Embracing the Vastness of My Purpose
Clarity is a gift. I have not always felt this way but the older I get, the more experiences and obstacles that I face, I have come to appreciate the shift that clarity can bring if I accept it. Like many of us, I began a journey of navigating multiple identities (some we chose and some that are given to us) at birth. As I grew up, I began riding the wave of accepting and rejecting other identities along the way. I was often pulled to believe that I could only anchor a few of my identities - simultaneously - in order achieve the things in life that I want.
Today, I am glad that I have nurtured a different way of celebrating and bringing all my identities to every aspect of my life. It has been challenging, overwhelming, yet worth all the hard work. My path now is centered on living a life where my purposes are many and all of them matter. Yes, I have to center certain identities and parts of myself to lead me through specific situations, but it is the fullness of my identities and how they intersect that allows me the strength and courage to do that. I cannot always do all things, but I can create an amount of spaciousness that allows me to choose how I engage, what I engage in, and how much of my energy and soul I give freely to do those things well.
As I cling to the last days of summer, I have been trying to see myself as an ocean. Calm, strong, dynamic, beautiful, powerful, and vast. This poem is what I have been repeating to myself daily. It reminds me that I have not one but many purposes.
YOU ARE OCEANIC
by Tapiwa Mugabe
All she wanted was to find a place to stretch her bones.
A place to lengthen her smiles and spread her hair
a place where her legs could walk without cutting and bruising
a place unchained.
She was born out of ocean breath.
I reminded her; ‘Stop pouring so much of yourself into hearts
that have no room for themselves
do not thin yourself, be vast.
You do not bring the ocean to a river.
***My oldest and dearest friend, Sonya McCall Suttle, is the creator of the wave image of this blog post. Check her out at Blue Ridge Brush Strokes https://www.facebook.com/artoftheswirl.