Remembering and Re-membering

Memory works in many ways.
To me, memory can help us recall things of our past.
It can also help us put ourselves together, and that’s something that’s been running through my mind.
How you put yourself together (or re-member yourself) after something rips you apart.
How you adjust and reformat your life and your thinking and your mind and even your body when it is upended.
How you react when they come for you for your beliefs and even mere existence.
Especially in the context of the anti-racism, anti-oppression communities that keep pulling me in.
Or that I run into willingly.

And I am remembering and re-membering as I begin to write an essay that will be published in a book about essays for equitable schools.
We will see how that goes.
This preparation incites remembering of the research and inquiry with the Calderwood Fellowship that led to presentations in Sweden and Japan and a confidence in telling my truth as my full self, not subscribing to traditional techniques of research writing, for example.
There was so much joy in the challenge of that experience and the experiences and adventures to follow.
This preparation incites re-membering of why I wanted to be an educator, after that first lesson with Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” at HAP caused me to imagine what was possible in education.
What was possible, what is possible, what will be possible.
Re-membering is vital in sustaining power and knowledge of self when working for a institution that needs a radical dismantling and has so many systems operating within it to prevent the necessary change.

Today is the last day of prepping before I begin to write.
To remember and re-member, putting myself together and building myself with each word.
I hope.

And now…to turn those ideas into a movement, into words.
My procrastination tactics have involved an organizational outlining process that I have never done before but has helped me put ideas together and also made me feel more productive than I actually am.
With school obligations beginning sooner than I would like, I am going to ignite this fire as I grasp the last pieces of vacation.