Today is our final day on the road, as we head back home from Las Vegas to Oakland.

We drive through the Mojave Desert for miles and miles. Huge brown and maroon mountains crash down into the yellow, gold and green speckled land below. Fields of cacti fly by us, each one amazing and unique, twisting and reaching for the sky. The sandy earth lights up the ground, elevating the muted grey-green color of the brush that covers the landscape to vibrant.

As we crest each hill, we catch our breaths from the sweeping views of purple and blue mountains disappearing into a grey sky—swaths of silver earth in the distance giving the illusion of large bodies water.

I still can’t believe this is our last day and that our trip is over.

Once we get back, we will have driven over 8 thousand miles through 30 states in 33 days. I am still unsure how to reintegrate back into regular life once I get home. This past month has been filled with constant movement, the stillness of stories and the sweet glow of friendship. I want to take my time to reflect on the gift that was this road trip. I want to remember all the moments and sights and feelings. I feel a slow sadness knowing that I will never be able to remember it all.

I want to remember the desert and the South; the heat of the Northeast and the coolness of the Midwest; the rainbow color pallet of the Southwest and the rivers and snowy mountains of the West. I want to remember the late night talks and the vulnerability and love; the zest, risks and quiet care; and the steady deepening of trust and joy. I want to remember the way it felt to embrace some of the people I love most in this world, whom I rarely get to see, and those who have helped shaped who I am and who I will become. I want to remember the fun, the laughter, the singing, the desserts, the BBQ, the homemade meals and the silliness. I want to remember the long drives and the scenery flying by me in the passenger seat, listening to songs we love. I want to remember every landing after a long day on the road; every warm greeting from friends and storytellers, welcoming me into their homes and stories. I want to remember the kindness and the sunsets; the remembering and the letting go.

I want to remember the journey, the adventure and the blossoming. I want to remember all of it. All of it.

Thank you all for being on this journey with me. Thank you for helping to make this work possible. I can’t wait to start editing the stories I have. I hope they will be as precious to you as they are to me and those who shared them. Thank you for your trust in me to hold these stories and this work well, I work hard to do right by you. Thank you for the faith you have in me, it is something I hold dearly and know that it is nothing to be taken lightly.

From one survivor who has been on her own life-long journey towards love and healing: thank you. 

We have officially started the long journey back home from Minneapolis to Oakland. 13 and 11-hour drives and longer days. Watching the scenery change from the Midwest to the plains and the mountains of the West is breathtaking.

Nebraska stole my heart with its crystal clear air and water. The light is different there—magical. Sweeping plains with cattle and winding, rushing rivers. Watching the sunset over the plains just after we crossed into Colorado was like some kind of dream.

Today we drive from Colorado to Las Vegas, where we will spend the night and have a day off. Driving through the Rockies is a kind of other-worldly feeling. The stunning beauty of the snow-covered mountains, thick with pines and aspens greet us at every turn and beckon us onward.

We ebb and flow, twist and turn with the landscape as snow turns to red rock and trees turn to bushes and shrubs, painting the land with pointillism. Valleys start to stretch out into plains again, the mountains turn back into canvases, and the dry earth reveals the subtlest of color pallets striped with reds, browns and pinks, meeting pale greens. Hawks circle high above the occasional stony earth jutting out into the blue sky, majestic and proud.

There are deep canyons with jagged, rocky mountains that fill the sky and hold more shades of browns than seem possible. We drive next to frothy rivers for miles, cradled in greens and greys. Looking out the side window for breaks in the rocks, I can see framing views of mountains and lush valleys for a few seconds before they disappear. Cliffs break into velvety green covered swaths of hills, sloping down to rich, grassy pastures.

They are all a reminder of our place and perspective. We owe everything to the land, water and sky. We owe everything to the planet and its gifts. And we owe everything to those who work to protect it.

I owe so much to the land, sea and sky. They were my saving grace when I was growing up. As most people who grow up in rural lands will tell you, the land becomes a part of you. It becomes part of your story, part of your heart, part of your spirit. Nature was a huge source of resilience when I was growing up and continues to be. The purest form of spirituality, the deepest form of healing. I remember getting up early to drive east to Point Udall and watch the sunrise over the place where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean; where the sunrise surrounds and embraces you on the jutting cliff over the crashing waves. Where the wind whips past you, stealing tears before they can fall. The wind that comes from over the ocean, that comes from the horizon. The wind that brought me to land that signifies both a death and a life that never should have been. The clouds turn pink to orange to reds, the sky turning from black to blue to autumn to spring.

I know I have survived because of nature. I know I made it through because of the magnificence I was immersed in that inhabits every part of the tiny island I was raised on. It was because of the ocean and the glistening starry night sky that I made it out with a beating heart.

Much of my story of healing is one of sand and waves and sun; of rain forests and dirt roads and the smell of newly wet earth; of stars and clouds and sunsets and sunrises over hot cups of tea; of deserts and cacti and cliffs that drop into the sea; of windy horizons and dry, golden fields and trees that feel like memories. I will always be indebted to the earth, as we all are. I will always long for the ocean. And I will always be grateful for journeys that take you far from where you know and lead you back home.

We drive through Minnesota and Iowa on our way to Denver for the night. We are starting our journey back to Oakland. It’s hard to believe that we will be home in four days, after being on the road for a month.

Farmlands stretch out around me as far as the eye can see. Large fields of greens and browns, tilled and starting to sprout. Patches of trees, tractors and the occasional buildings. The sweeping, overcast sky is a welcomed relief from the glaring sun.

Our time in the Midwest was short, but full. Yesterday I recorded my last story of the trip, a survivor story from a transracial and transnational adoptee. It was a story, like many of ours, of wishing for something more that never came. It was a story of trying in spite of what is. It was a story about healing, belonging and finding your own way. It was a story about the ownership of children that stretches into child sexual abuse, adoption, war, occupation, imperialism, militarization and family.

These stories swirl inside of me, with different pieces of each continuing to bubble up to the surface throughout my days and nights. I hold the tears and the sighs and the pauses and silence with precious care and a longing heart. I hold the bravery and commitment of each storyteller with every bone in my body that believes that sharing our stories gets us, as one storyteller said, “one step closer to freedom.” I hold the hope, often unrewarded and betrayed, and the Tries woven through these stories with the faithful, unwavering determination that healing is possible which shaped storyteller after storyteller’s journey, including my own.

I believe that healing is possible and I continue to move towards that even when I don’t know how, even when I get knocked down, even when it is hard, even when it gets manipulated, even through the anger and hurt, even when it feels impossible or futile. It is the same relentless commitment that I feel for liberation and ending child sexual abuse. I don’t always know how it will happen or how we will get there, and there are many days when it is hard to sustain hope, but I keep moving towards it, knowing that part of our work to get free is not in knowing all the answers, but in embracing the unknown and continuing to move forward with faith.

Faith continues to be a huge part of this work and all work for liberation. Not in the religious way that faith usually gets associated with, but in the larger, deeper, spiritual meaning of the word. I see the faith of survivors every day: the faith to continue to keep trying with and stay connected to their families, even after betrayal, heartache, attacks, rejection, trauma, abuse and blame, hoping that something more will be possible, hoping for change and not willing to succumb to apathy. The faith of survivors to not be connected to their families’ continued violence, abuse, pain, rage, fear, harassment and blame, knowing that something more is possible, knowing that freedom is on the other side and not willing to settle for the crumbs.

These are the leaps of faith that continue to inspire me. The way we leap, never knowing where we will land, but leaping none-the-less. Knowing that the power and possibility of the leaping is greater than the fear to leap.

Healing, justice, liberation, accountability and love are bound up together. The work we do to heal is ultimately work for justice and accountability and love. The work we do for justice is ultimately work to heal, to be accountable, to be free. The work we do to be accountable, in big and small ways, in our life is ultimately the work of justice, the work of healing and the work of love. At their truest core, they are interdependent on each other and any work for justice that doesn’t include work to heal will never achieve true justice and vice versa.

Our wounds from abuse, violence and harm are not who we are, but they are part of what shape us—and especially when it comes to child sexual abuse, they have fundamentally shaped many of us because we were so young.

I feel so incredibly honored to have gotten to hold and bear witness to so many people’s stories. It is rare to have spaces to share about child sexual abuse or sexual and domestic violence—to really share. To share them in their entirety. To be able to take your time and tell a full story. To be able to have it held.

I will carry these stories with me, everywhere I go. I will remember all the parts that won’t ever be reflected in the recordings; all the quiet moments when the tears were the only words that would come. The cancelations because of panic attacks, fear, nervousness and emotional break downs. The love and appreciation, the empathy and compassion. The courage to be vulnerable with your self and someone else, showing parts of you that never get to see the sun light. I will carry with me all of this and the moments when I got to see the meaning of love again and again.

The northeast leg of our trip was fast and packed. We spent 4 days traveling from West Chester, PA, to Queens, NYC, Providence, RI, Northampton and Albany, NY.

West Chester was a surprise—both in the story and the trip there. When the survivor originally emailed LBP, most of the road trip had already been planned and it didn’t look like it was going to be possible for us to squeeze it in, but we worked it out and I am so glad we did! Her story was one of those stories that is both heartbreaking and incredibly inspiring all at once. It is a family response that taps into the kind of commitment, courage and love that many of us long for. I feel honored to have gotten to record it with the storyteller and her mother through laughter and tears.

New York City was warm and full. It was time with old friends and catching up and stories and headlines. It was Friendly’s milkshakes and tea at small tables with big love and lively conversations. It was traffic and traffic and more traffic; bridges and tolls and delicious food. It was driving on the L.I.E. and familiar sights and sounds. It was quick and abundant, reminding me of how much I will always love New York and how it has left its imprints on me as a child and youth.

Rhode Island was all new leaves in greens and reds, and trees growing out of rocky earth lining the highway. It was hot and humid by the time we reached Providence and the blue water sparkled in the sun. I met a storyteller there who shared about growing up with her survivor mother. We were both “children of the movement” and her story made me reflect on my own story and the similar themes many of us share who were raised by activists.

Northampton was lush, rich greens mixing with colorful blooms. It was survivor spiritual stories stretching into the complexities of love and understanding. It was deep, dark shadows from tall, old trees and roads winding through the countryside. It was a quick stop on our trip, lasting only 3 hours, but reminding me of my days doing reproductive justice work and traveling there each year for conferences and convenings.

Albany and Troy (a neighboring city) was cool, light breezes in the afternoon sun and belly laughs, wide smiles and frequent hugs. It was survivor love and care, and stories about family, healing, rage and learning. It was loud talking and laughter in kitchens while foods from our childhoods were being made. It was making new connections and deepening preexisting ones. It was remembering and dreaming, letting go and welcoming. It was sharing about each other’s work and making plans for the future. It was the last stop in the northeast before we left for the Midwest and it was the perfect way to say goodbye and hello.  

We drive through the rain to get to North Carolina. Through grey skies and hills that disappear into mist and clouds. Through lush forests and wide, open fields. Cities and towns punctuate the rural landscape that engulfs us, and I fall in love with magnificent tree after magnificent tree, stretching up into the sky, towering over us.

This morning we left Atlanta to head to Durham to collect stories. I recorded 4 stories in Atlanta; some from people I know, some from strangers. Some from survivors and some from bystanders—each one as powerful as it is different.

Being in Atlanta always feels like coming home. I miss the city and my dear folks there. I miss the South and the thick, heavy heat. I miss the parts of me that come alive when I cross over into the South or the Caribbean: the two lands that have shaped me the deepest. I miss the trees and the thunderstorms. I miss the easy smiles and hospitality. I miss it all.

This trip has been like a remembering of my own stories, as much as it has been a finding of other’s stories. It has been an opportunity to look back, as well as forward; to feel into where I have come from and the lands and peoples that have made me who I am and led me to this project and work. It is like what I imagine storytellers must experience as they share their stories: a revisiting of a time that has both passed and still lives inside of you. I try and find the edges of where the stories stop and start, the ones I had forgotten that reemerge, and the ones that I have let go, but are never really gone.

Storytelling happens in all kinds of ways. My dreams are different in the South—in Atlanta. The old stories that surface as we cross state lines and regions or meet with old friends, people who knew you in a different time. The way a road can be a story; the way your body remembers every turn and stop. The way you can inhabit different worlds at the same time and time travel together or alone.

The Caribbean taught me how to survive and the South taught me how to love. They are inextricably linked, not only through the history and legacy of slavery in this country, but also through my own history and life. There are many differences, but also so many similarities. They both represent beginnings and endings for me; love and pain; sacred and transformative connection and unbearable loneliness and longing. They are the places that feel the most like home, even as I know I was never meant to be there. They hold a kind of belonging that doesn’t exist for me anywhere else. Belonging manifests in all different kinds of ways and when you belong nowhere, you learn to appreciate each and every little nuance and small crumb of it you can find, savoring every fleeting moment that you possibly can.

Remembering is a kind of strange belonging. It’s a way of coming home, in all of the complexities that “home” holds for those of us whose homes were never home. Remembering is never the same and ever-changing. These days I feel myself easing back into old stories in a different way, creating belonging where there never was, and finding pieces I never knew were there. Maybe we all find pieces of belonging in our remembering, eventually. Maybe remembering is a kind of storytelling in and of itself. Maybe our stories are what survive after everything is said and done. What I know for sure is that remembering our stories is both how we honor where we’ve been and where we’re going. 

Oklahoma is thick stretches of green and wide blue skies. Trees bursting with leaves, wild flowers swaying in the breeze and lush grasses line the highways we travel on. Cloudless skies whose only company is the sun. The highway slowly winds its way through velvety green swatches of forest and every hill we crest opens up into a view of the tops of forest for miles.

We are making our way to the east coast, where we will spend 10 days traveling to Atlanta, Washington D.C, Durham, West Chester, NYC, Providence, Northampton and Albany, before we head to the Midwest. I know I will have my work cut out for me once we cross into the east. We have days where we are swinging into multiple cities to meet with one or two storytellers and we aren’t staying longer than 24-48 hours in most places.

I had never planned a cross-country road trip before this and it has certainly been a juggling act. There were days where scheduling cities, recording places, storytellers, lodging and driving routes was enough to scramble my brain. Waiting for storytellers to confirm with me, so that we could plan the different segments of our trip that were all interdependent on each other, was a kind of quiet, simmering anxiety. There were many curve balls thrown our way: lodging that fell through at the last minute; the surprising challenge of finding (very) quiet spaces to record in busy cities that worked for storytellers; planning access as a queer physically disabled woman of color; cancelations and changes in schedules; and cities we thought we would be traveling to, getting replaced by new cities we never thought would be on our route.

I didn’t do this all on my own. I had the help of my amazing partner, who basically planned the entire actual travel route, booked almost all of our lodging and helped troubleshoot endless logistics. She is still operating as mission control for us while we’re on the road. I also have my good friend as co-pilot, who is helping me with access the entire trip and being great company on the road. It was so serendipitous that she was able to come with me for a month away from our lives, loved ones and homes. I appreciate and love them both so much.

One constant thread in this project has been storytellers consistently telling me that their story is “not that important” or “I’m not sure my story is what you’re looking for” or “there’s not really much to tell, but if it will help other people, I am happy to.” It has played out like Groundhog Day, like an unrealized script. Inevitably, all of the stories have been so useful and some of them have blown me away as responses to child sexual abuse (CSA).

There was a grandmother in the Midwest who was, understandably, nervous and told me over and over again that she didn’t know how useful her story would be. When I met her for the recording, she said she almost canceled the session. Her story turned out to be a magnificent intergenerational story about surviving and then preventing CSA. She shared about her own experiences as a survivor and then later as a parent and then grandparent working to protect her children and grandchildren. She shared about conversations she has had with her grandchildren about their bodies and consent. When we finished, I told her how lucky her children and grandchildren are to have a grandmother like her.

I think about the invisible, and often unacknowledged, work people like her do every day to try and resist CSA and break generational cycles of violence. These are the kind of stories that this project was created for. These are the small actions that can have big impacts, like ripples in a pond. These are the stories that can seem like they are not worth telling, but are the foundation of our work to end CSA. Campaigns, policies and laws are one thing, but the majority of the work to end generational cycles of violence will be done around our kitchen tables, in the car on the way to and from school, over the phone lines with our loved ones and in the sacred trusted spaces between those we have a responsibility to protect or push.

We all have stories to tell and they are valuable, no matter if we believe that or not. The story of the grandmother I met is both one of a survivor and a bystander—and when it comes to CSA, bystander stories are critically important because it is up to bystanders to protect children and youth in their lives. It is not children or youth’s responsibility to stop sexual violence and abuse they are facing, though the burden often falls on them in the absence of protective and supportive adults. Bystanders play a fundamental role in stopping or perpetuating CSA and we need more of their stories—the useful, the regretful and the painful.

Our stories can be tools for transformation, if we will only understand them as such. I think about that grandmother often, since I met her. I think about the work she is carrying forward on her own, in her own family and life. I think about her commitment and love for her children and grandchildren and how it moves her to have hard conversations and love fiercely, again and again. She is an amazing spirit and I will never forget her.

Day 6

Today we leave California and head out to the east coast. We drive for the next 4 days on our way to Atlanta, GA. The time feels like it is going by fast. It feels like we just got on the road and it’s almost been a week. LA and Riverside were our first stops and I collected stories, gave a training and spoke on a panel, all through a cloud of allergies. Folks have been so kind to us—thank you.

Now I sit in the passenger seat as the desert of Arizona flies by me. The colors are so beautiful and, knowing the South West, it is only going to get more breath-taking from here. I often think about work to end CSA and the desert. I have written about it here before. The sparseness, the spaciousness, the scope, the subtleties and the stark contrasts.

I grew up with the desert. A tropical desert, but a desert none-the-less. Driving from one end of St. Croix to the other the scenery changes from sandy beach, to lush rain forest, to sweeping hills, to rich vegetation, to open plains that light up in gold as the sun descends, to cacti and desert, to rocky cliffs surrounded by soft sand met by the warm waters of the Caribbean on one side and the cool Atlantic on the other.

That was on a tiny island, where the desert twists and squeezes into the hillsides of the Caribbean. Here, the desert lays out in front of you and continues to unfold seemingly endlessly. Here, there are no tropical breezes to lend a reprieve from the unrelenting sun and heat.

I am so grateful for this time to travel and collect stories. I am grateful to every single storyteller who is willing to share their story and worked with me as I planned this massive trip . I am grateful that I get this time to not only work, but also reflect and see the land and the sky change from beaches to desert to wide, open plains; from day to night.

This trip is a gift in so many ways.

Before we parted ways, the last story teller I recorded in LA told me how grateful she is to be able to contribute to this project, for herself and for others. I told her, no, no, thank you so much for being willing to share her story with me and so many others. 

It feels like a deep mutual and reciprocal appreciation, care, trust and respect with each storyteller. I will forever be grateful to all of the LBP storytellers for making this project possible. Thank you so much.

Day 7

Today we are headed to Oklahoma City for the night, on our way to Atlanta. As I write this, there’s a train to my left, filled with white and green, blue and orange cars; and the open plains of New Mexico to my right, stretching back to giant red, white and green striped plateaus in the distance. We pass occasional road signs and underpasses, while the music plays and conversation ebbs and flows. The faint outline of the moon lies in front of us, visible through the windshield, rising slowly in the eastern sky.

This is day 2 of a 4-day drive from LA to Atlanta, where I will collect more stories. I spent over a decade in Atlanta and it is still one of my favorite places in the country. I love the South and the good work being forwarded there. Atlanta was where I began my work to build transformative justice responses to child sexual abuse, with the late Atlanta Transformative Justice Collaborative. I still feel incredibly lucky that I got the chance to be part of that work. It was the beginning of a new chapter in my life and I will always have gratitude for it.

I still cannot believe that we have been on the road for a week now. “A month” seems like a long time, but now I wonder if it will all fly by as fast as this first week has. There were so many storytellers who I wanted to be able to reach before the year ends and driving across the country was the most efficient way to gather them.  I still have more storytellers who are contacting me, as well as some who were not able to make the May dates of this trip work, so I will continue to collect stories after this trip. I am hoping that I can spend this summer editing and posting some of the amazing stories I have been able to find.

This project will not end when the funding ends. I will continue to collect stories for the foreseeable future, though, it will take me longer, as I won’t have as much time to devote to it.

Thank you all for giving me this opportunity to do work I love and to get to drive across the country—a life long dream of mine. Thank you for sharing LBP information and for connecting so many storytellers to this project. Thank you for volunteering to transcribe and lending your support and kind words to work that can feel so lonely and unseen. This project has been possible because of the growing-community that has formed around it.  thank you, thank you, thank you.

I started doing work around child sexual abuse (CSA) over a decade ago, when I was living in Atlanta, GA. Since then, I have learned a lot about what it will take for us to truly build community-based responses to CSA that are not destructive. Responses that could secure immediate needs, such as stopping the violence and getting immediate safety from the abuse, healing for those impacted by the abuse, accountability for the abuse done, or a plan of how to move forward; without undermining long term goals such as preventing future incidences of violence and abuse, building and transferring out the skills necessary in responding to CSA, or ending the conditions that help CSA to continue (e.g. oppression, violence, isolation, fear, stigma). 

Over the years I have educated myself whenever and however I can about CSA--reading, watching and listening to anything I could. I have fallen down digital rabbit holes for hours clicking through an endless trail of articles and watched as many movies and documentaries as I could get access to. I have reached out to countless activists and artists whose work deals with CSA to learn about what they are doing and share about the work I am involved in. 

Educating ourselves about CSA is essential if we are going to be able to respond to it well.

Understanding how CSA continues to be passed down from generation to generation teaches us that our strategies for addressing and ending CSA must be generational. We will not end CSA--or any kind of violence or abuse--in one campaign or with one organization, for that matter. Understanding that CSA is simultaneously both hyper-visible and supported, even encouraged, while at the same time completely hidden and buried in secrets, teaches us that we must have multiple strategies moving at the same time. Community-based responses will not be the only way we will be able to end CSA, they must work in concert with campaigns to change policies, culture and practices. For example, responding to CSA within families is one thing, but if we are responding to CSA done by a school principle, state senator, priest, doctor or police officer we will need simultaneous campaigns that can run alongside our community intervention(s). This is especially true if the institution and/or state rushes to protect the abuser. 

Understanding how CSA is connected to and perpetuated by systems of oppression (and vice versa) means that we must also work to dismantle systems of oppression as well in our work. We cannot replicate oppression and oppressive dynamics in our work. Work to end CSA that relies on secrecy and lack of transparency, white supremacy, abuses of power, pitting communities and or survivors against each other, capitalism or silencing the voices and leadership of survivors will never be successful in ending CSA or significantly bringing CSA rates down. We have yet to find a demographic where CSA doesn't exist and yet every community insists that "CSA doesn't happen in our community." We must understand that even though CSA exists everywhere, the impact of CSA is different because of how different oppressed communities get targeted. Rich communities, for example, often have the resources to cover up their abuse or to pay their way out of consequences, where as poor(er) communities do not. 

Simply understanding the vast numbers of people impacted by CSA (estimates say there are more than 42 million adult survivors of CSA in this country alone) helps us to understand that addressing CSA is about far more than weeding out a bunch of "bad eggs." And because CSA continues to be one of the most underreported forms of violence, many say this number is actually higher. And given that, as with most sexual violence across the board, children and youth often know the person abusing them, we know that teaching only about "stranger danger" is not sufficient in adequately addressing CSA. 

Above all, educating ourselves and others about child sexual abuse helps us craft more effective responses to CSA that are grounded in the reality of CSA, rather than the myth of CSA.

And I get it, it is not easy to learn about, let alone think about, child sexual abuse. I get it. I get the urge to turn away from CSA. The urge to push it away and out of our minds, to just want to enjoy our lives and not have to think about the kinds of atrocities happening in our communities every day--and certainly not to the most vulnerable members of our communities. I know it's hard. There are many days that I don't want to think about CSA. I am not suggesting that to be effective we must think about CSA every day, all the time--that is not sustainable. However, we cannot continue as a society to keep ignoring CSA because of our own discomfort or fear. We cannot continue to wait until CSA is exploding in our lives to begin our work, we must start now and build a foundation of preparation and prevention. All of us. For all of us. 

When I first started this project, I felt like a detective, searching for clues and trying to follow leads. I was trying to find responses to child sexual abuse (CSA) that were or attempted to be supportive and even--possibly--transformative. However, over the last year of collecting stories, I have realized that many of these stories can only be found in the collecting, not always in the searching. 

Part of this project is about documenting collective responses to CSA, but another part of it is simply opening up the conversation about CSA, period; opening up and holding space to talk about CSA. For many storytellers, this is the first time they are telling their stories as adults. Many of them are processing their own stories in their telling. it is an honor to get to bear witness to this process, as many storytellers haven't revisited their experiences at all. For many people this project is one of the only places in their lives that they can talk about CSA.

I hear from storytellers over and over again, "I don't think my story is what you're looking for" or "there's nothing really to tell in my story," but once we sit down to record, their stories are exactly what LBP is looking for.

In To Be Brave, the storyteller initially framed their story as simply about their journey to heal as a survivor, but when we began recording, their story ended up revealing many different responses to CSA. I often think about the way that their partner and community was able to support and hold them in ways that deepened relationships and belonging. I think about the way that their sister in the story was willing to check-in with their mother and the ways that other survivors' bravery sparked their own--a never-ending magnificent response to violence and abuse. One of my favorite moments in To Be Brave, is in Part 2 and the small response by their boss' family and therapist. I love the complexity expressed by the storyteller in To Be Brave, and the desire to hold the humanity of everyone, including themselves, even in hard moments.

In Standing Her Ground, there is a dramatic response to CSA by the storyteller's teenage sister hiding them in a closet and successfully preventing more abuse from their abuser. It is an unexpected and formative moment that the storyteller shares they will never forget. I love that this story is a story about a survivor protecting another survivor--and children and youth trying to create their own safety. 

However, I am also finding that another part of this project is the revealing of the many conditions that allow for child sexual abuse to happen and continue. This is an important part of building transformative community responses to child sexual abuse: understanding how CSA happens and is enabled and perpetuated by conditions such as poverty, white supremacy, isolation, silence, misogyny, capitalism, ableism and so much more. The stories, Standing Her Ground and What Was Lost, illustrate many of these conditions. In What Was Lost, the storyteller explains how immigration, language barriers and poverty were huge factors to their abuse and how long it continued. In Standing Her Ground, we hear how isolation, oppressive gender roles, white supremacy and immigration shaped the abuse they experienced, as well. In Ending the Secrecy, the storyteller talks about how being a person of color informed why they didn't think of calling the police as an option.

If we are serious about ending CSA, then we have to commit to it, rather than hoping that someone else, somewhere else will do it. We have to understand how child sexual abuse is connected to and used by systems of oppression. We have to understand how CSA is connected to other forms of violence and abuse. We have to listen to those who are most impacted by CSA and what would have helped them or supported them. We need to learn about the vast diversity of CSA experiences, beyond the sensationalized ones we are sold, and actively build our own capacities to be able to hold the complexity and contradictions within those experiences. We need to create new shared language that can clearly describe and convey what we mean. We can absolutely end child sexual abuse--of that, i am sure--but it will require that we commit to and invest in the long-term work it will take from us, our families, intimate networks and communities. 

The first Living Bridges Project story is up today, To Be Brave. I have been thinking a lot about bravery these past few months. Whether it is the bravery to share your story of child sexual abuse (CSA); or the bravery of protecting sacred land and facing-off with police shooting water cannons at you in freezing weather; or the bravery of reaching out for help in-real-time amidst violence and abuse.

There is a line that I came across while reading a now-forgotten article that reads: “a quest is different for everyone,” she said, “but the courage is the same.” I think about this often and I have the incredible honor of getting to witness it in every story I record. Courage is an important piece of this work. The stigma, silence, shame and fear that surround child sexual abuse is deep and palpable. We need courage in this work; we need to be brave.

Because it is hard to talk about child sexual abuse. I don’t say that to turn people away from this work, but I say it to not turn away from the reality of this work. It is hard to talk about child sexual abuse. Not only the subject matter, but also the things and people that swirl around it. Most of us would rather pretend child sexual abuse away or blame it all on a handful of “bad eggs” or simply try and avoid it completely. This is not easy work and we need to consciously practice a kind of bravery and courage that is purposeful and sustainable. As Audre Lorde reminds us, “we can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired.”

To Be Brave is the story of a survivor who was able to respond to sexual assault as an adult because they were able to process their experience of CSA. In the audio, the storyteller talks about being brave and how other people’s bravery and vulnerability inspired their own. I was so moved by their story on many levels. The way that belonging is weaved throughout the story and the domino effect of courage and bravery in parts 1 and 2.

In many ways, the Living Bridges Project (LBP) is a way that I am being brave. Being an “out” survivor of CSA has not been a part of my political work for a long time. Not because it was a secret, but because it took me so long to come to terms with my own complicated experience of CSA within the medical industrial complex and then later by a community member. Over the last decade I have submerged myself in work to build transformative responses to child sexual abuse, but much of that work is (necessarily) confidential and largely not as visible or public. LBP is some of the first public political work I have done explicitly about child sexual abuse and I have had to summon steady courage again and again.

“A quest is different for everyone,” she said, “but the courage is the same.”

When I was recording To Be Brave, as with many of the stories that will be posted here, I cried with the storyteller as they shared. I sat afterwards alone in silence, listening to my heartbeat and swimming in thoughts and feelings. What makes it possible for us to say the things that are closest to our hearts, I wondered? What makes it possible to be brave when there is so much to fear and so much to lose? What allows people to act out of courage instead of fear?

To Be Brave is a story about courage. And hope. And vulnerability. And compassion. And care.

And I hope it will inspire others to be brave, too.

With love,

Mia

Many people think that the stories I’m collecting will be huge, sweeping success stories. Stories where everything turns out good and everyone is safe, healed, accountable and forgiven. Stories where “justice” is as clear as the Caribbean water I grew up next to. Where everything works out for the best, leaving an easy road map to follow.

And while these stories, though harder to find, certainly exist the majority of the stories I am finding are not full-blown success stories, but rather complicated stories of saturated heartbreak and nagging hope with small victories scattered through out.

Small victories. The moments that don’t seem like much, but stand in stark contrast against the backdrop of the overwhelming isolation, denial and silence that colors most work to address CSA. Though it can be hard, it is important to acknowledge the small victories and successes within our stories. Small victories mean something and should not be swept under the rug or minimized.

After spending my life as a child and youth growing up around direct service work to address domestic and sexual violence, and then later as an adult doing transformative justice work to end child sexual abuse (CSA), I know that small victories mean a lot. They are the small seeds we can harvest to plant for the next season and collect again and again, yielding crop that can withstand the climate that surrounds child sexual abuse.

After over a decade of working to build transformative community responses to child sexual abuse, I know that small victories can have the greatest impact and continue to be our markers of progress. They are small guideposts that we can use to get through the worst of the storm. A compass for where we want to go next.

And even calling them “small” is misleading because given the current landscape of child sexual abuse, they are no small feat.

When CSA survivors disclose about their abuse, often doing so when they are children and youth, and are believed—that is a small victory in a world where most survivors of sexual violence are not believed at all when they come forward.

When a family or family member not only believes a survivor about their abuse, but also supports them against the common backlash from family, friends and/or communities—that is a small victory in a world where many survivors face such backlash on their own.

When an abuser acknowledges the abuse they’ve done—that is a small victory when so many abusers deny the violence they’ve done and worse, often blame survivors and bystanders.

These may seem small to those outside of this work—I get it. The longing inside of us for large-scale change is very real and important, especially in the face of so much fear and unbelievable violence against the most vulnerable members of our communities. Sometimes I think about it as an ecosystem. If you’ve never seen the desert, you might think there is little to no life amidst the dry sand and rocks. But to those who live there, they have learned to recognize all the many different kinds of life that exists. They have learned to not only wait for the occasional rain to fall from the sky, but to find water in many different forms—forms that are not always recognizable to others.

This is how I think about small victories in this work. The longer you are part of the work, the more you begin to understand that the downpours that soak through the ground are glorious, but there are also many more examples of life to be found.

In conversation after conversation, I pull out these small victories, excavated from the rubble of pain. I search for them—the three tiny shells found on an empty beach. I hold them out to remind us of the promise of next year’s crop, and the year after that, and the year after that. The promise of the bounty that we are growing for future generations.

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It has been almost six months since I started this project and almost everyday I get connected with another possible story for LBP. I thought I would blog more than I have in the past four months, but I have spent most of my time finding stories. Or in many cases, the stories have found me.

Everywhere I go, in political and social spaces, someone has a connection to a story—or two, or four, or eight. So many stories.

Even though I have been doing work around child sexual abuse (CSA) for over a decade now, I am still amazed at how many stories are out there. And not only the sheer number of people impacted by CSA, but the amount of people who have disclosed about their experience of CSA to their family, friends, and communities, since so many people (survivors, offenders and bystanders) never tell anyone. As a CSA (and other forms of violence) survivor, I am continually moved at the courage it takes to come forward about surviving violence and abuse, especially in a world where so often survivors, especially survivors of sexual violence, are not believed and face hostility, blame, shame, undermining, isolation, criminalization, demonization, ignorance and being used for other people’s agendas.

Many of these stories have never been shared outside of the initial disclosure, save a therapist, counselor or healer. Most of these stories have been buried away and many are not even thought of as “responses”—they were simply what people did to care for each other. They were simply the way people chose to love each other, often in the face of great danger and fear.

There are of course, many stories where people did not chose love or care. These are the majority of the stories surrounding child sexual abuse responses. These stories are filled with most often, those around us responding with denial, collusion, fear, silence, deceit, unhelpful rage, more violence and blame. These stories too, are often not thought of as "responses," but instead thought of as “just the way things are” or “what you’d expect to happen.” It is important to remember that just as love and care are choices, so too are fear and silence.

These stories are important as well, as they are the more common reality of CSA and we cannot turn away from that reality. Not only can these stories teach us about how not to respond, but they also give us valuable information about child sexual abuse itself and the many reasons it continues, despite our best efforts. These stories are enormously important to document as well because they can help us to better fight, stop and ultimately end CSA.

As I have been connecting with more and more people and more and more stories, I have also gotten a lot of questions, so I have started a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page that I can continue to add to. I hope it is useful in answering some of your questions too. 

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I named this project after the living bridges of Meghalaya, India. I stumbled upon them unexpectedly late one night, scrolling through the internet and have been captivated by them ever since.

This, I thought, this is what we are trying to do. We are trying to grow a living bridge across the river of violence and abuse that our communities face.

Everything about these bridges moves and inspires me. Everything about them reminds me of our work to end child sexual abuse. The seeming impossibility of both. I imagine the first person to dream of growing a tree across a river and the first time they described the idea to someone else. Yes, we can do this! We will grow a tree across the river. It will take generations, but will last for generations to come.

When I tell people I do work to end child sexual abuse without using state systems (e.g. police, prisons, the foster care system, the criminal legal system, etc.), many people shoot me unbelieving, questioning, incredulous looks. I get lots of, that’s nice or interrogating, how will that ever work?

And I always think of those living bridges.

How, in the beginning, before the bridge takes shape, it looks nothing like a bridge, nothing like our dreams, but slowly—very slowly—it begins to take shape. I imagine the moment that it looks less like a tree and more like a bridge; less like our everyday and more like our dreams.

There are moments like that in this work as well. They are small, but deeply transformative, hurling us into new worlds that won’t ever let us be the same again. These moments come to us once we are submerged in the work; once we have decided to grow a tree across a river, with no map or blueprint, with no precedent that it could ever be done. We move forward out of sheer need and a black hole kind of desire for something more; with only our hungry desperation and focused persistence that fragile roots grow into branches, branches into trees, and trees into bridges that will one day carry us past where we are and what we know.

I imagine the people who came before me in this work and their dreams. Their steadfast determination and moments of defiance at a world that only knows bridges made of steel and concrete, wire and bolts. I imagine the legacy of child sexual abuse survivors that I am a part of who did not want the steel and concrete of cages, but instead longed for the forest and its wisdom.

I imagine those bridges, stretching out through the open air held only by the collective dreams and labor of people who create what they need with what they have.

I imagine those bridges, holding steady as the rivers swell and fall beneath them, their roots digging in deeper and deeper after each monsoon season passes.

This project is a small part of the bridge that we are growing to end child sexual abuse—to end sexual violence. It is documenting the bridges others tried to grow and the people who turned toward the forest in themselves and each other. These stories are part of our collective bridge, they are what I hope we can offer to others who have only had dreams of the forest. Or who have been laughed at or silenced by concrete, steel and cages.

A living bridge.

Ending child sexual abuse.

A world free of intimate and sexual violence. A world free of state (sanctioned) violence. A world free of genocide, abuse, oppression, war and torture. A world without prisons.

Healing. Accountability. Safety. Justice. Home.

Liberation. Love.

Living bridges. 

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This week I was able to connect with two collective CSA response stories. One is a story about successful prevention of CSA in a family and the other is a collective response in navigating the damage done by the systems of criminalization that surround CSA. Both stories give me a tremendous amount of hope of what can be possible when we are clear about our values, grounded in love and aligned with what matters most to us. Both stories involve adults who acted protectively for the children and youth in their lives and who took risks to help create more safety and trust. In many ways, these two stories bookend the spectrum of CSA and CSA responses: the work to directly confront and prevent child sexual abuse in real time and dealing with the after-effects of a damaging state-system-based approach to CSA.

For both stories, I wonder, what made those responses possible? What supported the actions of the people involved? What were the barriers? What can we learn from each response that might help our work in organizing to end CSA and building the kinds of relationships that keep children and youth safe?

What are the risks that we will need to take in order to keep all children safe? How do we confront and prevent child sexual abuse in our lives? What are the skills we will need in order to build the kind of relationships needed to respond well to intimate and sexual violence within our communities? What are the values we need to practice in our organizing to not only respond, but to end sexual violence in all of its forms, whether it is coming from a police officer, a boss, priest, soldier, senator, coach, principal, doctor, friend, lover or family member?

I dream of a world where rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse are considered historical forms of violence--things that we used to do, but do not do anymore. I imagine future generations after us talking about them as a cruel way we used to be before we collectively worked to transform. I think of child sexual abuse that way too--something that used to happen; something we decided we would fight with every cell of our bodies until it ends; something that required us to work at the intersections of systemic and personal transformation; individual, collective and generational healing; humility and courage; and body, heart, mind and spirit. As we always say in this work, “you can’t think your way through child sexual abuse.”

As the world continues to spin, and so many brave hearts continue to take to the streets to confront state violence head-on, I think about what it would take for us to not only be safe from state violence, but also from the violence we inflict on one another, in our own communities, in our own homes. What would it be like if we could fight the systems that seek to erase us and, at the very least, not have the insidiousness of intimate and sexual violence between each other? I think about the brave hearts who are also confronting intimate and sexual violence head-on, in real time, in their families and communities, often risking the things that are most important to them: their relationships, families, communities and belonging.

I believe our stories of how we have responded to CSA--in big and small ways with all of our mistakes and regrets--can help us build the kinds of responses we will need to end child sexual abuse and sexual violence in general. Not only talking about the initial violence, but how we were able to respond to it--or not. The things that happened after the assault and abuse. The things that happened when we disclosed our abuse, as well as the things that made us decide to not disclose. How did we keep ourselves and each other safe, even in small ways, in the midst of, before and after violence? What did we wish could have happened? What did we long for? what did we need most?

Yes, there is so much we need that we don’t yet have, but I also hope these stories can reveal how much we already have and are doing. The ways we are preventing abuse, The ways we are creating what we need with what we have. The ways that we are interrupting generational cycles of abuse and blazing trails towards a world without sexual violence. The ways that we are not only resisting the world we don’t want, but actively building the world we desire.

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It has been two and a half months since I began this project. Over that time, I have had countless conversations and meetings with people: teas, coffee, lunches, afternoon calls, evening video chats and stolen moments at social gatherings. People have emailed me and pulled me aside here and there in whispers, “I think I might have a story for you” or “you should talk to my friend."

People I have never spoken with about child sexual abuse have come forth with people they know who might have a story to share. Friends have offered to connect me with friends of theirs who are part of the seemingly endless tidal impact of child sexual abuse.

Everyone knows someone. And everyone has a story to tell.

I knew from the beginning it would not be the finding of the stories that would be hard (virtually everyone has a connection), but instead it would be the sharing of the stories. Understandably, people are nervous, scared and hesitant to share their stories. The stigma, shame and guilt of child sexual abuse is overwhelming. Telling stories from our childhood are some of the hardest to tell because the stories from our childhood are often times never just ours. Telling those stories involve revealing not just vulnerable information about us, but the people we grew up with as well. Our families, our intimate networks and communities, our hometowns, our relationships, our collective secrets. It involves revealing who we used to be and who did or didn’t protect us; who did or didn’t have our backs. It involves going back to places that we have left behind, or in some cases, made our peace with.

It can feel like a breaking of trust or betrayal to tell the very things that have so fundamentally shaped our lives because they are the things we have constantly been taught not to share. And even though the stories collected here on the Living Bridges Project are anonymous, the anxiety of someone finding out can be enough to stop us.

This is one of the ways that child sexual abuse (and many other forms of intimate violence) continues. Because our lives are so interdependent and bound up with others, especially when we are young, it can be hard to pull apart “our stories” from “their stories.” Telling our truth involves telling pieces of other people’s lives—people we may love and care about, people we may still have to see everyday, who may help us pay our bills, or take care of our children. People who are our connection to our peoples, legacies, traditions, lands and ancestors. People who might have wanted to do better than they did, who wished they had supported us or spoken up in our defense. People who sacrificed for us. People who may never change or people we still hope might change, even after all these years.

So I reach out and wait. Reach out and wait. I listen and hope, but always—always—I understand. I understand the fear, the risks, the decisions to take care of ourselves. I understand the reasons that make it hard for us to tell our stories. I understand the “I’ve made my peace with it and don’t want to go back there;” the “I have to ask my friend and my mother if they are ok with me sharing my story;” the “I can’t tell this story while he’s still alive;” the “my kids don’t know yet;” the “I need someone else’s voice to be recorded telling my story;” the “I need some time to think about it.”

Always, always, I understand. I understand. I understand.

For some this is a release, a closure. For others it is a reckoning, a collision.

No matter the reason, I understand, more than you know. And I long for a world where we don’t have to be afraid to tell our stories, to tell our truths.