2018 Burn Down - and Happy New Year!

It's the third annual.  Well, you didn't think a huge, amazing, life-changing event like having a kid was going to stop me, did you?  Of course you didn't.  You've met me.

As I look back on this year, there are so many things that went disastrously wrong.  Seriously.  Disasters.  Make better choices, Manisha.  Also, trust your gut; it's always right.  Whether it's the way my family is supposed to grow, or the people I'm supposed to date, when to take the babe to the doctor, or what kind of ceiling fan I should put in my kitchen - my gut is probably right.  Maybe in 2019 I can keep that at the front of my mind, and heart too.

I spent the first 45 days of this year prepping for a daughter I don't get to raise.  Leaving North Carolina with harrowingly empty arms, I cursed everything; by everything, I mean people who literally have nothing to do with Kennedy.  Pretty unproductive, but it turns out that's one of the things we do with grief.  I think of Kennedy often, because you can't suddenly replace the person who profoundly shifted who you are.  Max is the child I get to raise, and yet, Kennedy made me a parent.  Only for 36 hours, mind you, but that sort of transformation doesn't simply vanish.

For all the traumatic parts of the year, there were equal and opposite moments of magnitude.  The birth of my son.  THE BIRTH OF MY SON.  To be there, to witness his first breath, his first cry, his first bath, his first bottle, his first everything.  The magnitude of that is something I could never had understood until it was happening.  Then, there was that unbelievable moment when I realized that my son comes with an entire family I love.  I don't have inlaws, but I have my son's family.   A son, and a family that comes with him.  What a world.

There were so many things, so many events, in 2018.  Adoption disruption, a seriously toxic girlfriend when I had no business trying to date anyone anyway, weird reconciliations with an old partner, synchronistic confirmation to stay the course, lost and found rings (I'm still freaking out about the rings, OMG), the birth of the child I get to parent, a pretty traumatic car accident, busting out of my comfort zone only to find 9 AMAZING women who have become my Parent Tribe, the loss of the only stable and consistent living being I've ever known, and the loss of her favorite person, someone I have always loved, missed, and wondered about.  It's a hard thing, you know, to lose a friend you haven't reconciled with.  It is my greatest wish that Mark knew I love him deeply, his odd quirks, his quiet disposition, his haphazard clumsy, and infinitely genuine heart.  I guess I'll never know if he did or not.

Events.  What are they other than just these things that happen to us, because of us, in spite of us, often with no purpose?  Well, if 2017 was my year of active decision-making, 2018 was simply an exercise in leaning in.   It took all my guts, the broken pieces of my heart, a strong core, a metric fuckload of tears, and a hell of a lot of accepting the love that surrounds me.  You know what it did to me?  It humbled me.  The droves of people, people I haven't spoken to in years, I've never known in person, and my best friends, who all found a moment, during any number of tragic events, to wish me well was simply overwhelming.  You will never know what it means to me to receive notes, emails, texts, or voicemails from people asking for absolutely nothing.  Messages to say "I love you and you don't have to respond."  And you know what?  I did not respond.  I couldn't.  I didn't have it in it me, but you did it anyway.  Many of you said "I love you and you don't have to respond" again, and again.  What a gift that you watched me lean in so fiercely, but left me to do it on my own.  The love you've shown me, without expecting anything back, not even an acknowledgment, is something that has profoundly changed me.  Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

As is tradition, I'll build my fire today, and let it burn away all the parts of this year that will not serve me.  I will *attempt* to let go of the toxic, the wavering about Haylie, the concern that Mark didn't know how I felt.  I will make peace with the loss of someone who wasn't mine to begin with, even if she fundamentally changed me.  I will watch the angry words burn away, and ask for the patience and peace to truly forgive the people who said them.  What's left, as we all know, is ashes, and on their foundation, is all the potential for what 2019 could bring.

My profound wish for all of us is the following:

May we find the tenacity inside of us to rise above the hurt, the anger, and The Events;

May we lean into the hard things, and support our people while they do the same;

May we find deep peace in the knowledge that things will change and we should expect to be tested and challenged, and perhaps we don't have to learn anything at all from it;

May we rest when we are weary, but perhaps prioritize it before we have drained ourselves;

No matter how lost, scared, or devastated we are, may we find the guts to be who we are;

Eventually, this too will pass.

Happy New Year, my friends, and best wishes as we move into another year.

Out and proud!

My name is Manisha Antani.  I work in CCAR Retail Risk Analytics, and I’m really excited to be here today.

For me, my coming out story is more of an exploration of self than the first and specific moment of saying it out loud to friends or family.  Both my sexual orientation and gender identities have always been a moving target throughout my life.  Today, and for the last several years, I identify as a pansexual, gender non-conforming woman.  By the way, pansexual is an orientation that may not be very well understood.  It means that I am attracted to people who fall into any or all gender identities.  If you are looking for which letter in LGBTQIA+ to attach it is, then I suppose it belongs to "bisexual", meaning attracted to two or more genders.   Because pansexual, gender non-conforming woman is an awful lot of words, I pretty frequently just say “I am queer.”  I like that word because it marries together all the dimensions of my gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.

I don’t really have a story of identify that starts out with "I always knew I was different."  I grew up having crushes on boys in grade and middle school, and had a vague idea that maybe I would like women someday.  Since I hadn't really had that experience by the time I was 17-18, I figured that vague idea might be purely hypothetical.  Growing up, I didn't have a lot of exposure to anyone who wasn't cisgender and straight, at least, not anyone who was out.  As an adolescent, the identity dimensions I grappled with were more about gender identify and presentation rather than my sexual orientation.  As an adult, I look back and wish I had access to words like "queer", "genderfluid", and "gender nonconforming" when I was 15, but the best my community could come up with was "tomboy;”  that never felt like the right word to describe me, but as a rough and tumble kid, I rolled with it.

When I went away to college, I had a lot more access to words, people, experiences, and identities, and everything started to shift for me.  I had my first crush on a woman in the theatre company named Jane* and I was completely enamored with her ability to build sets for the theatre company, her hair style, and her voice.  I started to toy with labels like "heteroflexible" or "straight-ish”, but even then, I never worried that much about what label I should pick.  It seemed to me that suddenly the people who were worried about my label were the people who saw something they thought I didn’t see --- my crush on Jane.*   Mostly, they were bystanders and not my family and friends.

There is a lot of time in between college and six years ago, but that’s about when I started to identify, loudly, as something other than straight.  I still didn't have the right label, but one thing I was certain about is that I'm not straight.   To that end, I never really came out, because the label aside, I was never really in.  I shared all the varying dimensions of my identity with my people as I learned them about myself.  I was pretty matter of fact about it, kinda like saying “I like that new restaurant up the street." My family and friends never asked any follow up questions indicating confusion; it seems that they didn't think I was "in" either.

What has been surprising to me is that although I never had to "come out" to family and friends, as I have become more comfortable being myself, I find myself "coming out" to strangers or acquaintances all the time.  Everyone wants to know which box to put me in, and since several aspects of my identify are pretty fluid, people have a hard time reconciling what they think they know versus what is real for me.  One additional complexity is that I've recently become a single parent by choice.  My son is 5 months old.  I have had several people who I see in the community stop to talk to me about my new family, and they are utterly perplexed about how I have a child now.  One particularly interesting experience happened about a month ago.  There is a man at a local coffee shop who I see around often, but we don’t really know each other.  He started a discussion with me by saying "I've seen you with the baby, and I know you're gay so I'm wondering how you had him."  I was rattled by his assertion of a label that doesn’t fit.  It was so much for me to unpack that I decided I simply wasn’t going to spend much time on a conversation with him.  Experiences like that jolt me into remembering that our culture is extremely binary; unfortunately, for those of us who fall into a category defined by fluidity, our erasure is a real thing.

One really important part of my life, however, was my move to Barclays about 3 years ago.   At my previous company, my identity was ever changing as I was learning about myself, and I think many of the people I worked with there still have a view about my identity that, while not inaccurate, is incomplete. However, when I moved to Barclays, I went as a pansexual, gender non-conforming woman.  I never had to explain who I am, because this version of me is the only version people there have ever known. The ability to come into the company as myself has been instrumental in my ability to grow, consistently and confidently, for both my professional and personal life.  I am thankful to Barclays and the Spectrum team for allowing and expecting me to be nothing more or less than myself.

Friends: Several days ago, Reverend Greg from UUSMC asked if I would be interested in participating in today's service.  He explained that last year, to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, he wrote him a letter of several things he wanted to say to him, if he could.  His ask: did I want to write to him too, and share it with the congregation?

Yes, I did want to participate, and answered him promptly.  "I do but don't have the faintest idea what I will say."  As quickly as I hit send, I started thinking about my upcoming adoption; interestingly, only a few minutes later, I received a response from Reverend Greg suggesting perhaps I could write about my new daughter.  My response to him, again immediately and off the cuff, became the basis of what I shared today.

--------

Reverend King,

I write to you with tremendous joy in my heart, but also relentless fear. This cacophony of feelings is related to the news that I have been chosen to adopt an infant.  The quarter sheet of paper provided held only basic information; included information, however, was that my impending child is an African American baby girl.

I wasn’t surprised to be matched with someone who is African American.  You see, Reverend King, upon announcing my pending adoption, I have been asked, with annoying regularity, “what sort of child” I wanted to mother.  I quickly learned that’s code for “what color will they be?”

The agency forms had neatly laid out boxes.  Race, it asked, with random bubbles carefully crafted next to my choices.  I didn’t much care for the question, so I snuffed out the answers and simply wrote - Race: Human.

The state of Pennsylvania asked questions too, though more thoughtfully crafted, about transracial adoptions. I interpreted these sets of questions as checkpoints to ensure I wasn’t planning to “white wash” my child.  I wondered: could I truly provide the environment a child of another race truly deserved, one of openness, real diversity, and love?  I could, I thought, and soon an official letter approved me to adopt “a child of any gender or race.” It felt like victory!

Why then, do I mention this? Because despite my propensity to dismiss such trivial questions during the approval process, I was wholly unprepared for this new surge of fear about raising: 1. A child who is black 2. A confident, strong daughter, and 3. A black daughter --- all three things separate but interrelated.  I’m reminded time and again that world has moved forward in many ways since your life was taken, but not nearly forward enough. I wonder now: 

• How do I help my daughter trust police without ignoring Tamir Rice?   Tatyana Hargrove? Sandra Bland?
• How do I teach her to be safe when young girls are harassed because they simply have female bodies, without requiring her to take ownership of someone else's actions?    
• How will I be sensitive to what lies ahead of her, on account of her body, female and brown, without teaching her to fear or feel ashamed of who she is?  
• How on earth could the magnitude of that responsibility be something I haven't thought about every second of every day that I have known my daughter will be born brown-skinned, in Trump's America?

These are big questions with unclear answers.  I could sit in fear (and I have), but I have  also chosen to remember your legacy, Reverend King; I am committed to studying with fervor and respect.  I will read your letters, sermons, and speeches.  I will follow your guidance, and match your passion, to fight injustice, because as you said “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  If I am to mother a child of color, it becomes my responsibility to remember your life and your work.    It is only through action like yours that we will transform our country.

Thank you for being an example of who I want, no, who I need to be.

With love and peace,

Manisha

2017 Burn Down - and Happy New Year

Last year, a new tradition was born.  The last couple of days of the year, I started thinking about what was the most amazing parts of the year were, and what pain led me to it.  I let the things that no longer serve me, the heartache, the obliteration of The Things I Thought Might Be all burn into ash.  When it completed, the ash reminded me not to forget, and the new blaze reminded me how much fire was left inside me and my life.  I used it to launch a pretty fantastic 2017.

2016 was, unequivocally, most difficult year of my life, and yet 2017 has brought me the most transition.  It seems to have set me up for some of what life might look like.

Relationships ended and started (or rekindled briefly, then ended again) in 2017.  Those (re)starts are always wonderfully energetic, and as we all know, the goodbye parts are never fun; each of them taught me, however, a lot about who I am and what I'm here to do.  The destruction influenced (award-winning) art, especially Chaos.  It's not just Chaos in the environment we should talk about it - but it's that that we seal our unsightly or outlandish thoughts and hearts up and away.  Someone, an outsider or ourselves, pick a "place" where that goes, and we package it up neatly in a little boundary, were we expect it to stay for always.  That series, however, reminded me how much these things never have to stay there.  A broken relationship did that for me, and I'm so sorry for the pain it caused everyone, but couldn't be more thankful it's part of my story now.  The things I learned from relationships this year, and not just romantic ones, brought me several other works that I'm infinitely proud of: Negative Space, Un-Broken, Consciousness, and a series I haven't spoken much of yet ---- Falling From Grace.

A notable part of 2017 - my people are here, and safe.  That isn't lost on me, and it's not a mere platitude.  KittyKat is here, well and alive, and friends, what a blessing that is.  2017 reminded me not to take people for granted.  We have had the additions of HoeBaby3, and HoeBaby2 and HoeBaby3 continue to grow into independent, loving, funny little humans who challenge me (and their parents for sure) to be better everyday. My parents age, but gracefully, and I've become keenly aware of how we change as we grow older.  How grateful I am to have them and their support, regardless of how we fight or fuss.  How grateful I am, that as far as I can tell, my daughter will know and love all three of them, and remember them fondly.

The most exciting parts of 2017 are the ways my community and family has expanded this year, or the ways I'm planning for it very soon. What a blessing I found at the UU community.  I'm thrilled to be there, and find people who push me to think critically about justice, truth, and meaning.

Of course, as we know, there is the expansion of my personal household family!  I started forming it nearly 13 years ago when I brought Haylie home, but I took the first tangible steps to become a parent to a human this year.  After years of thought, false starts, and sudden stops, this is a real thing I'm doing.  Me.  A parent.  With an impending baby to come.  It's insane, and fantastic.  It's important to note, however, that process to apply and be approved taught me some amazing lessons about forgiving ourselves and our people.  As other things this year did, the process humbled me.  At each turn, I found that every person in my life, even acquaintances, colleagues, or near-strangers, want to help.  Pictures taken, letters written, countless edits given for draft upon draft, bags of gently used clothes or toys dropped off for our use, artwork that is just what I want for the nursery bought.  What an amazing community I have.  Thank you, dearly, from the bottom of my heart.

I'll burn down a lot of things this year, but literally none of what I love best about 2017 could have been without it.  I took steps this year to make my life be what I want because, as it turns out, you can't wait for other people to give it to you.  Not a lover, even the ones you thought would be forever, not a best friend, not your employer, not your art teacher.  If you want it, you make it so.  I know how much help and love I have, and without it, I couldn't be here; but it all started with my our own first steps I finally chose to take.

Burn down the heartache, the wish that things could be different.  Turn the love you still have for something that hurts you tragically into Nothing usable (but let is stay visible, like ash).  Burn down what seems like dead weight.  Burn down what the world asked you to be, but you hate.  Let that fire rage, friends, hot and vivid, and then take peace and comfort in how gently the embers glow when it's all over.  Let the red hot stirrings of what could be guide you in 2018.

Thank you for being part of my wonderful year.  I love each and every one of you.

I wish you love, peace, strength, joy, and, if i'm honest, heartache that will heal you sometime later - all for 2018.

And now, I have a fire to tend to.

2016 Burndown - and Happy New Year

I'm not much of a resolution-er.  I think we can change our lives moment by moment no matter what the calendar says.  I think most people who know me probably understand how that works for me.

Even without resolutions, I still take the time every year to reflect on what a total transformation 365 days can have on life. I've had a couple of major transformations in merely a year, but I think 2016 is the biggest.  There are so very many reasons, but it started out like this:

On January 1, I woke up and I thought I knew what the Rest of My Life was going to look like.  32 days later, everything I thought I knew burned down around me as I watched the Rest of My Life walk out of the front door.  It was tempting to stand still and burn with it; Ani DeFranco reminded me, instead, that I could "dare to rise up from the ash."

2016 was hard for a lot of reasons, the Rest of My Life not withstanding.  Transitions in family, in professional identity, in self identity, in relationships with friends old and new, in relationship with myself - all this contributed to what made the weight of 2016 nearly crush me.  All the details are not important unless you were there; if you were there, we need not continuously remind ourselves.

The significance and impact of this year is as profound as it was challenging, though.  In multi-dimensional ways, I have been the beneficiary of heartache.  I was battered and bruised, even broken sometimes, but I healed better, stronger, braver.  Everything is on the upswing now, but it wouldn't be without the brush fire that cleared my path.

To honor the brush fire, to truly make peace with what this adversity brought me, I've spent the morning thinking about what parts of 2016 need burning.  What is still in my way?  What must I let go of?  What can I transform into ash?  What must I hold onto?

In 45 minutes, I'll go off grid for most of the rest of this day, to build a fire in a new back yard.  I'll burn the heartache, the anger, the bitter, the ugly.  I'll burn the missteps at work, the unhealthy expectations, the disappointments.  I'll burn down what felt like rejection, what was rejection, what felt like rejection, but actually wasn't.  When that is all gone,  when I've let go of claiming all that hurt me, or haunts me, I'll reach into the remnants of that fire, and pull back a piece of wood with life still left.  That piece of wood is everything wonderful about my life, everything I couldn't have or be if not for this year.

It's the reality of friends who stayed nearby even when I needed to go it alone.
It's three 1,000 year friends I found on a river in canoes.
It's the bond of friendship with someone who found me broken, but let me mend myself.
It's the potential of an incredible love and family I'm building with someone I never expected to find.
It's the space to grow into new opportunities in the industry and the community.
It's the fuel for the things that will come in 2017 that I can't possibly anticipate.

Tomorrow, I'll start a new fire with that piece of wood, and some part of that new fire will become the next fire, and the next, etcetera and so on.

It's a nod to the cyclical nature of life.  It's an acceptance that when life burns down, it's not a loss but clarity.  It's a reminder that the best things that happen in life can only happen when you've made space for them.

Be a phoenix, my friends, and rise up from the ash.

Happy New Year, and many blessings in 2017.

Shakedown dreams walking in broad daylight

Three hun-dred six-ty fix de-gress

Burning down the house

It was once upon a place sometimes I listen to  myself

Gonna come in first place

People on their way to work baby

What did you expect

Gonna burst into flame

-Talking Heads

Nani's and Michael's toast

As I did for Sara's and Jeff's wedding, I'm publishing the written version of my toast from the wedding.  Per usual, the version I delivered was slightly altered and adlibbed, so that I could be in the moment instead of my head.

As I said on Saturday night, I love, adore, and treasure you both, Michael and Nina.

Be well and tremendous love,

Nish 

Good evening, everyone.  For those who don’t know me, I’m Manisha, Nina’s oldest sister.  Except, Nina is not what typically I call her.  I call her Naniben.  Nani - baby.  Ben - sister.  Naniben. Baby sister.

 

Tonight, I see her sitting there, a grown person who just married her best friend a couple of hours ago, a strong, smart, sassy, gorgeous woman, but even still, the fact remains, she’ll always be my baby sister.  

 

Nina and I have a solid sisterhood, and very close friendship.  We have always confided in each other and asked for advice.  So, I knew something in Nina’s world had shifted very shortly after she came home from her first break in college.  She had a long distance suitor at the time, but all of her stories revolved strangely around this boy from Long Island, a charming, funny, bookworm with the surname: Mogavero.  Sara and I teased our 18 year old sister about her “boyfriend Michael.”  “My best friend,” she would quickly correct.  Sara and I would glance at each other as if to say “yeah right, just a friend.” 

 

Except now, all these years later, it’s clear to me that in those moments, all three of us were all right.  Michael is her best friend, yes, but never “just a friend.”  As I’ve watched these two come into their own, I see a steady partnership has emerged - a strong, responsible, and steadfast partnership.

 

You know what else  I see when I watch them, though?  I see a funny, solid, fulfilling friendship. Michael and Nina live for adventure, and know how to find, make, and have fun.  They are playful together, often affectionally and gently teasing the other.  They make each other laugh all the time.  They listen, and take each other’s concerns seriously.  Every chance they have, they find things to do together  - and most importantly, they enjoy each other while they do it - kayaking, spearfishing, traveling.  As any pair of good friends should, the two of them continuously remember, explore, and identify with the things that made them even like each other in the first place.   

 

To Nina - Nani, I love, adore and treasure you.  I look up to you as much as I look out for you, and I am so happy to see you married to your best friend.

 

To Michael - Brother, I love, adore and treasure you.  If I could have designed a partner for Nina, it would have been you.  

 

To both of them - Michael and Nina, love, adore and treasure each other.  Protect each other from the world, but protect your friendship above all us.

 

So now, if everyone could please raise their glasses, a toast - to Nina and Michael.  May you remain fabulous friends forever.  Congratulations.

 

 

C'est fini

If you're friends with me on facebook, you haven't escaped knowing that, over the last year, I've worked on an ocean themed ceramic set to be displayed at Nani's and Michael's wedding.  The wedding came and all twelve pieces made it unscathed!  :)  The set up turned out phenomenonly. 

A thirteenth last minute item, a write up about the project and me (written by me), was printed and framed to be displayed with the pieces.

For anyone who is interested in that writing:

​The dusty, messy, unmanageable earth has an unlimited capacity to fascinate me.  In my life, I’ve felt perpetually compelled to touch muck: silt at the bottom of a pond, broken shells mixed into wet sand on the shoreline, or mud that forms in the divots of front yards after summer rain.  It’s not surprising then, that my love affair with ceramics is unrelenting.

 

​I returned to the studio about eighteen months ago; six months into my return, Michael and Nina were engaged.  Shortly after their engagement was announced, they asked me to incorporate my work into their wedding reception.   At the time of the request, Michael and Nina had few specifications, and any time I asked them for guidance, they assured me: “We trust your vision.  Do it how you see it, and it will be exactly what we want.”

 

        How’s that for pressure? 

 

​After considering the options, I set out to design a new series for them that would encompass a celebration of the love affair these two have with each other and life; a love affair, it seems, that is not unlike mine with the earth. In preparation, I spent several months thinking about the two of them, and not about the series.  What do I know about them?  What do they love about each other?  How do they live their lives?  After searching, I realized the answer was always the same; they adore adventure.  

 

​Their newest adventure before the engagement was a recent relocation to Miami, and the most consistent part of their lives after that move was a tremendous amount of time spent on the water.  It seemed my baby sister and Her Love found peace kayaking, sailing, spearfishing, and snorkeling; the two were clearly drawn to the ocean.  

 

​Therefore, this series came into existence as a nod to their seafaring; it is twelve structures depicting a coral reef, complete with the fish that swim through them.  The vagueness of form is intentional, a gentle acknowledgment of the ocean rather than a realistic replica of their Miami sea.   As we celebrate the beginning of Michael’s and Nina’s new life, their willingness to take risks, and their ability to move through the world on their own terms, I invite you to explore these pieces as you wish; please find the wonders of the ocean as they emerge from the muck.

 

​Michael and Nina, I thank you for trusting me with this project.  Congratulations, and may the Gods and Goddesses of the sea always bless you.

 

With tremendous love,

Manisha

Congrats, Nina and Michael!