Fleeting Moments at 40

I dive deeply and then deconstruct, only to dive deeply again, only to deconstruct again. And it’s finally hit me: deconstruction may just be a lifelong process once you’ve been part of a conservative religion, especially during your formative years. As a Mormon teen, I was steeped in purity culture, perfectionism, and a fear of not making it to be with God in heaven, left instead to one of the lower rungs of heaven, or even worse, hell. The strong sense of community couldn’t override the fear-based realities of the church. And so I started deconstructing back then, at 16. I remember the first time being right before my patriarchal blessing, which is when a man of the church with the priesthood places his hands on your head and prophesies your future. I felt uneasy going into it and uneasy coming out. I spent the hours between the church service and the start of the patriarchal blessing skimming books about Christianity, agnosticism, and atheism in the Barnes & Noble down the stree...

I can't start this by saying "I think" because the reality is that I know. I have always found beauty and God everywhere regardless of how much my upbringing told me that it was only in certain spaces and that only certain people would earn the divine prize in heaven at the end of it all.  I know that I am interspiritual or a mystic. That has been hard for me to say. I wish I did not need labels, but I’ve come to realize that the box a label creates often helps me understand myself and others better. And once I understand it, I can work on freeing myself from it, or at least hold it more loosely. One of my first boxes was given to me. I was raised in strict, dogmatic religions, born and raised Catholic until age 13, and then Mormon from 13 to 19. In my 20s, I was agnostic and mostly followed the New Age and New Thought spirituality. I also explored Buddhism and Hinduism, and practiced yoga. By my 30s, I had incorporated African spirituality into that mix, and eventually, ...

There’s no other way to explain the trip: it was an adventure. I had no idea how much planning, coordinating, and anxiety would go into what was meant to be a family vacation and research grant. I was excited to go. I’d always wanted to visit Samaná, a region steeped in history and culture that felt both familiar and foreign. Born and raised in Harlem, a predominantly Black historic neighborhood in New York City bordering Washington Heights, a Dominican neighborhood, I’ve long been curious about the ways these worlds intersect, not just in NYC but in the Dominican Republic itself. Samaná held a unique place in my imagination, having been intended as a Black nation in the early 1800s when it was all Haiti, following the Haitian Revolution. It was a trip of a lifetime, and I wanted my family to experience it with me. After all, I hadn’t been to the DR in 25 years! It felt like discovering it all over again. Our adventure began early, on Sunday, June 1. We woke up at 4 a.m. and began what...

The movie  One of Them Days  is funny, but when one of them days happens to me, I don’t find it funny. Although, admittedly, nothing in my day beats the craziness in the movie. Today was my students’ long-awaited trip for their civic grant project. We toured the mayor’s office and met him in person. That alone is exciting, nerve-racking, and purely exhausting. Trying to keep seven- and eight-year-olds quiet and orderly in an official government building is hard work, especially when they’re used to so much freedom at their progressive private independent school. Follow the tour guide? More like the tour guide shall follow me! I started the trip already tired, thanks to: The logistics of planning every detail of the trip. Being on your period. Seasonal allergies that make your throat unbearably dry. Questioning if it’s all the wine—or anxiety whispering it might be mold somewhere. Regular ol’ morning parenting, where everyone is grumpy, and no one wants to wake up or get going....

To be 41 is health concerns, surrender, nostalgic trips back home, scary flights where you think your children might lose a parent, thyroid issues that might explain your bitchiness, and life's path always having that bend at the end that you didn’t see coming.

I come to you, journaling from the end of a Mom night out, a spontaneous rejection of tantrums and parenting. I dropped them off, fed them, fed the dogs, and left. I grabbed tacos and a beer on one side at one bar, a cheeseburger and a High Noon at another. Watermelon Vodka, to be exact. I enjoyed beautiful views, crowds, wonderful music. I called a couple of mom friends and they told me to live it up for all moms. And it all ended with art. Relevant art. A perfect night. It was indeed a beautiful moment. That’s ours. Now, back to the grind.