I live in the narrow place — or so I’m told. 

We are all navigating narrow places. After all, as Rebbe Nachman once said, “The world is a very narrow bridge, and the important thing is not to be afraid.”

And yet, I have been blessed to know people who make this narrow place feel as wide as Texas’s big sky country. My queer community. My family. My neighbors. For as long as even one of us exists in this place, just by our being here, we create more room for all of us to breathe a little more freely. We carve well-worn paths into the narrow bridge, chart the territory, and hand over the maps we’ve created from our own wanderings. 

But lately the path for some is closing in even tighter, and for them it is too much to bear. For those whose documentation and health care and existence in public spaces is collapsing under the weight of oppression, an escape plan may be the answer.

And so they move on, as is their right. It feels like watching a star flicker out in our big sky every time. It brings a kind of grief, knowing there’s an exodus taking place while you watch from the shore, and it tastes like saltwater. Or maybe it’s a little like watching futures drift away in baskets down a river. I can feel the chip forming on my shoulder, but I refuse to let it harden my heart. I at least understand my role a little better now, helping others who need to move on land safely (bless those on the other side ready to catch them), and also tending to those of us still on the shore. 

We know the narrow places aren’t places on a map at all, not really. The narrowness comes from powers that seek to oppress, the structures that divide us from one another and our own power, that constrict our imaginations, and confine us into narrow definitions of who we can be.

I can’t predict the future, and it would be pretty chutzpadik to declare with certainty that I’ll never leave this place. But what I do know with absolute certainty is that I have never been more committed to my mission: to take care of my community, whether they choose to leave or to stay. As long as there is someone and something to fight for, I will be swinging. And if I’m the last one swinging, I will fight for myself and the ones who will inevitably come after me. The promised land, to me, exists in the promises I keep with those I fight alongside.

And for those who stay, as we pick our way down this narrow bridge: come on over to mine. No matter how narrow it gets, there will always be a heart that’s mostly soft and a door that’s open wide for you here, and I hope you’ll keep yours soft — and open — too.