I’ve been thinking a lot about feelings lately.

Ruby, like any three-year old, feels very passionately about so many things, big and small. But, as us adults says so “wisely,” she’s still learning what to do with them and how to express them.

In Ruby’s case she pushes them away from her, quite literally. She’ll either hit—mostly gently—or yell. And it’s clear that it’s safer/easier (I’m not sure which yet, or what other word to use) to push the people close to her away than to have to deal with the emotions as they well up in her. We’ve started saying, “Oops, your feelings are spilling over!”

When this happens I try to do a few things: not focus on her immediate behavior (my sore arm or painful eardrums and my own hurt feelings at being a punching bag for her) and try to verbalize what I think is happening inside her. I hope that she will learn to use those words to draw people in, rather than use physical force to push people away.

But who are we kidding right? I might have learned not to hit or scream, but I only wish I could use my words as well as I constantly ask Ruby to. My silence here, on this blog, is perhaps about looking for some of the feelings I was not able to express along the path of my life.

This is probably the single most powerful thing I am discovering as I become and am, day after day, a parent to Ruby. How I have come to want things for her that I do not have myself and how we can struggle together at getting those things.

***

This weekend David and Ruby are visiting Grandma Pat. So I have had a few rare days to myself. Last night I watched “Talk to Me” on dvd.

When MLK’s death was announced by Petey Greene, I cried. I cried some more when the showed footage of DC burning down (“Black beautiful people ready for the fight,” Petey said). I cry when “bad” things (“Mama, like when bad bosses don’t pay workers enough?” Ruby now knows to ask when we talk about my work) happen—oh my gosh, what can I even begin to say about Haiti?—even things that happened a long time ago and don’t affect me immediately.

I trust those strong feelings inside me and I trust their expression. I love that part of me. It makes me a confident labor organizer and social justice activist. I know it’s part of my fabric, that I became this person growing up in my family, and it’s the part of me that puts me where I am now, doing the work I’m doing now, being the parent and partner I am now.

I just want to figure out other parts of me too.