You have your comfort zone, where you are singing in the shower. And you have your danger zone, where someone is physically threatening you and you have to get away. In between are zones of dissonance, where you take risks and where learning happens. In order to learn, you have to be willing to explore those zones of dissonance.

Hence, Experience Discomfort. Expect and Accept Non-Closure.

It’s hard. My Spanish is pitiful, my Cantonese non-existent, and I don’t like being the one who is struggling to keep up. But it’s essential. To me, my work on intersectionality and race is an essential part of my geek feminist identity. It’s about deconstructing how I feel when I am the marginalized one, and applying those insights to other spheres of my life, where I am the one doing the marginalization.

It’s about belonging to a community that does real work and overcomes real challenges.

This is what I want for my daughters.