The following passage reflects on lessons learned from Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ critically acclaimed book, Undrowned through referencing their chapter titles. Undrowned is a meditative guide helping Black folks learn how to breathe in “unbreathable circumstances”. Back in 2023, Alexis Pauline Gumbs visited Swarthmore’s campus and I attended several of her events (in addition to helping plan the week's events). We had the honor of reading Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ novel in the course I was taking, Ecofeminism(s), which I’m set to TA for my last semester at Swarthmore.
“Those who survived in the underbellies of boats, under each other under unbreathable
circumstances, are the undrowned. Their breathing did not make them individual survivors. It
made a context of undrowning. Breathing in unbreathable circumstances is what we still do
every day in the chokehold of racial gendered ableist capitalism. We are still undrowning. And
This we doesn’t only mean people whose ancestors survived the middle passage, because the
scale of our breathing is planetary. These meditations inspired by encounters with marine
mammals are an offering towards the possibility that instead of continuing the trajectory of
slavery, entrapment, separation and domination, and making our atmosphere unbreathable, we
might instead practise another way to breathe. And because our marine mammal kindred are
amazing at not drowning, they are called on as teachers, mentors, guides."
During my sophomore year of college, I really struggled with anxiety. I had severe panic attacks and trouble sleeping at night because I felt like I couldn’t breathe. This was a combination of new leadership roles, organizing for the first time and feeling like I had to do everything myself, hypochondria, bouts of sadness, and feeling very overwhelmed. Unknowingly, Undrowned and Alexis Pauline Gumbs came at the right time--a coincidence, one may even say (this will show up later). The following summer I led a meditation practice at an environmental justice summer celebration. Mediation, simply breathing, had helped me immensely that year so I was really excited to teach it to other people. Though I was worried how people would receive it, adults and children alike really enjoyed the practice of simply breathing in and out for a couple of minutes. The kids said it was something they could use in school after someone upset them to avoid an argument.
Overall, breathing, something we all need to do in order to survive. It’s something we haven’t figured a way around yet and arguably one of the most important bodily functions. There’s a reason why we can go three weeks without food, three days without water, and only three minutes without air. It’s also something we rush past and do unmindfully. Well, since reading Undrowned I’ve gotten the symbol for breathing in Sanskrit tattooed on my arm as a reminder to always take a second to breathe. It does wonders, chat. Let’s get into the piece.
~
April 26th, 2023
My asthma has been bothering me lately. It’s been me and my nebulizer up at 2 am, breathing together, trying to make it so that I can get some sleep. I’ve been gasping for air at various parts of the day, and at night this turns into a coughing fit. My asthma is likely being triggered by my allergies and all the goddamn pollen in this arboretum.
Today I learned that when I am gasping for air and crying out for help that there will be people to help me. People I never expected, but people nonetheless. However, there are people and circumstances that don’t want to help me--that leave me gasping for air and that take the last bit of air that is in my lungs. There are people and circumstances that are drowning me when all I’ve done is meet them with kindness.
There are people that take advantage of my passion, that try to force their story into the one I’m creating for myself, that are nowhere to be found when work comes along, but are there to smile in pictures.
breathe.
Never trust someone that has to see themselves represented in everything they interact with, in spaces that are not for them, but that are for others. Don’t trust people who can’t grapple with the fact that for the first time something in life is not about them or their lived experience.
I keep finding myself in the same place with different people. I blame my lack of boundaries, but I also blame the audacity of some people. Of people I thought could help me. Of people I thought were different. Of people I told myself to give a chance.
I need to honor my boundaries.
Who am I trying to prove myself to? Who am I running myself into the ground for? What debt do I owe?
I spent the last week crying to “Hold on” by the Internet begging myself to just hold on. I have never felt more physically ill in my life--and I wasn’t sick! I was just so exhausted from spreading myself thin trying to execute something on top of school work, classes, and other meetings. Someone told me this campus runs on Kayla and I thought that was so cute. I have my toe dipped in so much because I care so much about so many things, but that doesn’t leave room for rest. The truth is if I keep spreading myself thin like this I won’t be around to be give anything. I was really really worried for myself this week. I’m excited to do less and to honor that. I quit a job I was really excited about because I knew trying to juggle it with everything else was gonna kill me. I didn’t need it for the money, but rather for the experience. It was a writing gig that I’m really excited I got because I was excited to get paid to write (!!) and to have a writing job on my resume, and to improve my writing skills--which was one of my goals for the year. I do feel like my writing skills have improved this year.
I took an English class I was a bit intimidated to take, but I’ve really enjoyed the class and the Professor. He’s one of the few Professors that have given me feedback on my writing structure and who’s pushed me to improve. Not saying that other Professors/teachers in my life haven’t given me feedback, but usually it’s minor fixes. I want feedback, I want the critical lens, I want my writing to be better so I’m glad I took the course. It’s helped me so much already. Anyways, that was a tangent.
I was about to say that next semester I will knock my commitments down to two. Right now it’s like four and I wish I was joking. I don’t know who I’m trying to prove myself to, but even with the four commitments it doesn’t feel like I’m doing enough. I do really good and then I get congratulated and then I brush off the congratulations. I don’t let it sink in because I don’t feel like I deserve it (even though I want it!). Its scary to admit but I’m working on it. I’m working on resting. There’s so much to do though.
Sigh.
rest.
What do I do when things become unbreathable? Alexis Pauline Gumbs told me (not me directly, but to the people in the room we were in) that the universe is a poet, and she said this in regards to things we believe are coincidences. How could it be that this thing that has said connection to me in this way appeared in another place that I just happened to be in a moment where I needed it? Or instances where the things just work out in the perfect way with no manipulation from you.
This happened to me yesterday--the group I’m a part of is planning a big action and something came up with our transportation that had the potential to be really bad. I decided not to stress out and completely lose my shit about it. I went to the event I was scheduled to go to (with Alexis Pauline Gumbs) and a solution to my problem walked right up to me and said hello. My god, is the universe a poet.
surrender.
Last week, The Swarthmore Afro-American Student Society hosted their annual end of year field day. There were bouncy house games, water guns, water balloons, good music, and so many black people! When I came to this PWI I felt like I had two sides of myself to grapple with--the school version of me that had to code-switch and put on a different persona around the non-black kids at school, and then there was the version of me that I am around my family and high school friends. I can use my slang, catch an attitude without having to worry about if the other person thinks I’m being mean, and be loud. I’ve felt like these two versions of me had to exist split and separately, however in the last few weeks I’ve been able to exist as one full person.
This year has been about me finding my voice, and with finding my voice comes embracing my blackness in white spaces. Let’s be clear that I’ve never been embarrassed to be Black, or tried to be anything other than black--I fear I simply do not have luxury (if it’s even a luxury). However, I have split myself into these two different people in order to control how I’m perceived by others.
I’ve worried about the way that I dress, is it too much? The jewelry I wear, is it too on the nose? Are these hoops too big? My nails, are they too long? Is the colorful pattern too ghetto? As a Black woman, especially a darkskin black woman, there is an internalized inevitable fear of not being palatable. It has been so hard to grapple with my positionality in the world and still remain outwardly confident. It’s been sad to have to brush away these thoughts of doing too much, of my mannerisms being mistaken as aggression, of my anxiety manifesting as anger and an attitude when I’m really just afraid. When I wrote my essay about the line in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls when she said, “bein black & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma i haven’t conquered yet”, I knew what she meant, but I didn’t really relate because being a Black woman is not a dilemma i want to conquer. But, I will say that these thoughts that come in my mind about doing too much is that dilemma that I want to conquer.
I am from Brooklyn, NY. I like my braids/locs all the way down to my butt! I want my nails to be long and colorful! I want my hoops to be stupid big! I want my gold jewelry to shine from a mile away. I want to speak the way that I speak, and write the way that I speak. I want to be around Black people, I want to laugh until my stomach hurts because my friends are the funniest people I’ve ever spoken to. I don’t want to change my cadence to speak to non-black students or professors because I’m freaking tired. I have a million things to worry about, and my dialect, mannerisms, and facial expressions can NOT be one of them.
I have felt so chill these last few weeks because the two split versions of myself are becoming one. I don’t know what initiated the shift--it could be all the black women speakers that have come to campus recently (shoutout Alexis Pauline Gumbs), or just the amount of time I’ve spent with Black people in the last few days. I spent some time alone because I needed that, but immediately after being in isolation, I connected with my Black friends and just immersed myself in the Blackness of this campus. In the words of a wise man at Swat, “I go to an HBCU” (KIDDING!)But when I leave the Black spaces I’m in and re-enter the predominantly non-Black population I’m like woah, I forgot where I was for a second.
stay black.
Comments