26. Celebrate the Squabble: There is One Right Way to Make a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

In this episode Alexis and Sangodare offer a relationship practice: “celebrate the squabble,” framing conflict as a generative opportunity for growth rather than something to fear, and grounding it with levity and curiosity. Drawing on Audre Lorde’s image of love acting “like a drug or a chisel,” they share about their first fight and seeking support that holds conflict as teacher rather than a breaking point. They close with three North Stars for conflict and announce a March 27–29 Black feminist breathing gathering in Durham with chanting, sound circles, dancing, Sunday School, and a live podcast taping.

• Celebrate The Squabble
• Navigating our First Fight
• Listener Question on emotional check ins
• Event Invitation 

Come breathe and laugh and dance with us! Join us March 27-29th in Durham, NC for our Deeper Love retreat.  Come solo or with your love and participate in our next live taping. More info on our website:

https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/loveship 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hi, I'm Alexis Pauline Gums. And I'm Shango Dari Wallace. And this is September, a podcast for love ships. We're two lovebirds who decided to intentionally create a love ship and share the insights we gather with the world. For the past 17 years, we've been relating to our love ship as a sacred space for spiritual practice. This podcast is our space to reflect on the insights we've found and been given with you. Whether romantic, platonic, or somewhere in between, okay, situationships, every bond has the potential to become an offering to a higher vibration for the world. One choice, one act of care, one repair at a time. So, if you're ready to think expansively about love, community, and spirit, you're in the right place. So glad you're here. Hello, Shango Dare, my sweet love visionary who loves much older versions of me in advance. Hello, Alexis, my playmate, who loves even the youngest versions of me. And vice versa. To keep it in balance, I'm also the one who could be any age on any day. Actually, same. Same here. So once again, we are two generative, generous toddler sages who both need a nap, and we are exactly as lovable as you. Today, we are dedicating this episode of the podcast to Emerson Zora and Janice. These two sweethearts have been a part of so many of our foundational mobile homecoming memories, like the Kumbahee Pilgrimage and the Rest in Realness Retreat, and my film When We Free. Emerson Zora is the star of the outtakes. For sure. And I got to reconnect with both of these sweeties in their new city last week. I'm jealous. It continues to inspire us how you create your relationship as free people who choose each other. From your names to your homes to the adventures you take individually or together. It all comes out of your reverence, your real reverence for life and for love. And we see the sweetness you offer through all of life's surprises and changes. And now that I think of it, you both help people see beyond what they could see before. Yep. Jan as an optometrist and Emerson Zora as a writer and scholar. Jan and Emerson Zora. We love you. All right, everyone. This is also your opportunity to dedicate your listening of the podcast to someone who you love or who inspires you. Maybe someone who has helped you to see something that you couldn't see before. Okay. Dedication launched. Ready to get into the heart of it? Let's grow. And guess what? It's still September. Every week, we have a technology for you from our journey and our teachers with North stars that can guide you as you navigate your own Dougie. Teach me how to. Teach me, teach me how to Dougie. And on today, we just dropped by to remind you, just like we celebrate the wins, we can celebrate the squabble. Now, we trust, y'all know that we are bringing playfulness and levity to these conversations. We certainly prefer peace and ease. We do not encourage conflict. No. But celebrate the squabble is a way of inviting you to consider. Imagine that it is possible that conflicts come up in our relationships to give us an opportunity to grow. Yeah. And celebrate the struggle isn't right because struggle, you know, the goal or the perspective we're coming from is that contrast, conflict, disagreement, and discernment can become a generative space, a welcome place in your relationship, in all types of relationships, really. So squabble has more breathing room, I feel like. Now, that's not to say every point of disagreement will be peaceful, positive or easy, but we can get to a place where the majority of them are. And for the ones that aren't, aren't easy paths to growth and transformation, that too is clarity, information, information to respond to and not necessarily to lament or fret over. At least not for too long. Right. It really helps to have practices already in place. Right. There's no need at this great age to be surprised that we sometimes disagree or hurt each other's feelings. To be surprised is almost disrespectful. Disrespectful. The truth will make you freak. It really will. It will release the tension in your neck. My neck. My back. Just like okay, okay. Because sometimes we're holding things in our bodies that have not made it into a clear thought or words, but we can be curious about what doesn't feel right. Right. Rather than just avoid it. Be curious. Yeah. And the word squabble is also kind of like a funny word. Yeah. Like sounds like birds or turkeys. Yeah, like a squabble. So bringing some levity to it. Yeah. So our sacred text today is directly adjacent to one of our black feminist breathing mantras. Right. Immediately after Audrey Lord writes, I am who I am, doing what I came to do. She makes it relational. She adds, acting on you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your meanness as I discover you in myself. Like a drug or a chisel. That chisel part though. I mean, you are a work of art. I mean, I have gotten raptured up, caught up in you, but also clarified and combed by you. I guess there's multiple sides to the drug aspect and multiple sides to the chisel aspect, really. If you think about it. Yeah, there there really are. We are dynamic beings. Yeah. But to be honest, rarely do we both start celebrating the squabble at exactly the same moment. Right. We have different perspectives on that sometimes. Let me tell y'all the story of our first fight. Okay. So we are in my little duplex kitchen in the very early days of our long-distance relationship. And in the midst of whatever else may have been going on, him, I decided to make the gorgeous sweetie my classic, delicious grilled cheese sandwich. Which is probably the first thing I ever learned how to cook. But anyway, no need for Shango Dari to help make the sandwich. I am just happy to be making a snack for this whole entree. Oh who me, yes you, that is in my kitchen right now. So I get out the bread, the butter, the cheese, the spatula, and the pan. And I proceed to do the first and most important step of any successful grilled cheese sandwich. Debatable, that's debate. Debate me, listeners. The first and most important step of any successful grilled cheese sandwich is to butter both sides of both pieces of bread. Which I joyfully did. And my baby was appalled and hurt near tears. Tears is a little bit of an overstatement. I was, I was, I was like, Lord, my arteries know. What's happening? I was thinking, why is she putting all that butter not that much butter on the bread? Inside and outside. Really? Ain't the cheese enough on the inside? Anyway, we're past it. We really are. Sure, sure. And I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that an act of delicious, buttery love could be so utterly rejected. And finally, I was like, you know what? You can make your own sandwich. And I started to leave the kitchen near tears. And immediately I was gleefully like, is this our first fight? With a huge smile. Because I was thinking, if if it's our first fight, then it's a real milestone in the history of our epic love stories happening right here, right now. And I was like, this person is really grinning in my face after rejecting my beautiful delicacy. But I mean, you are so cute, and everyone has to learn the proper way to make a grilled cheese sandwich someday. Well, bless your heart. And bless your arteries, because now I use vegan butter. But yeah. We grew from that first fight. We learned that I'm not invested in being right, but I am invested in being fit. I I would so much rather play a game with you to work through conflict than to be weighed down by my own opinion, even or my negative emotions. I mean, I can acknowledge that they're there at the same time that I can be excited to learn a new lesson with you, with you. And dear Alexis, dear listeners, if I don't have access to relating to you generatively, I know I need to step back. I need to find the ceremony to get there or ask for help. Help from you, help from someone we trust, you know? Yeah. And not someone who sees our conflict as drama or something to gossip about or an opportunity to badmouth one of us to each other, but someone who actually sees it as what it is and holds space for what we might need to learn about ourselves and each other that the conflict is teaching us. That's right. So our first North Star is conflict will come. Respect it as part of the process, not the end of the world or the relationship. Develop ceremonies to keep you grounded when it comes. Our second North Star is we are here to work on and work through. It may not feel like it in the moment, but the clarity that comes through conflict ultimately bears gifts that prepare the love ship to navigate the waters ahead. And our third North Star is find the light, find the love. Who triggered or who offended who is not the point. The point is that we now have more information about who we are together and how to create the experiences we want. The sooner we work together to find that, the better, honey. We do have a listener question from the live recording at Gladys Books and Wine in Brooklyn. Like to hear it. Here you go.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

My partner and I are working on creating a more regular cadence of checking in with each other. Um it's kind of new for both of us. I think we both tend conflict avoidant and like are learning how to feel safe in not necessarily conflict, but just like have a conversation that could lead to some kind of tension or conflict. Um, but I think with check-in, sometimes I don't always feel sure what questions to ask. And I was wondering if you like what kinds of questions you all um have in your like daily and quarterly check-ins. Um, and if there are any questions that have been particularly changed referring to.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, the first thing I'll say is like with with conflict, I really like to play games and role play, like to make a ceremony. So that it kind of it kind of decenters the challenging thing and brings in some of that play, resilience, sweetness. Um, but in our daily check-ins, first we say our mantra, which right now is we and we grow home together.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Y'all are cute. Y'all are real cute.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Then we do uh testimony gratitude. So we each say testimonies that we have, gratitudes that we have, then we say help. Yeah, we um there really is a list. So we do we do this in the morning. So this is kind of like our coming together. Usually we've had like like prayer and meditation that we do solo and and we come together. So that testimony of gratitude comes out of some of that. But some of it's just like the day before. I'm grateful that this happened. I'm grateful that we got to do this. I'm grateful that somebody in my life's health has improved, whatever, whatever it is that we're grateful for. And um checking about our literal health, like you know how you sleep with what what's going on. And then forgiveness purpose goes. Forgiveness. Because we we've combined them into these things because now we do it every day. But so so forgiving something or someone. Oftentimes it's forgiving ourselves. Like, I forgive myself for not starting on the thing that is now due today, that whatever, you know, whatever that often forgive you for putting the polls in the wrong place. Forgive each other sometimes as a way to release whatever that may be. And sometimes we just forgive, like the bad Uber driver who was driving recklessly, whatever it is. So it's just a practice of releasing something. And but it makes that space, right? So, like when we do need to forgive each other for something, for example, it's not like days and weeks and months. Yeah, it's not like you're holding you're holding it for a long time, but it's also not like you're the only person that needs to forgive, because you're the only person here stressing me out. You know what I'm saying? It's like, no, the Uber driver stressed me out, I stress me out, and sometimes stress me out, and we could just you know have that be part of the conversation. We restate our purpose individually. My purpose is to be love, my purpose is to be a sweet space for transformation. And then our goal, like, okay, today I'm really trying to turn this essay in. Today I'm really trying to whatever it is that is a big goal so that we're aware of it, like, oh, okay, I'm I want to support you that I now know that if I want to ask you to train switch me off into the woods, like, oh, but you are trying to turn that essay into today, right? So we have that and requests, which has been a major muscle. Also, there's a podcast episode about requests. Um, I don't like to ask nobody for nothing because I don't want the rejection. You know, like that that's that's been a thing for me historically. So building the practice of like, no, ask for something. Like there is something that you could ask for that would be a benefit. And then also understanding that it might be like, well, I have to make a counteroffer. I can't exactly do that request, or you know, that there's something else. And it can be a tiny thing. Like my request is would you I didn't take out the recycle. Oh, that was one of my requests. So she can forgive me for it. So no tomorrow, I can forgive.

unknown 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

It could be something like that. It can be um, it's usually something like that can happen during that same day. Yeah, or in the next couple of days. And then we read a sacred text. Yeah, we're reading a bag of ghetto together right now, and then we talk about time, like literally, what's our schedule? What are we gonna eat? Um, what's going on with our money? AI household stuff. Like, do we need to have this house power wash? Like what whatever, whatever it is. Those those things that could seem mundane, but it makes life so much better when you actually talk about them.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

So we do that every day. And I'll say that it's helpful because there are just so many areas, especially, you know, trying to avoid conflict or it's you know, those things where it's like you live with me every day. You didn't notice that I really need someone to help me lift this thing or hang it, hang this picture on the wall or whatever. It's like, well, just then just say it. It's supposed to secure it. But it's like an opportunity to actually say this. Or or you didn't notice that like it looked like my ankle hurts are going to like whatever it is. It's like we have an opportunity to be like, this is what's going on with me. This is what I, this is what I need. This is this is me today in a in kind of a nutshell. And then the favorite part is at the end of it, then we have a one song dance party. And it's really fun. And it doesn't actually sometimes we do most of this like in the car, driving to the gym. Like now that we were like, okay, forgiveness, purpose, goal, you know, like now that we have it as a as a practice, it's not like it takes hours or something like that. Yeah. Usually it could take like 20 minutes or something. But it it took 20 minutes, it would be a brief. And sometimes if we have more time, we'll expand it. Right. And we'll be like, oh, this is another Johnson ring, 90 minutes long. Have this little dream, and this is this, you know, or we really need to talk about something going on in the household in in more depth. But the fact that it's every day means usually we don't have to spend a whole bunch of time on it. And then sometimes you do uh what I want you to know.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah. But I think it's a good bonus option. Yeah, bonus option. Sometimes it's just related to like our mental health or something that's heavy.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

We just want each other to know. Yeah, want each other to know. Thank you for that question. And seasonally, it's it's a little bit uh it's actually not as many items, but it's more in depth. Um I'll say, and the the result of that is the mantra, the seasonal thing. Thank you so much. Yeah, I think you better ask. I need to do that one myself. Yeah, right. All right. Yes. And later this month, March 27th to 29th, join us for Black Feminist Breathing Deeper Love, a generative embodiment practice. Grounded in the visionary lineage of Alexis's Black Feminist Meditation Chorus. This space invites you to harmonize your breathing and fill your consciousness with the life-giving wisdom of our ancestors. Together we'll move through chanting, mindfulness, and immersive sound circles and a dance party that honor our deep communal roots and creative spirit. And we'll conclude the sacred gathering with the joyful release of Sunday School, a service of congregational singing, cathartic sermonics, an oracle to infuse your life with the unstoppable power of black feminist love. Love! And we'll be filming our next live podcast. That's right. Anyone who's inspired by the legacy and possibility of black feminism is welcome. Excited to see you there. More info is in the show notes or at mobilehomecoming.org slash love shoot. And until next time, farewell. Thank you so much for listening to the September podcast. If this conversation spoke to you, we'd love for you to share it with someone who might need it. And don't forget to leave us a question to cover on an episode and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps more people find the show. Until next week, stay in the ship as an offering for yourself, your community, and our collective spirit.