Friday Care Package
Turning Toward: Care as the Practice of Becoming Human Again
Friday Care Package
Turning Toward: Care as the Practice of Becoming Human Again
“To return to the body is to return to the site of birth and burial, the altar of transformation.” — Gloria Anzaldúa
“We care for the world by first learning how to stay with ourselves.” — bell hooks (paraphrased from All About Love)
Beloveds,
I have been turning toward myself of late — not in the way of retreating or disappearing, but in the manner of midwiveswho lean close enough to feel breath. I have been remembering that care is not simply something we extend outward, like an endless pouring of water beyond measure. Care is a circulation — a movement in and through bodies, across territories, across histories, across the soft underside of time.
Care is how we stay tethered to one another without dissolving ourselves in the process.
Transnational feminist communities have been teaching us this for decades — especially the ones who have survived borders, coups, desert crossings, detention, exile, and rebirth.
Care is the infrastructure of survival.
Care is the quiet architecture of liberation.
Midwives know this too.
They know that birth is not an event — it is a relation.
The body opens because someone stays close.
The child arrives because someone said, I am here.
The one becoming new does so inside the encircling presence of others.
And isn’t this what we are all trying to do right now?
Be born again — without losing what we have learned from our scars.
I am learning, slowly, tenderly, that to turn toward myself is the first gesture of turning toward you.
When I honor the tremor in my own hand, I become more capable of holding yours.
When I breathe into my own grief, I develop the lungs to sit with yours.
When I bless the soft animal of my own body, I learn how to bless the soft animal of yours.
Care is a choreography —
Yes.
Care is how we rehearse a world where all of us can breathe.
It is ritual because it requires repetition.
It is political because the world has forgotten how to stay with anyone.
It is sacred because it returns us to the ground of our becoming.
We are building something here.
Together.
En conjunto.
A way of life that does not abandon ourselves or one another.
Let us tend to care as our shared inheritance and our shared future.
Field Guide to Care (This Week’s Practices)
Choose one and stay with it. Let it be enough.
1. Shift From Fixing to Witnessing
Instead of asking: How do I fix this?
Ask: How can I be with this — with dignity, breath, and presence?
2. Practice Small Restorations
Make a cup of tea with both hands on the mug.
Slow your chewing.
Pet the cat with full attention.
These are not small things.
3. Let Someone Care For You
Say yes to help.
Let your need be seen.
Receiving is an act of resistance in a world built on abandonment.
4. Build a Micro-Ritual
Light one candle at sunset.
Breathe three slow breaths.
Say: I am here. We are here.
5. Remember Your Body is Not an Afterthought
Lay your hand on your chest.
Call your body by its true name: Beloved.
Benediction
May you turn toward yourself with the same tenderness you offer others.
May your care become a river that nourishes without draining.
May the lineage of midwives, healers, fugitives, brujas, and border-walkers guide your steps.
May the world you long for begin first in your own breath.
We are learning to walk one another home.
Slowly.
Softly.
With courage.
Together.
Paz y ternura, always —
RCE+