Family Ties, Family Trees: plans, timings + change

Timing has a weird way of making you confront yourself all over again. Even though you may find yourself far away from where you began, time after time, you always have to return. Not necessarily to a physical place, but in ways where they’d say its a deja vu, or located within the feels. I’ve been made to return again and this time on a joyous occasion. I’m (re)entering something I’ve held onto for 5 years. My life feels like, at least for the last 3 years, I have been on a merry go round, displaying to the world one of many interests, on rotation. No one can do that forever, at least honestly, without adjustments. In some ways I was pigeon holed in that box because Black (insert relevant noun), was what the world needed at that time (2020) and we at The Black Curriculum had already arrived there with a beautiful community and evidences (plural) of what was possible both in and out of schools. But with everything, change occurs, I am here, still serving willingly, and loving it, but no longer there - in that particular space.

Between 2021 and 2022 for around 15 months, I wrote a book, my debut and dear baby, Omitted (out 2024). This was in the middle of deep grief after the passing of my dad, and while my organisation was at the helm of social change and growth. There was no other way to describe that period but just tired. I did pull through thanks to some very intelligent, compassionate and wise people - it was their light in the community that held me and also carried the purpose when I couldn’t adjust to the speed at which the world felt like it needed me but equally was disappearing around me. 

I also held on to the ways of my parents who installed an ability to have some direction even in the middle of chaos. While my health was in question, I even stopped writing for a while - every writer that’s been there knows this is.. hell. Which is why I am so proud of this moment of launching a Family Ties, Family Trees - an ode to connection with life forces around us. It also serendipitously coincides with the exact day, 5 years ago where I took my second solo trip to New Zealand. IYKYK. That was the trip that birthed TBC.

Starting a project comes with all the nerves, the questions of whether you’re the right person, and if you have the right resources to do it. But if anything, what the past 4 years in leading TBC has taught me, is that you can do anything. 

I really do believe - and know we can do anything we put our mind to. And back it up with action. 

I choose to embrace a bit of vulnerability here because we are used to seeing everything go super well online, and less familiar with the build up towards those very short moments we see and like. I also came to the realisation lately that we own nothing of what we experience, we are just passing through. It’s an honor then to be the mother/ birther of incredible purpose filled work, that unites people, including The Black Curriculum, Omitted, FTFT and more to come. 

But we all experience the feelings and motions of doubt and fear, especially at the stages when we are about to start something. 

What I remember about starting TBC is that it was a process that involved many people. And many pro-active moves. And we can't deny when you're in the middle of fear how that very feeling is the antithesis to making any pro-active moves because you're so worried as to how it will be received. But what fear can’t stop is a plan. So get practical. Even at my lowest point towards the end of 2021, it was a plan that brought me up from where I was. It was a plan that I was held accountable to by friends and mentors. It listed out very practical things, such as what to eat (the shock of grief makes you forget the practical things) to put into action. It can look as simple as a timetable or 2-3 goals for the next month. As dreamers, plans give our ideas some cement, like gravity which is one of earth’s necessities.

So yeah, pull a plan together.

But coming back to the launch of Family Trees, Family Ties, I am so insanely proud because well, today, it’s a bringing together of people and theory which is my bag. It came 5 years ago to me in New Zealand, my first time ever experiencing nature like that and finding myself aged 21 within a new space. What is my connection to the land around me? What does this mean for our future and oh yes the ancestors who never saw lands and the fruits of those lands? I always think about the women especially who came before me. I do because they are patrons of the land. All the storytellers, the shakers and the teachers during my time in Aotearoa (New Zealand) were women. 

Family Ties Family Trees is an honouring to those who came before us. For me, it is less of doing something new, but a testament to the cycle of life - a continuation of all the learnings, and a passing down of the tools of our community. It comes at a time where I love, knowing that actual love is unattached, hard, and so rewarding. 

The lessons of love are another story for another day, but commitment and loyalty are real expressions of love. So whatever you’re doing, planning, keep at it - and know that someone has been on the journey before you and it's up to you to lean in. Keep to your plan. But before I keep going, let us celebrate, beginnings and endings.

Family Ties and Family Trees - will be available to watch from July 2023.