Suspend Disbelief

Suspend disbelief, always.

I would be lying if I told you this was easy to write. It should be as it comes from a place rooted in Truth. But like most, real, raw and honest experiences, it makes me uncomfortable. And like most things that I know need to happen to "uplevel" a bit, I am experiencing a resistance. It’s a certain type of resistance - not the kind that invokes a visceral reaction - but the kind that gives temperature to that voice in the back of your head. A soft murmur that inevitably turns into a loud, clarifying scream, “Oh shit, this is what I need to do? Oh shit. Not this, anything but this. Yup, it’s THIS.”

This story and submission is for Dianne Morales, but it’s also for myself, and a tipping of the hat to something larger, bigger than just this individual story - the thing that I choose to call the universe and part of what Dianne refers to as “suspending disbelief". It’s also the acknowledgement that HER story is, in fact, MY story, perhaps even all our stories…and evidence to the interdependence of it all.

I met Dianne 3 years ago while she was till the Executive Director of a large NYC nonprofit and I was about 3 years into my recovery from drugs and alcohol. This is important because until I met her, until I took that job, I hadn’t gotten my head “above water” yet, I hadn’t really been able to do the only thing that really matters in life – breathe. Recovery was, and is, a VERY long and slow process for me. To quote my friend and teacher (and Tsunamibomb song), it’s very much like “swimming through molasses”. And thank god otherwise so much of what I was meant to catch, to notice - so much of the subtle click clicks of life - would have swam right by.

I surely came to work for Dianne as an accident – I needed a new job and she needed a Special Assistant (though we can both agree now that was NOT the job for me). I’m not great at “managing up”, scheduling things in Outlook, details…. you know, THOSE types of things that kind of make up a Special Assistant’s job description. In fact, in my first “performance review” Dianne said to me, “you know, this is not the job for you, really”. And we decided that, no, it was not and the “reason we met” was not going to reveal itself in an Outlook invite.

I didn’t know what it was at first, why came to work for these woman (and I’m still not sure it’s wise to hazard a guess) but Dianne, like me, also believes in the “something bigger, larger” - the interdependence of things. In fact, it’s what she leads with and we center her campaign around (oh, spoiler alert, Dianne is running to be the first female Mayor of NYC) the principle that we are all interdependent, that what affects one affects the other, and if we lift as we climb, lift up those who are the most vulnerable, everyone benefits. Suspend disbelief, indeed.

Let me back up a moment and to clarify something, Dianne NEVER had any intention of running for office (cue that special type of resistance) even though 10 years ago one of Obama's top donors flat out told her, “You are going to be the first Latina Mayor of NYC.” To which I believe her response was something like, “Ha! (snort) YOU must not know me very well then." Dianne, though very accustomed to the roles of community organizer, Executive, CEO, leader, mentor, had no designs on running for political office, like EVER. But the universe had other plans…because what IT knows that not everyone does is that thing about Dianne is that she has lived almost every experience it would take to really understand what it means to be a New Yorker, really to just understand what it means to be a human. She spent her entire life working elbow to elbow in the community doing the work, as an Afro Latina, single mom of 2 kids with learning differences, a first-generation college grad. On top of running multi-million dollar organizations.

This is also a woman who, post Maria, after witnessing firsthand that those on the Island who needed help the most were not getting the resources they needed , did the thing she has been doing her whole life in this City - she created a “work around” to the systems and what began as a $5000 campaign ended up becoming a $100,000 relief effort imagined, spearheaded, bottom-lined, iterated (insert any other nonprofit lingo you like) by her.

And again, it’s not coincidence that this experience has now allowed her, in the middle of the campaign and on a parallel track, to begin to knit together the Mutual Aid groups forming in this City - to elevate and strengthen the work that vulnerable communities have ALWAYS done because they had to - because the systems were never set up to help those who need it most.

And yes, while all these things make this woman incredibly qualified to fix this, dare I say...broken City, that’s not why I’m submitting this piece. See the thing about Dianne - the thing that gives her a lightness and the thing that makes you want to KNOW this woman - is that all her lived experiences give her this deep empathy, compassion and need to understand you and where you come from. It’s what allows her to really SEE you and, in her presence, you FEEL seen…simply because you are. That's Dianne. But I digress…back to this larger thing.

There are moments in life, moments of clarity, where you just kind of know what you need to do, whether you thought about it before or not, whether you are totally sure you can do it or not, whether it even seems possible or not. You just KNOW. And so, you move, you click, Something shifted in January and Dianne decided to run to become the next mayor of New York City – and I'll say this again so its really heard - because the systems that were never working for those most vulnerable were never going to be fixed by someone who has not lived them. Dianne has. And I trust her and I trust IT. Because she is doing it not because she wants to but because something bigger than her is telling her she needs to. And so do I.

It wasn’t a coincidence that as Dianne was pondering her run for mayor I was slowly dipping my toes back into politics – volunteering for campaigns, doing the thing I love to do the most – just talking to people (AKA “field"). And it wasn’t a coincidence I came to work for this woman who scared the shit out of me because she forced me to sit in uncomfortable situations, to lean into my vulnerability, to have a real relationship with a strong woman who started as a boss, then became a mentor, then a friend and now…a “partner in crime “on this campaign. She demanded my excellence but saw my humanity, allowed me to open up about my recovery, recognized my faults but didn’t hold them against me. Simply put, she took a chance on me, and I her,

So, what, does all of this mean exactly and why am I writing this? I don’t really know…. except all I can say about this is when the Universe speaks to you better fucking listen. And she is. And so am I. I’m back in - campaigns, organizing, taking chances on things that both terrify and excite me - literally being in love with life. I’m back and ALL in and I feel like I’m what Joseph Campbell calls “following your bliss." And its due to a lot of things, but largely, its due to Dianne.

And so here we go…. suspending disbelief. Her story is my story, ALL our stories. As women we must begin to trust each other, see each other and KNOW we are worth it and that, well, we are right. If we have learned anything from COVID-19 so far it's two things: One (to quote Dianne), “what this virus has done is pull back the curtain on all the disparities that already existed, widened them and shone a light on the other side of the void.” And two, that women get shit done AHEAD of the curve(#New Zealand #JacindaArden).

That, as Rilke says...

”this humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformation of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it.”

So, suspend disbelief and expect miracles - as cliché as that sounds. If only for the fact that when you have lived experiences so many are living right now and understand them, walked through them and come out the other side, well, you have no choice but to believe in miracles simply because you are one.

Dianne taught me that I’m not alone in believing, and that maybe, MAYBE if we suspend our disbelief long enough, if we expect miracles…maybe they can just happen. Maybe a broken young girl can get sober and find her coordinate here in NYC and maybe a Boricua born and raised in BedStuy can defy all odds and fix this broken City. For we are all broken, at some point, but we don’t have to stay that way. All it takes is for one human to see you and the whole thing is blown wide open. The hardest thing we can ever do in life is to suspend disbelief long enough to take a chance on ourselves, to not quit before the miracle happens. And until we can get there we just need someone to do it for us. Dianne took a chance on me, and now I will do the same.