Hi  Friend,


I hope you and your loved ones are staying resilient during this persistent pandemic. It’s been awhile since I’ve reached out –– I’ve taken some time off this summer, for a few personal reasons. 

Last month my mom passed away peacefully, after a long life that was well lived. I’m grateful that my sisters and I were able to be with her during her final days to comfort her, and ease her transition.

Also, the Black Lives Matter movement has stirred in me the importance of working toward racial equity and justice. I’ve begun the process to unpack my own privilege and complicity and I’m on a journey to learn, listen, and take action. The deep contrast between my mom’s end of life and the many who’ve died due to police brutality or from healthcare bias and inequities are stark examples of that privilege.

I’m grateful for the tools of visualizing to help me work through and retain the information I’m learning. Here’s a visual summary I drew after attending an online town hall event in June. I made this chart to digest the content I heard. It’s my interpretation of a presentation by Ericka Hines, in which she walked us through the Liberatory Freedom Model, (conceived by Barbara J. Love). The structure of this path: Awareness / Analysis / Action / Accountability has helped me to orient myself as a beginner in this process, and see the full arc that lies ahead.



In this chart my writing and line work are wobbly and imperfect; you can clearly see it was drawn by hand. I’m inviting myself to move past perfectionism, and share drawings that contain more emotionality. I’ve also started doing this with my client work, especially when charting honest and emotional content. Here are a few more examples of this approach:

 

Yours in wobbly imperfection,
Emily