Dear Soul Tender,
Our time together begins.
Welcome to episode one of our listening series dedicated to maternal (and in this episode child) mental health at the intersection of grief for caregiving bodies. Each interview posted centers on our human experience and expansion in wildness and how we might just survive (and maybe even thrive!) in this lifetime with the specific path we've been given.
If it honors your journey, I invite you to begin with this prayer before we engage in this sacred, real and raw story of one of God’s beloveds.
God of the untold, Protect us. Too often, we have had our pain used to make other people feel like they have achieved the farce of intimacy. We are weary of communal spaces that ask us to bear ourselves for their sake, without ever becoming thoughtful about how they will care for us in the wake of our exposure. Reveal these moments as fleeting sentimentality and protect us from their draw. Liberate us from the lie that vulnerability is an accurate portrait of relational goodness. Remind us that some stories aren't meant for everyone, and that Is good and okay. If we open ourselves to others, may it only be in the presence of those who are capable keepers of our true selves. And in the presence of those who are more interested in using us to rouse emotion in their emptiness, help us to choose ourselves, our wholeness; that we would practice a sacred withholding that mirrors the one who made us. Amen.
Meet Marcie Alvis Walker, author of Everybody Come Alive: A Memoir in Essays, the hands and heart behind Substack newsletter Black Eyed Stories, content creator for Black Coffee with White Friends, and a fantastic human who shows up in such a way that we are pointed back to love over and over again. In this episode, Marcie shares with us what it looks like to stay honest with ourselves and our beloveds in the tightest spaces including maternal-child mental health.
This conversation does not tread lightly on real, raw life. As two mothers who have been challenged to create safe, loving spaces for themselves and their children in a world full of (people and) institutions that create and perpetuate harm, especially in faith spaces, Jennifer and Marcie cover vast ground. Here, Marcie expands upon her experience as the youngest child in a Black family deeply affected and yet seemingly not-forever-burdened-by the challenge of her mother’s expression of Schizoaffective Disorder - and, how this initial thread weaves into the story of her own mothering, inclusive of the life-altering journey of parenting a child at the intersection of faith, identity, gender and mental health.
You can find Marcie’s work at Black Eyed Stories on Substack and her phenomenal book Everybody Come Aliveat major booksellers, Bookshop.org, and on Amazon.
And let us know what you think of this episode, soul friend.
I see you.
New here? Dear Soul Tender is a safe, sacred space where you can find a diverse and inclusive assortment of life-giving topics related to caregiving, feminism (and human rights) at the intersection of disability, pain, identity and motherhood. My promise here is to remind you of how to love well: yourself, your kids, your neighbor, and the whole wide world.
Get full access to Dear Soul Tender at jennifermagnano.substack.com/subscribe