After the whirlwind week between Christmas Eve and today, I found myself with the first free moments last night. The girls were passed out in my bed, tucked in after having had their first up-'til-midnight celebration of the new year's arrival and the following day's parties and good wishes tour through the neighborhood. Flicking through channels, sitting snuggled up on my couch with a blanket and a glass of wine, the quiet of the house brought the present upon me. I was no longer in my head planning for the next day, reflecting about those passed and things missed or not done, I was right there. And my birthday was coming in a few hours. I got to Thelma and Louise just as they were coming upon J.D., the young, handsome, brand new Brad Pitt, but I knew the story like I know myself. Thelma and Louise, like The Color Purple and Terms of Endearment and The English Patient, is a spot on my timeline, a moment of clarity and insight that I take pleasure in revisiting, no matter the tears and splatter that are sure to come.
And on the eve of my 45th, I looked with new eyes on my story. Every time, every single time, I love the charm, naiveté of Thelma. Her hope, her wonder, her journey (with massive shock and disappointment sure), her young soul charm and adorability. I beg her to see what I see before she gets into trouble, does something stupid, thwarts their chances and every time she does not. She is so cute, so sweet, so shiny. Oh, Thelma.
But I am Louise. Cautious, well-prepared, ordered, organized, playing the cards close to the vest. The thrill I get as this woman tidies her house before going away for what she expects will be a long weekend cannot be understated. The way she keeps herself in check, always on high alert, even when she is having fun is familiar. Her composure, her comportment, her trembling under that reserve is mine. I can be zany and funny and irreverent. I bet Louise was once a long time ago. Sometimes. Before Texas. Which she wants to avoid at all costs, does not want to revisit. It's the past and threatens to tear her wide open again.
Thelma and Louise takes us all on this journey across the gorgeous landscape of this country, showing us the beauty, the majesty, and the shifting contrasts and shadows made from that luminous glow. As these women let their masks fall, revealing themselves, their internal struggles and realizations and their skin, their human skin that they live in every day without make up, naked, we see the terrain change shape, see danger in the shadows, feel the ominous pull of life's magic and mystery as they sort out the mess of their circumstances. I have put myself in their shoes, lived vicariously through them every time. But this time I wondered, what if indeed one of these women were actually me. What if instead of two beautiful white women who find themselves with snowballing legal and emotional problems, Thelma and Louise or Thelma or Louise was a black woman. Was me. Would anyone be willing to take the journey with me? Would anyone want to come to my rescue? Would my choices be seen as heroic or tragic? Could I make that drive through the country, through the Midwest and Southwest of the United States as I tried to figure out how to right the wrongs, the mistakes and the impulses that got me into hot water? Would I go over the canyon or be knocked off long before my soul made that arc, reveled in its evolution and transcendence?
And then the tears fell harder even than usual when I realized that though the archetype, the Everyman (woman) journey, is indeed for everyone, I doubted that most would want to come along on the ride with me. It's where we find ourselves today or at least where I find myself. Deep in my heart, though I love with everything I can, I wonder if my love is reciprocated truly. In our "post-racial" America, I now wonder who wants to hear my story, any of our stories, to really listen to them without trying to place it in a specific genre, a special place, an "other" category. Does anyone believe that though our stories can be and are similar in so many ways, that we'd still like to see ourselves, be seen ourselves as part of the larger tale? That ours are not peripheral, supporting parts but starring roles too? I don't ask the questions to receive knee-jerk, fumbling reassurances. I ask because of how much it hurts me to even have to. Because the doubt has crept in and made me feel that whatever it was I thought I was leaving to my daughters has been eroded and that they will have to fight to be seen too.
I ended the year struggling to be open and available to people who were more than comfortable telling me how I feel, how people of color are/feel/act/think/behave or who told me they didn't see what I was showing them, telling them, expressing, shouting about, crying about, and were quick to walk away or shut down the dialogue with all sorts of "proof" and "post-racial" mumbo-jumbo. I lost people, let some go and allowed others to let me go when I took off my makeup, my mask, and showed my skin, my human skin, and it was real and pained and flawed, and could not be tidied. When I realized that even I, a friend or a colleague or acquaintance, could not make a convincing argument for recognition or compassion or even dialogue.
After years of trying not to "drive through Texas," not to go back to some painful truths, to reveal the scars I'd covered with my tidy, poised, secretive composure and protective stance, the circumstances had changed. I couldn't get out of this. Though I'd take many roads to try, they all still seem to end at the canyon. So here we are. I am hoping in the new year that we can talk to each other. That the seekers of the shiny and new, the naïve and the fresh can take the hands of the weary and the wary and the jaded and the wounded and forge a direction together. I hope that we are able to step back to think about and consider what each other says rather than react and attack. I hope that I am not met with theorems and postulates in place of real stories and truth and connection. I hope that we can find some kind of common group so that my story is as interesting, as worthy, as real, as true, as archetypal as any other. I want us to see ourselves in each other, longing more for what is similar, rather that foreign or strange. I want us to journey in all senses of the word--physically, emotionally, spiritually.
I love Thelma and Louise and wouldn't want to change their story. I road with them through their map, followed the lines that lead them to themselves and to their realizations and truths. I will again. Their journey has informed mine and they have inspired me to seek out hands to hold, to revisit old places and find undiscovered territory, maybe even some truth. Out there in that wildly powerful and spiritually haunting landscape, we all discover the essence of who we are. If we let ourselves.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Showing posts with label girl in the world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label girl in the world. Show all posts
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Monday, May 12, 2014
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.
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