Accidental Perfectionist

01/13/2026

Friends don’t let friends buy books on !

Bookshop.org supports local independent bookstores!

12/15/2025

Felt grateful for tonights opportunity to hear so many kids share their music - And so proud of my kiddo and his hard work-sounded so good!

Could not have happened without his teacher Chris, and previous teachers too. Thank you to Renee Bordner for putting together this amazing opportunit that has become a family tradition.

12/09/2025

Watching The Last Class with Robert Reich, on youtube.com/live/LuHZz17aZWw. On now! With live q&a with Reich afterwards.

11/29/2025

Just finished a game of with my two kiddos and we are all delightfully exhausted!
… From throwing and dodging, leg dueling and mostly from laughing.

What a different experience this parenting moment is- no reprimands, or raising my voice, no “put your phone away”, or “did you hear what i asked?”….

Just unbridled joy and laugh till you cry, and heart-filled fatigue. Appreciating my long and non linear journey and remembering that thr beautiful petals of a grows from the mud. Through each and revolution, i’m emerging fiery hot and vibrant. 🪷 🌀 🔥

02/21/2024

St Louis is lovely so far! Amazing weather, sights and delicious food.

Looking forward to meeting colleagues tomorrow.

02/03/2022

i was so fortunate to be part of the facilitation team for a convening this week on building in a !During the closing, we each built a terrarium and reflected on this profound parable:

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

01/06/2022

“Pay Attention”. “Spend Your Energy”.

Our language indicates that our attention and our energy are like currency, but i find that we don’t invest our attention and energy with the same that we would money. it’s important to recognize that we have choices about where to direct both and that there is power in doing so.

Right now the world has enormous forces of capitalism – companies, lobbyists and individuals wanting, above all else, to make money. Some say they want to make an impact or leave a legacy of greatness, and that might feel true. i believe there is also an underlying compulsion borne of wanting to find comfort where there is sadness, induce numbness where there is pain, and feel a notion of security where there is profound uncertainty.

And so we consume apps that show happy videos, or buy products to magically solve our greatest insecurities, and spend excessive time on virtual platforms where it might be easier to shield our vulnerability. There is nothing inherently wrong with using these platforms or products. But I wonder about my own use: Am i using them with intention? Am i using them as a tool of authentic expression and connection? Am i using them to steer me away from some part of the human experience?..
i believe our power lies in our ability to face the fullness of our human experience, including pain, suffering, discomfort, uncertainty, fear, lack of control… and not try to change or avoid them. When we can sit with these, we see that they are temporary and so they do not have to control our actions. From there we can generate actions rooted in expansive possibility. Being able to face these is also, at this moment in history, a competitive advantage, simply because many people can’t sit with these parts of being human.
I know much of this post is a bummer - as is the movie, “Don’t Look Up”, much of the time. But we must look around - remember that it is okay to feel bummed out, and know that what we do as a result does indeed matter.
Pay attention.
Spend your energy.
It seems to me that these are the only two things we can control.

12/22/2021

Hello all! Excited to be facilitating a workshop series in 2022 to find ways to sustain your anti-racism efforts. Maybe you've gotten more involved lately, and are feeling burnt out, or challenged by the struggle of holding the complexity of this work. Maybe you still don't feel like you have found your lane. We'll work through this, together. Read more and sign up below!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf9JTmVDPQRlQcBh5-AVXotVz9edcPajQ8fiaoxhwAxSBeK8g/viewform?usp=sf_link
--
Stepping Up and Sustaining Your Anti-Racism Action --FREE workshop series for residents of Acton, Boxborough and contiguous towns.
Description: This 5-session series will focus on defining anti-racism actions that align with your values, skills and identities. We will engage in learning, reflection and discussion to identify ways in which white supremacy culture shows up in our daily lives and the opportunities we have to dismantle those norms.
At the end of the program, each participant will have developed a plan for themselves to engage in anti-racism efforts in their community, family, workplace or other settings, as well as a plan to sustain efforts over time.
Dates: Participants must be available to attend all 5 Sessions on the following Thursdays from 7-9 pm: Jan. 27, Feb. 10, March 10, April 7, May 5
Registration will be capped at 18 participants to allow for rich, nuanced dialogue. Monica Biswas, of Accidental Perfectionist (https://accidentalperfectionist.com/
), and resident of Acton, will be facilitating the training.
Register here - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf9JTmVDPQRlQcBh5-AVXotVz9edcPajQ8fiaoxhwAxSBeK8g/viewform?usp=sf_link
Funding for this program was provided by a grant awarded to Racial Justice 4 Black Lives from Community Health Network Area (CHNA) 15.

Free workshop for residents of Acton, Boxborough and contiguous towns. Description: This 5-session series will focus on defining anti-racism actions that align with your values, skills and identities. We will engage in learning, reflection and discussion to identify ways in which white supremacy cul...

11/01/2021

Year of

Staring into the darkness of myself-
I am inadequate, weak, cowardly
Won’t make a difference while i am on this earth, #

Regret grips my throat for the things i didn’t say,
For the things i desired to do, but stayed on the sideline,
For the parts of myself i kept hidden, ashamed

Tear after tear
Breath by breath
i excavate the walls around my heart
one spoonful at a time…

Without their shelter, i feel the sharp cold of aloneness.
And the sunlight warms me
Shame evaporates

It is me, my inner soul shining outward without obstruction

i feel a fire power in my gut, ecstasy in my heart,
i can fly.
i can fly.

09/01/2021

Was in a powerful session today on Centered Education. Todays session flowed with open-hearted sharing, reflection, , music and writing…. Through the writing i accessed something so deeply painful… i had never recognized how my body had incorporated that pain.

Recognizing our pain, feeling it, is another way to challenge the white suoremacy culture that asks us to dissociate from our bodies in order to ‘appear normal’ or ‘have it all together’. This reminds me of the wisdom of Lilla Watson: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Our collective liberation *requires* our individual liberation.

This incident occurred 20 years ago…. The body didnt forget, but i believe it can heal.

thank you for the space and for the inspiration

08/12/2021

on the

The river has brought peace and clarity for me this summer….

The clarity has been crucial as i reflect on and own my responsibilities as a non-Black person of color doing race equity work, at work, in my community.

I am finding that the practice of mindfulness is an essential ingredient, for self-care yes, but even moreso for being attuned to the multiple forces at play in any situation, AND be able to discern my role and responsibility.

Being able to hold complexity and then take action amid that is HARD. And necessary for this work. We must maintain practices that stretch our abilities to hold complexity. If the answer looks easy, pause, and look again. Consider another perspective.

07/29/2021

Super-Human

I remember watching the 1996 , enrapt. had done a solid first vault, with a solid score. However, she landed awkwardly and hurt her ankle. She then took a second vault, and landed it, on just one foot. The American women’s team won the gold medal. Kerri was applauded as a superhuman and a hero.

I was 20, just a year older than Kerri. While I found her feat impressive, the thing that stuck with me was the moment just before her second vault. In my memory, her coach, Bela Karolyi, is leaning over Kerri, and telling her something. I don’t know what was said, but I imagine him telling her that she could do it, that the team needed one more vault from her to secure the team’s gold medal title.

A 19 year old girl. Largest stage for . That she has been training for most of her life. Her trusted, older, male coach. Telling her to do this for the team.

It did not sit well with me at the time. I could not understand pushing through an injury to do something that might further injure, or even result in permanent damage. But perhaps it was that important to Kerri.

Another discomfort came from wondering whether Kerri, in that moment, could actually make a decision of her own volition? She credited Bela for much of her success to that point, and Bela needed his magnificent seven” to reinforce his reputation as the greatest gymnastics coach… There was a lot at stake.

Like Kerri, also worked most of her life for a moment like this, and found herself on the world’s largest stage. ..
A few differences - Simone already attained acclaim. She’s a few years older. And, it seems that Simone’s relationship with her coaches may be quite different (perhaps less paternalistic?) than Kerri’s was with Bela.

Also, as a Black woman, Simone is aware of the white supremacy culture. With her decision, she resisted.
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