(Before embarking on other memoir pieces, I’m adding some of my recent FB posts to have them here)
When I was 10 years old, I had been placed in one foster home but had requested to move to another where my sister was, nearby. Having coped by being a pleaser (and as a natural empath), I had been so mortified at hurting the original foster mom’s feelings by asking to leave. So when I realized I had left a treasure at her home, I dreaded going back for it.
But among my very few belongings this was a prized possession.
So I walked there with a nervous belly and greeted her with my shy, awkward request.
Soon, I had retrieved my precious Menudo album (a Latín boy band from the 80’s). They had been popular in San Pedro, where I’d lived before and I was so happy with my big vinyl under my arm once again. Menudo!
I walked proudly, feeling the warm sun on my face and daydreamed, eager to get back and play it.
As I rounded the corner some local adult gangsters and teens working on cars in their driveway, stopped, laughed at me and scoffed “Menudo! Chuckling, shaking their heads.
I was in a new land, yet again, disoriented again and fairly crushed in that moment,
but I kept walking
and danced to my tunes later anyway.
I’m proud of that independent and brave little girl and grateful for her undomesticated freedom. And yet when I look at my own almost 10 year old son and how I tend to him, my heart breaks for her.
This is a light story. From a far earlier age, floating in a sea of rapidly changing placements/caregivers, she had felt alone and had to take care of herself in a way, gratefully, he’ll never know.
In my practice, we reclaim our hurt and neglected inner children. With Spirit, my ancestors, and my loving adult/higher self (my circle of love) I go back for her.
I drive by, pick her up and listen to her tell me all about why she loves this band. How Miguel is the cutest! And Ricky Martin is her next favorite! And I let her know she deserved to have a grown up have that uncomfortable conversation for her. She is not responsible for the foster mother’s feelings. And of course, she deserved to have a stable home.
I tell her that even though she had to do so much on her own, she doesn’t have to, anymore.
I’m here with the circle of love, where she belongs.
In this present moment, as I focus on self restoration after fire relief work, I know that even though I do have wide capacity, resilience and can “get it done,” I never need to be overly independent, alone and exhausted.
That is an abusive, colonialist, industrial lie.
So I keep her healing alive by pausing, tuning in and recognizing the help I need. I honor her resilience and her trauma that sensitized and inspires her activism AND I avoid making her feel responsible to tackle the system’s failures at her expense.
I call this Mariposa (butterfly) activism. Sometimes soaring in action, sometimes cocooning.
We cannot find healing and wholeness in the systems that wound, hurt and disconnect us. Instead we must slow, rest, cocoon and breathe ourselves back to the humanity and wisdom of our essential selves.
It is ALL liberation and reclamation.
As a loving mama to my inner niña, held by Spirit and ancestors, I set the boundaries, buy the healthy food, source the yierbas, get the rest, ask for help,
and always,
ALL WAYS
I pick her up.
Mariposa Activism