Winter is one of my least favorite months.
When I was a kid, I loved the snow like all other kids. Except I never actually wanted to be in it. I wanted to be in the warm house while everyone else was outside. At least in here I didn't have to wear a bunch of extra layers. I didn't have to shiver.
Beyond that, this time of year has now claimed two people that I have loved very much in my life. Both of whom I carry in my heart. Ashleigh and Shahnna, I love you.
Funnily enough, I love the new year. It's the ultimate symbol for the things I really value: reflection, meditation on what is here now, and what can be imagined for the future.
When I step back, I see all of life in this movement from Fall into Winter, culminating in the renewal of Spring. So much pain, tumult, laughter, and connection are intertwined with this time of year for me. Through all of that, I've found new strengths and revealed previously repressed parts of myself because of the heat of that fire. Sometimes I say that I can feel so much that it's like I'm burning up like a log in crackling fire...but from those ashes, after some smoldering, I return like a phoenix anew. Just that slight bit wiser.
This Winter playlist is a collection of songs that feel like a reflection of the vibes I'm feeling from moment to moment.
Please follow along the journey with me by adding the playlist to your library as it's update frequently.
Enjoy.
Updated: Sep 16, 2021
I found this amazing app called Storyteller by Morgan Harper Nichols that serves up little nuggets to ponder daily and I was struck by the one this morning:
You will arrive at the future when you are meant to be there. And in the meantime, you have today to make the most of where you are.
I think frequently about my own tendency to jump to the future instead of enjoying the moment in front of me. Sometimes that's due to pain, others because I want more pleasure...but the hardest thing is staying in the moment.
I was watching the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy where a COVID story was unfolding, one of many, where the final moments of someone's life is spent in a sterile room extensibly alone. One of the characters was struggling with the decision to go in and spend time with the dying because she felt it wasn't the way it should be happening. A caring colleague and friend wisely told her that the moment is presented the way it is despite our wants...but he's sure that she'll want that moment back even in this way if she weren't to take the opportunity. He then offered to go in with her if she changed her mind.
This reminded me of one of the final days before my older sister passed last year. I was highly conflicted. I wanted to be there for her but I wasn't really sure how to do that. I look back at myself with lots of compassion because I showed up in the best way I could have in the moment. I remember one of my last private moments with her was sitting by her bed listening to her sleep. Her breathing was kinda heavy, but it's nothing that I wasn't used to hearing growing up. I loved pretty deep and heavy as a small kid, so it was unbearable to be away from her sometimes especially because I would feel so lonely. This moment reminded me of a time when for some reason I stumbled in on her sleeping with eyes half open, mouth WIDE open, breathing loudly. We were so far from that earlier moment but so much felt the same.
I know if I could walk into that moment who I am now things would be different, but that is all of life. I will say that I was conscious of not forcing myself to do anything. Not to stop crying. Not to say no to doing things I didn't feel I could handle. I took care of the little boy who had just lost his sister inside.
I’ve been tearing through Glennon Doyle’s newest book, Untamed, for the past few days and a very surprising side effect popped up.
I developed a new perspective on my true feelings on God.
As a kid, I had a very contentious relationship with God and the church. I didn’t know that I was necessary gay at young age, but I remember feeling different as early as first grade. One of my very first, best friends introduced me to his dad’s Playboys in the closet one summer afternoon hastening my realization that what he was experiencing wasn’t the same as me. It’s really interesting ever recalling this now as an adult and realizing that my analysis of the world around me, and the judging how I differ from it, started very early.
I’ve always seen religion as a major cornerstone of the black experience in America. Historically, when no one that doesn’t look you treats you with dignity and respect you always have God on your side. It’s comforting, inspiring, and helps makes sense of all the evils that have come down on our people in this world. There will be salvation. There will be glory and peace even if you don’t have it now.
But that’s not what was reflected to me from religion. I knew that I was welcome. Henry, the son of a wonderful church-going woman who was polite and smiled was definitely welcome. What always made me afraid and unwanted was this unknown difference inside of me. While I couldn’t name it I heard being different was not what they wanted out of me. I was to follow the rules. Do as I‘m told. I remember sitting in church pews many times as a kid for various reasons and just feeling generally uneasy in my skin.I was certain that I wouldn’t be welcome there anymore if it were reveled who I truly was inside...and let me tell you, maintaining a dam inside which you hold back all the unique things about yourself is tiring. Very tiring.
So what is a ten year old kid to do when confronted with the respect and love of his elders versus what he feels to be true? I decided, then and there, to throw it all away. God, the Bible, any teachings, those who claimed to speak any gospel. If the church was going to be wonderful to my face, then get on the pulpit and tell me how people different were wrong and bad and I must avoid the temptation of them at any cost then I would reject them. And I washed my hands of the whole thing.
I remember about seven years ago, I was at the beautiful aftermath of a wedding held in a national park. A memorable wedding for sure...and I was having a conversation with my then boyfriend and one of his best friends. I tagged along while they talked about the church, God, and how their ideas of what a relationship with God meant after leaving their formal church environment and discovering what it to them personally. I remember this night especially because the stars were so prominent that I thought about the universe, my place in it, and how much there out there exists. Hoping to remain out of the conversation and afraid to offend either of them, I remained silent trying to fade into the background but I was spotted by the best friend.
She asked me, “What about you, Henry? Do you believe in God?”
“Not really. I believe in some force in the universe that keeps this all going but no.”
And it was true. I ignored at that time those feelings of awe in my body when I would look up thinking that I had to put that feeling into the box that I was told it was for, God. I struggled so hard not to put it in that box that I didn’t even stop to think about what faith or God meant to me. Glennon walked me though that conversation with myself through her gentle conversation about her own relationship with God. She had one particular section that hit me like a wrecking ball:
“When you were little, your heart turned away from the church in order to protect itself. You remained whole instead of letting them dismember you. You held on to who you were born to be instead of contorting yourself into who they told you to be. You stayed true to yourself instead of abandoning yourself.
When you shut down your heart to that church, you did it to protect God in you. You did it to keep your wild.
You thought that decision made you bad. But that decision made you holy.”
I felt so comforted and seen in the moment. Usually in times like this, when I’m deep in myself rumbling, I can see my childhood self. Small, smiley, really afraid, unsure how to tell people what he really feels. How to ask for help. I hold his hand in my mind, and we smile at each other. I tell him, “It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ll be here with you forever, and I’ll never leave your side. Even when you think you’re alone, I’ll be there... and when life is done here, we will spend an eternity together.”
In that very moment I felt Glennon had said in the book, and I had heard many times over my life and rolled my eyes at:
God is in you.
And for the very first time, I recognized how I had built that relationship from the ashes of anger, frustration, and broken relationships to reveal the holiest parts of me. The godly kindness, nurturing, strength that was there all along obscured by internal and external blocks built up over time.
All this has led me to realize a new truth of mine: