A dispatch from my last night in Delhi
I am really sad to be leaving!
Hello Beloved Friends
This will be my last post from Delhi, sadly.
I leave on a red eye tomorrow evening. My journey home will take a total of 35 hours, it will both be luxurious and exhausting. As I migrate across our precious earth I am thinking of all people who are in migration.
According to the United Nations in 2020 281 million people, 3.6% of the global population, was engaged in international migration.
Migration looks so many different ways, and in my heart I am holding the many elders, adults and children of all genders and gender expressions who are migrating with courage across oceans and through deserts. I am thinking of the many who have been forced out of homes and can never return, who are entering the vast unknown because they have no choice.
I am thinking of the over 6.1 million people displaced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
I am thinking of the over 5.4 million people displaced from Sudan since April 2023.
I am thinking of the over 1 million displaced from Palestine since October 2023.
I am thinking of the over 6.8 million Syrians displaced within Syria.
I am thinking of the 8 million displaced people in Pakistan due to unprecedented climate change.
I am thinking about the unknown millions of people displaced from community spaces and doctors offices in America due to poor covid precautions.
These are the ones I know to name, to search for, and to learn about, but I know there are so many more people displaced by climate crisis, by war, by conditions of scarcity and poverty created by extractive imperialistic forces.
Let us take a collective breath to honor and pray for the safety and millions of people.
In addition to breathing, we can also take action.
We can:
Learn the stories of people who are migrating, and the issues that are impacting them. Our attention is powerful, and by learning we become better advocates. I often disengage with hard topics, but my community helps me shift my avoidance. Learning together and sharing with each other is powerful.
Give money. We know this is important. In my research, I did find many places to donate connected to the United Nations, but I’m unclear if these are the *best* places to give.
Make our voice heard by engaging our politicians. Resources like 5 calls makes this especially possible.
Engage power through boycotts! I’m thinking of all the people who quit vaping in solidarity with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and all the people who have stopped patronizing starbucks.
Create expressive and outrageous public art with your community. We have seen in real time the power of collective action.
We have power; we are powerful.
Don’t forget it, and remind me, please, when I forget.
As I was writing this newsletter, I was reminded of the story of Valentino Achak Deng, whose life story was fictionalized and collaboratively written with Dave Eggers over the course of years and published in 2006.
I read it in 2009 during my first semester of college with little awareness of the criticism surrounding Dave Eggers involvement (while the criticism is valid, I don’t think it invalidates the novel, or Valentino’s consent to the project).
Deng’s story of being separated from his family during the Second Sudanese Civil War and having to walk on foot to Ethiopia, and then again to Kakuma, Kenya is still with me and reminds me that war and terror are not new phenomena on this earth of ours.
While his story is devastating, I have learned that since sharing his story, Valentino has returned to his hometown, Marial Bai, that he left in terror at the age of six. He has established a community-driven education center and multiple education programs. I also found this really powerful thesis written by a UGA student in 2008 who met Deng, and was moved by his approach to the world.
In reading Deng’s story in 2009 I was introduced to suffering and war beyond my imagination. In revisiting his story in 2023, I am surprised, but very glad, to find a story of reconnection.
Before I end this newsletter, I want to talk more about my time in Delhi, and some reflections on conflict, love, and obligation
That’s what I’ll be writing about below the paywall! I’ve included a little peek for all of u.
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I am so sad to be leaving Delhi.
There is a way I am loved in my masi’s house; Constantly, through small actions, through generosity, and through repeated acts of care from every member of my family. I am really spoiled y’all .
An overbearing, insistent type of love that I raged against as a teenager and that I hunger for as an adult.
What does it mean to be loved? When someone says they love us, what do we hear?
One of my earliest lessons in young romantic love is that love gets to be conditional. That conditions are essential to healthy love. I offer love on the condition that the recepiant of my love respects me, honors my boundaries, etcetera,.
But as I write this I am realizing that maybe it is our relationships or our care that are conditional, and our love is unending.
I cannot be in loving relationship with someone who doesn’t respect me, or rather, I can, but I think that type of relationship is more delusional than it is loving, and often when I exit relationships where respect has been compromised, I realize that I was really in love with my projection of the other person, not who they truly showed me they were.
When relationships come to an end, I often find myself wrestling with my desire to hold on.
I value repair. I grew up with a difficult elder in my life, and I desire relationships that allow me to be imperfect. Relationships that can hold me in times where I am not charismatic, energetic, and charming.
Doesn’t that mean holding on through the hard times?
It is this desire for resilient relationships that will often lead me down a road of self-sacrifice and trick me into staying in relationships where respect has been compromised and where my basic needs are being neglected.
I think I stay because I am clinging to an idea of the relationship and because I feel guilty for having needs.
Over time I have come to understand that the most resilient relationships in my life are ones where feedback is so constant that it is almost unnoticeable. relationships with occasional jagged edges and missteps, but where there is always value and respect.
I have come to realize that the longer I let ouches and hurts slide, the more I silence myself to appease another, the more I am sabotaging the relationship in the long term.
I have been a part of more than one relational rupture where, at the time of rupture, I am angry and fed up, and the person on the other end feels some level of betrayal or surprise because I have not been honest with them. The whole time, they thought they were held in my loving presence, only to learn I was simmering with anger. I don’t blame them for feeling shocked.
And in those relationships, when everything comes to a head, I too feel betrayed. I notice that my thinking becomes rigid, black and white, and righteous. I perceive and paint the other person’s actions as obviously unforgivable. I exaggerate and erase nuance to support my narrative, and I cling to these ideas.
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