The thing is, the more I’ve built my work, and therefore my life and sense of self and worth, on a foundation of martyrdom, the more I have placed my identity and self-worth in opposition to my pursuit of joy, of inspiration, curiosity, openness, and light. I have placed it in opposition to creativity. I want to see what happens, who I become and what I could create, when I embrace wholeness and joy and stepping into life as me, a creative person. I do so asking what it might look like to stand still and stop the sun and attempting for my daily life to be a curious enactment of the answer.
Tag Archives: Kenya
Will you accompany us?
I have always wanted for my research to create something beautiful, and now, placing our trust in each other, nine families of children with shortened and important lives and I have committed to doing so together. But to do so, we need a broader community to join us. So we are asking for you to accompany us.
Expanding Our Knowledge: Why I’m starting a PhD and how you can join me
…palliative and hospice care for children are slowly developing outside of the US and UK and in resource-limited settings. As they develop, it’s critical we understand from the communities experiencing and surviving the death of a child what death means to them, how dying enters their lives, how the story of death and dying is told, who they need to be in the dying process, what surviving well includes, and what the good death looks like.
Things That Appear Broken But Upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful
In the midst of many movements, physical and figurative and of the soul, words I once wrote have a way of coming back around: 11 November 2014 Things That Appear Broken But Upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful A slight glint of the equator peeks through the rust on the dilapidated gurney. Soft eyelashes continuing toContinueContinue reading “Things That Appear Broken But Upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful”
wait
I learned to wait in Kenya, sitting in the shade of trees, being, breathing, until the time comes. Sometimes for the matatu to finally guzzle and cajole itself to a start, sometimes for the quorum to slowly make their way over the bulbous stones to the collection of chairs wobbling on uneven ground circled intoContinueContinue reading “wait”
to be divided/whole
Bewhere your feet are,I’m told.Yet as the plane sweepstoward Kisumu, rifted valleybelow, universearound, descending towardhome,I find my mindresting notin Kenya, but justwhere my feet are:air,among clouds,at the shelter far away,that place of refugeto whom life has entrustedviolence,with the little boywho thrashed angry,body consumed with ragebigger than bones,as he looked to the sky, wonderedaloud‘what do cloudsContinueContinue reading “to be divided/whole”
Today, I embark
Today, I embark on a 100-day journey around Europe with only my feet to carry me (and whatever I can squeeze into my 10kg backpack).
One Year Has Now Passed: A Letter to Moses
Moses, on this day, I don’t know where or how you are, but I do know that after having lived the extraordinary honor of being a mama to you, I am now grateful to carry you, carry your joy and your resilience, carry the sincerity of your smile and the light of your little life, with me as I fiercely love this world, so that all whose paths may cross mine might be graced with some small sense of what it is to have loved and been loved by you.
That is Something
I have witnessed suffering. I have seen horrible things. I have watched indescribable pain. I turned around; there two babies lay next to one another on the bed, silenced by pain, save for slight mewing. Their bandages were removed and I glanced twice, three times, four before I could comprehend what was missing: their tinyContinueContinue reading “That is Something”
172 pages
Last Monday morning, I printed, hole-punched, bound, and turned in to my advisor the 172 pages of my senior thesis. I began thinking about this project five years ago,before I even committed to attend Kalamazoo College, as a prospective student excited and intrigued by its possibilities. I began to consider its subject four years agoContinueContinue reading “172 pages”
poetry
This trimester, in addition to writing my senior thesis on the intersections of compassion and poverty in care for ill and dying children in Kenya, in addition to transitioning back into life away from Kenya, in addition to learning how to walk peacefully through life’s unexpected gusts of wind, I am taking a creative writingContinueContinue reading “poetry”
365 days full
Recently, a friend who also writes, and who has also had a year of seeing life through broadening lenses, reflected on the past twelve months of learning and discovery in pictures. As many words often do, it spurred my own thoughts, caused me to look through delightful photo memories, moved me share. A year agoContinueContinue reading “365 days full”
back/here
On being back/here: Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it feels like being hugged. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it all feels fuzzy, like I’m walking around this world in a bubble only I can see and inside of which there is a Moses and there are children dying and there are momentous-seeming movements. But mostly itContinueContinue reading “back/here”
just like that, it’s time
Written 7 August 2014 Take it as it exists before you. Take the sun as it rises before you, not some other view. Take the coffee as it sits before you, not some newly fresh, attempting to be perfected pot. Take the child as it laughs before you, not some dream of where their lifeContinueContinue reading “just like that, it’s time”
what to do with it
I’m horrible at being a researcher. I’m not actually horrible; I listen well during interviews and ask follow up questions and pay attention and write detailed field notes and, when I don’t procrastinate, I can transcribe an interview like nobody’s business. But when I’m on the wards with the child life health workers, in theContinueContinue reading “what to do with it”
giving and living love
Someone who I deeply respect told me yesterday that after many years of searching, he had finally decided to throw away all of his beliefs but one: that god is a verb, not a noun, and that that verb is love. What I’ve learned this summer is how to give and live love with allContinueContinue reading “giving and living love”
a heavy heart desperate to return
Sometimes it feels overwhelming. Sometimes you can’t get the memory of that boy out of your head, his small body, which in mind is not so young, limp and alone in that dark room. Sometimes you cry for the wonderful giggling and sweet little girls who you laughed with as you realize how much theirContinueContinue reading “a heavy heart desperate to return”
hellos and goodbyes
A close friend sent me these words from Dr. Miriam Adeney yesterday, saying they reminded her of me: “You will never be completely at home again because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” ThisContinueContinue reading “hellos and goodbyes”
sustaining compassion
compassion, huruma n. – sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it It is not that I must sustain my compassion. It is that my compassion sustains me. I often give myself mantras during different periods of my life when I need something particular to give me strength, give me guidance,ContinueContinue reading “sustaining compassion”
dear moses, you may not know it, but
June 2021 amendment: these were my true feelings at the time that I wrote this. I have since reflected, learned, and held myself to account for what I didn’t know then, and what I chose not to know then. You can read that truth here. Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I’m leavingContinueContinue reading “dear moses, you may not know it, but”
callie daniels-howell 