Where to Begin
Page 1
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This is for you.
And me.
And us.
We are the builders who are building a world
that has never been built
before.
Dearest you,
When I started out this year, I had no idea I would write a new book. That was until one day in April I was randomly looking through Heart Talk and I opened it up to page 131 where a poem called “Tired” lives. All of a sudden I stopped in my tracks when I saw the line in the poem that read:
I was tired of seeing evil everywhere / so I found the heavenly spots and showed my / neighbors where they were.
When I saw those words, I knew it was time to make a new book. There was a voice within me that said with the utmost urgency that I needed to create a heavenly spot and show my neighbors where it was.
I spent most of last year on the road in community with so many different people, all of whom taught me, inspired me, and made me feel so loved. If you are reading this and were one of the people who came out to any of my tour stops, thank you. You impacted me in ways I can’t fully express. As I traveled, there was one question I was asked, no matter where I went, a big city or a small town, a room full of fifty people or a room full of five hundred: it was “How do you stay sane when it feels like our world gets crazier and crazier?” Or if someone asked me for advice on self-care they would always end the question with “especially during these times.”
This book is a collection of the ideas, mantras, and poems I turn to when I feel like I am losing it. I wrote this so that I could have them all in one place when I felt overwhelmed by worry, fear, anxiety, or helplessness.
The words in this book are what stop me from walking away from the problems of the world during tough times. They also help me stay connected to hope during difficult moments and remind me that even on the days that feel the most daunting, I still have the power to show up and do something, somewhere, in some way.
This book starts with and is named after the poem “Where To Begin,” which I originally wrote when I was asked to give a Ted Talk in 2017. I spent a long time thinking about what message was the most important to put into words for the particular moment in history we are living in. I thought about what words carry me through my worst days and what it would look like to put them into a love note for my friends, family, and the next generation (shout-out to Baby Thelonious).
I realized if there was anything that I wanted people to know it was that change-making comes in all sizes. It doesn’t always have to be one big gesture or nothing. As my friend Jenna often says, “The big stuff is the small stuff.” Your big life is made up of a collection of all your small moments. Our big world is made up of a collection of all our small actions.
Over the past two years since writing that poem, I have found myself returning to it over and over again almost as a meditation when the world around me felt frenzied and I needed to calm my mind and replenish my energy.
The rest of this book is a collection of poems and ideas, some new, some old, as well as some words of advice from friends that I turn to when I need motivation to keep going. This section of the book reminds me that building a beloved community is a lifelong journey, one that requires tools for stamina and self-care.
If there is anything I hope you will walk away with from this book it is that I hope you won’t walk away from it at all. I hope you will live with it, write in it, and even color in it. (There are a handful of pages where I outlined the letters so you could fill them in. I personally find coloring to be very relaxing, so I thought I would leave some room in this book for you to share that simple joy with me. I recommend colored pencils or crayons instead of markers.)
I hope that this book can be a heavenly spot for you. I hope this book is one that reminds you that you are powerful and we are going to be okay. And most important, I hope this book makes you feel loved because I love you very much and I am so glad to be in this world with you.
Love,
Cleo
WHERE TO BEGIN
(a poem)*
* this poem takes up the next 91 pages of this book. Reading it out loud is the most fun (in my opinion), but as always with my work, experience it however you’d like. Read it front to back, a page a day, pick a page at random when you feel like it, or color all over it. No rules. This book isn’t mine, it’s ours.
The world will say
to you:
be a
better person.
do not
be afraid to
say yes.
start by
being a better listener.
start
by being better
at walking
down the street.
see people.
say hello.
ask how they are doing
and
listen to what they say
to you.
start by
being
a better friend
a better parent
a better child to your parents
a better sibling
a better lover
a better partner.
start by
being
a better neighbor.
meet someone you do
not know
and
get to know them.
the world will say
to you:
what are you
going to do?
do not be afraid to say
i know
i can’t do everything
but
i can do
something.
walk into more rooms, saying,
“i’m here to help.”
Give
what you can give
and
do
what you can do.
give dollars.
give cents.
give your time.
give your heart.
give your spirit.
the world will say
to you:
we need peace.
find your peace
within.
hold it sacred
bring it with you
everywhere
you go.
peace
cannot be shared or created
with others
if
you cannot, first,
generate it
within.
the world will say
to you:
they
are the enemy.
love enough to know
that
just because someone
disagrees with you
does not
make them
your enemy.
you may not win an
argument.
you may not change
a mind,
but
if you choose to…
the world will say
to you:
we need justice.
investigate.
find truth
beyond
the stories
you
are told.
find truth
beyond
the way things seem.
ask:
“why?”
ask:
“is this fair?”
ask:
“how did we get here?”
do this
with
compassion.
do this
with
forgiveness.
learn to forgive others.
start by
truly
learning how
to forgive
yourself.
we are all
more
than who
we were
yesterday.
we are
all
deserving of
our
dignity.
recognize
that
your justice
is
my justice
and my justice
is
yours.
the world will say
to you:
i am violent.
respond
by saying,
i am not.
not with my words
and
not with my actions.
the world will say
to you:
we need to heal
the planet.
start by saying,
“no, thank you, i don’t need a
plastic bag.”
recycle.
reuse.
start by
picking up
one piece
of trash
on your block.
the world will say
to you:
there are too many problems.
do not be afraid to be a
part of the
solutions.
start by
discussing the issues.
the more we talk about
things,
the more we see
that
the issues
are connected
because…
the world will say
to you:
we need to end
racism.
start by
healing it
in your
own family.
the world will say
to you:
how do we speak to
bias and bigotry?
start by
having the first
conversation
at your own
kitchen table.
the world will say
to you:
there is too much
hate.
love yourself
so much
that
you can love others
without barriers
and
without judgment.
when the world asks us
big questions
that
require big answers,
we have two options:
one.
to feel so overwhelmed
or
unqualified
we do
nothing.
two.
to begin.
to start
with one small act
and
qualify ourselves.
I am
the director of national
security,
and
so are you.
sure,
no one appointed us and
there were no senate
confirmations
but
we can
secure a nation.
when we help
just one person
to be more secure
our nation
is more secure.
with just one
outstretched hand
that says,
“are you ok?
I am here for you.”
we have
the power
to transform
insecurity
into
security.
we find ourselves
saying to the world,
“what do we do?”
“what can I do?”
the better question
might be,
“how am I showing up?”
I ask the world for peace
but
do I show up with peace
when
I see my family and friends?
I ask the world to put a
stop to hatred
but
do I show up with love
for not only
those I know
but
for those I do not know?
do I show up with love
for those
whose ideas conflict
with my own?
I ask the world
to end
suffering,
but
do I show up
for those who are suffering
on my
street corner?
we say to the world:
“please change!”
“we need change!”
but how do we show up to
change our own lives?
how do we show up
to change
the lives of the people
in
our communities?
James Baldwin
said,
“everything now, we must
assume, is in our hands; we
have no right to assume
otherwise.”
And this has always been
true…
no one nominated
Harriet Tubman
to
her purpose,
to
her courage,
to
her mission.
she did not say,
“i am not a congressperson
or
the president,
so how could i possibly
participate in the fight to
abolish a system
as big as slavery?”
she instead
spent ten years
making
nineteen trips
freeing
300 people,
one
person
at a time.
think about the children
of
those 300 people,
the grandchildren,
the great-grandchildren,
and beyond.
whether it was
hurricane
Katrina, Harvey, Irma,
or Maria,
people did not say,
“there’s so much damage, what can we even do?”
they got in their boats
and
started loading in every
woman, man,
and child
they came across.
one by one
they gave their dollars,
they gave their cents,
they gave their time,
they gave their heart,
and
they gave their spirit.
we spend so much time
thinking
we don’t have the
power
to change the world,
we forget that the
power
to change someone’s life is
always in our hands.
we all have the
power
to relieve someone’s pain
with our
embrace.
and
lessen someone’s suffering
with our
kindness.
change-making
does not belong to one group
of people.
you do not have to wait for
anyone
to tell you
that
you are in this.
you don’t have to wa
it
around wondering what you
should do
get to work on what you
can do.
the time has always been
now.
begin.
start by
doing what you can
with
what you’ve got,
where you are,
and
in your own way.
we don’t have to be
heroes,
wear a uniform,
call ourselves activists,
or
get elected to participate.