Dormancy has ended
After a long winter of slowness, and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to rest, there is an April flurry of activity. This winter I thought a lot about dormancy - how plant life simply looks dead in the winter - you can’t see a difference. The frogs that chirp all spring and fall are silent - I figured they died. But the trees, bushes, and frogs were just slowed WAY down and concentrating all their energy so they could burst forth in the spring. In the winter, it almost doesn’t seem possible that the frogs are still alive, frozen under the water, or that the trees will ever look less dead. Winters seem endless. They’re out of our control. And this winter in particular there felt like this darkness, like there was death all around - in nature, in the news, in the hospitals, in the streets, around the world.
April has tended to be one of my busiest months, but last year it was eerily quiet as early COVID shutdowns took effect. So this April the projects that came my way for April surprised me as much as the chirping frogs and blossoming trees!
I have been grateful to have been busy this month with work that feels meaningful. The trial of Derek Chauvin, the released video footage of the police murder of Adam Toledo, and yesterday’s news of the police murdering Ma'khia Bryant has my body and spirit feeling heavy. There were moments this winter and spring where imagining a country that does not include this injustice seemed impossible to me. I have been grateful, too, to be partnering on a weekly basis with some really incredible anti-racist White teaching artists and facilitators to process with me and inspire me and push me.
I had the honor & privilege of holding a community harm circle and support circle for a community in the Hudson Valley.
Working again with Ping Chong & Company, I’m cofacilitating a residency highlighting the stories and lived experiences of elders who are based on the Lower East Side and East Village in Manhattan. I’m cofacilitating with Courtney Surmaneck who is an incredible artist, human, and facilitator. Check them out: https://courtneysurmanek.com/
Working with The Institute for Anti-Racist Education, which I got connected to from a former work colleague from my days in after-school programs, I got to co-create a Reflection and Healing Space for White Educators (https://www.antiracisted.org/HealingSpace) with the incredible Emily Schorr Lesnick. Emily introduced me to the work of Sandra Kim, which feels so right in my brain, heart, and body right now. This has been an opportunity to work with more educators from higher-ed and including folks in Canada, which has been a wonderful broadening of my usual K-12 US framework.
I’m also coming to the end of a beautiful partnership with a Bronx Charter middle school supporting an interim principal while they transition from fully-remote into hybrid learning, and a team of Deans and School Counselors who are fiercely working remotely to support young people and their families. This work has really brought home for me how critical and productive it is to create spaces for folks in schools, and any workplace for that matter, to connect as human beings, learn more about each other, and laugh. As a former theater-kid, of course I knew how much these things matter; the distinction now is how NEEDED these spaces are as working remotely continues and folks are experience yearning for community and connection. I really hope that later this year more bosses/leaders come forward for teambuilding for their staff. Whoever doesn’t think that play and joy is productive has never been introduced to the work of Augusto Boal!