First - a couple of urgent news stories about Sudan.
And, as foreign nations evacuate their citizens, many of them are landing in Djibouti
I’m sure I’ll have more on this developing story from Sudan next week in the links letter.
I started to write about harassment and was going to tell you about the man who threw a big rock at me, bruising my ribs, last week. But I’m tired of writing about it. You can read this post and the other links.
I realize harassment happens in the USA as well. According to Runners World 84% of women have been harassed, assaulted, or even murdered while running and that was written in the USA. So I know I’m not moving to a place where this will never happen. But I also know that I won’t miss the specific ways it happens here, or the frequency of it.
"But it is in these desperately barren
landscapes you have come to learn:
this Glorious Living Water
running wild through your veins
is entirely
unafraid
of the dry, scored places of your fears.
So take heart when fear is raging.
Seek courage over control.
Learn to let go into the wild of things…”
- Morgan Harper Nichols, All Along You Were Blooming
And so I run on, letting go into the wild of things.
Kind of like packing up.
Kind of like starting over.
Kind of like who-knows-what-is-next.
Into the wild.
Running here has taught me that I am stronger than I think, that I sweat more than I ever thought humanly possible or reasonable, and that taking a walk break to cry over bruised ribs or because it is 110 degrees is not weakness it is gentleness.
I’m assuming there are broader life lessons there.
Do you have something you won’t miss about the place you live?
I'm so sorry that it's happened to you again. Maybe your example can make me braver, though. I don't face anything like that, but I've been staying inside because of anxiety just about crowded narrow streets. I'm not used to living in the center of a crowded city, and I hate it. I wonder if I should push for moving, like you mentioned moving from one place that you lived? (It seems like this would be so much easier if we didn't live in the very center of the city, in a high-rise!) Or maybe I should just think of you and be brave?
Thanks so much for your writing. I teach here in the US and a boy told a girl in my class to "get in the kitchen" among other rude things, and because I corrected him his parents are furious, and being unreasonable (it's too ridiculous to explain). Thanks for the reminder that this stuff matters and we have to speak up when we can.