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Crystal Martin

@doc_martin_2.0

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A hodgepodge of “ha ha’s” & “aha’s”. 💡
Community psychologist, professor, & researcher.
Raising a tiny legend 👧🏾
🏠 Chi → NJ/NYC

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It’s been 17 years since I’ve known a version of Crystal without Bentley. Seventeen years of being quietly witnessed, observed, and loved. Seventeen years of someone at my feet saying, “I saw you eat that piece of bacon… give me some.”
Bentley didn’t just live beside me, he grew with me. He came into my life after loss, during a season when I was heartbroken and trying to figure out who I was again. The woman I was then feels so different from the woman I am now.
Back then, I was learning how to survive. Somewhere along the way, I learned how to live.
Bentley was there through all of it. Different homes, different cities, different versions of me. He watched me rebuild quietly, the way dogs do, without judgment, without rushing, just always there.
And maybe that’s why this doesn’t feel only like losing him. It feels like he knew I would be okay. Like he stayed long enough to see me become the version of myself I was meant to be.
He left me whole.
On our final drive to the vet, I held him as he squinted into the sun. It was a beautiful day.
“Enjoy the sun, Bentley,” I told him.
And today, he is.
Thank you to everyone who has checked on me, the calls, the messages, the texts. I’m allowing myself to sit with the weight of this moment without rushing through it, the way I’ve done so many times before.
So if you call and I sound a little sad, that’s okay.
I’m learning to carry the quiet a little differently now. Still loved, still witnessed, just in a new way. ❤️ by @doc_martin_2.0

Paid Promotion. by @doc_martin_2.0

Y’all niece watched these videos and noticed she’s the only kid in her classes wearing brown tights. 🤎 Ailey allows skin-tone or pink, the ballet shoes just have to match.

I explained that I chose brown to celebrate her brown skin, especially at Ailey, with its legacy of creating opportunities for Black dancers. We even connected it to her Alvin Ailey book report. I had supporting literature, y’all. 😂 The brown tights are the aesthetic!!!

“Do you want pink?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She couldn’t tell me.

Now, I love those brown tights. And I can find my baby immediately in every video. But here I am researching belonging for a living, realizing I need to ask a follow-up question in my own house.

I want her to know she can stand out and still belong. But does she get a say in when she stands out? I chose those tights with intention. I also need to understand her experience wearing them. But prior to seeing these videos her experience was just fine!

I was prepared to explain the history. I was less prepared for her to hear it and still want pink. 😂

How do you nurture pride in your children while making room for preferences that don’t match your intentions?

And why does my professional reflection keep ending in another purchase?😩 by @doc_martin_2.0

My first published scholarly work is officially out in the world. 🥹📚
And this feels…really good.
I’ve spent my career in rooms with educators, young people, researchers, community members, and leaders trying to understand what helps people heal, belong, learn, and thrive — and what gets in the way. I’ve taught about it. Researched it. Facilitated conversations about it. Argued about it. 😂 Asked approximately 7,432 follow-up questions about it. And, as anyone who knows me can confirm, developed a theory about almost all of it.
But there is something different about seeing your thinking become part of the written record.
My chapter appears in Resilient Futures: Addressing Collective Trauma and Marginalization in Out-of-School Time Spaces, alongside scholars and practitioners thinking seriously about what our communities need and deserve.
This isn’t my book. It’s an edited volume that I’m really proud to be part of. And I don’t expect my Instagram friends to suddenly develop an urgent need for a $47.49 academic textbook. 😂 But I absolutely needed to stop and celebrate this:
I am published.
My ideas have a citation now.
My work lives somewhere beyond the rooms where I’ve done it.
Somebody can pick up a book, encounter my thinking, wrestle with it, build on it, disagree with it, cite it — and carry the conversation somewhere I may never even see.
As a researcher and educator, that means something to me.
So today I’m allowing myself a little academic flex. 💅🏾📚
First one.
Absolutely not the last one.
Now excuse me while I add “published author” to entirely too many bios. 😂 by @doc_martin_2.0

Respectfully... I’m outside. 🇯🇵 by @doc_martin_2.0

Came to Tulsa for a symposium.

Accidentally enrolled in a masterclass on power, place, memory, storytelling, philanthropy, education...and how to ask better questions.

Would absolutely ruin my own assumptions again!

Every place has a curriculum.
Some of it is written.
Most of it is whispered.

The work isn’t just collecting facts. Tulsa taught me to hear the theories a place has about itself and that history isn’t the opposite of possibility. It’s often the prerequisite for it. Grateful to everyone who trusted us with their city. I’ll be thinking about these conversations for a long time. ♥️ by @doc_martin_2.0

Last week was Gigi’s final class at Ailey for the season. 🩰
Somewhere between the ballet slippers, giant tote bags, snack negotiations, and rushing through the city… a little ritual formed.
Every week she climbed those stairs a little more confident.
A little more curious.
A little more sure that spaces for art, movement, and imagination belong to her too.
And honestly, watching that happen may have changed me just as much. by @doc_martin_2.0

The secret to peace? Pretend everything’s a plot twist written by a lazy screenwriter.
Didn’t get what you wanted? Plot twist.
Did get what you wanted but it came with chaos? Also plot twist.
Say it with me: “That’s ok.” “That’s ok too.” by @doc_martin_2.0

by @doc_martin_2.0

Basically: I came, I loved, I ate too much, and I left with my heart (and camera roll) full. by @doc_martin_2.0

Spoiler alert: I’m dope in 3D. 🥰 by @doc_martin_2.0

Laughter indeed is the best medicine. I keep a joke in the chamber. by @doc_martin_2.0