Extraction: Why I am Changing Up My Substack
I can't keep writing only ever about microaggressions--my blood pressure!
I was 11 or 12, sitting in an almost empty classroom, silently observing the brief respite of two teachers for whom I held a special curiosity: Ms. Hamilton and Ms. Brown.
I don’t remember what extra-curricular I was working on with a couple of friends, a cocoon of invisibility, but my body remembers the rare feeling of ease and relaxation—nothing due, no looming assignments or expectations. Just pure creativity and privilege—because we were here in the presence of two teachers whom I admired. They were Black Women Who Aren’t My Mother, and I was curious to see how they womaned compared to Mommy (my gold standard).
Ms. Hamilton (not my teacher) and Ms. Brown (my 6th grade teacher) both had gloriously moisturized jheri curls, and Ms. Brown’s hair was cut in an asymmetrical bob. Fresh. Her skin was a deep cocoa, and her lips were painted red with what must have been Fashion Fair. Ms. Hamilton presented a make-up free face, her skin the color of patiently roasted coffee beans.
As they talked, I saw Ms. Hamilton do something that utterly flabbergasted me: she pushed the side of her nostril up, causing tiny whiteheads to sprout up like mushrooms after rain. Tiny liberations dotted her nose.
I had already learned to subdue any visceral physical responses that might be interpreted as sass or threat, but on the inside, I was screaming.
Why is she doing that? Now? Here? In front of her co-worker? Ms. Brown was unbothered. They just…kept on. It looked so intimate and exposing and normal. Just casually extracting whiteheads in public seemed shameful, impolite, inappropriate. But I went home and after I closed the door to the bathroom, I pushed up one of my nostrils to see if mushrooms of sebum would grow.
Sometimes, in the interest of clarity, we need to extract the mess clogging our pores, in front of everybody, and then find our skin open again.
These days, writing feels like extraction, and I am wary of drawing blood. Early on in my forays into public writing, I was honest with my anger, but I gilded it in hope and an invitation to dialogue. I was explaining fear of the police, the communal nature of grief, rage and the spectre of helplessness post-extrajudicial killing, the hum of gender-based condescension in hallowed evangelical halls—explaining this to people who were “just curious,” and wanted to have a “good-faith discussion.” These folks usually cut off discussion with their defense of the status quo, some gaslighting, and questioning of my faith in Jesus and the legal system (yes, they were mentioned with equal reverence). Bad faith discussions disguised as “dialogue” proceeded to mine every ounce of hope from my being. Like transfusing blood to a vampire.
In 2012, I rescinded invitations. It didn’t feel natural to do so, but I had lost too much blood. I feel anemic to this day. I still open veins to write. I had learned to write my anger and grief so well that I stunted my ability to express hope and aspiration. Plus, people respond to anger and grief. Some can relate and find echoes of themselves, and we walk, together, through pain. Some, however, just like the taste of blood.
Lately, I have felt stymied in a way that makes me feel embarrassed. The silences between posts are whiteheads, an unattractive public proof of paralysis under my skin. I was writing For Real? Tuesdays to testify to ridiculous racialized experiences I have had in Christian spaces—and while it is important to name and expose these things, I just don’t have enough blood for it. I was writing about current events, but y’all, my pressure. To attempt to quantify and distill the grief I carry for this country with its culture of greed and murder, cannibalizing us all in the name of mammon, is challenging the chief end of my heart—to keep the beat, the flow of life. LIFE.
There are voices I lean into when I need a soul-tourniquet: a way to stanch the bleeding and preserve what I can (way too many to list here). I wouldn’t even BE here if it weren’t for Trey. Marcie curates hope and beauty in such a consistent way. I am thankful to Robert for recommendations for thriving (including me? How?); thankful to Rose for naming this burnout; thankful to Camille for her poetic expressions. I am looking around, though, and seeing that it’s even hard for these purveyors of gentleness to move forward every day in such a jagged world.
This space is named When and Where I Enter. I feel the title tap me on the side of my temple: think! Remember who you are. I am still subconsciously obsessed with opening doors for us to walk through together; still extending invitations. I want to share a peace with you that we may have only had in spurts and waves. I want to feel the ease in my body of 6th grade me in Ms. Brown’s classroom. I don’t want to go back; I just want to rigorously rehearse hope in my heart. (This would be a miracle. I want a miracle.) Sometimes, in the interest of clarity, we need to extract the mess clogging our pores, in front of everybody, and then find our skin open again. I know this era feels like chronic bleeding. We need every drop of blood we have to survive. More whitehead-extracting writing. No more bleeding out.
I need practice writing about the clarity that brings creation and hope. The beautiful. Imaginings and musings and reveries. I got anger down. I know indignation and exhortation. I won’t stop writing angry altogether, because anger can be holy. But would you indulge me in trying again here? Experimenting with getting at that clarity…maybe squeezing out some whiteheads in the process?
I want to write into existence a dwelling where peace together can thrive. I will develop a new pace. If it doesn’t work, I will try a new rhythm. Life. Life.
What are you dreaming about? Imagining? How do you keep from bleeding out?
Wow, Sherifa. I love the slice of the image of God that is you! Thank you for modeling vulnerability. Seeing how you do it helps me grow.
I'm dreaming about that same ease in the presence of our Redeemer for eternity! Ken Boa describes it as endless creativity without frustration, something like that.
I keep from bleeding out (and there have been some close calls from my perspective) by putting my focus and hopes back on Jesus because He is the only one who will never fail me, the only one who offers life in His name, and the only one who will make it all right in the end. He's everything and He's my life!
Thank you for your beautiful and challenging words. As for what I'm dreaming about / imagining - right now, it's just survival. I'm privileged in that it's not an existential survival - just making it through a season of work that is a little TOO MUCH while I wait for my part-time boss to find my replacement so that I can return to focusing on the clients who are really paying my bills. But in the interim, time with friends (safe ones), church, movies, and working out are extremely important methods of self-care.