By: Makeda Marshall-NeSmith
It’s a rainy day here in New Jersey, and I find myself sitting with all the thoughts swirling around me—much like the raindrops tapping against my window. So much has transpired this year. Change upon change, shift upon shift. As we prepare to step into the final quarter of the year, and as the season known for transformation—fall—slowly creeps in, I can’t help but ask myself: how am I really living up to my claim of being “okay with change”?
Octavia Butler wrote in Parable of the Sower, “God is Change.” That line has always stayed with me. It was a mantra threaded throughout the book, carrying the protagonist through hardship, chaos, and the unraveling of the world as she knew it. It became her grounding truth: survival required adaptability.
And of course, it’s no surprise that I’m thinking about that story now. The climate we’re in feels eerily reflective of the same themes—instability, uncertainty, transition. For those of you who haven’t read the book, Butler set her story in a United States unraveling under economic collapse and social upheaval. Yet her protagonist, Lauren Olamina, wasn’t just surviving. She was shaping a path forward, precisely because she allowed herself to bend without breaking.
So here I am on this rainy day, wrestling with the same question: how do I embrace change without losing the core of who I am? How do I adapt and stay flexible, while still holding onto my truth, my values, my essence?
That’s what I’ll be journaling about tonight. And I invite you to do the same. Sit with the question. Write about it. Reflect on it. And if you feel brave enough, come back here and share your thoughts.
Ase.
Sankofa Community Welness 