I almost turned my need for rest into another job

Black women deserve sabbaticals, no. 1

Hello gentle-people,

All my life people have been telling me I am gifted in one way or another. And with their recognition of my gifts came assignments. I must use my gifts to do certain things to justify having those gifts.

Even with my height I was told I must play basketball or be a model. People were disappointed that I pursued neither.

When I sang I was told I must try to make a career of it. People were disappointed if all I wanted to do was play and sing in my room or with a few friends.

I went to a Christian undergrad because I was told I should study ministry. Around the time, I was doing spoken word poetry.

I heard through a friend (not directly) that the other youth were afraid of me because my giftedness was too intense. I tried to dull myself as a response.

When I learned I was “gifted” at talking to white people about racism in college, I almost made a career of it, pursuing an internship at a multi-ethnic church committed to social justice.

There was once a time I felt so burdened by discovering I had more skills and gifts that I wanted to stop learning.

And there are often times when I take my giftedness and try my best to contort myself into various job roles or my hopes of securing the bag with freelance opportunities.

As a Black woman, there were often situations where I was exploited because of my giftedness and situations where my giftedness was what kept me alive. I have internalized the messages of my environment that want me to step up and be a StrongBlackWoman.¹

I keep running into the question: what do I do with my giftedness? Especially so that it pleases God (works righteousness)? What do I do with my giftedness? Especially so that I can prove I deserve to be alive (ableism, capitalism)?

My giftedness is amplified by the life I have lived that has been shaped by survival. My giftedness is punctuated by what I have learned as I navigate multiple systems of oppression—

I am gifted…so what?

I.

Am.

Exhausted.

It seems what I know how to do best is turn my need for rest into another job.

Here is my latest YouTube video that unpacks that some more. I am finding I am enjoying this journey of becoming a YouTuber, my latest adventure in exploring and building new skills.

In case you can’t watch now or love a synopsis:

I start off by saying “I am just a Black woman in need of rest” as my honest confession.

Often when I feel a lack of something (like community, healing, or rest), my immediate reaction is to start a project, design a plan to create a business, or seek new certifications. I realized I have been trying to make my need for rest “legitimate” by turning it into a service for others.

After researching (these last two years) on somatic coaching certifications and nonprofit structures, I had to confront the truth: I don’t need to become a coach right now; I need to receive coaching and take a real break. I don’t need to create an organization for sabbatical rest for Black women, I am a Black woman who needs sabbatical rest.

A lot of Black women struggle similarly, having a hard time not pursuing new degrees and certifications. I’ve heard it called #BlackGirlBoredom. (I will have to do a YouTube video on that soon.)

I talked about how this summer, I want to reject the pressure of hustle culture in favor of unhurried, restorative activities like writing without the expectation of monetization, playing music, and simply being soft. I want to decenter productivity. Will I produce? Yes, but at my own pace and with my own objectives in mind.

I want to discover who I am when I take my gentle landing praxis seriously: lean into rest, healing and play with the help of community care. That is why I have decided to put together a GoFundMe fundraiser for sabbatical rest for this summer.

Photo by Baptista Ime James on Unsplash

Black Women Deserve Sabbaticals

Last summer I had one week of real rest at a fellowship called Better Selves at Knoll Farm in Vermont. I sat in the woods, looked up at the trees, and let my body release in sobs when I finally arrived. I called it “the rest of my life” because it felt like both the deepest rest I had ever known and a life-altering experience I will never forget.

And then I came home and everything fell apart as I navigated my first major mental health crisis since 2023. Since then, I also dealt with unemployment and now underemployment.

I am building this summer around a belief that feels both simple and radical: Black women deserve sabbaticals. Not as a reward for surviving. Not after we have given everything to everyone else, but just because we do. Because rest is not a luxury. It is also not a reward. It is a right. It is a requirement for becoming who we are meant to be.

I have been offering my writing publicly for years, for free, accepting subscriptions from those who saw the value. Within that work, I have expressed my need for rest, healing and play. I turned it into a job so that I might also earn a little income something as I shared what I was learning on my own journey.

It has always been okay to enjoy A Gentle Landing for free and I want it to remain that way. I made a commitment to sharing A Gentle Landing for free.

It is free because I care so deeply that those who are most marginalized and oppressed have access. Soon, I will write (and/or video essay) about why I work this way, in a world where I am often advised as a Black woman to put things behind a paywall so that I can be compensated for my work.

I made another commitment to reserve the funds—unless I was in survival mode—for rest, healing and play. Someday soon, when my needs are met and exceeded, I hope to begin to allocate funds so I can donated to rest, healing and play related things Black MaGes² decide to get up to. Especially if they share any of my other identities that make me tender in different ways.³

A gentle landing as mutual aid: I don’t know that I have shared here enough how when I talk about a gentle landing, the kind that I am seeking in the world, because it is a praxis based on my lived reality, I describe a gentle landing in part by the things that help me live in the world as a soft Black woman. When I lean into community, I can grow softer. When I dream of a gentle landing, I am dreaming of a community that lays feathers on the ground to cushion the inevitable⁴ fall.

As of this writing, 58 people have contributed $3,141 toward my $7,000 goal, which is 45% of what I need to cover my basic living expenses between when my current job ends on May 29th and when I begin my new full-time role in late August.

I have raised enough to take about 4 weeks, and I will relish in that. I see the possibility of so much great rest, healing, and play in those 4 weeks. 50% raised, or 6 weeks of sabbatical, is only $359 away.

TENDER: a contemplative gathering for what wants to come alive in you

So I created an event to offer you all a glimpse of the work I have done in the last few years. It is a free event, with a suggested donation of $25, made to my GoFundMe, Venmo (rosejpercy), or Buy Me a Coffee.

It is a 1-hour meditation event, shaped around Lucille Clifton’s poem “being property once myself.” Here is an IG post where you can read more about the event, which takes place on May 21st at 7pm, just one week before my fundraiser goal deadline.

I will write more about the event next week for those who are curious. For now I will simply say I hope it creates a space where you do not have to do anything but receive for an hour.

I will say I hesitated about making this event open to more than just Black MaGes. But I wanted to have a rare space where people who are not the target audience of my writing could encounter me. If it goes well, I will consider making it a periodic offering.

No landing tracks for awhile. I simply want to know my words are reaching you and you are bearing witness. Do you see yourself in any of the dreams I am holding?

1. I put all the words together because that is how Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes puts it in her book Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength.

2. I learned this term from Bethany Nicole and I plan to use it going forward to name Black women, femmes and nonbinary folks. Any Black folx of marginalied genders.

3. You see why I keep dreaming up nonprofits? Maybe someday.

4. I wrote about the concept of the fall, more specifically, fear of the fall, in a recent post on