Find The Outside

In episode thirteen, Tim and Tuesday continue their conversation around history, impact, and our world — since context fundamentally alters how we relate to each other in the work of change, we delve in.

Tim: Vulnerability is about revealing something of yourself, which invites others to do the same. 

Tues: Vulnerability feels like something we, as a people, are seeking and need to search out. This podcast is on-air vulnerability; it’s a way of walking our talk. Brené Brown does incredible work around vulnerability for those listening who are interested.

Tues: On both sides of my family, not one of us had wealth or resources or access to power. That’s why, in some ways, I can look back on my lineage and feel unafraid and only pride.

Tim: When I think of my ancestors, it’s coming from a place of “Who bares the blame?”

Questions from Tim:

1. What is the source of pride and awe?

2. What do you mean by the legacy of brutality?

3. What is it like to have no written history/context?

Tues: Pride and awe comes from understanding our survivorship and the enslavement of my people—what it took to physically survive being taken from our lands and stacked like wood in the bottom of ships. That legacy of treatment and building the economy of North America on our backs continues today.

Tues: You can look up forever the impact of generational trauma and enslavement on Black parenting. When you are brutalized, you in turn, brutalize others. Then there’s also the brilliance of a diamond being crushed so hard which can also make you shine, at least in my experience.

Tues: A lot of black folks in this country have done a lot of work to refine and reclaim their roots. I have not done that work. It’s a big, gaping wound. A big part of my practice is actively reclaiming the land I am on. My only ancestry are enslaved people. There’s a huge loss in not knowing what came before.

Tim: Do you ever feel your ancestors? 

Tues: Yes, 100%. That pride, awe and understanding is automatically accessible to me. That is something about feeing it in my blood. I think about myself as the culmination and not an obligation to them. I am in this life to dance and be joyful, and make change.

Tues: I want to leave listeners aware of my huge amounts of gratitude and I hope that that infuses my work and our work. And I hope I can stand strong in that.

Poem: W.S. Merwin, "Thanks" from Migration: New and Selected Poems

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is

Song: “Family of Aliens” by Teleman

Subscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com.

Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.

Duration: 39:53

Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good Studios

Theme music: Gary Blakemore

Episode cover image: source