Monthly Coffee Date
What an incredible time we are all in. Some mornings I wake up ready to talk and write and persist, and some days I am devoid of words and energy and light. Today, I feel ready to write, so here I am. Well, really, in this exact forum I should say, I'm back. I have written these coffee dates for years, and am really looking forward to starting again. For those interested in looking back, these monthly check-ins started out as "Monthly Chai Dates," so-named because I used to disparage coffee, thinking it too bitter. When I finally was presented with a rich, deeply flavored cup of black coffee while in the Redwoods on a trip of emotional desperation, I realized my love of this sweet nectar and have rarely looked back. Anyway, I digress.
So, let's sit down together. If we were in person, I would take in the sight of you, and smile. I would be honest about whether you're glowing and it's wonderful to see, or if you look exhausted and I would offer to carry some of your load. Let's each wrap our hands around the warm mug, acknowledge the cool spring dusk, where in Chicago it's gray and raining. In these times, we'd be at least six feet away from each other, so let's imagine two park benches side by side, each of us sitting on very opposite ends, our arms slung over the back of the bench, inner leg bent onto the seat, outer leg outstretched with our outer arm balancing the mug on our thigh.
How is your body feeling? Where do you feel strongest right now? Where are you feeling weak? What does the space between your shoulders feel like? How are you pinky fingers and thumbs when you stretch them away from each other? How does putting your ear to your shoulder, and then the other ear to the other shoulder, feel to your neck and jaw and temples? In what section is the beat of your heart the most intense?
Taking in the first sip, I'd wonder how your 2019 wrapped up. Were you running to the end of the year alongside so many, with optimism and anticipation for what 2020 would bring?
Before all of life became consumed by COVID, I was having a difficult time personally and professionally. A traumatic work event in October, followed by institutional betrayal and direct negative action against the midwife service, led to my feeling angry and helpless/hopeless going to work each and every day. There did not seem to be an end in sight for when I would feel better, or when things would improve, mostly because there was not time even then to process and plan and put ideas into action: the hurry of the midwife life does not slow down during trauma, even if you beg it to.
Whether the shift in energy from 2019 to 2020 was palpable for you or not, what have you noticed is different? Before physical distancing rearranged out personal interaction styles, how do you remember your way of being near others? How would you describe your listening style? Do you remember greeting loved ones with hugs and close laughter (I do)? What risks did you take inside and outside of yourself, and how did they feel?
For me, as the crescendo into the new year swelled, I put myself out into the world in vulnerable ways, in what amounted to over 35 pages of writing. In the span of two months I applied to a PhD program, applied to a Medical Ethics Fellowship, and submitted my first solo-authored journal article, all of which ran along the same theme of "consent in gynecologic care." This topic area holds a lot of weight for me, as it amounts to not only a personal interest but a cumulation toward my future life's work. I spent weeks upon weeks of refreshing my email, checking the mailbox, and waking up wondering if any of that vulnerability would amount to something. This collectively added to the stress already underway in figuring out the rest of my professional life. I did not get into the PhD program, I did get into the Fellowship (the first midwife ever admitted to the program), and I received the wonderful news of "revise and resubmit" for the journal article. Two out of three brought me a lot of joy, and I'm holding on to that.
Halfway through our mugs, let's reflect on joy. When you could be near others, how did joy feel as it emanated between people? How are you putting joy into the world now? What new joys are you finding in your body, in your home, in your quarantine companions of plants or flowers or sunlight or roommate or raindrops-on-windowpanes or partner or children?
I overflowed with joys these past months. I guided a student through completing their first pap smear. We talked through it beforehand, then I was there to help step-by-step, talking while they focused on the tools, gently changing angle and pressure of the speculum, holding specimen containers while they embarked on their first muscle memory of what-when-where-which hand, and then, once we'd left the room, I quietly cheered them on so they could see that I knew this was an important moment, we hugged, and then the day continued like it does. Nikki McClure came to Chicago and presented her new children's book, and my bestie and I went to hear her speak and gush about her talent. A few favorite quotes from that night: "Once you settle into a life of making, your body is a tool." "Write down what you want to make. Give yourself permission to make that." I'll admit I sobbed when I told her I'm a writer, and I'm trying to figure out how to make a full time life of it. Her response? "Write it all down." {insert more sobbing as I write that here, now.} I found a delicious gluten free cookie box mix and I'm making it once per week during COVID. Carmen Maria Machado's "In the Dream House" broke me wide open (CN/TW emotional abuse, which I have written about before) in different ways than "Her Body and Other Parties." (Linking to my local feminist bookstore to encourage ordering from small queer business and not Am**on.) I will continue to read each and every thing she ever writes. I'm listening to audiobooks through the Libby app, my favorite listen of late has been Glory Edim's "Well-Read Black Girl," and am now halfway through Nicole Dennis-Benn's "Here Comes the Sun." Last night we watched "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" which reminded me of the fellow French queer flick "Blue is the Warmest Color" in its quiet and long-emotional spaces, but different in that the former was led by lesbian gaze and the critique of the latter was the overwhelming sense of the male gaze.
The biggest joy of all in these months since my last coffee date? I successfully launched a weekly subscription newsletter! (Have you subscribed yet?! Would love for you to!) Each newsletter includes a weekly reflection, suggested reading for feminism, anti-racism, midwifery, and all things in-between, as well as scripts for both consumers and providers to improve communications and equalize power dynamics. Proud to have over 350 subscribers, active engagement via comments and emails, and and gifted over 100 student subscriptions during the upcoming three months I predict COVID will last. Join me there!
Taking our last sips, let's be real about this month as it near its end. WTF is happening. It's surreal and dystopian and has forced every crack in social / political / emotional / healthcare / racial structures to deepen and fail. How. Are. You. Doing? Honestly? How do you feel when you first wake up? What are the moments when you can forget about this secret scary "thing" outside, and then what is it like to remember? In what ways are you connecting with loved and cherished people, and in what ways are you connecting with yourself?
Not going to lie: this month has been especially tough. Those pre-existing difficulties (workplace trauma / institutional betrayal / degradation of the midwife service) continue to run concurrently to the added work and stress all in healthcare are managing right now. Providers in sexual and reproductive health, whether birthworkers or gynecologic cancer specialists or abortion providers, still have our jobs to do. We are not stopping in the face of this virus, because the essential life-saving healthcare of womxn's health continues despite and in spite of it. And to be in healthcare right now, where weeks upon weeks ago we started demanding attention to the issue and protection on the front lines, to have it all fall on deaf ears while we persist in showing up for work and providing good care, has been a helpless + desperation feeling. Yet, we continue, while finally hospitals catch up to the urgency and risk.
That Mr. Roger's quote about the helpers? I think of it often. And in the past five months of personal struggle and professional strife, the helpers for me were people who showed up in my own time of despair, not so much a visible and public time, not so much in ways anyone could have seen. They wrote recommendation letters. They read, and re-read, and read again, my draft personal statements for the Phd and Fellowship programs. Sent suggestions for finding moments to acknowledge trauma. Reached out over DM with words of friendship and love. Dropped off or mailed small tokens of kindness. With worsening COVID issues, helpers are also communicating with each other about what's working in their practice, where the questions still remain, and balancing the scary with the joyful.
For this next month, I'm back to my simple notebook to-do lists to try and stay focused. I'm back to strategizing within Feminist Midwife work, with a focus on building community to support students in these next months after the cancellation of call clinical rotations and commencements (have ideas? comment below!). I'm back to reconsidering what, if any, next academic step makes sense for me and my goals (NB: the DNP is not for me for my own reasons, whereas the PhD still may be). And I'm back to writing honestly about what's happening in midwifery for me right now, which is a lot of regular 'ol birthwork and gynecologic care in the time of COVID-19, a lot of just COVID-19, a lot of honest anger at the government system who severely lacked and is lacking in distribution of resources and public education management from the outset of this virus months ago, and a lot of caring for my wife and my family and my friends.
Let's stand. Let's ground our feet into the earth and stretch our arms toward the sky. Let's open our arms toward each other, from afar.
In solidarity,
Stephanie (Feminist Midwife)