Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

I am the product of a complex system, but a producer of my own reality. For the past 4 years, I have used this space to tell my own story of this reality. Each time you see me, I promise, you will see something different, like a kaleidoscope. Take today, not only did I create an entirely new presentation (albeit very rushed with typos) on what it means to write an innovation section of a grant and presented it at my dear friend’s grant-o-thon workshop, I also spent the day in Chicago, yes, Chicago connecting with new people to share my vision and mission on how to sustain or make things last. I share all this to say, what you read here, my world as seen from the margins, from the horizons too in some instances, is truly how I live life to the fullest.

I know that the theme of being black or female, mother, or researcher in academia is often static. Beneath that theme though, there is life. My own and those of many who wear multiple hats as we navigate our spaces. For the past two days, I visited Chicago in the company of Dr. Geri Donenberg and her team over at CDIS. This is an appreciation post to them for the grace and space the gave to me this past 2 days. I find myself speaking of balance these days, speaking of the passion I have for sustainability, speaking of my love for grant-writing, and storytelling, not as an either, or, but as all of me. What is commonly called academia, is actually a record of choices. You can either sell your soul to the system, or let the system lean into your soul. I choose to lean these days for what soul-giving, soul-thriving, soul-loving, soul-journey entails, for the ways it brings thunder behind my ears, my heart, all the way down to the soles of my feet. When rain falls it falls, not on some, but all. So too is the love, the balance I bring to the work I do. It’s not for some of my work or life, but all of it.

So I thank Geri and her group for giving me the space to rest in all of me, both my work as a parent and of course my productivity with implementation science. What they may not know is that I rarely reflect on the journey. When I speak, I tend to speak about the science or what I hope people gain from the science. What they offered to me, this afternoon was all the ways I embrace all of me, the myriad of interpretations that I bring to the reductive space that academic work can become sometimes.

There is always an imminent danger when you bring your life to work, especially as a woman, a mother, being black and female and scholar. On the whole, what you read here is about myself and much of what I do and say as a parent, a black woman, a scholar. These ideas do not arise from nowhere, but are a reflection on the point of struggle, the point of survival, the point of keeping your soul intact irrespective of whatever system or situation you find yourself in. All partly because Nkemijka. What I have within me, the worth I know to be of me and in me, is great. Always. A survival against great odds, as a storyteller, I get to view my way, for myself, from an horizon too these days. To shape what I have, my way, is a gift that I do not take for granted. To speak, and speak, in the manner of which I did to, in a plethora of voices, all of which sum up the essence of my life is too a gift, for which I am grateful for. Thank you Geri, thank you CDIS team for this gift you gave to me. I will forever cherish it.