My community, the place where I feel seen and safe, is writers.
My alignment, the people I feel challenged and inspired by, who I also spark, are harder to describe. I’m still looking for the words. Peace walkers. Kind talkers. The ones who talk to the wind so much that the idea of threats just doesn’t occur to them. The ones who rarely, if ever, insult even in ‘jest’ because they know that even a papercut harms. The ones some people call weird, but who always bring a lightness when they’re around.
My friends are all kinds of folks, everywhere. And I make friends with all kinds of people. But getting closer to the people with which I feel community, and getting connected to the peace walkers, the ones who don’t just say it but live it, that matters.
I’m going to reconnect to my studies and practice of non-violent communication. But I’m calling it peace talk. And next might be trying to join a peace talking org, like the center for non-violent communication.
The universe kept me from being a soldier 24 years ago. It’s time to acknowledge that miracle. The only reason I didn’t become a 2nd Lt. enlistee Army intelligence officer in 2001 was because of ulcerative colitis. Which I now know was rooted in my CPTSD. It’s a quirk of fate, luck.
I tried again to join. Same rejection. My doctor reluctantly wrote me a letter to join. It was rejected.
A year later, the same Army recruiter who said my condition could get someone killed on the battlefield offered me $30,000 to join. By then, I was a quiet protest organizer in Seattle. I had decided to never do NSA contract gigs again. And I was grateful I wasn’t in uniform participating in the madness.
I said no.
I’ve always been grateful for the coincidence, of that luck. But now, for the first time, I’m letting myself see the synchronicity in it. That it was a gift, part of that conversation with life we’re all having. And that now, 24 years later, I understand something beautiful and real about my path.
I’m doing all the things I need to do. I make mistakes, sure, and I learn from them. I learn from doing, and from doing things perfectly sometimes, too. And right now, this very moment, I just saw something so clearly about the path ahead.
And I’m grateful.