Hello, my lovely friends! I have missed you! I’ve been busy the past few weeks with managing relationships in my daily life + learning what it means to rest.
For women, and especially women of color, and especially women who immigrate to a new country, we end up taking on so much emotional and physical labor for our loved ones. We do it because we love our family and friends, but when we are not taught at a young age how to rest, how to say no, how to ask someone else to do the dishes or go down to the pharmacy to pick up medications, how to ask someone to sit with us while we cry, then it is really, really, really hard to know when it is time to sit down, release the emotions we are carrying, and let the mind simply quiet without a to-do list or anxiety knocking around. It’s a tricky skill, but I’m working on it!
I am also STILL thinking about the solar eclipse. What a BEAUTIFUL communal experience that was. Our first total solar eclipse since the pandemic. I loved seeing everyone enjoy a moment together.
Before the actual eclipse, I ended up walking the Blue Ridge Tunnel Trail in Nelson County. The trail is an old train tunnel, bored through the side of a mountain that goes on for about a mile. Tons of interesting and tragic history around how it was constructed which you should totally check out (the website only mentions Irish laborers, but the history markers on the actual site note that there were many black slave laborers who also worked and died building this tunnel).
It was an incredible experience walking the trail. There are no lights in the tunnel, just the openings on either end. It’s cool and damp inside. The ground is uneven from railroad track scars and if you put your hand against the walls, you can feel the etchings from laborers’ chisels and pickaxes and the whispers of those who died for this effort. As you start walking, there’s more than enough light to see where you’re going and you can see your exit portal very clearly. It looks close.
But then, you keep walking and the further you get from the opening, the darker it gets and the further away the exit feels. It’s just you in this dark, dark, dark tunnel with the echoes of falling water, heavy drops that fall on your forehead. When I started out, I was determined to make it to the other end without using a flashlight. It couldn’t be that hard. There was light from either end. That would be enough.
But as I walked and I walked and the darkness grew greater, I felt the fear. Even though I rationally knew that nothing could really happen – the trail is well-trafficked and I had seen other folks in the parking lot on their way – a panic settled in. Oh! I was alone! I was so alone!
I pushed myself to that edge, just to see what would happen, and I did NOT like that feeling, not at all. When we’re in the dark and we are alone, we get so, so, so, so scared. We don’t like that. We don’t want that for ourselves or for anybody else.
So, about a quarter into my walk, so much sooner than I had anticipated, I reached for my flashlight and I turned it on. What a relief it was to see where my feet where and where I needed to step next! That anxiety of the darkness, it still lingered, but I just kept my eyes planted on the light that was right in front of me and just kept breathing and just kept moving.
Y’all, when I stepped back out into the sunlight, I was just so dang grateful. I was just so dang grateful that the light was warm and the sky was blue and the trees were green and the clouds were white and the birds were chirping.
I opened my arms to the vast expanse and I said – THANK YOU.
And tbh, that really is all there is to life.
Music Musings: This week, I’ve got a special treat for you! I put together a lil solar eclipse playlist with the songs I was listening to that weekend. Enjoy the moodiness 🙂
Originally posted on LinkedIn.
