​

​

Hello Friends,

I was going to write a tougher letter this week about hierarchies... but instead, I've decided to tell you my little love story with America.

Wait, hear me out lol!

When I first moved to the US back in the nineties, I saw a yellow school bus. I wasn’t on it. I wasn’t in one of the cars. I was just watching.

And when that bus stopped, every car in both directions stopped with it.

I didn’t know the rule. But I understood the meaning instantly and it overwhelmed me: these people had agreed, as a society, that they cared about their children. That the protection of the vulnerable was worth the inconvenience of delaying their own plans.

These, I decided, were my people. This was my country, my community.

I grew up in a few different countries. Many folks here have a romantic notion of how community works elsewhere, but I have seen the dark side of it, too; where community is enforced through rigid hierarchies, where belonging comes at a cost.

My family moved to the U.S. for a different vision of community. A community where care wasn’t tied to obligation or enforced by hierarchy, but instead rooted in shared values:

Equality.
Access to opportunity.
Human rights.
Safe working conditions.
Recourse for exploitation.
Care for the vulnerable.

We came here for progressive values. Some would have you believe that those values are the problem today, that they have led to the downfall of this country. But contrary to the current dominant narrative, it has always been progressive values that have made this country great.

It is easy to look at other progressive countries that seem to have their act together and wish we could be like them. But most of those places are more homogenous. Very few of them have had to do the work of unpacking the past before implementing policies that move society forward.

This country has a painful and bloody history, almost too terrible to bear.

But of all the places I have seen, this is the one with the greatest percentage of people willing to face the demons of the past and change themselves.

I know some of you don’t see it. But I do.

We have been moving fast. Too fast for some. The fierce backlash we are experiencing now is not because we have failed but because we have been succeeding. Progress threatens those who lack the courage to face the truth of what has been.

My friend Letty chuckles at my patriotism. But I have this unexplainable feeling that cosmic forces have been bringing bloodlines from across the globe to this place, here to Turtle Island, so that we can look each other in the eye and reckon with who we are as a species.

Some of this reckoning is also happening elsewhere. But not like this.

Not in a place this big.
With a population this diverse.
With a concentration of power this immense.

This is ground zero.

And I am here for it.

We are the community that must build the future. But it's going to take resilience.

This is how we sustain each other through the work ahead.

If you are tired, breathe.
If you have energy, sing.
If you feel alone, listen—you are surrounded by voices.

Let me tell you about the voices.

When I sent my first letter a few weeks ago, I braced for backlash. I gave the inbox team a heads up about how to respond to the deluge of hate mail that I was sure would come. But the deluge didn't come.

These letters have been going out to tens of thousands of readers. Our open rate? Average. Our unsubscribe rate? Also average.

But what’s not average is the number of replies.

Newsletters rarely get responses. But this time? For every negative reply, there have been over 50 messages of support. Thoughtful, heartfelt, unwavering.

Y'all.

✨YOU✨ are my people. YOU are my community. And you are the best. I should have known to expect nothing less from Montessorians.

I don't have much clarity about what exactly to do right now. But I do know that the members of my community need to know that they are not alone, so I send these letters to remind you that you are part of a choir.

And I also know that thirty years on, I still get a little lump in my throat when I see a stopped yellow school bus because it reminds me that the instinct to hold a protective space for one another, is very much alive.

-Seemi

​

PS You are welcome to forward this email. It isn't published on our main website but here is a shareable link if you prefer to use this:https://pages.trilliummontessori.org/posts/on-community​

Catch up here:

1. ​Checking in ​
2. ​Stay Regulated​
3. ​We are the Vision Keepers​
4. ​Who is Setting the Narrative?​