I AM A REVOLUTION

Week 5: 100 Days of Deservitude

One day before my birthday, I'm sitting poolside with a view of the ocean in Aruba. The water is sparkling blue and green, and this moment is surreal, even with the gargantuan cruise ships blocking a straight view into eternity. I just returned from Flamingo Beach, and the entire experience was a fever dream brushed with pale pink sand, exquisite views, and peaceful creatures. I was humbled and grateful as gentle waves left a soft caress of healing magic.

I thank the land and the animals for allowing me to share space and, more importantly, for healing little pieces of my soul. This place has offered me respite, grounding, and understanding. In return, I offer the land healing. It doesn't escape me that buried somewhere in the history books under the lie of "settlers," there may have been bloodshed where the water meets the sand, and for that, I offer lamentations for the loss and pray any restless souls return to the creator.

I am a revolution on these shores.

Standing in my coral bathing suit alongside flamingos, iguanas, palm trees, and all the other people whose hues speak of privilege I have not known. They enjoy the novelty of feeding these beautiful creatures who wax and wane between drinking water, grooming themselves, and eating from the hands of strangers.

My brown body and my spirit bring good intentions to these lands. My joy and humility in this place are necessary. My grandparents and my mother (and perhaps my father, even in his absence) wanted for me all the dreams they could not realize for themselves. I am their revolution in the absence of complete freedom, just as my children are to me. This revolution lives in every breath; in survival, in grief, in joy.

The endurance of my heart speaks of survival through losing my child, and through life's regular challenges. Here, finally, I am thankful to be in a place where I can receive more of what I deserve. While I could never see healing on this side of heaven from losing my child, it doesn't feel like a constant void where the air is being sucked out every day. I am not completely numb.

In this shifting landscape of personal and political tides, as I sit quietly waiting for my purpose in this moment to reveal itself to me, I remind myself of who I am and whose I am.

I've been anchoring myself in EbonyJanice Moore's words. Her book All The Black Girls Are Activists (2023) travels with me like a compass, tucked in my carry-on because these truths had to be present on this land with me. This is my second time reading the book. I underlined passages as I study her words and try to decide in this next part of my life if I am, in fact, a Womanist.

One element of being a Womanist that antagonizes me is isolation. EbonyJanice writes about isolation and how black women have used it as a way of restoration. We see this now with the rise of the 92% on social platforms. She focuses on isolation as an element of being a Womanist put forth in Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens (1983). One of the qualifications of a Womanist is that she is "not a separatist, except periodically, for times of health."

I've been separate from many folks; both intentionally and not for extended periods of time. In studying her words, I recognize my isolation not as withdrawal, but as a sacred pause - that space between inhale and exhale where healing takes root. But has my isolation been too long?

In reasoning it has not, I have been of service to my community, fulfilling needs through my nonprofit work or just being a resting place for those looking for a space to be free in their dysfunction without judgment, but I have not been an arbiter of joy or of gathering the people, which I equate to being the opposite of separate.

I have a long history of extending myself unguarded in love, only to learn later that I was being judged. All the shared good times and proclaimed "chosen family" was some straight bullshit. A performance of connection that demanded more than it gave. EbonyJanice's words illuminate this too-how sometimes the path to authentic community requires first removing the masks we've worn to belong.

I wanted to be delivered from the burdens of maintaining whatever posturing I had to conjure to be in relationship with certain people and/or systems. I wanted to be free to be my weird self without the disruption of others' interpretations of my intentions. Though the burden still lingers at times, between these gentle shores and all of the work I've done over the last five years, I'm beginning to understand that freedom isn't just an ending. It's also the journey itself, the continuous work of becoming. All The Black Girls Are Activists mirrors back what my spirit has known, giving language to this transformation.

Here, on this island where water meets sky, and inside of me where I am becoming more myself, I'm entering a phase of life that feels entirely new. My wings spread more freely as I release so much of what I've been carrying—the guilt, the shame, the judgment, and comparison. I am not like anyone else, and that's OK. It's taken isolation to heal parts of myself. This understanding doesn't just live in my personal journey. It flows into my work and into the spaces I create for others.

I talk about this in my upcoming writer's workshop on Deservitude—how isolation can be a tool for creativity, for clearing our minds to make space for what matters. My work in isolation is not yet done, and I think about this heavily as the tides of change in the United States may call for me to rejoin community more quickly than I planned.

For now, I am moving forward as I have been more free than I was a decade ago; more free than my grandparents and my parents were at my age, even though politically life is starting to look dangerously similar. I will continue to move slowly into purpose and into community, even as history folds back on itself. Today I'm standing on this land, full of love, being fully loved, and full of Deservitude for this moment and for all that is to come. I am a revolution on these shores, and for today that will be enough.

Revolution & Return

Between the ebb and flow of ocean tides, between isolation and community, between personal revolution and collective healing - we find ourselves at a crossroads of transformation. Sometimes, our greatest revolutions happen in quiet moments, in the pause between breaths, in the space where we finally allow ourselves to simply be. This week, we're exploring what it means to claim our revolutionary spirit while finding our way back to community.

Weekly Deservitude Prompt: Take a moment to reflect on the revolutions happening within you - the quiet ways you've broken cycles, challenged expectations, or simply survived. When did you first recognize the revolutionary power of your existence? Write about a time when you needed to step away from community to heal, and how that separation transformed you. Now, write this truth to yourself: "I deserve to be revolutionary in my own way." How does embracing this truth change your relationship with both solitude and community? What spaces would you create for others if you knew your very existence was revolutionary?

Share your journey of becoming your own revolution or keep it private in your journal. Either way, you deserve to honor both your need for solitude and your eventual return to community - each in their own time, in their own way.