In an effort to feel more connected

I have long toyed with the idea of writing again for public consumption. Thanks to Boogie, my dance teacher, mentor and blogging accountability partner, I am finally launching a new blog.

My biggest fear in blogging is that my thoughts and ideas are not worth sharing or being read. That people will say, ‘Who cares what you think? What makes you so important that I should spend time reading your writing?’ In our patriarchal society, I frequently question whether my voice matters. And so, for that reason, I am going to write again, to challenge myself. It feels like a risk to put my ideas out there, to offer them to you. It is a risk I am ready to take again.

I will write for me as much as I will write for anyone else. I process through writing. I have dozens of journals that I’ve kept since I was in elementary school. I first started blogging when I lived in Senegal for the 2006-2007 academic year. I took great joy in using the written word to try to describe the experiences I was having, to bring people along with me on that journey. For those who know me, that was a transformational year for me and I’m sure it will come up again in this blog. Blogging felt less pertinent when I moved back to Chicago, my experiences didn’t feel so unique, or like they needed explaining.

I moved to Chicago to do a Jewish service corps, and that’s how I began organizing, in 2008, months before Obama was elected. I was fresh into the adult world and fresh into organizing and I was sure the wind was at our backs, but I see now that while there were significant victories, the crises everyday people face are worsening.

We are living in scary, unprecedented (in my lifetime, at least) times, times that are also ripe with opportunity for organizing, times that call on us to dig deep and go big, to innovate how we organize, to challenge old orthodoxies. I am 30 and I am grappling with big life questions. My hunch is that I am not the only one asking big questions right now and searching for answers. Through organizing, I have learned the power of telling our stories, of knowing you are not alone. If I can make one person in this world feel a little less alone, then this will be worthwhile. If I can feel a little less alone by sharing my stories and questions and connecting with others as a result, this will be worthwhile.

I am a white, Jewish, 30-year-old, cis-woman. I was raised in an upper-middle class family. I am an organizer. I am in a relationship that is currently monogamous with a man I love very much. We live together, for almost two years now. He is Sephardi and I am Ashkenazi. I like to knit. I think of myself as a runner, though nothing about my habits would suggest as much anymore. I am a night-owl, always aspiring to be a morning person. I belong to a non-Zionist congregation. I identify as a vegetarian, but truth-be-told, I make exceptions. My health is important to me. I like to do things that challenge me.

I love to dance. Dancing grounds me in my body. It challenges me to break expectations. It helps me feel free and recognize the ways in which I am not free, like when I feel shy about moving my body in front of others. I want to love radically and be radically loved. I want to be free and know that I won't be until e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e. is free. 

Here’s what you can expect from this blog. I will write from my own experience and perspective. I will share my truth. I will write about real events and real people as I experience them. My goal is to be vulnerable, honest and real. I will attempt to challenge assumptions, raise questions and share about my journey as I navigate this wild world and forge my own path in life.

Onward.