Hello Flip Floppers of Joy,

My name is Lisa and I am honored to be recently invited to guest post here in BFP’s home.
*wipes flip flops on rug, takes them off, enters barefoot*

My Ecdysis is my home.  I am a RWOC writer of creative non-fiction, meaning my medium is poetry, memoir, essay, and letter-writing.

The two most important things you need to know while I guest blog is that 1) I love Brownfemipower and 2) I’m pregnant.

Those two things will likely influence the next couple of weeks of writing here.

For me, letters are one of the most under-recognized, understated forms of expression.  If blogs are ponds, and books are the ocean, letters are the still, diamond blue lakes of communication and ideas.  They hold the cold and the hot, the ice and rage.  The beauty of lakes and letters cannot be contained and its peace whispers endlessly.

Which is why my first post is a letter to BFP.

I am coming on the one year anniversary of a monumental pilgrimage I took to the other side of the world.  (Cleveland, Ohio USA to Manila, Philippines)

BFP’s two week travels to Naropa bring back some memories of what it is like to be gone, separated, and alone.

I hope this space generates some thoughts on periods of your own life where you took intentional time to grow and learn.  Sometimes it’s by plane, often times it’s much more local.  The question, “Where have you been?” reaches far beyond geography when you consider personal transformation.
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Dear BFP,

It’s the anniversary week of the pilgrimage I took one year ago to my parents’ homeland to the Philippines, my heart’s native land.  It’s the place where parts of me died and parts of me were reborn.

I’ve been thinking about this “trip” in your life and how often times, for radical womyn of color, there are no “trips,” but temporary re-rooting in unfamiliar gardens. We intentionally seek out things that will rip us away from what we know, we hold our own stems taut, offering a clear space to briefly sever our connections, away from the soil of home addresses.

“Trips” serve a customary purpose of experiencing different landscape, both geographically and socially.  We take “trips” to explore alternative relaxation, other cultures, and escape from our regularity.

Naropa is not a trip, it is an Immersion.  You’ve flown across the country and your heart’s terrain to enrich, learn, and feel.  And that takes a bucket load of guts to do that.

It’s as if writers who are consistently processing their experiences don’t just travel the sights.  They’re not just tourists.  Radical women writers see what needs healing, what needs bolstering, what needs work, what needs attention – and they find it in the world and go there.

Last year, while it was exhilarating to immerse myself in a oddly foreign but familiar environment, I felt as if someone had taken a potato peeler and run the length of my leg, from the top of my hip to the base of my ankle, skinning me alive.

No one could see the skinning wound, let alone feel it, but separation from my country, language, family, love, and home delivered a searing pain on my body.  I covered with stories of how much I was learning, how amazing the Trip was going, how the learning I was experiencing was transforming my life.

They weren’t lies, I just didn’t share about the searing pain that blinked when I blinked and throbbed in my blood.

Immersion is not happy.  It is enriching and feels almost like medical treatment at times – it feels like hell but you know it’s enhancing your life.  Immersion felt like isolation and living off memories.

Trips are happy.  Trips are tourist rides and sunny pools.  Trips are oftentimes schedules and tickets, fees and sunblock. Trips satisfy.

Immersion has a different fee.  You pay out of your heart.  Immersion is deep breaths and deeper listening.  There is some luxury woven in, but it’s not the focus.  Immersion can be so scary and rattling to the most sturdy of souls.  Immersion transforms.

I am thinking of you and holding you up.

In the deep swallows of the valleys and mountains, in the limitless sky and explosion of color, I hope the fire you stare into for the next two weeks shows you the faces you need to see and warms you with the blanket that you are missed and never forgotten.

I remember needing people to tell me that I was missed and needing to hear the most simple endearments to convey that I was remembered and loved.  I needed to know that my absence mattered as much as my heart hurt.

My friend, I hope you remember it takes more strength to allow yourself to be broken than to turn away from the boiling pain of Immersion.

I hope you remember that fragility can be your map and I’m eagerly awaiting your return to hear of your adventure.  After I slap a hospitality pineapple in your hands, I will hug your wild laugh and ask you, “Where have you been?”

And listen.

Be well, BFP.

Love,
Lisa