Over the last four weeks, I found myself logged out my email accounts, Instagram and LinkedIn. “On rest break through July 28th” — was  the title of my auto-response. What follows is a breadcrumb trail of dispatches — quick notes, messages and reminders I hope to return to time and time again. I hope they lead you to laughter, inquiry, and new ways of exploring your own rest and nourishment practices.

On a bright and sometimes windy Sunday afternoon, we set out to perform a ceremony: the release of the butterfly. We walked together, one step at a time carrying the butterfly and remembering “yes, it will take one step at a time.”

The benches of Central Park held up a mirror this week, asking: does my day reflect how I want to be remembered or does it reflect how I’m actually living my life in alignment (or misalignment) with my legacy vision? Legacy: it’s a discipline of the now. It’s a set of intentional actions and decisions about how you’re spending your money and time. It’s a set of intentional choices about what you consume, who you surround yourself with, and more.

As my husband and I walked the perimeter of the lawn’s fencing, I observed the vibrant green lawn sprouting and remembered the mud of the concert of last summer. I remembered the dry and hot days that would follow. I remembered the snowmen created on the lawn at the beginning of the year. So much terrain had been covered in the months the Great Lawn was opened and creating space for New Yorkers. Of reminding people that majestic green space can still exist in one of the world’s largest cities. That afternoon, as dogs and kids who we passed longed for more space as we walked, I realized a few things about honoring resting soil and the liminal space in between winter and spring, endings and beginnings.

I do not think it is just happenstance that I gravitate towards water when I’m seeking clarity, reconnection with my inner self, and peace. I head to the Highland to celebrate how far I’ve come, rejuvenate, and leverage its elevation to give me perspective. But the water is different — it is a place where I feel held in the space in between endings and beginnings. The space of not always having the answer, but knowing something is possible. The space that can sometimes feel like a free fall. The space in between grief and joy.

There continue to be so many external and internal forces attempting to take us off of our legacy paths. And so this January, let’s do something different.

Maybe we can watch the birds and remember: nature does not get an artificial reset every January. And neither do our legacies. Just like nature, legacies are generational plans, patterns, and assignments. Let’s slow up, be still, and not fall into the traps of short-term resolution planning.

As the new year unfolds, let’s sit at the edge of an emergent future, and surrender to love, collectivism, and stillness.

As 2023 comes to a close, will you meet me at the Highland?

A place to see, feel, remember, re-member, and celebrate how far we’ve come?

A place to surrender into knowing: we are more than enough.

It has been a while since I have written. In a way I was stuck in the liminal space of summer and fall. Maybe the prolonged warmer temperatures in mid-September left me longing for next summer already. Or maybe I was left nostalgic for Lochearn Pool, my childhood summer haven up the street from where my family would swim from dawn to dusk until Labor Day. Perhaps the transition into the final days of summer and the autumnal equinox left me nervous about what would be on the other side. How the shifting sands in politics, philanthropy, and everyday life about the value and worthiness of Black humanity and women’s rights would continue to place me on the defensive. I wondered, as I honored and celebrated the progress, wins, and lessons of the year so far, “What shoe might drop?” “What more can I be doing — producing?” “What seeds of mine might bloom this fall? What does it mean about my leadership if the seeds do not bloom?” I stayed quiet, drifting through much of September and into October unwilling to surrender to the change in seasons.

From the pavement that twists around Seneca Village in Central Park, to the shoreline of Martha’s Vineyard, to the pages of memories of Highland Beach in my father’s drawings, and more — I’ve spent the summer in deep exploration with how nature has served as a refuge and a catalyst for Black legacies. Most recently, I took a few team members on a walk through Central Park, asking them to take note of what nature teaches us about nourishing Black brilliance and imagination. What unfolded were divine truths — or revelations — about the role of the natural world to generations of Black legacy architects.

This blog post looked a whole lot different 24 hours ago. But in a burst of insomnia it changed.  I spent yesterday afternoon researching 1923 and the world my Grandma Ruth was born into in North Carolina. A year defined by insidious racism and segregation, the Rosewood massacre of 1923, and the beginnings of the Golden Age of the Harlem Renaissance — where Black art and expression would defy the master narratives of Black unworthiness.  I went to bed thinking about the viral video of Vice President Kamala Harris responding to the most recent attack on Black worthiness in Florida. I wondered: what and how will the young people in my life learn about the year of my Grams’ birth? Beginning at 2 am this morning, I intently rewrote this piece. Known as Ruth the Truth in many family conversations nowadays, this blog post’s evolution represents the three anchors of her legacy: (1) community care, (2) speaking and shining a bright light on the truth, and (3) centering and nourishing the Black soul. 

I entered a walking labyrinth meditation in April 2023 asking for a sign. I was at an ending that I was having a hard time honoring, celebrating, and growing from. I took a deep breath and stepped into the mystery of the labyrinth’s stones and curves. Into the seemingly simple design — a nook in the middle of tall, tall trees that held the stories of the generations that came before me. I stepped into a seemingly simple design. And yet, complexities unfolded. 

Entire generations and ecosystems live and flourish in Blackness: look beneath the soil and you find the deep roots of trees, hundreds of years old. You find the creation of new life in the burrows of animals. Look beneath the soil and you remember that our ancestors weaved seeds into their hair as they were stolen from their lands. The weaving of the seeds in their hair was an act of hope - of discerning the possibility that one day the seeds from their homeland would continue to take root and bloom for their children’s children. Our Blackness roots, grows, and blooms innovations, progress, and joy. So what will it take to step into the fullness of our possibility of our Blackness?

“Raccoons wear masks. And I’m wondering: what mask might have served you or protected you that you need to put down now in order to move forward in your legacy building?” - My coach asked me last spring. Whew, well that’s a word. Over the coming hours, days, and months, I’d find myself in deep inquiry with the different masks I’ve worn - in service of protecting myself, in search of belonging, in pursuit of comforting others - and how they were constraining me from tapping into the abundance of possibility and power that exists within me.

My vision in 2020 to build a legacy of sustaining Black women leaders differently was confronted with my superpower telling myself to write a plan rooted in urgency, constant activity, and scarcity. I would have to wipe clean how I cultivated and nourished my superpower if i was going to build THP and my legacy. I would have to surrender to  new ways of nourishing my vision in order to see possibility — in order to see the future.  Join me in watching the future through the stoic Great Blue Heron, the time traveling journeys of the Red Tailed Hawk, and the silence of the Great Horned Owl. 

Over the last two months, I’ve found myself in deep inquiry with trees, wondering what I can learn from their roots below the surface to help me in crafting a set of intentions for embodying grounding this year and throughout my own legacy building.

I used to be anxious about the return from winter breaks, but right now I’m blissfully ignorant about the to do lists and pressure to plan resolutions. Right now I choose to stay surrounded by this feeling of presence. Of grounding in a trail of snow.

I started 2020 deteriorated; for years I did not treat my body as deserving of respite. And then, the week before the NYC shutdown happened.