Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Struggling not to fall
Back to the Suburban Grind: Struggling not to fall: When I was a little girl, my family went on a trip to an ice skating rink. I'd never been before, but as I was a young dancer and prett...
Struggling not to fall
When I was a little girl, my family went on a trip to an ice skating rink. I'd never been before, but as I was a young dancer and pretty proficient on the roller skates, I took to it pretty quickly. I remember the cold and the sound of the blades on the ice and the whoosh-whoosh of the wind as I picked up speed. It should have been such a freeing experience. Here was something that felt a little like flying, where I could feel the air in my lungs clear and crisp, where I could whiz around the rink passing people, turning, and where feeling that special magic of being encapsulated in my own energy bubble should have brought me joy... and I was riddled with anxiety.
My parents, who'd both come from humble beginnings, had not had the opportunities or privilege to participate in frivolous activities like skating and skiing and tennis or any of the extracurriculars my brother and sister and I were afforded. Their after school activities were often connected to their schools or churches and they still had to make time for work and help around the home or farm. That day at the rink, my dad was up on skates for the first time too but was thrown off balance, resting on the thin blades did not come naturally. My father was and is a very solid guy. He stands firmly on the ground and gives the appearance of such physical strength that I was well into adulthood when I realized that he was not as enormous as John Henry the steel driving man. For him, skating was a challenge, but one he did not give up on. I watched him make his way slowly around the rink, staying close to the side, shuffling along trying to get the hang of it. I have always been sensitive and empathetic to others' struggles and have always beamed with pride at anyone's attempt at something new, something dangerous, something just beyond their reach. But this was too much for my tiny, little heart. To see my dad, probably the person I loved the most at that time, certainly looked up to (despite our incredible differences), working so hard, struggling, broke me and I cried and cried at his humanness. My world turned upside down when I discovered that he was just a man.
I have not posted for a very long time because again I have been crying and crying. Seriously. I am in a state of absolute pain at my core. The very real humanness of this struggle has poked and prodded at my heart and at my gut so that I just can't get much of a handle on what I believe anymore. I feel the same sensation that I felt watching my father, my hero, struggle around that rink. We are wobbling and tumbling and falling flat trying to get around this fucking rink.
I am hurt and angered and saddened by the outcomes of every case involving a black person--man, woman, or child--being killed by the police. I am insulted by the imagery being used to describe black boys and men--animals, monsters, overpowering, aggressive. I cannot believe that the victims and their communities are being told that it is their lack of respect that has brought the pox on their houses. I am hurt that the trigger is pulled so quickly and that the victim is then blamed for his past or the figure he cut on surveillance video as though those were reasons enough to kill an unarmed person. But I have been destroyed, truly cut deep, by the efforts of friends and neighbors quick to explain to me either the absolute necessity of handling black people this way or in deflection about the tough, brave, good folks in law enforcement out there. Of course there are good cops and good public servants. We are not talking about that and you know it. I never said, "Fuck the police," but I hear in the tone, in the explanation, and in the crazy, blue-cold silence, "Fuck that. Their lives got nothing to do with me."
I can see how easy it is for people, white people, to look at these all black communities, see their upset, their anger, their feelings and disassociate. I know you don't know any of those people. Truth be told, I don't either. Not personally nor tangentially. It's easy to imagine that somehow they don't want the same as you want for yours, that they are willing to destroy themselves and their communities because they "just don't care about themselves or their families or their communities" the same way you do. It is easy to say if they'd done nothing wrong, they'd have nothing to feel guilty about. It is easy to look at someone in a moment of terror or pain or frustration and read them all the way wrong. It is easy to apply your experience to the actions of people you don't know, to expect that they had every opportunity that you did and assume they are just making bad choices or are somehow deserving of the incredibly strict, harsh punishment (death) handed down for being #alivewhileblack. But the most infuriating thing is how easy it is for you to just look away.
I grew up in your community. There were a handful of brown and black faces and all the rest were white and your right to be there no matter your efforts, your intelligence, how clean, good, big your family was, your lawn, your car, your station, you knew the place was yours. That you were free to skate. There was judgment, there were microaggressions every day against my family and me. There were assaults on my psyche if not on my physical self. The same folks I saw in church would not even acknowledge me in the Pathmark. A good friend's mother would rather he put himself in harm's way than possibly end up in my arms (He was gay, but there'd be a little time for her to discover that.). A teacher at school told me that my white boyfriend and I were disgusting. A popular student told me I was pretty but that his mother would kill him if he came home with someone black. Going below the speed limit, friends and I were pulled over and though I was not driving, the officer told me to watch myself. We were held up as the proof of diversity in your community, shown as a symbol to how open and available and post-racial we were despite all that.
And you know what? I did try. I danced and shimmied at the parties, deflected when way off color jokes were told, kindly shot down hideous come-ons conjured by images of hot black chicks who can't get enough. I put the rage and anger and fear in my art, moved to spiritualism and meditation and the quest for a higher power, for the sacred because being just human, a black, female human navigating life in this country that believed itself to be post-racial, post-Civil Rights movement was exhausting and lonely and frustrating. I struggled to get my footing when, even though I was full of promise, I truly just could not find my way. Even now, I still listen to people who want to tell me how they see my experience. How they feel about what I am talking about. How they think I am getting it all wrong, that I did not even grow up in "those communities." How I am a different kind of black person. I'm not.
I never feared for my life but was raised to be prepared for it. Though my father did not know we knew, we'd seen the rifle given him by his father before we moved "up north." The weapon that was to protect us in case "those white people got crazy." We knew the stories of the South, knew that my dad and his brothers and cousins and uncles and all the men before them knew to cross the street if a white woman was walking on the same side of the sidewalk lest folks get the wrong idea and come after the. Knew that they would not look white folks directly in the eye, that they would try to keep their tone down so as not to rile or rifle or scare white folks into craziness. It wasn't my story but I knew it well enough. It's in my DNA. I knew that they endured all that and moved to this neighborhood, this town for a good job, good schools, greater opportunity, and a chance to skate around the fucking rink.
And when I say this hurts and it's bad and we have to change it, I am called to task for rushing to judgment about the police, about the policies in this country that have tied the arms and bound the legs of black people and black communities. Yes, this is a class issue, the impossible gap between the very wealthy and the working poor is staggering, but there is no denying, no matter how hard one tries, that this is a racial issue. That black people, whether they grew up in their own communities or interspersed with yours, whether they grew up poor, rich, middle class, went to college or did not, whether they sell cigarettes on the street corner or are ivy league professors or lawyers or ball players or scientists or students are viewed with fear and prejudice. And even when you ask the people around you, more than likely also white and as inexperienced as you are, if it is at all possible that what "they" say is true, you are going to get back the answer you want, the one you expect, the one that let's you go to sleep at night while some of us are still awake and in tears watching vigilantly.
I went to school with you, to dance class, to church. I trick or treated with you and sang carols. I took the SATS next to you and lent you a pencil. If you don't believe people you don't know, trust me. Slow your judgment of black people and black communities. Sure there are bad apples. But since you've never really exposed yourself to those communities, you cannot see the people who are working their tails off to succeed in a system that is set up to fail them. Even those of us who grew up in your affluent communities don't have your advantages. And before you try to hold a mirror up to our successes, our achievements, let me tell you that nothing, nothing at all came easy and the road was paved not only with obstacles and sacrifices but hellishly racist shit that would spin your head.
When we are frustrated, all of us, all human beings, and we need to let off steam, to vent, we do the same things. Scream, yell, vent, kick stuff. I know it. Now imagine in your frustration, in your pain, in your rage at injustice and disproportionately unfair treatment, there is little to no release. You are locked in. No one will feel your pain, no one will comfort you, no one will even acknowledge you. No one will cradle your head, no one will even address how much you hurt but rather that you kicked the door in. Imagine that your outrage, that your expression is met with judgment and lectures and invalidation. Imagine that what you know is true is argued about and disputed and negated to your face by someone who has no idea about what you are speaking.
All of us, all human beings want the same things. We want to give all we can to our families, to see them do better than we have, to give them more, to leave the earth, to leave society, the world better than we found it. There are little girls and boys all around the country watching their fathers skate around the rink, stumble, struggle. They are beaming with pride, falling in love with their heroes, cluelessly believing that if their fathers could just make it around the rink that all will be right with the world, completely blissful in their ignorance, as open and trusting and hopeful as every one of you. They are willing their fathers and mothers and families and communities to succeed, to make it around, to get better at it, to progress.
I was a little black girl with big dreams. I believed my dad could do anything. To see him struggle, to see him fall, to see him in fear, to witness injustice, unfair treatment, judgment reserved for him only because he was black, hindrances and obstacles placed in his way, when I knew he'd worked so hard, climbed such heights, done so much, threatened to halt my conviction. I could glide and spin and soar only when I knew he was safe. That he could get to a place where he trusted himself too. That he could falter and get up again. We must find a way to talk about race, privilege, injustice or our only future is dystopian. There must be fundamental changes in policy, better training of police and civil servants. But most importantly, we must see each other.
What frightened me most going around that rink was not that my father was so inexperienced. It was that the really good skaters, the fast ones who'd been skating all their lives might knock him down and that he wouldn't get up. That they'd zoom by so quickly they might rush over his fingers on the ice as he tried to right himself. I was afraid for him, as I am afraid for us now, that he would just give up and never try again. And he did. And I hope we can too.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My parents, who'd both come from humble beginnings, had not had the opportunities or privilege to participate in frivolous activities like skating and skiing and tennis or any of the extracurriculars my brother and sister and I were afforded. Their after school activities were often connected to their schools or churches and they still had to make time for work and help around the home or farm. That day at the rink, my dad was up on skates for the first time too but was thrown off balance, resting on the thin blades did not come naturally. My father was and is a very solid guy. He stands firmly on the ground and gives the appearance of such physical strength that I was well into adulthood when I realized that he was not as enormous as John Henry the steel driving man. For him, skating was a challenge, but one he did not give up on. I watched him make his way slowly around the rink, staying close to the side, shuffling along trying to get the hang of it. I have always been sensitive and empathetic to others' struggles and have always beamed with pride at anyone's attempt at something new, something dangerous, something just beyond their reach. But this was too much for my tiny, little heart. To see my dad, probably the person I loved the most at that time, certainly looked up to (despite our incredible differences), working so hard, struggling, broke me and I cried and cried at his humanness. My world turned upside down when I discovered that he was just a man.
I have not posted for a very long time because again I have been crying and crying. Seriously. I am in a state of absolute pain at my core. The very real humanness of this struggle has poked and prodded at my heart and at my gut so that I just can't get much of a handle on what I believe anymore. I feel the same sensation that I felt watching my father, my hero, struggle around that rink. We are wobbling and tumbling and falling flat trying to get around this fucking rink.
I am hurt and angered and saddened by the outcomes of every case involving a black person--man, woman, or child--being killed by the police. I am insulted by the imagery being used to describe black boys and men--animals, monsters, overpowering, aggressive. I cannot believe that the victims and their communities are being told that it is their lack of respect that has brought the pox on their houses. I am hurt that the trigger is pulled so quickly and that the victim is then blamed for his past or the figure he cut on surveillance video as though those were reasons enough to kill an unarmed person. But I have been destroyed, truly cut deep, by the efforts of friends and neighbors quick to explain to me either the absolute necessity of handling black people this way or in deflection about the tough, brave, good folks in law enforcement out there. Of course there are good cops and good public servants. We are not talking about that and you know it. I never said, "Fuck the police," but I hear in the tone, in the explanation, and in the crazy, blue-cold silence, "Fuck that. Their lives got nothing to do with me."
I can see how easy it is for people, white people, to look at these all black communities, see their upset, their anger, their feelings and disassociate. I know you don't know any of those people. Truth be told, I don't either. Not personally nor tangentially. It's easy to imagine that somehow they don't want the same as you want for yours, that they are willing to destroy themselves and their communities because they "just don't care about themselves or their families or their communities" the same way you do. It is easy to say if they'd done nothing wrong, they'd have nothing to feel guilty about. It is easy to look at someone in a moment of terror or pain or frustration and read them all the way wrong. It is easy to apply your experience to the actions of people you don't know, to expect that they had every opportunity that you did and assume they are just making bad choices or are somehow deserving of the incredibly strict, harsh punishment (death) handed down for being #alivewhileblack. But the most infuriating thing is how easy it is for you to just look away.
I grew up in your community. There were a handful of brown and black faces and all the rest were white and your right to be there no matter your efforts, your intelligence, how clean, good, big your family was, your lawn, your car, your station, you knew the place was yours. That you were free to skate. There was judgment, there were microaggressions every day against my family and me. There were assaults on my psyche if not on my physical self. The same folks I saw in church would not even acknowledge me in the Pathmark. A good friend's mother would rather he put himself in harm's way than possibly end up in my arms (He was gay, but there'd be a little time for her to discover that.). A teacher at school told me that my white boyfriend and I were disgusting. A popular student told me I was pretty but that his mother would kill him if he came home with someone black. Going below the speed limit, friends and I were pulled over and though I was not driving, the officer told me to watch myself. We were held up as the proof of diversity in your community, shown as a symbol to how open and available and post-racial we were despite all that.
And you know what? I did try. I danced and shimmied at the parties, deflected when way off color jokes were told, kindly shot down hideous come-ons conjured by images of hot black chicks who can't get enough. I put the rage and anger and fear in my art, moved to spiritualism and meditation and the quest for a higher power, for the sacred because being just human, a black, female human navigating life in this country that believed itself to be post-racial, post-Civil Rights movement was exhausting and lonely and frustrating. I struggled to get my footing when, even though I was full of promise, I truly just could not find my way. Even now, I still listen to people who want to tell me how they see my experience. How they feel about what I am talking about. How they think I am getting it all wrong, that I did not even grow up in "those communities." How I am a different kind of black person. I'm not.
I never feared for my life but was raised to be prepared for it. Though my father did not know we knew, we'd seen the rifle given him by his father before we moved "up north." The weapon that was to protect us in case "those white people got crazy." We knew the stories of the South, knew that my dad and his brothers and cousins and uncles and all the men before them knew to cross the street if a white woman was walking on the same side of the sidewalk lest folks get the wrong idea and come after the. Knew that they would not look white folks directly in the eye, that they would try to keep their tone down so as not to rile or rifle or scare white folks into craziness. It wasn't my story but I knew it well enough. It's in my DNA. I knew that they endured all that and moved to this neighborhood, this town for a good job, good schools, greater opportunity, and a chance to skate around the fucking rink.
And when I say this hurts and it's bad and we have to change it, I am called to task for rushing to judgment about the police, about the policies in this country that have tied the arms and bound the legs of black people and black communities. Yes, this is a class issue, the impossible gap between the very wealthy and the working poor is staggering, but there is no denying, no matter how hard one tries, that this is a racial issue. That black people, whether they grew up in their own communities or interspersed with yours, whether they grew up poor, rich, middle class, went to college or did not, whether they sell cigarettes on the street corner or are ivy league professors or lawyers or ball players or scientists or students are viewed with fear and prejudice. And even when you ask the people around you, more than likely also white and as inexperienced as you are, if it is at all possible that what "they" say is true, you are going to get back the answer you want, the one you expect, the one that let's you go to sleep at night while some of us are still awake and in tears watching vigilantly.
I went to school with you, to dance class, to church. I trick or treated with you and sang carols. I took the SATS next to you and lent you a pencil. If you don't believe people you don't know, trust me. Slow your judgment of black people and black communities. Sure there are bad apples. But since you've never really exposed yourself to those communities, you cannot see the people who are working their tails off to succeed in a system that is set up to fail them. Even those of us who grew up in your affluent communities don't have your advantages. And before you try to hold a mirror up to our successes, our achievements, let me tell you that nothing, nothing at all came easy and the road was paved not only with obstacles and sacrifices but hellishly racist shit that would spin your head.
When we are frustrated, all of us, all human beings, and we need to let off steam, to vent, we do the same things. Scream, yell, vent, kick stuff. I know it. Now imagine in your frustration, in your pain, in your rage at injustice and disproportionately unfair treatment, there is little to no release. You are locked in. No one will feel your pain, no one will comfort you, no one will even acknowledge you. No one will cradle your head, no one will even address how much you hurt but rather that you kicked the door in. Imagine that your outrage, that your expression is met with judgment and lectures and invalidation. Imagine that what you know is true is argued about and disputed and negated to your face by someone who has no idea about what you are speaking.
All of us, all human beings want the same things. We want to give all we can to our families, to see them do better than we have, to give them more, to leave the earth, to leave society, the world better than we found it. There are little girls and boys all around the country watching their fathers skate around the rink, stumble, struggle. They are beaming with pride, falling in love with their heroes, cluelessly believing that if their fathers could just make it around the rink that all will be right with the world, completely blissful in their ignorance, as open and trusting and hopeful as every one of you. They are willing their fathers and mothers and families and communities to succeed, to make it around, to get better at it, to progress.
I was a little black girl with big dreams. I believed my dad could do anything. To see him struggle, to see him fall, to see him in fear, to witness injustice, unfair treatment, judgment reserved for him only because he was black, hindrances and obstacles placed in his way, when I knew he'd worked so hard, climbed such heights, done so much, threatened to halt my conviction. I could glide and spin and soar only when I knew he was safe. That he could get to a place where he trusted himself too. That he could falter and get up again. We must find a way to talk about race, privilege, injustice or our only future is dystopian. There must be fundamental changes in policy, better training of police and civil servants. But most importantly, we must see each other.
What frightened me most going around that rink was not that my father was so inexperienced. It was that the really good skaters, the fast ones who'd been skating all their lives might knock him down and that he wouldn't get up. That they'd zoom by so quickly they might rush over his fingers on the ice as he tried to right himself. I was afraid for him, as I am afraid for us now, that he would just give up and never try again. And he did. And I hope we can too.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: That Face, That Body, That Bass
Back to the Suburban Grind: That Face, That Body, That Bass: I have been working on another post, one that has, sadly, taken me over a month to produce thanks to my family's desperate need for all ...
That Face, That Body, That Bass
I have been working on another post, one that has, sadly, taken me over a month to produce thanks to my family's desperate need for all of my attention, but then this. Twice in one week commentary about three public figures, public women and their looks, has made its way to the top stories when the world is going to shit. First, Venus and Serena Williams were called out and humiliated by a full time ass named Shamil Tarpischev, a "Russian Olympic Committee official." who called them "the Williams brothers" and "scary to look at." And then dear Renee Zellweger, and to me she is dear having starred in some movies that dotted the landscape of my coming of age, dear because she is my contemporary, dear because no matter what you think of the role, she puts herself all the way in it, has appeared on a red carpet looking "different," "refreshed," and my personal favorite, "unrecognizable." I recognized her. In fact, I thought this story tried to surface a few months back, at least in the British papers, and the buzz was about her incredibly changed face! Oh my God! What happened? She's unrecognizable!
Oh, yes she is recognizable. I saw who she was immediately because she is just like me. She's really any and all of us women of a certain age, of any background, no matter our status, our sexual preference, our position, or station. Whether we are beauties or average or emphasize our other qualities instead of just our physical selves. Whether we are kind or cruel or sympathetic or selfish. Whether we give a damn or don't. No matter who we are, no matter what we are manifesting (or not), we have or will have to face the question of our unrecognizable selves, how we look to the outside world and how the world feels it is within its rights to judge or comment on how we look.
Being a world-famous movie star does nothing for her privacy. The world feels entitled to her, to some part of her. And while I feel that the conversation that quickly turned petty and ugly and aggressive and rude escalated due to her being a public figure, I fear that the presumption that anyone is owed an explanation regarding the change in her appearance, whatever it is and whatever the reason, is one that women face daily. The relentless and occasionally merciless judgment of one's appearance and the maintenance of that appearance is not only a cottage industry, but has given everyone and anyone license to denigrate, assault, insult, and humiliate.
The expectation and assumption that Ms. Zellweger and really anyone we know or think we know will somehow stay the same, exactly they way we remember, exactly the way we want them to is ludicrous and frankly, childish. To expect that the effects of time don't affect us all is as ridiculous as the belief that there is somehow one ideal, one type that has the claim on true beauty. Ms. Zellweger, perhaps giving in to some pressure to remain a member of that elite group--white, blond, lithe, young--may have had some surgery or may not have. I don't really care and it's none of my business. What I am making my business is that the escalation of the Monday morning quarterbacking about how she looks and what she's done reached a fever pitch that sends a message to the world that considering people, analyzing them, tearing them apart based on their physical attributes is acceptable, even celebrated behavior. Folks got a lot of action on that thread.
My girls are extremely curious and talkative about the way people look. Our youngest is still in the phase where the closer a woman looks to the standard Disney princess, Barbie, beauty pageant contestant, Victoria Secret model the "prettier" she is. She can be "of color" surely, but she has already gotten the message loud and clear just which ones are culturally considered "the best." I, in turn, show them my interpretation of what is beautiful, my ideas about beauty, everywhere I can. They see women of all complexions, sizes, body types, with long hair, short hair, no hair, with smooth skin, wrinkles, blemishes, scars, with tattoos, piercings, make up or none and I will comment on how striking, composed, lovely, or beautiful I find her. And when they ask why I believe someone is beautiful I often start with the energy or spirit that comes from within and then answer the questions about their outside characteristics, reminding them that our feelings about the way someone looks are really our own opinions and frankly, bear no value or importance to that person.
I answer all of these questions and hope that in doing so they see the full range of women's bodies, recognize how we really look, make their own discoveries and realizations about what they think of as beautiful, strong, capable, able and then let them go. How we look cannot be our priority, not when there is so much more we'd like to accomplish and achieve. At the end of the day, I want them to consider how able and capable they can be, to know that while they are gorgeous (and they are) it just cannot be enough to sustain them day to day. That what they look like is truly a function of genetics and timing and luck and that everybody, every body has something to be celebrated.
But in the quiet of my own room, staring into my own mirror, I recall a time when I could not be lead to believe in that all inclusive beauty. I wanted to believe and surely discovered examples that went beyond the all-American look that was popular when I was coming of age but they were few and far between, still considered exotic, other, separate. I was one of a very small group of Black kids at a predominantly white school and one of three black girls at my dance studio. As I progressed as a young dancer, my Russian teacher, who encouraged and promoted me in so many ways, began to obsess about my physique, namely my big thighs, my butt, and my pretty muscular frame. Dancers then were still expected to be petite and slim, strong with rubber band limbs. Of course there was Ailey and the Dance Theatre of Harlem and modern troupes, but the understanding was that, for a ballerina, the tiny physique was meant to mask the power and strength required to move. Mine could not do that. Any bit of exercise or physical activity gave me mass and definition. My body could not meet the accepted standard.
And this is where the age old bullshit about black women's bodies comes at me and threatens to crush. Come on, dear Russian fool, with your inexperience and big ol' mouth and platform. This is nothing new and nothing not said before. Regarding the black female body with contempt for its strength and/or over-sexualizing it for its exotic, "mysterious" qualities is such old school racism that although a fine was laid down, no one wants to touch the subject except for blogs and publications aimed specifically at Black women. It's been said so many times about Venus and Serena that the story about the incredibly racist, sexist, insensitive comments hardly made waves. These two women are strong and powerful elite athletes and their bodies show it. To me, their musculature, their incredible form, definition, and power is pretty amazing. They are beautiful and exceptional both physically and personally.
These three women who have reached the pinnacle of their fields, who are celebrated for their skill, talent, and prowess are still fair game to anyone and everyone who has something to say about how they look. There is even pride in the assault, thrill at the attack. Other than to hurt, to derail, to offend, what could be the reason for the name calling and the shock and awe? Why are we so comfortable dissecting the form, the body with no consideration as to how these women, any woman, any person would feel being broken down like that?
I have felt the shadow of whatever age it is that I can no longer hide the years of life's experiences, joys and sorrows, sleepless nights, burst out giggles, sleeping on my face, drinking or eating too much, hormonal midlife pimples and wrinkles creep up on me. I still stare into the mirror, hearing my former dance teachers discontent at my big ol' booty, breaking it down about the "ruined line" my pumped up rump made. I have giggled at the lyrics of "All About That Bass," though I also find it a little divisive in its exaltation of the fuller form and attack on the thinner, I know how challenging and difficult breaking the habits and lessons taught and reinforced through the culture at large and in our day to day will be. But I want to give my two girls, one straight as a board like her father and the other curvier like me, self-awareness, confidence, and inner strength that will protect them from the paparazzi-like flashing light assaults, comments, and judgments that are used to humiliate, undermine, and divide the sisterhood. It's not all about that bass or that body or that face. We are much more than that and I want them to know it.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Oh, yes she is recognizable. I saw who she was immediately because she is just like me. She's really any and all of us women of a certain age, of any background, no matter our status, our sexual preference, our position, or station. Whether we are beauties or average or emphasize our other qualities instead of just our physical selves. Whether we are kind or cruel or sympathetic or selfish. Whether we give a damn or don't. No matter who we are, no matter what we are manifesting (or not), we have or will have to face the question of our unrecognizable selves, how we look to the outside world and how the world feels it is within its rights to judge or comment on how we look.
Being a world-famous movie star does nothing for her privacy. The world feels entitled to her, to some part of her. And while I feel that the conversation that quickly turned petty and ugly and aggressive and rude escalated due to her being a public figure, I fear that the presumption that anyone is owed an explanation regarding the change in her appearance, whatever it is and whatever the reason, is one that women face daily. The relentless and occasionally merciless judgment of one's appearance and the maintenance of that appearance is not only a cottage industry, but has given everyone and anyone license to denigrate, assault, insult, and humiliate.
The expectation and assumption that Ms. Zellweger and really anyone we know or think we know will somehow stay the same, exactly they way we remember, exactly the way we want them to is ludicrous and frankly, childish. To expect that the effects of time don't affect us all is as ridiculous as the belief that there is somehow one ideal, one type that has the claim on true beauty. Ms. Zellweger, perhaps giving in to some pressure to remain a member of that elite group--white, blond, lithe, young--may have had some surgery or may not have. I don't really care and it's none of my business. What I am making my business is that the escalation of the Monday morning quarterbacking about how she looks and what she's done reached a fever pitch that sends a message to the world that considering people, analyzing them, tearing them apart based on their physical attributes is acceptable, even celebrated behavior. Folks got a lot of action on that thread.
My girls are extremely curious and talkative about the way people look. Our youngest is still in the phase where the closer a woman looks to the standard Disney princess, Barbie, beauty pageant contestant, Victoria Secret model the "prettier" she is. She can be "of color" surely, but she has already gotten the message loud and clear just which ones are culturally considered "the best." I, in turn, show them my interpretation of what is beautiful, my ideas about beauty, everywhere I can. They see women of all complexions, sizes, body types, with long hair, short hair, no hair, with smooth skin, wrinkles, blemishes, scars, with tattoos, piercings, make up or none and I will comment on how striking, composed, lovely, or beautiful I find her. And when they ask why I believe someone is beautiful I often start with the energy or spirit that comes from within and then answer the questions about their outside characteristics, reminding them that our feelings about the way someone looks are really our own opinions and frankly, bear no value or importance to that person.
I answer all of these questions and hope that in doing so they see the full range of women's bodies, recognize how we really look, make their own discoveries and realizations about what they think of as beautiful, strong, capable, able and then let them go. How we look cannot be our priority, not when there is so much more we'd like to accomplish and achieve. At the end of the day, I want them to consider how able and capable they can be, to know that while they are gorgeous (and they are) it just cannot be enough to sustain them day to day. That what they look like is truly a function of genetics and timing and luck and that everybody, every body has something to be celebrated.
But in the quiet of my own room, staring into my own mirror, I recall a time when I could not be lead to believe in that all inclusive beauty. I wanted to believe and surely discovered examples that went beyond the all-American look that was popular when I was coming of age but they were few and far between, still considered exotic, other, separate. I was one of a very small group of Black kids at a predominantly white school and one of three black girls at my dance studio. As I progressed as a young dancer, my Russian teacher, who encouraged and promoted me in so many ways, began to obsess about my physique, namely my big thighs, my butt, and my pretty muscular frame. Dancers then were still expected to be petite and slim, strong with rubber band limbs. Of course there was Ailey and the Dance Theatre of Harlem and modern troupes, but the understanding was that, for a ballerina, the tiny physique was meant to mask the power and strength required to move. Mine could not do that. Any bit of exercise or physical activity gave me mass and definition. My body could not meet the accepted standard.
And this is where the age old bullshit about black women's bodies comes at me and threatens to crush. Come on, dear Russian fool, with your inexperience and big ol' mouth and platform. This is nothing new and nothing not said before. Regarding the black female body with contempt for its strength and/or over-sexualizing it for its exotic, "mysterious" qualities is such old school racism that although a fine was laid down, no one wants to touch the subject except for blogs and publications aimed specifically at Black women. It's been said so many times about Venus and Serena that the story about the incredibly racist, sexist, insensitive comments hardly made waves. These two women are strong and powerful elite athletes and their bodies show it. To me, their musculature, their incredible form, definition, and power is pretty amazing. They are beautiful and exceptional both physically and personally.
These three women who have reached the pinnacle of their fields, who are celebrated for their skill, talent, and prowess are still fair game to anyone and everyone who has something to say about how they look. There is even pride in the assault, thrill at the attack. Other than to hurt, to derail, to offend, what could be the reason for the name calling and the shock and awe? Why are we so comfortable dissecting the form, the body with no consideration as to how these women, any woman, any person would feel being broken down like that?
I have felt the shadow of whatever age it is that I can no longer hide the years of life's experiences, joys and sorrows, sleepless nights, burst out giggles, sleeping on my face, drinking or eating too much, hormonal midlife pimples and wrinkles creep up on me. I still stare into the mirror, hearing my former dance teachers discontent at my big ol' booty, breaking it down about the "ruined line" my pumped up rump made. I have giggled at the lyrics of "All About That Bass," though I also find it a little divisive in its exaltation of the fuller form and attack on the thinner, I know how challenging and difficult breaking the habits and lessons taught and reinforced through the culture at large and in our day to day will be. But I want to give my two girls, one straight as a board like her father and the other curvier like me, self-awareness, confidence, and inner strength that will protect them from the paparazzi-like flashing light assaults, comments, and judgments that are used to humiliate, undermine, and divide the sisterhood. It's not all about that bass or that body or that face. We are much more than that and I want them to know it.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Self portraiture/Selfie revelations
Back to the Suburban Grind: Self portraiture/Selfie revelations: I have been away from the blog for nearly two months. Keeping up with any regularity, any true perspective during the crazy, heady summer m...
Self portraiture/Selfie revelations
I have been away from the blog for nearly two months. Keeping up with any regularity, any true perspective during the crazy, heady summer months proved to be impossible for me. Both of my children are now enrolled in "big girl" school and save the early season calendar crunching, I have time to get back to me. I'd started this post months back when a friend on Facebook tagged me in a photo of a T-shirt that said, "Hold on, I'm taking a selfie." I do take them. Have for years before they were called "selfies" except then I was not using my iPhone or computer to take snaps, I was staring into my face in the mirror and drawing or painting. I did and continue to use self-portraiture as my medium of exploration. Whether in the visual arts, writing, acting/voice work, or dance, I have used myself in the work, sometimes as the work. I am searching, seeking, looking, longing. I don't mean it to be indulgent, snaps and right-back-atcha winks, or reverential. As an artist, I am trying to understand, define, relate, connect with the world.
I had two painting professors that I adored. One I not so secretly crushed on and the other was truly one of the best people in my life, a true, dear friend and mentor. They both guided me to portraits and self-portraiture in Western art, classical and academic as well as modern and post-modern. In both art history and my studio classes, I devoured the canon and sought answers in life painting, focusing on real life, true light, a strong degree of academic emphasis, still life, portraiture, figure drawing and painting, landscape. I admired work that was imaginative, imbued with fantasy, and whimsy but felt safer and more grounded (I am, indeed, a Capricorn) with the familiar. I can still recall the afternoon when the focus shifted and I saw myself as subject, not only as author.
These two wonderful teachers gave me permission, even demanded that I look for something in my own gaze, in the curves of my face, in the soft angles where light hit my skin, creating shadows and depth I'd never considered. I was a little embarrassed really to be staring at myself so long, gazing, demanding, imploring, seeking answers to all the questions, moving paint or charcoal, graphite or pastel to tell a story, maybe about me and maybe about something else, something more. But I did prove to be an always available subject, one whom I felt comfortable tearing to pieces, putting back together, pushing and pulling the paint in ways that were not always beautiful or safe or pleasant. I was less fearful making mistakes when using myself as model or subject, more willing to look past the surface and scratch for something else, something that transcended just that moment in time. When I failed to find what I was looking for, I could try again and again and again, the onion skin always peeling back to show me something else. I am always peeling back and looking for something else.
Other than adolescent punishing sessions of miserable inner dialogue in the bathroom mirror, I didn't like to gaze upon myself. As a teenager my skin was terrible, I wore braces for years, and frankly, any therapist of mine will tell you, it took me years (or until yesterday or the day has not yet come) to find myself appealing. Maybe it was the 80's aesthetic where I was surely not listed in the beauties table of contents or my developing self-deference to make myself smaller and more invisible, but regarding myself left me deflated. Only in dance, where I studied more the lines I was able to make with my body did I emotionally and spiritually connect with my body, my image, myself.
And now I am here. I take pictures of myself and make pictures of myself and reveal, little by little, something of myself in the writing--stories, blog posts, Things My French Husband Says About Me. To me, the portraits, the selfies, the posts, the stories, the scripts, interpretation of dance choreography helps me serve the muse. I am not the first to use the medium to explore, to discover, to share. Western art has a endless number of self-portraits and other portraits that reveal much more beyond the beautifully handled surfaces or even intentionally challenging ones. The cool part is being drawn by the image or the page into something greater than was expected. For both artist and audience there is a dialogue, language, challenge or confrontation, reassurance or connection. When I am looking, when I ask, when I cry, scream, yell, whisper to be seen or heard, it is not because I believe I am the only one to search. It is because I believe we all are. I don't believe, wouldn't dare think that only I have found myself in front of the mirror staring into my eyes, searching for my soul, marveling or mourning some experience in life. That's not my intention at all. I am saying use me. Use me to reassure yourself, to steady yourself, to believe yourself, to react, to assault, to doubt, to question, to challenge. To find solidarity or solitude. To be human in all its torment and glory.
It is humbling, sometimes crippling. It is challenging and sometimes sobering. It is lonely and sometimes isolating. It is uplifting and sometimes otherworldly. Looking at myself, in my study of just a life, mine, I hope I have found a way to connect to humanity and to the divine muse. If you cannot find a way in yourself, use me.
(c) 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I had two painting professors that I adored. One I not so secretly crushed on and the other was truly one of the best people in my life, a true, dear friend and mentor. They both guided me to portraits and self-portraiture in Western art, classical and academic as well as modern and post-modern. In both art history and my studio classes, I devoured the canon and sought answers in life painting, focusing on real life, true light, a strong degree of academic emphasis, still life, portraiture, figure drawing and painting, landscape. I admired work that was imaginative, imbued with fantasy, and whimsy but felt safer and more grounded (I am, indeed, a Capricorn) with the familiar. I can still recall the afternoon when the focus shifted and I saw myself as subject, not only as author.
These two wonderful teachers gave me permission, even demanded that I look for something in my own gaze, in the curves of my face, in the soft angles where light hit my skin, creating shadows and depth I'd never considered. I was a little embarrassed really to be staring at myself so long, gazing, demanding, imploring, seeking answers to all the questions, moving paint or charcoal, graphite or pastel to tell a story, maybe about me and maybe about something else, something more. But I did prove to be an always available subject, one whom I felt comfortable tearing to pieces, putting back together, pushing and pulling the paint in ways that were not always beautiful or safe or pleasant. I was less fearful making mistakes when using myself as model or subject, more willing to look past the surface and scratch for something else, something that transcended just that moment in time. When I failed to find what I was looking for, I could try again and again and again, the onion skin always peeling back to show me something else. I am always peeling back and looking for something else.
Other than adolescent punishing sessions of miserable inner dialogue in the bathroom mirror, I didn't like to gaze upon myself. As a teenager my skin was terrible, I wore braces for years, and frankly, any therapist of mine will tell you, it took me years (or until yesterday or the day has not yet come) to find myself appealing. Maybe it was the 80's aesthetic where I was surely not listed in the beauties table of contents or my developing self-deference to make myself smaller and more invisible, but regarding myself left me deflated. Only in dance, where I studied more the lines I was able to make with my body did I emotionally and spiritually connect with my body, my image, myself.
And now I am here. I take pictures of myself and make pictures of myself and reveal, little by little, something of myself in the writing--stories, blog posts, Things My French Husband Says About Me. To me, the portraits, the selfies, the posts, the stories, the scripts, interpretation of dance choreography helps me serve the muse. I am not the first to use the medium to explore, to discover, to share. Western art has a endless number of self-portraits and other portraits that reveal much more beyond the beautifully handled surfaces or even intentionally challenging ones. The cool part is being drawn by the image or the page into something greater than was expected. For both artist and audience there is a dialogue, language, challenge or confrontation, reassurance or connection. When I am looking, when I ask, when I cry, scream, yell, whisper to be seen or heard, it is not because I believe I am the only one to search. It is because I believe we all are. I don't believe, wouldn't dare think that only I have found myself in front of the mirror staring into my eyes, searching for my soul, marveling or mourning some experience in life. That's not my intention at all. I am saying use me. Use me to reassure yourself, to steady yourself, to believe yourself, to react, to assault, to doubt, to question, to challenge. To find solidarity or solitude. To be human in all its torment and glory.
It is humbling, sometimes crippling. It is challenging and sometimes sobering. It is lonely and sometimes isolating. It is uplifting and sometimes otherworldly. Looking at myself, in my study of just a life, mine, I hope I have found a way to connect to humanity and to the divine muse. If you cannot find a way in yourself, use me.
(c) 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Married to the moment
Back to the Suburban Grind: Married to the moment: Our vacation was almost ruined before it started by my anxiety, the collapsed ceiling in our hallway that fell hours before our flight, and ...
Married to the moment
Our vacation was almost ruined before it started by my anxiety, the collapsed ceiling in our hallway that fell hours before our flight, and the miserable failure of XL Airlines and the absolute breach of professionalism and trust by this new airline. Were it not for a few Xanax in my pocket, the Minnow would be lost. After a night of sleep stolen on the uncomfortable chairs in JFK Airport's Terminal 4, we got on a new airplane commanded by the incredible Omni Airlines and Virginie promptly vomited into my hand. In the end, she was just tired. At the moment I wondered if we were doomed. We weren't and we made it into the air and to Charles de Gaulle Airport by 7 pm France time, only to get into the car with the French husband's brother and head 5 hours to Bretagne. The brothers chatted in the front seat, the French husband surely delirious from a lack of sleep and tortured resting positions, while the girls and I passed out in the backseat, twisted and contorted but salvaged by animal neck pillows. It was crazy getting here, but we were now in France.
They say when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Unless they are estranged, this is true. You want to make a good impression on everyone involved and you hope that you find you are also interested in some, if not all, of the family. When I married the French husband, someone from another country, and sometimes, it seems, another planet entirely, I felt that to know and love France would help me to know and love my hoped-to-be-husband.(I mean, the French got it down this love of country and pride of people.) I got the Rosetta Stone, brushed up on my history, listened to him wax on and on about the superiority of his culture to pretty much all others. He meant well. I know this. It wasn't so much arrogance as a cock-suredness that, frankly, was pretty damned sexy to this American broad.
It was the same with the Austrian for whom I tried just long enough to figure out how to conjugate a sentence or two and then was reduced to tears. I drank beer, ate wurst, supported their teams, even recognized the Habsburg jaw. With the Spaniard, I took 4 semesters of post-graduation Spanish and spoke to his parents, my friends' parents, anyone in my broken Spanish. I ate everything, wanted to learn flamenco, loved that Spanish guitar. I have cheered for all of their futbol teams. Sure, this reporting is stylized and reduced to the most obvious cliches of each culture, but trust, I was deep in. I still am.
Thanks to my anxiety, I still want to make a good impression every time, to marry them ALL all over again, to prove to them that marrying this crazy American girl was a good choice. But I was so tired and grumpy and crazy and tired that I nearly tore my poor French husband a new one when he tried to help me get through the security line while I held our sleeping five year old. Though this trip had been planned for months, we still found ourselves jamming things into a duffle bag at the 11th hour and racing out the door, sadly, without the girls' headphones but WITH my dance shoes and our library cards. :-/
We made such good time on the drive we were sure our luck had turned until we arrived at the airport to the gate of some airline called #XLAirways which has discounted fares to France. I'd heard about the airline just once through a new French friend in my dance class and recalled the many times we'd flown overseas without incident on a variety of airlines. Well, at Terminal 4 at JFK, a crappy early 80s design flaw of a place anchored by all the Middle Eastern and Israeli airlines as well as Caribbean Airlines, there was not one representative from XL Airlines, but there was a young woman in an unmarked blazer slowing passing along the bad news that, though none of us had been informed, there would be a delay in our flight time of 6 hours. Thank you very much and please stand on this line against the wall on the other side of anything civilized. Food, bathrooms, and escape were on the other side of the door. We slept on the floor. It was like the Wizard of Oz except not only are the memories of the start of our trip in black and white, but in slow motion.
On the other side, when we opened our eyes, was France. I love being here. I love attempting and trying to convince myself that I actually speak French. I love that my husband and I, who have been struggling with connection as many parents of time/energy/affection-sucking small children do, have time to look at each other. I love that there is discovery and adventure for all four of us and that the places where we roamed as we fell in love the first time in his country are now shared spaces. We showed them the beach where I first sunbathed topless, shy and embarrassed though no one else was with us, and they went topless too (though of course with decidedly different results than a grown woman bearing it all). The girls climbed the rocks leading to the Cote Sauvage where their father played as a young boy. We ate countless croissants, celebrated the iconic monuments of Paris, and drove from West to Central to nearly southern France squealing with delight at castles/chateaux, cows, sunflowers, horses, and vineyards.
And as much as they loved every one of those moments, they were happiest with their family. Their cousins, their uncle and auntie, their Papi, a surly, French, 84-year old fountain of wicked truth telling and a crazy crotchety Gaul. I married them, married them all. Because of my children, I am infinitely tied to this place. It is a part of them that it can never be for me as I am not OF this, no matter all my attempts. When we left Paris and my parents, who visited with us for a few days, I took the last Xanax (save the one for the return flight), closed my eyes, and let it all spin around me. There is too much wine, too much bread, too much cheese, and staying up too late for the under 8 set. But I feel good about it. I even spend a moment or two with the tatas out on the beach. The French husband gives it hard, he can be relentless in his superior posturing, but sitting with my toes in the sand, eating baguette and cheese, flipping through the glamorous pages of French Vogue, with the sun beating down on my naked stuff, I let go.
My trip was nearly ruined by my anxiety, by the stress that I ooze before I finally let go and just be in the place, whatever the place. Right now we have no idea what time it is or what day. We eat baguette and croissants every morning and sit in the garden with lavender all around. We walk to the sea, we eat good food, and we broken Franglais-speak with anyone who will listen to us try to describe this crazy beautiful moment. I say it every time, right before it's all over. We should do this more often. Travel. Be in the world. Be impressed and make impressions on people. I have to remember how I tied myself to that moment when I am home fretting about the hamsters and the bills and the school and the play dates. I have to remember that all those crazy, beautiful, hectic, wicked, scary, freaky, lovely moments are all part of my life. Even when I am not eating a baguette on the beach in Bretagne.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
They say when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Unless they are estranged, this is true. You want to make a good impression on everyone involved and you hope that you find you are also interested in some, if not all, of the family. When I married the French husband, someone from another country, and sometimes, it seems, another planet entirely, I felt that to know and love France would help me to know and love my hoped-to-be-husband.(I mean, the French got it down this love of country and pride of people.) I got the Rosetta Stone, brushed up on my history, listened to him wax on and on about the superiority of his culture to pretty much all others. He meant well. I know this. It wasn't so much arrogance as a cock-suredness that, frankly, was pretty damned sexy to this American broad.
It was the same with the Austrian for whom I tried just long enough to figure out how to conjugate a sentence or two and then was reduced to tears. I drank beer, ate wurst, supported their teams, even recognized the Habsburg jaw. With the Spaniard, I took 4 semesters of post-graduation Spanish and spoke to his parents, my friends' parents, anyone in my broken Spanish. I ate everything, wanted to learn flamenco, loved that Spanish guitar. I have cheered for all of their futbol teams. Sure, this reporting is stylized and reduced to the most obvious cliches of each culture, but trust, I was deep in. I still am.
Thanks to my anxiety, I still want to make a good impression every time, to marry them ALL all over again, to prove to them that marrying this crazy American girl was a good choice. But I was so tired and grumpy and crazy and tired that I nearly tore my poor French husband a new one when he tried to help me get through the security line while I held our sleeping five year old. Though this trip had been planned for months, we still found ourselves jamming things into a duffle bag at the 11th hour and racing out the door, sadly, without the girls' headphones but WITH my dance shoes and our library cards. :-/
We made such good time on the drive we were sure our luck had turned until we arrived at the airport to the gate of some airline called #XLAirways which has discounted fares to France. I'd heard about the airline just once through a new French friend in my dance class and recalled the many times we'd flown overseas without incident on a variety of airlines. Well, at Terminal 4 at JFK, a crappy early 80s design flaw of a place anchored by all the Middle Eastern and Israeli airlines as well as Caribbean Airlines, there was not one representative from XL Airlines, but there was a young woman in an unmarked blazer slowing passing along the bad news that, though none of us had been informed, there would be a delay in our flight time of 6 hours. Thank you very much and please stand on this line against the wall on the other side of anything civilized. Food, bathrooms, and escape were on the other side of the door. We slept on the floor. It was like the Wizard of Oz except not only are the memories of the start of our trip in black and white, but in slow motion.
On the other side, when we opened our eyes, was France. I love being here. I love attempting and trying to convince myself that I actually speak French. I love that my husband and I, who have been struggling with connection as many parents of time/energy/affection-sucking small children do, have time to look at each other. I love that there is discovery and adventure for all four of us and that the places where we roamed as we fell in love the first time in his country are now shared spaces. We showed them the beach where I first sunbathed topless, shy and embarrassed though no one else was with us, and they went topless too (though of course with decidedly different results than a grown woman bearing it all). The girls climbed the rocks leading to the Cote Sauvage where their father played as a young boy. We ate countless croissants, celebrated the iconic monuments of Paris, and drove from West to Central to nearly southern France squealing with delight at castles/chateaux, cows, sunflowers, horses, and vineyards.
And as much as they loved every one of those moments, they were happiest with their family. Their cousins, their uncle and auntie, their Papi, a surly, French, 84-year old fountain of wicked truth telling and a crazy crotchety Gaul. I married them, married them all. Because of my children, I am infinitely tied to this place. It is a part of them that it can never be for me as I am not OF this, no matter all my attempts. When we left Paris and my parents, who visited with us for a few days, I took the last Xanax (save the one for the return flight), closed my eyes, and let it all spin around me. There is too much wine, too much bread, too much cheese, and staying up too late for the under 8 set. But I feel good about it. I even spend a moment or two with the tatas out on the beach. The French husband gives it hard, he can be relentless in his superior posturing, but sitting with my toes in the sand, eating baguette and cheese, flipping through the glamorous pages of French Vogue, with the sun beating down on my naked stuff, I let go.
My trip was nearly ruined by my anxiety, by the stress that I ooze before I finally let go and just be in the place, whatever the place. Right now we have no idea what time it is or what day. We eat baguette and croissants every morning and sit in the garden with lavender all around. We walk to the sea, we eat good food, and we broken Franglais-speak with anyone who will listen to us try to describe this crazy beautiful moment. I say it every time, right before it's all over. We should do this more often. Travel. Be in the world. Be impressed and make impressions on people. I have to remember how I tied myself to that moment when I am home fretting about the hamsters and the bills and the school and the play dates. I have to remember that all those crazy, beautiful, hectic, wicked, scary, freaky, lovely moments are all part of my life. Even when I am not eating a baguette on the beach in Bretagne.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Black Magic Woman
Back to the Suburban Grind: Black Magic Woman: A friend of mine shared a post on the Book of a video of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman". As I sat in front of my compute...
Black Magic Woman
A friend of mine shared a post on the Book of a video of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman". As I sat in front of my computer listening, taking myself back to my childhood, I recalled how I loved that song. Loved that song because I believed that he was singing, "black, magic woman." When I listened carefully to the words, I felt stirring inside myself a truth, a truth because I heard it sung, called out, pleaded on the radio. It was the promise, the proof that there was such a thing as a "BLACK, MAGIC WOMAN" and that maybe, as I suspected, I might be magic too.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Lost Black Girls
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Lost Black Girls: I always have something to say. Even when I am not saying anything I still have something to say. But there are times, like now, when the t...
The Lost Black Girls
I always have something to say. Even when I am not saying anything I still have something to say. But there are times, like now, when the thought of opening my mouth threatens to release the hiccuping, sniveling, water running in the mouth torrent of tears and screams that I hear only in my dream state because I don't dare care or feel as much as all that in my real life. Not if I can help it. Not if I want to survive.
I am a woman of color (WOC) until I am black, really black. A little black girl does not often find herself with a voice, with the protection of everything and everyone. A little black girl is scared and only sometimes believes that anyone gives a damn. At least this little black girl. We know that very early on. Even when the people who love us tell us we are important and special and valuable (and that does not always happen), we can see. We can hear. We listen. We sense. We're low on the totem pole. A woman of color gets to talk about her perspective, share the stories of her time as a little black or brown or yellow girl, as she developed into a woman who took control of her destiny or found herself crushed by the weight of its reality. When I am a woman of color, people who want to, who dare to, listen to my perspective, want to know what I think or believe, hope they want to know my story, what I have lived, what I experience. As a woman of color I feel expert in my experience, strong, protective, prepared. But deep down, I am still a little black girl. Scared, tired, fragile, strong, endlessly hopeful, and both shamelessly fearful and fearless.
I have been unable to write or speak or even utter a gasp about the girls, kidnapped, stolen in Nigeria by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram. I knew, even as a young girl, that if I went missing, no one would come looking for me. And every time I tried to disappear, ran away, hid in the closet or the attic, even my parents did not stop what they were doing to find me. Everything I have ever known about my status did nothing to reinforce my sense of worth or value. Little black girls were not searched for, missed when they were gone. Yes, this was a child's perspective, and yes, they, we are valuable to many, but consider that the stories that really got the public moved to action were those of pretty little white girls stolen in the night. Rarely did I see a story about a small black child that raised everyone's consciousness, concern, pulled the community together to talk about the sanctity of childhood or innocence. I knew inside, just knew that the general population was not concerned for my virtue, my safety, or my innocence. No one who looked like me starred in the rescue story.
So when I learned they were gone, my heart sank. I felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut. And then my thoughts turned to them. Taken in the dark, scared to death, wondering what would become of them, how would the people who loved them find them, where were they going. I imagined them looking for clues on the path, a way to remember to find their way back, probably knowing they would not go back. At least not the way they came. I thought of the fucking cowardice it took to punish people, communities by raging assaults on young girls and women. I thought of the absolutely sickness of that kind of power play and how the eyes of those girls and their minds and their hearts and their bodies will be changed forever. And then I learned that I was late to the Intel. They'd been gone days when I first heard about the abduction. Many tuned in later to find that the girls had been missing for weeks.
I could not conjure up in the recesses of my mind, the most horrible fear, most alienating, soul crushing, dream stealing terror that is happening right now. They were gone for days before the world got enraged, got upset, was called to action. Taken in the night at their school by a group that rejects Westernization and education of girls and women. Their response to this affront was to kidnap the girls and, depending on who you are asking, sell them into marriage, lead them through the brutal terrain of the forest, or torment and repeatedly rape them, traumatizing and terrorizing them and leaving their families in complete anguish. Each possibility more horrifying than the next. That the possibilities are more than likely probabilities has left me supremely enraged.
Their mothers and families left to imagine the unimaginable, crying in the night, feeling the psychic pull of their children and having no idea how or where to find them. There is talk of international aid, perhaps a trade with Boko Haram for militants being held as prisoners. There are rallies and writing campaigns, and calls for action. I support those. But what I cannot get out of my mind, even when I close my eyes, are the faces I have conjured of those girls, their eyes staring at me, making our connection real. It is so easy, especially in the modern world, when the threats are not immediate or put one in imminent danger, to turn one's head. But I feel their presence and their fear and their life force.
There but by the grace of God go I. I see myself in their faces. Read my own name next to theirs. The horror lies in the absolute randomness of being unfortunate to be chosen for such violence and assault. A girl in the world learns these things. That upon her body and to her mind will be done great damage and violence in the name of anything and nothing. How I wish I could make them feel safe, secure, complete after this. Some have escaped and I have read that some may have died on the journey but many will have an "after this." What that is, where that is, how that is, we don't yet know. What serves as a metaphor for so many of us, girls in the world, lost in the dark, stolen innocence, is the reality for many more.
Hiding in the closet or in the attic, I remember my pounding heart. Its steady thunder keeping me tethered to the present, kept me from fleeing to my mind, my dreams, my outer space, disappearing place. I feel their hearts beat. All of ours. And I hope these girls are reunited with their families and brought home soon. Say their names out loud so you believe that they are as real as you are. Call out to them so they feel your hope and your rage and their strength and your love. The little black girl inside of me is screaming out, clawing at the walls, begging to be heard, to be rescued, to be healed. The WOC is prepared to be steely and strong enough to support others, to hold them up in body and spirit, to live in a place where being a girl in the world, a black girl in the world can again be wondrous and awesome, not dangerous and threatening.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I am a woman of color (WOC) until I am black, really black. A little black girl does not often find herself with a voice, with the protection of everything and everyone. A little black girl is scared and only sometimes believes that anyone gives a damn. At least this little black girl. We know that very early on. Even when the people who love us tell us we are important and special and valuable (and that does not always happen), we can see. We can hear. We listen. We sense. We're low on the totem pole. A woman of color gets to talk about her perspective, share the stories of her time as a little black or brown or yellow girl, as she developed into a woman who took control of her destiny or found herself crushed by the weight of its reality. When I am a woman of color, people who want to, who dare to, listen to my perspective, want to know what I think or believe, hope they want to know my story, what I have lived, what I experience. As a woman of color I feel expert in my experience, strong, protective, prepared. But deep down, I am still a little black girl. Scared, tired, fragile, strong, endlessly hopeful, and both shamelessly fearful and fearless.
I have been unable to write or speak or even utter a gasp about the girls, kidnapped, stolen in Nigeria by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram. I knew, even as a young girl, that if I went missing, no one would come looking for me. And every time I tried to disappear, ran away, hid in the closet or the attic, even my parents did not stop what they were doing to find me. Everything I have ever known about my status did nothing to reinforce my sense of worth or value. Little black girls were not searched for, missed when they were gone. Yes, this was a child's perspective, and yes, they, we are valuable to many, but consider that the stories that really got the public moved to action were those of pretty little white girls stolen in the night. Rarely did I see a story about a small black child that raised everyone's consciousness, concern, pulled the community together to talk about the sanctity of childhood or innocence. I knew inside, just knew that the general population was not concerned for my virtue, my safety, or my innocence. No one who looked like me starred in the rescue story.
So when I learned they were gone, my heart sank. I felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut. And then my thoughts turned to them. Taken in the dark, scared to death, wondering what would become of them, how would the people who loved them find them, where were they going. I imagined them looking for clues on the path, a way to remember to find their way back, probably knowing they would not go back. At least not the way they came. I thought of the fucking cowardice it took to punish people, communities by raging assaults on young girls and women. I thought of the absolutely sickness of that kind of power play and how the eyes of those girls and their minds and their hearts and their bodies will be changed forever. And then I learned that I was late to the Intel. They'd been gone days when I first heard about the abduction. Many tuned in later to find that the girls had been missing for weeks.
I could not conjure up in the recesses of my mind, the most horrible fear, most alienating, soul crushing, dream stealing terror that is happening right now. They were gone for days before the world got enraged, got upset, was called to action. Taken in the night at their school by a group that rejects Westernization and education of girls and women. Their response to this affront was to kidnap the girls and, depending on who you are asking, sell them into marriage, lead them through the brutal terrain of the forest, or torment and repeatedly rape them, traumatizing and terrorizing them and leaving their families in complete anguish. Each possibility more horrifying than the next. That the possibilities are more than likely probabilities has left me supremely enraged.
Their mothers and families left to imagine the unimaginable, crying in the night, feeling the psychic pull of their children and having no idea how or where to find them. There is talk of international aid, perhaps a trade with Boko Haram for militants being held as prisoners. There are rallies and writing campaigns, and calls for action. I support those. But what I cannot get out of my mind, even when I close my eyes, are the faces I have conjured of those girls, their eyes staring at me, making our connection real. It is so easy, especially in the modern world, when the threats are not immediate or put one in imminent danger, to turn one's head. But I feel their presence and their fear and their life force.
There but by the grace of God go I. I see myself in their faces. Read my own name next to theirs. The horror lies in the absolute randomness of being unfortunate to be chosen for such violence and assault. A girl in the world learns these things. That upon her body and to her mind will be done great damage and violence in the name of anything and nothing. How I wish I could make them feel safe, secure, complete after this. Some have escaped and I have read that some may have died on the journey but many will have an "after this." What that is, where that is, how that is, we don't yet know. What serves as a metaphor for so many of us, girls in the world, lost in the dark, stolen innocence, is the reality for many more.
Hiding in the closet or in the attic, I remember my pounding heart. Its steady thunder keeping me tethered to the present, kept me from fleeing to my mind, my dreams, my outer space, disappearing place. I feel their hearts beat. All of ours. And I hope these girls are reunited with their families and brought home soon. Say their names out loud so you believe that they are as real as you are. Call out to them so they feel your hope and your rage and their strength and your love. The little black girl inside of me is screaming out, clawing at the walls, begging to be heard, to be rescued, to be healed. The WOC is prepared to be steely and strong enough to support others, to hold them up in body and spirit, to live in a place where being a girl in the world, a black girl in the world can again be wondrous and awesome, not dangerous and threatening.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Conscious Uncoupling: The Season of Divorce
Back to the Suburban Grind: Conscious Uncoupling: The Season of Divorce: Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have just announced that after nearly eleven years of wedded bliss, they were "consciously uncoupling....
Conscious Uncoupling: The Season of Divorce
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have just announced that after nearly eleven years of wedded bliss, they were "consciously uncoupling." For many people, the terminology was confounding and for many others, ridiculous. For me too, and I love all that esoteric, spiritual, evolutionary stuff. But separating, divorcing, especially with children in the mix is such a painful undertaking, this from someone who has only had breakups with boyfriends, that a perfectly civilized, seemingly emotionally neutral experience where two beautiful people express thanks for the wonderful life shared and kiss and go on their way acknowledging with gratitude and loving praise sounds awesome.
I think these two were damned if they did and damned if they didn't. Had the split been acrimonious and venomous involving cheating or abuse, there would have been chatter too. Because she often puts her properly pedicured foot in her oil-pulled, mint-chewing, Goopy mouth by talking about how the little people live (having, of course, no idea how we live), trying to stay spiritually bonded and physically untangle from her hubby, she is a yellow circle on the middle of the target in a crowd full of Katniss sharp shooters. I get it. She says stupid shit, really disconnected crap that makes her look like a real spoiled ass and seems like she thinks she is above us all and yet I am still sympathetic. I don't say so to try to convince others to feel as I do. That's not my point. Often, when I have hurt, been blinded by the direction of my life and my responsibility to it, I have lied to myself, convinced myself that my own perspective is right, that no one else has lived my experience, that no one else understands. I have tried to present painful experiences as better than they really are, have run from the quiet moments when I am left alone with myself and my reality. I have explained to anyone who will listen that no one has ever had it as bad as I, no one has every endured the way that I have, that the suffering is too much, if only people would understand. And then I come back to reality.
Gwyneth Paltrow is such an easy target because she appears to have everything, because she preaches an understanding of our interconnectedness, of an exalted human transcendence, and then completely misses the mark about how others live, because the reality she comes back to does not give her authority to speak to "everyone else." She's a human being. An incredibly spoiled, pampered woman, but a human being all the same. I forgive her her stupid remarks and complete disconnect from what the rest of us call reality because she believes strongly in her reality, is so committed to it that she cannot see the forest for the trees. She is going through a divorce, no matter what she calls it and that shit hurts. A part of me believes that she feels some sense of shame and failure around it, hurt and embarrassment, what many feel when they cannot save their relationships, and is trying to reframe it for herself. We are all just going along for the ride because she is a public figure. It really is a moment for privacy.
This past year I have seen a number of couples split or come close. I witnessed the hideous and contentious divorce of my husband that dragged on even as our relationship was forming. When you dig in with someone, plant seeds and set down roots, pulling up the flowers rather than seeing them bloom, can be disappointing and disorienting and traumatic. When forced to change the life your children have come to know and to expect, in which they have found comfort, joy, and consistency, one must find strength and courage and see hope at the end of that journey. Selling the house, new, separate homes, new rooms for the kids, starting over. Starting OVER. Conscious uncoupling sounds like a more suitable way to untangle than split, separate, or divorce, and the concept, though new to me until this week, does have its appeal.
Coupling, taking chances and risks, raising children, dealing with the day to day of that can wear down partnerships and change their shape. What was once romantic and energetic can seem mundane, tired, even painful. Most of us assume that this is the natural pattern of relationships. Perhaps it is, but perhaps there is some truth in a relationship running the full course, that it becomes platonic, comfortable, or stagnant. Perhaps it makes sense for a partnership to change shape or form. And maybe you are supposed to stay in it for the long haul and ride the ebb and flow, peaks and valleys that all long-term relationships present. I don't have the answers, none at all. But I imagine the experience of divorce, separating, consciously uncoupling, just like slogging through the wicked bad times to get to the other side is a personal choice. One we can only hope to live privately with some level of dignity, respect, and compassion.
Long ago when I was still searching for love and was completely unable to believe that it would ever happen for me, I would go on dates, meet men through friends or even just walking on the street and after many dates, I would talk to a friend who'd remind me when another "date" failed to make an impression, another connection failed, that "this person was someone else's, had another journey to make." I took comfort in that. Found solace in other destinies, possibilities. Maybe in conscious uncoupling, letting go with gratitude and kindness, walking a new path will be less littered with hurt, pain, and fear. Maybe. I hope so.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: I don't want to go to ______________ practice/game...
Back to the Suburban Grind: I don't want to go to ______________ practice/game...: Jumping off the bus into my arms, a head of bouncy curls tucked under her black, hooded, quilted jacket, my seven and a 1/2 year old was a s...
I don't want to go to ______________ practice/game/class.
Jumping off the bus into my arms, a head of bouncy curls tucked under her black, hooded, quilted jacket, my seven and a 1/2 year old was a sight for sore eyes. Her tiny, pink-lipped smile and shy glance took me right back to her sweet, baby-cake toddler years. She is a little beauty and as sweet and kind as Little Mary Sunshine or some other such character. Imagine my surprise then, when I reminded her that her Dance Fusion class, a combination of modern, ballet, lyrical dance for the young set, was in about 30 minutes and that we'd need to have a quick snack before heading over. (We generally walk over as it's very close to home.)
*Falling to the floor, crinkling up her nose, grabbing her head in a "Woe/Whoa is me" grip*
"But Mommy, I don't want to go to Dance Fusion! You are not being fair! [insert neighbor child's name] gets to have play dates all the time! I NEVER get to have play dates. (Though she'd had two that weekend) All I ever have to do is go to Dance Fusion. I just don't want to go. Is this the last week?"
"It's not. Next week is the last week. When that class is over, you do not have to commit to dance again, but we started this and we are going to finish it. You are a wonderful dancer. Why don't you want to go?"
"You forced me! You know I don't like dancing in front of other people--"
"What other people? The kids in the class? You have been going all term. This is crazy. You have to go."
"I don't want to! It's not fair. You force me to do things. I don't want you to ever force me ever again to do anything."
"I did not force you, small girl, and I will not make you go in the future, but we are going to honor our commitments and be respectful of our teacher and our responsibilities. Please get your dance clothes on so we can go. It's getting late."
"I won't."
"I'll say this much. If you do not go to class, you are not having a play date. You will be reading for your reading log for the full hour."
"One hour of reading?"
"Yes. And you will take French next term if you do not want to dance."
"OK."
This went on longer than I care to admit and so I won't. Let's just say that there is a lot more "dialogue" to include here. I texted my friend part of the way through the argument and asked/demanded what I should do. I have a tough time with this stuff. The girls are so young and I know how kids are fickle and cannot always commit to things they set out to do, but we did sign up for a certain number of weeks. And frankly, she is so talented and such a beautiful dancer I feel like I must guide and direct her towards her "calling." And then I stop myself. Am I forcing her?
I regret having been allowed to quit piano when I was nine years old, though I do recall just how miserable I made my mother as I begged and pleaded and then just gave up practicing altogether. Sitting in front of the keys with Rick, a kind, bearded music teacher from the local music school, I'd plink away having just looked at the music moments before his arrival. I could not see how these scales and little exercises were going to take me to a place where I could actually play and possibly create beautiful music. The same went for the flute (which I at least played into high school but then gave up when other interests called), the guitar, Girl Scouts, Spanish lessons, gymnastics (Though that I'd quit because my dance teacher told me it was giving me too muscular a butt. Little did she realize that I was a black girl. It was gonna be that way ANYWAY.) Now as an adult, I wish I could play the piano or the guitar, that I could tie more than the square knot and didn't get less than a thrill from camping.
Kids start and quit activities all the time. We have them signed up for so many things so early to give them exposure and get them out of our hair for an hour or so. When Lily wanted to quit soccer, a sport where she showed promise, I made her finish the season but allowed her to stop. In our town, the teams were co-ed until the kids turned eight and though Lily loved the drills and the practices, the games were often wild free-for-all's, and they did not appeal to her at all. I also didn't care for the Saturday morning early wake up, but if she'd loved it, I would have continued. With dance, an art that carried me through my young life, that gave me joy and discipline and passion and commitment and love, I am struggling to let her let go. I have been reminded by so many that stopping does not mean quitting. Perhaps she will come back to it. And maybe she won't. Maybe, for all her talent it just does not inspire her in the way it did me. Maybe (with a wink) I do not get to determine her "calling" after all.
But what's a mother to do when confronted with the shift, the change in the middle of a session? When disinterest creeps in after the fees are paid and the place in class has been saved? I made her go. I let her cry it out, kick things, beg. I let her wear her jeans to class instead of dance clothes and I gave her a snack to take with her. She danced. She enjoyed it and she will, sadly, not sign up for the next term. It is here where I must let go. Let her be her own girl and develop interests and dreams and desires that I cannot control. That evening, we ordered dinner from the local pizza place that she loves and we sat, the three of us (little sister too) and talked about discipline and passion and commitment. I explained why it is important for me that they find something to offer them guidance and discipline and teaches respect and responsibility. That the arts and other activities bring joy and meaning to life. I told them I would allow them to participate in choosing whatever it is, but that I would not allow them to give up on everything.
There are so many more choices and options now than I when I was a little girl. I danced from four until my teen years and continued to come back to it in my twenties, thirties, and now forties. I speak the language, know the vocabulary, and feel a comfort when I return. All the choices now mean so many starts and often not enough time to let the love for something germinate and grow. It is that I fear most. That they try everything and give in to nothing. I want to help lead them to their passion without forcing them to do as I have done or what I'd like them to.
The little one still loves her ballet class and is desperate to start Dance Fusion when she is old enough. She loves art and wants to learn how to ride her bike. Lily is older and has already tried so many things. We will next look for an instrument and possibly tap and everyone will have to take French. It's with a firm hand and an unwavering voice that I insist when they want to give up without a real attempt at understanding. I introduce them to the arts by taking them to performances and concerts and galleries; sports by taking them to games and pick up games; life's surprises by waking them up for the sunset, showing them cool experiments, planting, baking, cooking, living. It's alright if they flip and freak and act a fool while they sort out their feelings as long as they get back on that horse and finish the race. Finish what they started.
So yes, you have to go to class. I hope you will be better for it.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
*Falling to the floor, crinkling up her nose, grabbing her head in a "Woe/Whoa is me" grip*
"But Mommy, I don't want to go to Dance Fusion! You are not being fair! [insert neighbor child's name] gets to have play dates all the time! I NEVER get to have play dates. (Though she'd had two that weekend) All I ever have to do is go to Dance Fusion. I just don't want to go. Is this the last week?"
"It's not. Next week is the last week. When that class is over, you do not have to commit to dance again, but we started this and we are going to finish it. You are a wonderful dancer. Why don't you want to go?"
"You forced me! You know I don't like dancing in front of other people--"
"What other people? The kids in the class? You have been going all term. This is crazy. You have to go."
"I don't want to! It's not fair. You force me to do things. I don't want you to ever force me ever again to do anything."
"I did not force you, small girl, and I will not make you go in the future, but we are going to honor our commitments and be respectful of our teacher and our responsibilities. Please get your dance clothes on so we can go. It's getting late."
"I won't."
"I'll say this much. If you do not go to class, you are not having a play date. You will be reading for your reading log for the full hour."
"One hour of reading?"
"Yes. And you will take French next term if you do not want to dance."
"OK."
This went on longer than I care to admit and so I won't. Let's just say that there is a lot more "dialogue" to include here. I texted my friend part of the way through the argument and asked/demanded what I should do. I have a tough time with this stuff. The girls are so young and I know how kids are fickle and cannot always commit to things they set out to do, but we did sign up for a certain number of weeks. And frankly, she is so talented and such a beautiful dancer I feel like I must guide and direct her towards her "calling." And then I stop myself. Am I forcing her?
I regret having been allowed to quit piano when I was nine years old, though I do recall just how miserable I made my mother as I begged and pleaded and then just gave up practicing altogether. Sitting in front of the keys with Rick, a kind, bearded music teacher from the local music school, I'd plink away having just looked at the music moments before his arrival. I could not see how these scales and little exercises were going to take me to a place where I could actually play and possibly create beautiful music. The same went for the flute (which I at least played into high school but then gave up when other interests called), the guitar, Girl Scouts, Spanish lessons, gymnastics (Though that I'd quit because my dance teacher told me it was giving me too muscular a butt. Little did she realize that I was a black girl. It was gonna be that way ANYWAY.) Now as an adult, I wish I could play the piano or the guitar, that I could tie more than the square knot and didn't get less than a thrill from camping.
Kids start and quit activities all the time. We have them signed up for so many things so early to give them exposure and get them out of our hair for an hour or so. When Lily wanted to quit soccer, a sport where she showed promise, I made her finish the season but allowed her to stop. In our town, the teams were co-ed until the kids turned eight and though Lily loved the drills and the practices, the games were often wild free-for-all's, and they did not appeal to her at all. I also didn't care for the Saturday morning early wake up, but if she'd loved it, I would have continued. With dance, an art that carried me through my young life, that gave me joy and discipline and passion and commitment and love, I am struggling to let her let go. I have been reminded by so many that stopping does not mean quitting. Perhaps she will come back to it. And maybe she won't. Maybe, for all her talent it just does not inspire her in the way it did me. Maybe (with a wink) I do not get to determine her "calling" after all.
But what's a mother to do when confronted with the shift, the change in the middle of a session? When disinterest creeps in after the fees are paid and the place in class has been saved? I made her go. I let her cry it out, kick things, beg. I let her wear her jeans to class instead of dance clothes and I gave her a snack to take with her. She danced. She enjoyed it and she will, sadly, not sign up for the next term. It is here where I must let go. Let her be her own girl and develop interests and dreams and desires that I cannot control. That evening, we ordered dinner from the local pizza place that she loves and we sat, the three of us (little sister too) and talked about discipline and passion and commitment. I explained why it is important for me that they find something to offer them guidance and discipline and teaches respect and responsibility. That the arts and other activities bring joy and meaning to life. I told them I would allow them to participate in choosing whatever it is, but that I would not allow them to give up on everything.
There are so many more choices and options now than I when I was a little girl. I danced from four until my teen years and continued to come back to it in my twenties, thirties, and now forties. I speak the language, know the vocabulary, and feel a comfort when I return. All the choices now mean so many starts and often not enough time to let the love for something germinate and grow. It is that I fear most. That they try everything and give in to nothing. I want to help lead them to their passion without forcing them to do as I have done or what I'd like them to.
The little one still loves her ballet class and is desperate to start Dance Fusion when she is old enough. She loves art and wants to learn how to ride her bike. Lily is older and has already tried so many things. We will next look for an instrument and possibly tap and everyone will have to take French. It's with a firm hand and an unwavering voice that I insist when they want to give up without a real attempt at understanding. I introduce them to the arts by taking them to performances and concerts and galleries; sports by taking them to games and pick up games; life's surprises by waking them up for the sunset, showing them cool experiments, planting, baking, cooking, living. It's alright if they flip and freak and act a fool while they sort out their feelings as long as they get back on that horse and finish the race. Finish what they started.
So yes, you have to go to class. I hope you will be better for it.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
In All Fairness
My 7 1/2 year old told me last night, after I'd begged her to stop Rainbow Looming and do her 30 minutes of reading and put in two cents on her project about Helen Keller, that I was unfair. Her exact words were shouted, "You are unfair, Mommy! Other moms are more fair than you!" To which I responded, without raising my voice, "Then go and check them out. See if you want to live with one of them. Because I can assure you that when you are over at their place for a play date they are giving you the fun, cool mommy. But I bet their own kids will tell you that they are just as unfair and uncool as Mommy. Now get to reading." She stormed out of the room and kicked around a bit in her own bedroom before coming back to her senses and picked up her book to read. She came to me and asked that I sit with her while she read to which I immediately obliged.
After we'd read and I was braiding her hair for bedtime, I told her that I'd been very hurt by her comments earlier and that while I did not like having to be a nag, it was my job to make sure that everyone in the family, little kids and Papa, were taking care of their responsibilities. I told her to imagine just how exhausting it was when no one listened to me but everyone yelled at me. I didn't have to say much else as she started crying and apologizing. While reassuring her that it was not my intention to have her cry but to consider how it must feel to have someone say cruel things, I also wanted her to understand that we would not communicate with each other in the house with outbursts and hurtful statements. The three of us, Lily and Virginie and myself, reviewed better ways to tell someone how you feel. Ways that did not involve shouting, pouting, and throwing tantrums.
I know this scenario plays out in so many households daily, maybe even hourly. And I have to think that the person who can change this kind of communication at my house is yours truly. When I was growing up, there wouldn't be much conversation about it, and when I say wouldn't be much, I mean ANY. My parents, like most others at that time, told us what to do and we did it. Often, "because I said so," was answer enough. I do go to that one from time to time, but I prefer to explain my actions; it's a personal choice. If I don't offer the answer "just because" when they ask a question about nature or math or art, I don't want to give that answer in regards to social situations and personal behavior.
"It's not fair!" means that I am asking them to do something that they not only don't want to do but are actually put out being asked. Or told to do it. We can argue, and we do, or I can tell them why I have asked, in this case, for Lily to do her homework. I can tell her about responsibility and expectations and her role and mine. She is welcome to tell me that she is tired or frustrated or disinterested or angry or sad, but she cannot just tell me that I am being unfair. My parents used to say, "Life is unfair." That's true. I have thrown that in there too and for good measure have even given examples. Rarely do those examples involve a first-world child with everything in front of her, coming home from a play date, eating her favorite foods, and snuggling in a blanket while she Rainbow looms. I guess this is my "kids in China/Africa/somewhere would love to eat your broccoli" argument.
When mine tell me, "that's not fair," I want to show them as delicately as I can when I am "Cool Mommy" and as snarky as I might when I am "Overworked/Put upon Mommy" that "that's not fair" often comes out of sounding like they believe themselves to be the most important persons in the whole wide world. From believing not that the sun rises and sets in them but that they are, in fact, the sun. I can imagine that letting them believe they are not the most important people in the world might go over badly with some parents. I imagine this because I see adults asking permission of their children for just about any decision they need to make. Mine ARE the most important people to ME and to my husband. But they are not the center of the universe. It would be awfully painful for them to discover this fact outside of the house when they were too old to still believe so. My grandma, Jessie Mae used to tell hers, "I'm always going to love you. It is my job to get others to like you." In other words, she taught her children, my father included, how to be good, kind, decent human beings, and not to think of themselves before everyone else.
Of course I do not want my children to be put upon or feel less than in anyone's eyes, and they have been fortified with feelings of adequacy and sprinklings of how special and important they are, have been celebrated for jobs well done, and tickled under their chins with giggles about how lovely they are. But learning about how to be part of a community, a family, a group is just as important to me as their developing self-love and pride in the things that make them special. What's not fair is allowing them, while they are cute and sweet and under my roof, to believe that the world will start and stop for them, revolve around them, that they have no responsibility to anyone but themselves, and that they will be accountable to nothing but their own desires. When they say, "that's not fair!" responding with the truth and my expectations and a little guidance, I am hoping to ensure that they are not unfair, unkind, and selfish towards others. Feeling like the bad guy? That's not fair. But I'll take it for the team.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
After we'd read and I was braiding her hair for bedtime, I told her that I'd been very hurt by her comments earlier and that while I did not like having to be a nag, it was my job to make sure that everyone in the family, little kids and Papa, were taking care of their responsibilities. I told her to imagine just how exhausting it was when no one listened to me but everyone yelled at me. I didn't have to say much else as she started crying and apologizing. While reassuring her that it was not my intention to have her cry but to consider how it must feel to have someone say cruel things, I also wanted her to understand that we would not communicate with each other in the house with outbursts and hurtful statements. The three of us, Lily and Virginie and myself, reviewed better ways to tell someone how you feel. Ways that did not involve shouting, pouting, and throwing tantrums.
I know this scenario plays out in so many households daily, maybe even hourly. And I have to think that the person who can change this kind of communication at my house is yours truly. When I was growing up, there wouldn't be much conversation about it, and when I say wouldn't be much, I mean ANY. My parents, like most others at that time, told us what to do and we did it. Often, "because I said so," was answer enough. I do go to that one from time to time, but I prefer to explain my actions; it's a personal choice. If I don't offer the answer "just because" when they ask a question about nature or math or art, I don't want to give that answer in regards to social situations and personal behavior.
"It's not fair!" means that I am asking them to do something that they not only don't want to do but are actually put out being asked. Or told to do it. We can argue, and we do, or I can tell them why I have asked, in this case, for Lily to do her homework. I can tell her about responsibility and expectations and her role and mine. She is welcome to tell me that she is tired or frustrated or disinterested or angry or sad, but she cannot just tell me that I am being unfair. My parents used to say, "Life is unfair." That's true. I have thrown that in there too and for good measure have even given examples. Rarely do those examples involve a first-world child with everything in front of her, coming home from a play date, eating her favorite foods, and snuggling in a blanket while she Rainbow looms. I guess this is my "kids in China/Africa/somewhere would love to eat your broccoli" argument.
When mine tell me, "that's not fair," I want to show them as delicately as I can when I am "Cool Mommy" and as snarky as I might when I am "Overworked/Put upon Mommy" that "that's not fair" often comes out of sounding like they believe themselves to be the most important persons in the whole wide world. From believing not that the sun rises and sets in them but that they are, in fact, the sun. I can imagine that letting them believe they are not the most important people in the world might go over badly with some parents. I imagine this because I see adults asking permission of their children for just about any decision they need to make. Mine ARE the most important people to ME and to my husband. But they are not the center of the universe. It would be awfully painful for them to discover this fact outside of the house when they were too old to still believe so. My grandma, Jessie Mae used to tell hers, "I'm always going to love you. It is my job to get others to like you." In other words, she taught her children, my father included, how to be good, kind, decent human beings, and not to think of themselves before everyone else.
Of course I do not want my children to be put upon or feel less than in anyone's eyes, and they have been fortified with feelings of adequacy and sprinklings of how special and important they are, have been celebrated for jobs well done, and tickled under their chins with giggles about how lovely they are. But learning about how to be part of a community, a family, a group is just as important to me as their developing self-love and pride in the things that make them special. What's not fair is allowing them, while they are cute and sweet and under my roof, to believe that the world will start and stop for them, revolve around them, that they have no responsibility to anyone but themselves, and that they will be accountable to nothing but their own desires. When they say, "that's not fair!" responding with the truth and my expectations and a little guidance, I am hoping to ensure that they are not unfair, unkind, and selfish towards others. Feeling like the bad guy? That's not fair. But I'll take it for the team.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Sugar, Spice, and everything fierce
Back to the Suburban Grind: Sugar, Spice, and everything fierce: Little girls. The hard part is raising them. The crazy part is having to search and scour and work through all the messages that are being...
Sugar, Spice, and everything fierce
Little girls. The hard part is raising them. The crazy part is having to search and scour and work through all the messages that are being sent at their little hearts and minds. The wicked part is trying to work through my own politics, my own feelings, my own shortcomings, fears, desires and lead them to their own paths.
I want to raise my girls stronger, more self-aware, and centered than I ever was. I want them to know their strengths--emotional, physical, and spiritual, their beauty, their wisdom, their intuition, intelligence, and their magic. But I also want them to use their powers for good and not evil. I, like so many parents of girls my age, love the fierce, young things out there, images of girl power that are not as obviously sexist, racist, misogynistic as images from the past. My girls believe they can do anything though they often need some coaxing to see the application of this mantra. All things new are met with a little apprehension and fear and some embarrassment about being made a fool of by their peers real and imagined. I sit with that part as it runs in me too, but as a woman, I am able to throw myself into the new, knowing the rewards often outweigh the risks.
I love almost anything that lets little girls and women high five themselves at the show of strength, power, and confidence, that shows the second sex flexing all its muscle--physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. I like girls in real life and fiction that challenge the status quo, that bring it, find themselves alienated because they are so misunderstood in their desire to march to the beat of their own damned beatbox. I believe that leadership comes with strength and compassion and I teach my girls how to lead themselves. I have told them to lead by example and others will follow but I do not know that that is true. Sometimes it seems like the sassy wheel gets the grease.
There are so many other reinforcements for an aggressive show of strength--girl bullying, the "I don't care," the blasé response to a life lived with just 6 or 7 years under the belt and parents' oblivious acceptance or ignorance of them. Mine see wonder in everything, Believe that every image seen will enhance the dreams in their minds, every experience had will feed the possibilities. They are open to the idea of everyone's joy and believe there is enough to go around for everyone. Sure, they fight like heck when they get locked in the house on a cold day or a boring morning where Mommy does not jump up and show them the fireworks, but they cut their teeth at home where the sparing is playful at best, chock full of Mommy-shouting, teachable moments at worst. Like two little lion cubs they spar and jab and resist and pounce and I call from the other room, "That's too much. Not like that. Don't say words just to be cruel, just to hurt. Say them to make your point."
Mine know the first of the Four Agreements because I say it so often. "Be impeccable with your word." It's kind of like "use your words" but with intention and conviction behind them. Know that what you say or do definitely has a reaction in the world and who the heck wants a reaction that hurts someone else. When little girls are cruel, abusive, short-tempered with others, I often wonder if their parents have goaded them on, cheered them, encouraged them by telling them that they are strong, singular, fierce. I wonder if the girls long for a tribe of like-minded chicas or if they believe that to be a strong girl or woman one must do it alone. I wonder why compassion gets taken out of the equation when one is being prepped for greatness.
Yesterday, after a dance class, I spent a good hour talking with some mommy-friends about raising children and girls in particular. My parents involved themselves very little in my social development and I navigated using clues from television, playground politics, and bearing witness to schoolyard hierarchies. I was nervous, but found that humor and revealing very little about my real feelings was helpful. Only I knew how trying it was to find my way through this maze and I grew a thick skin. I shored up and developed a hard shell to protect my gooey insides. But what for the girls who appear quiet, but really have a silent roar? Those that are nurturing a strong character, who are watching and mindful and intelligent and sharp? Who don't know how or won't fight for the top of the pyramid but could surely get there on their own strength.
The narcissistic side of me hopes that my girls are tiny avatars of all my good qualities with daring, commitment, and perseverance in extra measure. I hope that when they are doing something that makes them stand out, either because they are great or not so, that they keep doing it anyway because they love it. I hope that the voices--inside their heads and from other littles who have already taken in the sad, scary, tiny messages delivered on a pink tray to little girls--can be ignored and they can blaze hot, fiery paths of their own making. Or even lay tiny little stones, like Gretel and her brother Hansel, on their path to find their way. I don't care how they do it, just want it to be their very own.
My girls are sweet, easy playmates, sugary and gooey and lovey with enough character and drive to spice up all interaction with them. The fierceness will come as their confidence strengthens and they feel safer navigating knowing that I have their backs and support every effort they make towards self-discovery and self-improvement and self-love. I'm in it with them.
Those sassy, precocious, sophisticated, modern kids who call adults by their first names and treat children and adults alike with the same snarky attitude, who are already bored, unmoved by the real miracles of life, the joys, the highs, who hide the miserable, scary lows, who have even us fooled that "they got this" when they are way too young to GET this and just need to be parented, to be given limits, to have consequences to face, need guidance. They need us to help them find their way to their best selves, to their potential, and to do it without having to break others down to the quick. They run this town and they know it. We let them tell us what to do, talk back, assault us, call us names and then wonder why they just can't seem to connect with others.
Fierce is not mean or biting or cruel. It's not manipulative or controlling. It doesn't make others feel less than so that one can feel whole. We know this, but they may not. May not be able to read through the pages of confusing messages directed at them or lives lived vicariously through them. I don't want my children to be too heavy on the sugar, so sweet and kind and easy-going that they give up their strength. But the healthy snack to that meal is not snark or sassiness. It's the true power--self-reliance, self-love, intelligence, empathy, and compassion. Sugar and spice and everything nice? I don't know about that. But crystallizing that inner awesome, seeing it in others too, and letting everyone be led by their own star? I can get with that.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I want to raise my girls stronger, more self-aware, and centered than I ever was. I want them to know their strengths--emotional, physical, and spiritual, their beauty, their wisdom, their intuition, intelligence, and their magic. But I also want them to use their powers for good and not evil. I, like so many parents of girls my age, love the fierce, young things out there, images of girl power that are not as obviously sexist, racist, misogynistic as images from the past. My girls believe they can do anything though they often need some coaxing to see the application of this mantra. All things new are met with a little apprehension and fear and some embarrassment about being made a fool of by their peers real and imagined. I sit with that part as it runs in me too, but as a woman, I am able to throw myself into the new, knowing the rewards often outweigh the risks.
I love almost anything that lets little girls and women high five themselves at the show of strength, power, and confidence, that shows the second sex flexing all its muscle--physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. I like girls in real life and fiction that challenge the status quo, that bring it, find themselves alienated because they are so misunderstood in their desire to march to the beat of their own damned beatbox. I believe that leadership comes with strength and compassion and I teach my girls how to lead themselves. I have told them to lead by example and others will follow but I do not know that that is true. Sometimes it seems like the sassy wheel gets the grease.
There are so many other reinforcements for an aggressive show of strength--girl bullying, the "I don't care," the blasé response to a life lived with just 6 or 7 years under the belt and parents' oblivious acceptance or ignorance of them. Mine see wonder in everything, Believe that every image seen will enhance the dreams in their minds, every experience had will feed the possibilities. They are open to the idea of everyone's joy and believe there is enough to go around for everyone. Sure, they fight like heck when they get locked in the house on a cold day or a boring morning where Mommy does not jump up and show them the fireworks, but they cut their teeth at home where the sparing is playful at best, chock full of Mommy-shouting, teachable moments at worst. Like two little lion cubs they spar and jab and resist and pounce and I call from the other room, "That's too much. Not like that. Don't say words just to be cruel, just to hurt. Say them to make your point."
Mine know the first of the Four Agreements because I say it so often. "Be impeccable with your word." It's kind of like "use your words" but with intention and conviction behind them. Know that what you say or do definitely has a reaction in the world and who the heck wants a reaction that hurts someone else. When little girls are cruel, abusive, short-tempered with others, I often wonder if their parents have goaded them on, cheered them, encouraged them by telling them that they are strong, singular, fierce. I wonder if the girls long for a tribe of like-minded chicas or if they believe that to be a strong girl or woman one must do it alone. I wonder why compassion gets taken out of the equation when one is being prepped for greatness.
Yesterday, after a dance class, I spent a good hour talking with some mommy-friends about raising children and girls in particular. My parents involved themselves very little in my social development and I navigated using clues from television, playground politics, and bearing witness to schoolyard hierarchies. I was nervous, but found that humor and revealing very little about my real feelings was helpful. Only I knew how trying it was to find my way through this maze and I grew a thick skin. I shored up and developed a hard shell to protect my gooey insides. But what for the girls who appear quiet, but really have a silent roar? Those that are nurturing a strong character, who are watching and mindful and intelligent and sharp? Who don't know how or won't fight for the top of the pyramid but could surely get there on their own strength.
The narcissistic side of me hopes that my girls are tiny avatars of all my good qualities with daring, commitment, and perseverance in extra measure. I hope that when they are doing something that makes them stand out, either because they are great or not so, that they keep doing it anyway because they love it. I hope that the voices--inside their heads and from other littles who have already taken in the sad, scary, tiny messages delivered on a pink tray to little girls--can be ignored and they can blaze hot, fiery paths of their own making. Or even lay tiny little stones, like Gretel and her brother Hansel, on their path to find their way. I don't care how they do it, just want it to be their very own.
My girls are sweet, easy playmates, sugary and gooey and lovey with enough character and drive to spice up all interaction with them. The fierceness will come as their confidence strengthens and they feel safer navigating knowing that I have their backs and support every effort they make towards self-discovery and self-improvement and self-love. I'm in it with them.
Those sassy, precocious, sophisticated, modern kids who call adults by their first names and treat children and adults alike with the same snarky attitude, who are already bored, unmoved by the real miracles of life, the joys, the highs, who hide the miserable, scary lows, who have even us fooled that "they got this" when they are way too young to GET this and just need to be parented, to be given limits, to have consequences to face, need guidance. They need us to help them find their way to their best selves, to their potential, and to do it without having to break others down to the quick. They run this town and they know it. We let them tell us what to do, talk back, assault us, call us names and then wonder why they just can't seem to connect with others.
Fierce is not mean or biting or cruel. It's not manipulative or controlling. It doesn't make others feel less than so that one can feel whole. We know this, but they may not. May not be able to read through the pages of confusing messages directed at them or lives lived vicariously through them. I don't want my children to be too heavy on the sugar, so sweet and kind and easy-going that they give up their strength. But the healthy snack to that meal is not snark or sassiness. It's the true power--self-reliance, self-love, intelligence, empathy, and compassion. Sugar and spice and everything nice? I don't know about that. But crystallizing that inner awesome, seeing it in others too, and letting everyone be led by their own star? I can get with that.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Learning MLK
Back to the Suburban Grind: Learning MLK: Black National Anthem Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of liberty; Let our rejoicing rise,...
Learning MLK
Black National Anthem
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
Written by James Weldon Johnson (1899), music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1900)
When I was a little girl, though I suspect younger than my two ladybugs, to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and legacy, my family would spend the afternoon at a black church listening to people who'd lived the Civil Rights era, talking about about our history and the life of this man, and singing and clapping and dancing to some incredible church music and old Negro spirituals. We were meant to reflect, consider, uplift, and rise, rise, rise above what our people, African-American people had endured in our own country. A suffering that weighed heavily in the story of my immediate family. This was not the story of just my ancestors, but of my people, my family, my father and mother and uncles and grands and greats. It was not the past. It was the ever-fluid present.
The emotion was so visceral, so intense in those moments that I was often embarrassed and humiliated by the heaviness. I was "one of the only's," "the Cosby" at my school (calling it largely white would understate it). That my father and mother were well-educated and had good jobs and provided for us well above even the national average allowed others to define us as "past all that." But we weren't. We aren't. That our experience as middle class, educated, law abiding, good neighbors seemed beyond the norm was just the start of the misunderstanding. That Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday was still being debated as a national holiday confused the young me. That I celebrated in a church full of African-Americans and very few others hit it home. This was my cross to bear. Everyone else got to have the day off.
I supposed that my white friends were spending the day shopping or watching TV, hanging out, while the weight of my people and really the future of our nation, felt like it rested on my shoulders, or ours, as we endured to keep the memory, the truth, and the history alive. I wanted everyone to be considering Martin Luther King, Jr. in the same way I was. As a man, a true person, not just an idea, who lived and breathed among us, the same air I was breathing now, and who saw severe racism and institutional injustice and wanted it changed. I felt burdened in a way different than my parents and their parents had because, according to so many who "don't see color" I was not living the outright barbaric terrorism of the times before the Civil Rights era and was living in a nearly all white community, proof to so many that things had changed. But I still felt racism's sting in the subtlest of ways and much of it was internalized. I still felt that it was mine to prove that we were equal, alike, multidimensional and multifaceted.
It has been an interesting lesson for my husband and me as we teach our children who are biracial and bicultural about this very particular man from this very particular moment and then open up the discussion to the greater topics of racism and equality, tolerance and acceptance. They are so young and still at an age where they see the differences but do not have cultural references as to what those differences mean to some people. Because I experienced that sense of other, I have been both protective of their feelings as such and have also opened the dialogue before their questions about otherness have even arisen. Since they were very small, they have seen both of our families either in person or via Skype. My husband speaks French with them and they see him speaking with his friends and family only in French. We have looked at the map and the globe to discover just "how close and how far" we are to where Papa grew up. We have visited with my parents and family full of aunts, uncles, and cousins down South in Virginia, Washington, DC, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. When we lived in Barbados, they saw what looked to them like a thriving nation where black and white people worked along side one another, where they saw many more people of color in positions of power, where racism was, of course, in play, as it is everywhere, but where they were not isolated because of their racial make up, where they were, in fact, part of the majority. They learned there about the East Indians and Chinese in the Caribbean through the friendships they made, and though they certainly asked questions about where folks came from, it was more a curiosity of geography than fear or confusion about race.
We have made it clear through our friendships and relations and the way we speak about all people that intolerance based on color, creed, religion, or sexual orientation will not be accepted in our home. They have never said they wished they were not black. Have never said they don't believe themselves to be beautiful. Have never said that boys are smarter than girls, that white is better than black, that something is a girl game or a boy color or only for one group or another. We talk about other peoples' customs and religions, even practicing some of the holiday customs and going to services when we can to demonstrate how all people are just striving for the same goals for their families. And yet, when the specifics of the pre-Civil Rights era come up, I am taken back to that pain.
As they have begun to learn the very cursory history and stories they are shocked. If the separate water fountains and segregated schools are enough to burn their cheeks and hurt their hearts, imagine how they were brought to silence, sucking the insides of their cheeks, when I told them that Grandma and Grandpa had grown up, been little kids, just as they were now, and had lived this abject racism and in the case of my parents, poverty. That Grandma and Grandpa and their brothers and sisters and so many other families and children just like them could not look away from it, rather had to live it and breathe it every day of their lives. That their lives, in the minds of many, institutionalized in the country they called home, were not as valuable as the lives of others. They see the absolute injustice right away and struggle and fumble for words. It is not an abstraction talked about as if a bygone era, but a tangible truth for people they love and hold dear. Because they still see us all as equal, they are just unable to comprehend. This is how it hurts. As the true terror and violence of that time comes to light for them, they will need the strength to endure and to forgive and to continue the legacy of a real, live man who gave his life in that struggle. For them, a real, live man who looks like Grandpa, for whom their eyes sparkle and who is loved infinitely.
Both girls are extremely empathic and feel for others so deeply and compassionately. I feel so lucky that we are the same in that way. But they, as I long ago, cannot define how it hurts, just feel the lumps in their throats, the flush of their cheeks, the knot in their hearts and they weep. They have cried for friends that "would not be our friends if the brown and the white could not be together." The oldest has a dear girlfriend who said she'd just have to be in jail because she loved her friend so and would not put up with that nonsense. I loved this comment more than I realized because it keeps returning to me, to my heart. I love it because during those MLK celebrations of my youth, I would have loved a professing of love and commitment such as that from someone who "didn't have to," was able to choose her commitment to the rights of others when the privilege was hers.
I was a young person and am now a grown woman. What I shared is not shame but the real visceral pain of that history, of what separation, exclusion, divisiveness of any kind does not only to us on a global scale, but what it does just to our own individual selves. We miss the true evolution of ourselves--physically, emotionally, spiritually, nationally, internationally, globally. We miss transcendence if we cannot "lift every voice and sing." I am working hard to keep that love in mine. I hope as we celebrate the man and his actions, we each make a commitment to ourselves and our actions.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
Written by James Weldon Johnson (1899), music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1900)
When I was a little girl, though I suspect younger than my two ladybugs, to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and legacy, my family would spend the afternoon at a black church listening to people who'd lived the Civil Rights era, talking about about our history and the life of this man, and singing and clapping and dancing to some incredible church music and old Negro spirituals. We were meant to reflect, consider, uplift, and rise, rise, rise above what our people, African-American people had endured in our own country. A suffering that weighed heavily in the story of my immediate family. This was not the story of just my ancestors, but of my people, my family, my father and mother and uncles and grands and greats. It was not the past. It was the ever-fluid present.
The emotion was so visceral, so intense in those moments that I was often embarrassed and humiliated by the heaviness. I was "one of the only's," "the Cosby" at my school (calling it largely white would understate it). That my father and mother were well-educated and had good jobs and provided for us well above even the national average allowed others to define us as "past all that." But we weren't. We aren't. That our experience as middle class, educated, law abiding, good neighbors seemed beyond the norm was just the start of the misunderstanding. That Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday was still being debated as a national holiday confused the young me. That I celebrated in a church full of African-Americans and very few others hit it home. This was my cross to bear. Everyone else got to have the day off.
I supposed that my white friends were spending the day shopping or watching TV, hanging out, while the weight of my people and really the future of our nation, felt like it rested on my shoulders, or ours, as we endured to keep the memory, the truth, and the history alive. I wanted everyone to be considering Martin Luther King, Jr. in the same way I was. As a man, a true person, not just an idea, who lived and breathed among us, the same air I was breathing now, and who saw severe racism and institutional injustice and wanted it changed. I felt burdened in a way different than my parents and their parents had because, according to so many who "don't see color" I was not living the outright barbaric terrorism of the times before the Civil Rights era and was living in a nearly all white community, proof to so many that things had changed. But I still felt racism's sting in the subtlest of ways and much of it was internalized. I still felt that it was mine to prove that we were equal, alike, multidimensional and multifaceted.
It has been an interesting lesson for my husband and me as we teach our children who are biracial and bicultural about this very particular man from this very particular moment and then open up the discussion to the greater topics of racism and equality, tolerance and acceptance. They are so young and still at an age where they see the differences but do not have cultural references as to what those differences mean to some people. Because I experienced that sense of other, I have been both protective of their feelings as such and have also opened the dialogue before their questions about otherness have even arisen. Since they were very small, they have seen both of our families either in person or via Skype. My husband speaks French with them and they see him speaking with his friends and family only in French. We have looked at the map and the globe to discover just "how close and how far" we are to where Papa grew up. We have visited with my parents and family full of aunts, uncles, and cousins down South in Virginia, Washington, DC, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. When we lived in Barbados, they saw what looked to them like a thriving nation where black and white people worked along side one another, where they saw many more people of color in positions of power, where racism was, of course, in play, as it is everywhere, but where they were not isolated because of their racial make up, where they were, in fact, part of the majority. They learned there about the East Indians and Chinese in the Caribbean through the friendships they made, and though they certainly asked questions about where folks came from, it was more a curiosity of geography than fear or confusion about race.
We have made it clear through our friendships and relations and the way we speak about all people that intolerance based on color, creed, religion, or sexual orientation will not be accepted in our home. They have never said they wished they were not black. Have never said they don't believe themselves to be beautiful. Have never said that boys are smarter than girls, that white is better than black, that something is a girl game or a boy color or only for one group or another. We talk about other peoples' customs and religions, even practicing some of the holiday customs and going to services when we can to demonstrate how all people are just striving for the same goals for their families. And yet, when the specifics of the pre-Civil Rights era come up, I am taken back to that pain.
As they have begun to learn the very cursory history and stories they are shocked. If the separate water fountains and segregated schools are enough to burn their cheeks and hurt their hearts, imagine how they were brought to silence, sucking the insides of their cheeks, when I told them that Grandma and Grandpa had grown up, been little kids, just as they were now, and had lived this abject racism and in the case of my parents, poverty. That Grandma and Grandpa and their brothers and sisters and so many other families and children just like them could not look away from it, rather had to live it and breathe it every day of their lives. That their lives, in the minds of many, institutionalized in the country they called home, were not as valuable as the lives of others. They see the absolute injustice right away and struggle and fumble for words. It is not an abstraction talked about as if a bygone era, but a tangible truth for people they love and hold dear. Because they still see us all as equal, they are just unable to comprehend. This is how it hurts. As the true terror and violence of that time comes to light for them, they will need the strength to endure and to forgive and to continue the legacy of a real, live man who gave his life in that struggle. For them, a real, live man who looks like Grandpa, for whom their eyes sparkle and who is loved infinitely.
Both girls are extremely empathic and feel for others so deeply and compassionately. I feel so lucky that we are the same in that way. But they, as I long ago, cannot define how it hurts, just feel the lumps in their throats, the flush of their cheeks, the knot in their hearts and they weep. They have cried for friends that "would not be our friends if the brown and the white could not be together." The oldest has a dear girlfriend who said she'd just have to be in jail because she loved her friend so and would not put up with that nonsense. I loved this comment more than I realized because it keeps returning to me, to my heart. I love it because during those MLK celebrations of my youth, I would have loved a professing of love and commitment such as that from someone who "didn't have to," was able to choose her commitment to the rights of others when the privilege was hers.
I was a young person and am now a grown woman. What I shared is not shame but the real visceral pain of that history, of what separation, exclusion, divisiveness of any kind does not only to us on a global scale, but what it does just to our own individual selves. We miss the true evolution of ourselves--physically, emotionally, spiritually, nationally, internationally, globally. We miss transcendence if we cannot "lift every voice and sing." I am working hard to keep that love in mine. I hope as we celebrate the man and his actions, we each make a commitment to ourselves and our actions.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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