Perfect Balance

I'll give it to you straight: the past few weeks have been pretty tricky. Less than a month ago, I managed to leave my family for seventeen days, travel across the world, and volunteer with The Emancipation Network right in the thick of it all – the epicenter for human trafficking and a hub of lively, beautiful sex slavery survivors and the heroes that care for them - Kolkata, India. My eyes saw it. My hands touched it. My soul felt it. My mind whirled (and I do mean whirled) with ideas, intentions, possibilities for fundraisers, awareness events, and ways to reach endless avenues that could help these survivors get educated, get job training, get their products sold. Indeed, I saw it as my personal mission to slavery proof every girl and young women I met – and then some. I was drawing strength from the joy I witnessed. I was rallying the personal motivation from the suffering. My personality tips the scale towards intense (I hear that snickering) and when I say I wanted to do all of this, I kind of mean...immediately. As in...yesterday. Ok, fine. Here's a sampling from my brain this week: Global Social Work graduate school, multi-city Freedom Festival fundraiser, school sponsorship campaign, a storefront for products, and speaking engagements lined up from preschool through college. So you can imagine the outcome – the let down - when that all of that life energy must be cautioned, slowed, and stopped to face the reality that this path to healing and empowerment is a process. And I was left trying to find beauty in the art of – ugh - pacing myself. So my rational intelligence tells me to work smarter, not harder. My emotional self says stepping back means surrendering (don't judge) and I was so very, very relieved to have been invited to speak at a book club about my trip and the cause. At least I was in motion. The curse of idleness lifted for an evening.

So, I know what you're thinking about book clubs. Snobby wine drinkers reading about social issues over vegan dishes and discussing the throws of poverty from the safe distance of their fancy, urban apartments. Lucky for me, in this situation, I knew better (think Skittles vodka). My younger sister's childhood friends and some new additions, have been meeting monthly for the past year to “pre-game” over titles like Chelsea Handler's “My Horizontal Life” (or the like), and the rest of their night out, living it up in the city. One of the women recently asked me for a book recommendation for the group, and I slyly suggested the memoir titled “The Road to Lost Innocence”, by Somaly Mam. They went for it and I hoped this was the perfect opportunity to introduce trafficking to these life loving twenty somethings. As intense of a read as this book is, they openly invited me to share my pictures, discuss my trip, and sell some MadeBySurvivors products during their precious Friday night meeting. We talked about the book - what was hard to hear, what was impossible to believe, and at what points we needed to close the cover and put it away for another day. We talked about the inspiration, the courage, the obstacles, the strength of the women and children in slavery. We talked about demand. The responsibility of the men, the pimps, the business that uses human life as a commodity. We took lots of breaks. They shared upcoming wedding plans, work hassles, boyfriend troubles. We cracked up about ridiculous antics over plates of meatballs and Caesar salad. They poured over the jewelry and handbags and raved about the skill level and high quality of the products. We viewed a slide show and I shared some drawings the girls had given me. They couldn't believe the joy and beauty in these children. And I think in these moments the book they had read, the stories I told, the faces in the photos, the jewelry in their hands, made this cause, so very real. And I knew it was time to go home.

On my drive back to Cape Cod, I felt truly satisfied. I smiled knowing the young women I left behind were jumping in cabs to catch a few rounds before last call. I loved knowing my house would be quiet and the weekend lay ahead for my family. I was at peace knowing that perhaps, in between these two places, I'd planted a seed of hope for the girls I love across the world. And this was the lesson I needed most - small steps, grand intentions in perfect balance.

Namaste,

Janell