This is and isn’t the beginning.

Advice for the newly hatched.

Later, you will admire the tree you came from – its artistic notches, the flourish of branch and bark, the sweet density of leaf and blanket of shade, how the view often tilted in your favor – skyward – where clouds drifted into whatever shapes you wanted them to be. You will tell stories of your past in the way of myth, each vignette pearlescent as dew. You will pluck good fruit from the old stems, and the skin will still be soft and yielding. For now, though, offer your betrothal to this strange, quaking new body. Admire the heated voltage of your fear, your blood circling the drain. Remember you are merely at the outskirts of your own ballast, that the swaying will go on for awhile, and then it won’t, and then it will again.
This is and isn’t the beginning. This is and isn’t the end.

-MAYA STEIN
 for C.

Image complements of www.pixabay.com

This is and isn’t the beginning. This is and isn’t the end…

If you are on the front lines, the situation feels endless, and utterly overwhelming.

You don’t have time, you can’t exercise, you are witnessing unimaginable suffering…
If you are in quarantine, the situation feels endless—you are hamstrung.
Your kids may be struggling. You may be bored or lonely, or have found some new ways to have peace or perspective, to be grateful, to be hopeful. As you are in the struggle on race and racial justice, it is exhausting and endless. Yes it is, and we go on because this matters.

Stay awake. Stay tuned in, as best you can. Don’t beat yourself up when you can do neither.
This is and is not the beginning. This is and is not the end.

and now this: