Wanderlust

Feel the Burn

May 21, 2008 at 9:30 pm parisheartsrj 1 comment

Monday night I had the luck to have Nora and Mary to pass thru Atlanta and stay with us. I’ve been excited, nervous, and apprehensive about the bike tour. Being the procrastinator I tend to be, I think I was planning a way to not go at the last minute(Did you know that Nora?) . But with my train tix finally booked to NOLA(I booked it last night), I am on my way! So what about my training. Yes, the training! I have been taking a delicious cycling class for months now(toughening up my rear) and doing cardio but I have not been as hard core as some of the other Wanderlusties. I just got my bike for the tour on Saturday. Her name is Shug and I am stoked!

I’ve been riding my other bike around town. Nora and I biked to my job yesterday-7.3 miles- and it felt good. And though 7.3 is only a dent in what we will have to do- its one mile and one pedal at a time!

As I have been getting ready- I believe I will take on the feat of packing tonight, I have been thinking about my feelings of privilege and nervousness.

I feel so privileged to be making this trip. A) a privilege to be able to meet new folks, be out in the world exerting my body everyday, and connect with others in our shared human experience as healers and warriors. B) a privilege to have a job that will allow me to travel for this amount of time and values this kind of participation as valuable to building a movement for reproductive justice C) that I have the love and support from family and community that can allow me to follow my passion. D)and that I have my health and strength to be able to take on this giant task.

I also feel nervous. The history of the South is an ever constant reel that plays in mind. I worry about feeling and being safe in a part of the country where racism is manifested in active KKK chapters, the Jena 6, and the real often unheard stories of women of color who have been raped, forcibly sterilized, and who been locked up in alarming rates. I feel nervous about being one of a small number of women of color on the trip especially as we talk about reproductive justice(will folks think pro-choice is reproductive justice? will it be understood the importance of women of color coining the term and framework, will I be tokenized or my culture co-opted-” Can I touch your hair” or” You know that is so ghetto”).

And in my feeling of priveldge and nervousness is my overwhelming hopefulness in this process that I believe will be transformative. This voyage that can help us in listening to each other, being present, being an ally, stepping up, articulating when we are afraid, stepping back, and let’s us learn our bodies in a way that we are often disconnecting from.

I am hopeful that I will be on this trip with others who will value the intense conditions under which we are asking our bodies to function are the same ways in which we can push our hearts and minds. See you in NOLA!

With Shug and rj on my mind!

paris

Entry filed under: On the Road, Paris Hatcher, Wanderlust 08. Tags: .