I am back.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I have been “back” at work since Elino (our little one) was about 4 months old. He is now almost 2 years old! But there’s a tension between our real life and our online life. In my online life, I’ve been quiet & internal, posting a picture every few months. A little picture of a baby hand reaching out to touch a tree on Instagram. A quick photo as a token of the changing seasons on Facebook. A close up of a very green salad made by a dear friend.

In my real life, over the last year and a half, I have been a full-time momma, a full-time business owner/consultant, and a full-time partner in life and work with Roberto.

I’ve been quiet for a few reasons.

One, I had a child. For a quite a while I walked through the world in a deep state of awe. That kind of sublime feeling is not easy to put to words.

But also… Donald Trump became our President.

Both powerful events are intertwined in my psyche. I brought a little being into the world who was so small and helpless. Here is a man who models the worst of what our country has to offer. He is a directly and indirectly responsible for crying babies being taken from parents, normalizing climate lies, violence & sexual assault, threatening the sanctity of free speech. He embraces criminals, dictators and corruption. He pits our country against itself. He is a manifestation of everything this country believes itself not to be but actually is.

The intersection of these two events caused me to pull in and regroup. I was experiencing beloved human nature born into the world and I was hearing people in our country call out for policies and practices that denied humanity. Now, if you feel differently, please email me. I would love to begin a thoughtful dialogue about it. Let me extend an offer of listening as best as I can.

So, that’s why I‘ve sometimes seemed quiet.

I wondered “What do I have to say in this time”? It’s question many of us ask, especially those of us living in positions of privilege. And yet for us to come together in this time of division, we need to be talking. Talking and listening. Listening a lot.

Yet soon after these events I had an amazing opportunity to work with The Food Empowerment Education Sustainability Team, FEEST on their new strategic plan to grow & deepen the movement for just food systems. We had lively meetings while Lino slept (and cried) in my lap. I facilitated meetings with Roberto – my husband, a FEEST founder and a phenomenal facilitator. I listened. The lines of my life blurred – personal and work and political could no longer stay in separate columns.

(To be inspired and amazed by what youth-led, creative, love centered, food-filled social change looks like CHECK OUT FEEST.)

I worked with Verity Credit Union as they explored the true meaning of community in their mission while vowing to be a financial institution that puts people and community first. This work changed my understanding of what institutions can be when they live through the right intentions. Their work serves as an example that a large system can imagine another way to be.

I facilitated with multiple organizations that are working to become more equitable in their work and missions & unpacking the ways they perpetuate institutional racism. I continued to support groups of people that gather together to figure out how to make changes in large structures, like our foster care system.

Maybe you have witnessed people working to make fundamental changes in how we are in community with each other during this time of divisions and hate?

Maybe you have also quieted your heart and begun to look more directly at who we are as human beings…

When I look closely at humanity right now I see the ugly, the inhumane ways we pull back to protect “our own”. I understand and feel more clearly this instinct to protect & enclose around those I love. I also see the ways we come into this world as small creatures with sweet coos and loud cries for help. I see how we rapidly find delight in this world. And how easily we come across frustration and loss. Passing my days with a toddler I am reminded of how I choose to see the world and how I choose to interact. Every day I see how we have so much to learn.

We can keep a small understanding of humanity and decide who is deserving of love and who is not.We can also expand our understanding of each other as essentially connected and recognize our mutual origins as helpless small humans. Each of us is capable of responding to the call of our time to be greater than “us” and “them” & to bridge the distance between you and me.

Here are questions you can ask yourself as you continue your journey toward creating a better world:

What are the ways you are remaining connected to the beauty and humanity of someone different than you – perhaps someone who votes different than you? Who believes something different than you?

What are you doing, even something small, to heal a wound that has been left in your community?

How are you listening to the cries around you? Want do people want? What do people need? What are people afraid of?

Leave your answers in the comments below so we can hear each other.
Or feel free to send me an email annie@vesselconsulting.org.