind
Please try to go
to hell frequently
because you will
find the light thereyes yes — please
try to kiss the ideas
that you find there
yes yes — pleasetry to get that
it is the center
of the universe
yes yes — pleaseExcerpt from CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE by Hannah Emerson
After laying for what felt like hours, I turned over my phone to look at the clock; 3:47 am.
It was on this day, the 120th-ish day of the months-long battle with my sleep, that I finally broke.
4 hours later, I was on a plane to Chicago.
Several minutes after that, I decided I couldn't go back to Brooklyn. It was time to come home.
Because. Several months prior, I’d decided to pack up my things and move to NYC. There, I went through one of the most hellish periods of my life.
***
Before I pull you into the depths of my neurosis in the summer of 2022, it feels important to contextualize what was happening during the summer of 2020 through the summer of 2022. George Floyd had been brutally murdered by Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, MN; that murder ignited a rage in the form of protests all across the world. Before then, in March of 2020, a virus -- the coronavirus -- began making its way around the world, vaulting the doors of society shut. And then in the background of all of this, alarm bells began sounding about the urgency of the climate crisis; these alarm bells led me to the Sunrise hub in Chicago, where I began volunteering before I joined staff full-time in January of 2020.
That summer, my mind dipped into a sadness, an emptiness, I’d never experienced before. Unsure of how to cope, I ran to nature, to the lake, to parks across Chicago, in hopes of nurturing my spirit back to life.
Eventually, around the fall, those feelings and the heaviness that surrounded me, began to fade. I found joy in organizing again, in going out with friends, and my excitement for escaping to roller skate at The Rink after work returned. And though I was back to myself, I was not off the hook.
The summer of 2020 initiated a rhythmic pattern of summer blues… and two years later, the summer of 2022 would be the worst of it.
Leading up to that summer, in December, I had gotten into a car accident off Lake Shore Drive. A stolen car that was being chased by the police, hit me, flipped over, and caught on fire. Though my car had only a small dent in the back, my nervous system, for months after, was completely disregulated.
My job was also going through a massive layoff process. And in the midst of these events, despite the chaos around me, I stubbornly chose to move to NYC.
So yeah. I arrived at the door step of the summer of 2022 a mess, with a flurry of grueling symptoms manifesting themselves within me, which included:
Anhedonia. By definition, “the lack of interest, enjoyment or pleasure from life's experiences.” Any presence of joy? Pleasure in Sunrise, in hobbies, in reading, in hanging with friends? None.
Insomnia. Grueling nights of an intense inability to slip into a deep, dark state of unconsciousness. Breakdowns in the darkness of the night. Pleading and crying for help on the phone with parents. Heaviness in the back of the eyes from the lack of rest.
Loneliness. A desire to cocoon oneself, to hide, to resist connection, to resist being witnessed.
Purposelessness. The inability to see or feel any hope for the future. A time when my dreams turned gray and much of my aspirations melted away; I could barely make it through a day.
And finally.
Self-annihilation. A mind hell-bent on ruthlessly, like a shark out for blood, terrorizing its victim; me. A mind with a mind of its own. A record player of thoughts reminding me, on a loop, of my worthlessness, of my flaws, and of my immense inadequacies.
In all of this, I did not know what to do. I had never experienced these feelings so intensely, let alone all at the same time. So I sought out help.
I learned about the Dark Knight of the Soul, which put spiritual context to the suffering I was enduring. The Dark Knight of the Soul is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression.
I leaned on my friends and family, who let me sleep over so I didn’t have to battle with my insomnia alone. Who let me sit on their couch and cry… or sit and feel and say nothing at all. Who listened to me, helped feed me when I could barely find the energy to do so myself, and who helped me process what was happening inside of my mind and body, without judgment.
I read stories about other humans who had felt the things I’d felt. It was in the stories of Demar DeRozen, a basketball player for the Bulls, who shared his experiences with depression. “We all got feelings...all of that. Sometimes...it gets the best of you, where times everything in the whole world’s on top of you.” he says.
In the stories of Maria Isabel, who opened a blog piece on Gurls Talk with the quote, “Hi. My name is María Isabel. I’m an R&B singer/songwriter and I struggle with depression and anxiety…I don’t know when exactly I started feeling it, some days I think I must’ve been born with it, but I do know that in high school I started needing more time off, more “me days” than ever before… Sad became my new normal. I felt empty, like I had a hole in the center of me, but I couldn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t know why I felt the way that I did.
No one around me was talking about any illness that couldn’t be seen or detected on a hospital screen. I tried so hard to be happy and act normally but it left me so drained I could barely find the strength to get dressed in the morning. Everyday became about making it to the end of the day… All I could think was, life isn’t supposed to be this hard. I felt like I could barely function on such a basic level and if that was the case, how could I deserve to be here? How could I want to be?” she wrote.
Or in the stories of Rafael Nadal, one of my favorite tennis players, who describes, in his book Rafa, his own mental health challenges as he reckoned with an injury that nearly ruined his tennis career. “I was depressed, lacking enthusiasm. On the surface I remained a tennis-playing automaton, but the man inside had lost all love of life. My team members were at a loss how to react to the gloom that descended on me.”
I read books on the brain and mind; I learned, in The End of Mental Illness by Daniel G. Amen, the ways in which trauma, pollution, and many other things, affect our brain; that mental illness is connected to brain health. That sometimes, it’s not what's wrong with you, but what happened to your brain, that is the problem. And that there are solutions, and ways to heal your brain to heal your mind.
In finding solace in the stories of people I admire, in seeking support from friends & family, and in books that are grounded in the science of the brain and mental health, I began to stop associating with my depression so intensely. I was not bad, something was not wrong with me, and I was not broken.
I was simply a human, with a mind that had been hurt and impacted in a few ways, some incredibly traumatic, but in spite of that, I could heal. I could feel better, feel hope, feel life within myself, feel joy again. And contrary to what my mind might convince me, this hell I was in was not permanent.
***
At present, I’m still trying to reckon with the purpose of my suffering. I have let go of trying to understand why the mood in my mind dips during the summer and instead have sought to build a stronger, more compassionate relationship with the suffering I experience.
The two quotes below have been immensely helpful in this:
“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.” - Pema Chodron
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious.” - Carl Jung
It is in the human condition to seek comfort and pleasure; anything that is unpleasant and discomforting, we avoid. We want to feel good. We pursue things, day in and day out (sex, money, relationships, food, social media), that fire off dopamine in our brains. But life is not always good. People around us die. People around us leave us. We lose our jobs. We get rejected. To live is to suffer, to feel pain, in spite of the blinders we put on to avoid that truth.
I’m learning to welcome the pain and discomfort these days. If it weren’t for any of the challenges and struggles in my life, including the ones I have with my own mind at times, I wouldn't have the depth of experience, of compassion for others, of wisdom, that I have. Through every battle, I have become a bit more indestructible.
In befriending my suffering, I’ve also begun to gain a clearer sense of its purpose; that my pain & suffering are one and the same with the capacity I had to feel love, peace and joy. To know deeply that my suffering gives texture and richness to the highs of life. (Pulled from a scene in Ginny and Georgia.)
At present, I feel a vibrancy and energy for life, a deep clarity on my purpose, than at any other point in my life. I stayed in NYC! I did not give up and move back home. I can sleep deeply! And I’m alive. (And this may not be true in a few months, as the summer approaches, but I’m becoming ok with that.)
At times I still feel afraid. Because these days, spiders no longer terrify me. My fear of the dark, my fear of socializing or walking into unknown parties or events, even my fear of love & relationships, no longer give me anxiety, as they did when I was younger. But I am learning to navigate the fear I have around what my mind is capable of; given its power, its enigma, and the simple fact that at times, I can’t control it. I can’t control this mind that has pulled me into immense anxiety, depression, panic, insomnia, etc. Instead of fear, I’m trying to remain present to what is, and not what will be.
And so. I’m learning to reckon with the fact that at times, hell on earth is a place in my mind. But at times, it is also heaven.
A Vision for a Revolutionary Retreat Center for Organizers, Artists and Healers
I’m a dreamer. I have a lot I want to do in my lifetime. (Ya know, grow a mass youth movement, win the Green New Deal, run a government agency implementing the GND, travel to every continent, get better at tennis. You know, all the things.) And maybe you, too, have dreams?
For me, those dreams are punctuated with a lot of fear. What if I fail? What if I can’t do it? What will people think?
Years of dreaming and scheming, of health & wellness projects with friends, of summer internships on urban farms, of organizing in a youth climate movement, have brought me to a place where I’m ready to move through my own fears, and make those dreams a reality.
So sharing a bit of my dream with you.
THE VISION
Key Words: Community, Collective, Organizing & Movement Building, Art, Spiritual Ecology, Healing & Wellness, Art
Imagine it’s the year 2028. The camera pans into a retreat center, collective & community right outside of Chicago or in Upstate New York. It’s a one stop shop for movement builders, creatives, healers and artists to do work to build towards a revolutionary future, where people and the planet can thrive.
You have organizers meeting and planning campaigns and strategies to take over the US government through running a national campaign to defund the military and fund the Green New Deal. You have artists (dancers, painters, photographers) coming together to plan exhibitions in 6 cities across the country, telling the story of the climate crisis through their mediums (e.g., paintings, film, photography, etc.) You have healers brainstorming ways to use yoga, somatics, and therapy to address needs of young people coming up in society plagued with disasters, from pandemics to violence to climate disasters. You have urban farmers on site growing an abundance of produce, that our community chefs turn into nourishing meals, to serve the entire community.
And behind the scenes of all of this, there’s a wellness center where people in the community can get massages & facials, a meditation and yoga studio, a pool in summer for people to take a break and have fun, tennis courts, basketball courts, and soccer fields where folks can get active, a cafe and smoothie shop where folks talk and plot and brainstorm and create. (Oh, and the architecture & design of the place is biophilic in nature, and runs on 100% renewable energy.)
A place to retreat. A place to create. A place to reimagine. A community teeming with people, all committed to building towards a cultural, political, and societal revolution, creating a future where people and the planet can thrive.
WHERE YOU FIT IN
I’m currently in a BIPOC Youth Justice & Healing Fellowship (ByJAH), and am getting support to build out Phase I of this vision, which is what I want to pitch you on. (If you want to get a sense of the entire vision, see the PHASES section below!)
You are someone who I’ve seen be deeply committed to your craft, and following passion. Whether you’re an organizer, an artist, an earthworker (e.g., urban farmer, cook, etc.), I don’t think I can build this powerful collective & retreat community without you.
In June of 2023, I’m planning to host a day-long retreat with friends I think may want to have a hand in turning this vision into reality. The retreat goals are:
Foster deep community and connection amongst young people
Create container for folks to deepen within their own self, healing, mindful practices
Create space to vision and image the future, through the lens of climate & individuals (e.g., organizer, dancer, artist, healer, etc.)
Make ask folks join core team to help vision how to make this reality
So will you join me?
Before you say yes, a few questions for you to think about:
Do you feel called to create and build intentional community? Do you want to connect with other people?
Do you believe in social justice? In using your medium (art, organizing, healing, etc.) to transform people and society?
If you said yes to any of these things, I encourage you to join me in NYC in the spring/summer!
Also. The hope isn’t that you particularly want to take responsibility for implementing this vision.
Mostly, I want to 1.) Pick your brain and really understand what you (as an artist, organizer, earthworker, or healer) best need so that you have the time, support and capacity to really hone your craft and 2.) Begin to identify people who do want to help implement this vision. 3.) Bring some really cool people I know together, and see what comes out of that!
So again, if interested and excited to help envision, sign up form here to get more info on the April retreat.
PHASES
Phase 1: Launch with a retreat in summer/fall 2023 (2023)
Phase 2: Launch core team, meet for 2-3 retreats over course of a year (2023-2024)
Phase 3: Launch implementation team (2024)
Phase 4: Break ground, build retreat center (2024 - 2028)
Phase 5: Open retreat center to the public (2027 - 2028)
Is love worth it?
In moments of heartbreak, I often have to ask myself. Is love worth it?
Because I’m going to be honest with you. Besides spiders and insomnia, there is nothing I fear more than love.
Because. It has often felt that the intensity and capacity with which I have to love equally matches the intensity and capacity I have, as a result, suffered.
I’ll start with my love of organizing. (Hah I’m not going where you think I’m going. But trust me, I’ll get there.) I started organizing in 2019 with Sunrise, a youth led climate movement fighting to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs.
Joining Sunrise transformed my life. I have never felt more agency as a human, more connected, more reflective, more vulnerable or more powerful. In a lot of ways, joining Sunrise felt a lot like falling in love for the first time.
But love can be a roller coaster, and I have had my heart broken many times by this movement. I could write whole novels about firings, Twitter drama and attacks on my character, organization layoffs, organization conflict, movement conflict, interpersonal conflict, Buzzfeed articles, etc.
How could this thing I love, so deeply, also become one of the core sources of my suffering? The core source of most of the burnout and depression I’ve experienced in my mid twenties?
So.
I have had my heartbroken many times by organizing. I’ve also had my heartbroken by love.
I have been heart FUCKING broken only once in my life. (Throw in some small L’s along the way, but nothing like this.) It was devastating. I have never experienced a pain more intense than heartbreak. An intensity of sadness and grieving that really does a number on you. To see. The insane amount of water that can come from a humans eyes while crying. To see. A person you felt so deeply for in every way, weeks and months later, choose someone else. To feel delusional, craving and desiring and wanting someone that does not want you.
It is really fucking hard and at the time, I did not think I was cut out for that shit.
And not only had I wrestled with my own challenges with love, but I saw heartbroken and hurt people EVERYWHERE. And I mean everywhere. In the saddest of ballads in R&B songs, in rappers spitting fuck bitches get money, in the emotional unavailability of men I’ve desired, and in my own parents.
And after all of these interactions, I keep coming back to this question. If I (or you or we) are to suffer this much, to avoid it this much, is love worth it?
Is love really worth it?
And there’s a quote that I heard once during a meditation retreat that has consistently steered me back to what I hope to be true.
“An open heart never breaks.”
This quote resonated so deeply with me because it felt incredibly antithetical to my own instincts. Instincts that pushed me to close myself out of fear, out of protection.
And in sitting with this quote, it inspired me to never give up on the beauty and power of what’s on the other side of love. To reframe my fear. To go against what felt natural. To open myself to new opportunities, work, to love, even if it might crush me in the end
And so. Is love worth if?
I get flashbacks. To the moments falling in love for the first time with organizing. Marching through the streets of Detroit during the 2019 DNC Debates, demanding to make Detroit the engine of the Green New Deal, and reeling from the high I felt for days after. Moments sitting at retreats with friends and teammates strategizing about what it was going to take to deliver a death blow to the fossil fuel industry and win massive climate legislation for this country. Moments deep in conversations, filled with the intimacy and the type of vulnerability that come with opening yourself, fully, to someone.
And so… is love worth it?
I’d like to try and make it so.
This 5'2 kid just wants to wander in peace.
“The ability for us to live and walk down the street without being afraid of being physically, sexually, or mentally assaulted is possible.” - Charlene Carruthers
And still… that day has yet to come.
I could tell you about that one time.
You’re walking home one night with friends after jerk chicken and rum punch, when two men, driving in a baby blue convertible, pull over to drunkenly shout at you all. When you ignore them (isn’t this what you’re taught to do?), the driver slows down. And then the men make an abrupt turn into the alleyway you would have, seconds later crossed, if they weren’t blocking your path. You especially are pissed. Are you fucking serious? you shout, ready to tear apart the car and the men who think this is okay. And your friend, visiting from out of town, and so visibly disturbed by the scene, whispers softly, Let’s just go, let’s just go. And you go, reckoning firmly with the history of women who stood up for themselves and are no longer alive because of it.
(And several days later, you will step into the elevator in your apartment building to see one of the men who sat in the passenger seat, standing there with his dog. And you will replay the Resident Evil laser scene (I will never forget this cinematic moment) and want to tear him to shreds. But instead, you feel powerless. Even more powerless than you felt outside. Unlike him, you are able to control yourself.
I could tell you about that other time.
Same summer, same route home, instead this time, alone, two drunk men lounging around the CTA bus stop off 55th. Their focus suddenly locks onto you like a target (with laser precision), and they begin shouting for your attention. Hey, hey, HEYYYYY, one of the men roared. (And yes, I say roar, because they were acting like fucking animals.) You ignoring their demands ignite a volley of Hey bitch, answer me, ANSWER ME. And your heart sinks; can a bitch make it home without being bothered? Your legs (and intuition) hastily carry you away despite the blood boiling within you to correct the injustices committed against your personal liberty to fucking BE.
I could tell you about that other time.
In January, before the pandemic hit, walking down one of the busiest and most visible streets of Chicago, down State Street near Depaul. And yet again, a man has again chosen you as prey. It always starts with Hey as the hook. And you always respond by ignoring (because you were taught to ignore them. To keep moving. But apparently, no one has taught men that it’s not okay to openly demonize, harass, and abuse women), by continuing to walk. And this time, he responds, Don’t you hear me fucking talking to you again bitch?
And something snaps inside of you.
You are tired. You are tired of the fear. The fear of walking and running and wandering outside, because a man can’t control his mouth. Of the crippling anxiety you get sitting too long at red lights next to cars with men with windows rolled down. Of the incessant need to immediately lock public bathroom doors after yourself. Of the well of nerves you sit with each night unlocking the door and entering your home, because a family member, a friend, a favorite author, was attacked by men, strangers, and you could be too. You are tired of living in fear.
You are tired of protecting the ego of men, placing their comfort and reassurance over your own desire for safety and security.
All of that baggage forces you to snap.
What did you fucking say?! Would you talk to your mother that way? You are dis-res-pecting ME! And you let it out. And he continues as men continue, hating you and your rejection of him, for reasons beyond you. And as you look to the eyes of passerbyers for help, for reassurance, to be seen (as human) in a way that this man does not, you find nothing. And so, as always, you have to keep walking. Walking away.
I could tell you that this only scraps the surface of times.
But really, I share this. Because we don’t often think (enough) about the invisible ways that oppression and violence seep into our lives and limit our ability to be free. That I can’t take a walk alone, can’t sit at the lake alone, can’t be a woman navigating the world alone, without fear.
We are forever imprisoned by the trauma of unhealed men, until men set their eyes on the target of dismantling toxic masculinity (and the patriarchy) with the laser focus they have on diminishing my humanity as a woman. Until they do the fucking work on themselves… we are not free.
I am not free. We are not free. Until women no longer live in this intricate balance expending energy dodging the attacks of men. You, me, we us, all play a role in upholding violence against women… how you talk to your daughters, how you raise your sons, how you stand up for other women, young girls, femmes, etc. on the street who face abuse and assault…each moment is an opportunity to practice and unlock a liberatory future, one free of violence committed against women. One free of violence committed against anyone.
If anything came of the pandemic. (Bare with me.) By being forced inside, more than I normally was, I was at least spared the incessant guerilla attacks from disturbed men on my personal freedom as a young woman. (You can count my dads fussing if there was a single dish in the sink as annoyingly disruptive, but not anywhere close to the level of harassment I have experienced on the street.)
And so. After some reflection during this pandemic, how can we take more responsibility for creating environments where all people (not just me, this 5’2 kid who wants to wander in peace) can explore, roam, adventure, meander… in peace? Where I can stroll along the lake, alone, without fear of being attacked or snatched? Where I can roam the streets at 1 am without my father chastising me because he knows all the dangerous and sick things people do this time of night? Where I am free without fear to take a bus or a train late late, because I love the solitude, or love the way the darkness and night and city quiet looks from this view?
I ask. Because I’ve come to think that I deserve, have a right, to accessing, to touching, to tasting, this type of freedom during my lifetime.
P.S. I wrote this years ago, during the pandemic.