Hi to all the new subscribers including two new paid subscribers (!!!) which to me is mind blowing and humbling and inspiring. It reminds of back in the day , you know the late 90s and Y2k days as my 18 year old kid likes to say - when blogging was a labor of love and someone would send you via paypal a few bucks to a buy a coffee or a glass of wine. It reminds me that even after all these years my words mean something, have some value and that yes there is some skill and thought and practice to this and therefore also some conversation, appreciation, relationship building that happens in spaces like this.
Something was brewing . Since last Friday late afternoon I was sitting in my office with my strategy sister/werk wife and we were both spent as fuck. She’s leading so much of the relief and health and safety work post wildfires at the job and me I’m just trying to hold all the moving pieces together but something wasn’t /isn’t gelling across the org. Not everyone was/is clear and there was/is a lack of trust among staff aboit why we’re doing what we are doing the way we are doing it. There is no doubt about the need - we all are scrambling the address it but the scramble is the issue. Being in a scramble is not sustainable and this shit va’pa largo.
And not to be all woo woo but I do live and work and love in LA so I’m gonna be a little woo woo and know that the planets are doing some shit that was connected to shit going down in December.
What went down in December : The Franklin Fire in Malibu brought my org back in contact with so many workers in the Palisades and that would set the ground for the deep work we are involved in now. Personally - my partner and I were going through some shit that we are going through again. And in both cases I don’t want us to (collectively) do the same shit - that is I don’t want us to just react.
We can’t mask our way out of exposure to asbestos and lead filled ash - that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t mask. We can’t donate our way out of the impacts of climate and politically accelerated disasters - we do need to (re)distribute resources. We can’t love our partners out of a vicious cycle of addiction - we do keep loving. But we need to STFD.
Slow the fuck down.
And I know that doesn’t make sense at first. Things are getting thrown at us so fast- the pres and musty are making some moves and the dique dreamy cali gov. is playing nice and paying white house calls and I have yet to hear one word from the LA City Mayor about considering people’s health & safety during clean ups/rebuilding. People haven’t worked in over a month. The rent is too damn high and rising (mine included - gasp - yes I rent - not own) and people are fighting over eggs while a bird driven pandemic lays in wait.
Fast got us here. Fast ain’t got strategy. Fast is reactive unless you got your plan together with goals and context and a way to evaluate success. Yeah you gotta be flexible to some extent pero there still is a camino and everyone has gotta trust that were are all moving in the right direction porque si no….hmm you fall back into the same old habits.
I think they call that a relapse.
I’ve been looking to/for/at frameworks to ground me. limit me even. This weekend I’ve been sitting with the concepts of moving at the speed of trust from emergent strategy and also the definition of mutual aid used by Dean Spade.
To sit with these concepts is to embody them and that’s where I struggle.
STFD
Really get clear. Trust yourself so you can (build) trust with others.
It’s always a work in progress that needs checks (as in checks and balances- remember that - lol). So for example. It was good that I stood my ground in what I will not allow in my home. It probably wasn’t great that I was on a work call while getting a mammogram.
STFD
Yes! So real that fast got us here. One thing about activist spaces (or really any type of space where people are passionate) is that well-intentioned pressure to always be rallying. But if you’re in it for the long haul you’ve got to pace and bake rest and play into the process.
Anyway, not to get all woo either but I feel what you say about this being time for deep work…these past few days I’ve been thinking about how discombobulated everything feels, and it’s scary, but also about how discombobulation is usually the feeling before a personal breakthrough or an evolution—it’s sometimes a sign that you’ve learned a better approach but are in the middle of learning how to apply it, no longer doing your old approach but not yet doing the new one well either.
I’ve been wondering if maybe this great national / global discombobulation can lead to a better new normal, since it’s clear the norms and habits we clung to as “good” (but under the surface were harmful) are no longer of use or respected by anyone? Anyway, my rambling aside, great post!