Breathing Between the Waves

The waves keep coming. Their height, velocity, temperature — none of it feels in my control. And yet, here I am — with the expectation to keep standing, keep leading, and maintaining optimism when I feel like I’m gasping for air.

Earlier this year in Minneapolis, a JP mom told me she hadn’t left her building in over three weeks — except twice. She’d been relying on the grace of staff and her JP sisterhood to get her son to school and back, ensuring both she and her son could continue their education. She’d joined expensive delivery services to get food and groceries brought to her door because leaving meant she might find herself drowning in the waves of injustice enveloping her community.

I sat with that. The weight of it. The reality of the cost of survival this year, measured not just in dollars but in the space this mom occupies — shrinking, retreating, trying not to drown.

But then she told me something else.

One weekend, she and a few other moms cooked breakfast for the JP families in their building. She sent a group text inviting everyone down. She didn’t call it resistance or resilience or any of the words we use to make hard things sound like a teachable moment. She just said they made breakfast.

She was owning those brief moments between the waves.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot. About the space between one wave ending and the next one beginning. That sliver of time when we can breathe, when we remember we’re still here, still capable of being in community with each other.

The moments between waves must be treated with care and sacredness. They are what will sustain us — exercising, journaling, laughing, crying, napping, cooking breakfast in a building where fear might be holding everyone hostage. It is in those moments that we are reminded of the presence of our individual and collective power — of the mundane and the exceptional, of showing up even when showing up feels impossible.

There is always a break between the waves. Always. We must anticipate it. We must own those moments. We need them. We can’t weather the next set of waves without them.

Because care isn’t just a strategy. It’s our survival.

Chastity Lord is the President and CEO of Jeremiah Program.

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