home.

This photo is my home place. On Hubbards Hill in the mountains of Lovingston, Virginia. Right up that road is where my great grandmother, Big Ma lived. We were black people with a piece of land in the south of Virginia. They say we migrated here from Monticello-- the Jefferson Plantation, and we all know what happened there.

There are oral stories of how my grandma and grandpa built this house with their own hands--room by room. It’s the land I grew up on, and the place that feels most like home. Maybe it’s the playful memories on this old dirt road, or the family gatherings of 30+ of us that took place in this house. Maybe it’s the food and fried chicken that I swear grandma put her foot in. Or maybe it was the old spirituals we’d sing together in the front room with the old organ and piano with the broken key. “You can’t get there by airplane, you can’t get there by train. But when God gets ready, he will give you two wings.” Maybe it was the way the house smelled like a trail of White Diamonds perfume and blue ultra sheen hair grease and you knew grandma was near. Maybe it was the stories of how we got over. Stories of great great grandparents and stories of the civil rights movement and how our family stood for justice.

I was steeped in this-- justice.

It was the pride and anguish of our family.

Stories of how white folks tried to intimidate our family and how we stood our ground.

That fight shaped my family, they were relentless in the fight for equality for the generations to come.

But in that home, warmed by the wood chopped by grandpa’s hands, our oppressors didn’t matter. It was ours. Our place of refuge in a world that perpetually told us that we didn’t belong.

The fight for justice, fortitude in the face of our lifelong oppressors came with a cost though. It’s shadow took far too many of my family members. Wrapped in the guise of diabetes, cancer or alcoholism, we embodied the trauma of lived experiences and those lived through the lineage of our family passed. Lest it be said, dis-ease isn’t unique to black and brown people, it’s unique to trauma.

My family lived fully, loved big, laughed loud, and danced the two-step on a whim. But there was no cutting the pain that lurked silently just beneath the surface.

From a young age, I took notice of that pain, beneath the surface. That’s what led me to my line of work like a northstar. Somewhere beneath my surface, I had pain and fight for justice too-- a longing for healing and redemption for my family. For vitality. For well being. To ease the [silent] suffering of people who look and feel like me and my family.

As a family therapist, I’ve devoted myself to honoring family-- family of origin and chosen family. Family is our first society. It’s our stories. Our struggles. Our joys. Family is our first context.

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As a child, I took notice of my family's pain-- it was hard not to notice. But as an adult, I look back and see their relentless pursuit of joy in the midst of such pain.

My family fought. And that fight cost them so much wellbeing. I have an immense amount of gratitude for the deposits they’ve made in my pursuit to live a life of not only fight, but joy.

They were/are resilient as hell.

Much like black and brown families everywhere.

Our collective struggles and pain are so easy to spot, the longstanding effects of our systemic trauma and mistreatment cannot so easily be erased.

As we look back to our homes, our families, our history to go forward, let us also see our own relentless pursuit of joy in the midst of pain-- and celebrate that.

We. are. Fighters-- us. This collective black and brown family. And our fight might look many ways. We’ve fought for land, and homeplaces, dignity and equal rights.

And now we fight for wellbeing.

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For my family, there was no place safer than right there on Hubbards Hill. That home, housed our remembrance of ourselves, our culture, heritage and belonging. It was our refuge. I still walk the halls of that home in my dreams. But Grandma and Grandpa have since passed on to be with the ancestors and our home place has grown quiet.

And I find myself longing for the refuge of home.

Aren’t we all looking for home?

For some, it feels so out of reach, that we call it heaven.

And sometimes home isn’t a place at all, it’s a feeling, a smell, a taste of something familiar.

I’ve come to believe home is a practice. Of embodying belonging (right where we are). Of finding a sense of peace and home within. Remembering ourselves, our ways, our bodies, our songs, our pains, our desires, our pleasure all housed within this beautiful miracle of a body we call home-- us.

The work of well-being is remembering how to find the home place within ourselves. Something unique to each family and individual.

Whatever that is for you, I pray we collectively find home. That place where it feels good. To be.