I've had nothing and everything to say. In the movies when the aliens or the mermaids or angels arrive and meet human beings they often can't speak. They don't know the language spoken where they've arrived on earth so they communicate with emotions, with touch, long gazes, and love.
I haven't known how to write or speak this feeling in which I have been wading. My vision blurry, I feel my way towards my allies and steel myself for our survival. I don't want to use too much energy so that I don't spend my reserves. It must look like depression or anxiety. It must look like panic. It feels noisy and chaotic and wordy though I've not spoken much at all. I've shared on social media, I've advocated for the rights of everyone, and I wear my heart so open and unbuttoned that is screams out, you can see its beating outline on my chest. I'm no mermaid, no angel, sometimes alien, but I don't know the words to speak here.
I see messages from friend to other friends who don't believe this mess involves them. White women who text other white women in the hopes that they have the same disdain for the disruption of their regularly scheduled privileged lives, only to find that the receiver of the message is active and hurt and organizing, and I am speechless. It figures, I've thought. And then gratitude washes over me for the friend who did respond in kind. I read posts from people in my life from way back, way, way back, who say, "Stephanie, it's only been a week. Give him a chance." And I remember giving the bullies in my high school whose torment of me crushed moment to moment and being advised to either ignore them or ask them, sincerely ask them, why they've chosen me. And I am stunned.
Sometimes people listen, really sit with you and listen, hold you in a space that they've generously given. Sometimes when you aren't even there they are praying for you, hoping for you, holding you dear, sending you strength. Sometimes, when you can hardly speak, they read between the lines and hear you. Sometimes the very best words are expressed, barely spoken.
I have before felt lonely, afraid, ashamed. I have before felt disconnected, excluded, outside. This was something else. In my spirit's journey for meaning, I'd assumed that deep down everyone was on a similar path, only to hear/see/read the most violent, hateful, racist, sexist, misogynistic, uninformed, terrified and terrifying rhetoric spewing like bile about almost everything and everyone I love and hold dear. I have felt that all-consuming fear that makes people do the craziest things. I have watched in shock, horror, and disbelief at what my black people would call the devil, take his place on a thrown right next to the people's god. They look at the throne and can't tell the difference. Angels, devils, mermaids, and aliens.
I was sitting on a bench outside the bank on the corner of an intersection in my town. I'd walked there to get out of the house where my husband was on day two and a half of man-flu and because I needed to take some fresh air into my lungs. It was 33 degrees and windy. It was perfect and it was quiet. I talked to myself and to my angels. These existential dialogues have been occurring with greater frequency, as soon as I've a free moment from the needs, desires, and demands of everything in the world. It sounds like hysteria or panic, which it truly is not, but a real consideration of purpose, mine and everyone's, that I've not really had with this much intensity in my life. This moment in history feels fraught.
The wind hit my face and my hands as I tried to type on my phone to a friend. It was so cold that I thought to just put the phone down for a while so I could just stop the sizzling in my brain that happens when I'm plugged in. I put the phone in my pocket and turned my face to the sun trying to work her magic on that cold day. When I opened my eyes, I made contact for a fleeting moment with a new friend, a woman I knew just briefly through shared friends and in our attendance at school functions, who was passing with a friend at just the moment I'd opened my eyes. She doubled back and said, "Can I just give you a hug? I want to hug you."
I said, "Oh, yes. Yes, please." And we stood on the corner of at the crazy intersection in our little town and held each other. When we let go I thanked her and we both wished each other a good day. She walked on and I sat back on my bench and took in the air deeply, tears immediately coming. Oh, my heart.
Nothing and everything to say. SHE had the very best words.
(c) Copyrighted 2017. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Drawing, work in progress. Grace, 2017. Stephanie Penn-Virot
I've voted for candidates who've not won before. I have accepted defeat with a few tears and resolve. I have felt ready to face it all again four years later because I have believed that even if everyone did not think as I did (and I have never been myopic enough to think they did so) that we, Americans, THAT WE, had agreed upon everyone's right to at least live in their own space in their own peace even if we (or I) longed for us to reach a greater love and understanding of one another. I'd taken comfort that though I suspected/knew that behind closed doors there was a good deal of racist and sexist banter going on in the White House and cabinet of presidents in which I held little faith, I expected they'd at least try to hide their shameful behavior and policies with rhetoric and not come right out and assault us with hate. And I wasn't afraid of them.
I can't lie. I have always anticipated some level of racism from my fellow Americans, white Americans, and am always pleasantly surprised when someone shows me otherwise. I listen to the stories they choose to tell, choose to share with me and the rest of the world and cull tiny messages, read the pinpoints on their maps to know if deep down or perhaps on the surface, they don't or can't fully respect me and my experience. Somehow the shame was mine, that I suspected that I should do more, be more or less, convince them by contorting myself, my beliefs, my strong voice, my thick legs, my alarming sexuality, my very blackness, that I should be smaller in the world so that they might be able to live in a world that had me in it. Even I allowed that the world, that America, did not belong to me and was thankful for every small mercy that showed me differently.
For every friend who told me of their racist auntie, of their schools where no people of color attended, of their churches, towns, teams, and other organizations in which they participated without ever seeing a black person, I winced and then offered some level of comfort to them. Well, you are here now. You are part of this diverse community. That counts. And sure. It does. It does.
When I was a girl, I saw the world through the low-res footage of the Polaroid camera and loved looking at the world in the black and white of my parents' and grandparents' "olden days." Their pictures fascinated me because everyone looked so young and beautiful but the tales they told of the time, the parts of the tales that had to do with white people, were violent and bleak and terrifying. The Civil Rights Era was not just part of history, tales made flat and two-dimensional by the textbook, but the stories told by my family, the young, beautiful family of a time that the United States of America was truly black and white and all shadows. I lived among white people in a nearly completely white community and lived my life every day with a pinch of fear. I knew that even in the face of good, kind, supportive white people, I'd better be sure that someone of color, someone who "knew" would have my back up front.
I was ashamed of this, ashamed that I distrusted, that I was not letting love in my heart, that I was not turning the other cheek. I'd always felt that the burden was on me to prove myself open, easy-going, and cool. I tried to let microaggressions and judgments roll off me, not let the blood rush to my cheeks. Defused offenses with laughter, assault with excuses, ignorance with forgiveness -- "they know not what they do."
But I still held my breath. I held my breath because I knew that it was just a matter of time before someone revealed that they weren't as down for my cause as they'd hoped. Held my breath because I knew I might meet their mother/father/grandmother/auntie/cousin/friend/neighbor who said shit like, "that neighborhood is full of n****s not good black people like you," and I wouldn't know how to respond. Because I was twelve. Held my breath because someone would tell me that they didn't understand why all the other black kids were in different classes and not in the advanced classes with me. Held my breath because someone wanted me to know that they just didn't find black girls attractive or black people attentive or able to swim or couldn't get lice or whatever it was they'd heard. Held my breath when, though in the top ten percent of my class, lesser students dared tell me that I'd surely get into the college of my choice because of affirmative action and wanted me to agree to as much. Held my breath because the cute boy told me that he really liked me but that his grandmother would roll over if he came home with a black girl and I felt badly for HIM. Held my breath because sometimes it was all too much and the short breaths were all I could take in without letting my emotions seep out.
First there are tears and then there is rage! And I learned that it was the rage, the rage that scared everyone off. Even your allies couldn't stand for your rage. Your family, your friends, the people who were trying to love you in their own way, to study you, understand you, who longed for whatever it was that being a black girl meant to them, turned from your rage. It revealed too much. Too much of the pain behind your forgiveness, behind your memories, behind your hope. So you channeled it. Made the world. Held it up. Shone the lights. Held your breath. Sucked it in with your head high, eyes focused, became a pillar, face tight with smiles but the heart pumping blood, veins and vessels pounding, eyes blinking, lashes fluttering, cool breaths sucked in and out through your lips.
Simmering, a slow boil and each assault or insult, each death called us from against the wall and whispered, "you'd better let it out or it'll blow." Heat flushed our ears and our cheeks and we were at first embarrassed, humiliated, scared, and then the rage. The rage came and poured like lava melting the glossy papered image of what we were expected to be into something harder to identify. Our beautiful black friends staring past us, the invitation standing to join but no more asking or pleading. Get on or get off. And we wanted everyone on board. We all did. WE did--the blacks, non-whites, immigrant, Muslim, LGBTQ, disabled, the intersected of all these groups--we want you on board. Without you, your racist/sexist/bigoted/homophobic/cruel/apathetic mother/father/auntie/uncle/friend/cousin/neighbor will never hear another side to their fear-mongering, hateful rhetoric or their privileged denials and apathy. They have already chosen not to believe me, not to believe us. While I "may not be like the others," I still can't shake my otherness. You must go in for me.
Listening at the foot of my grandmother in her front sitting room to the tales of a defiant great-granddad and seeing him in his black and white, youthful glory, seeing the uncles in their overalls who stood across the street from the little soda shop/cafeteria that was segregated while their nephews and sons attempted a sit in in white, short-sleeved button downs, and slacks. Pouring over photos of our parents in large Afros and sideburns, wide collars, and short skirts. Seeing our photos become clean and Kodakchromed and colored as our friendship barrettes and hoop earrings, lightening bolted enamel pins and designer jeans came into fashion. Seeing the events of our nation unfold in real time in moving pictures in social media. We are here. You must go for us.
When I was a girl I was afraid of stray dogs because I didn't believe they'd listen to my command to stop. I was afraid of quicksand because it looked like regular ground until you were deep in it and then it just might be too late. I was afraid of someone disrespecting or challenging my family because I believed they'd already been through enough and didn't want to see them wounded or have them face me having been. And I was terrified of someone calling me "nigger," "blackie," "brown sugar" in mixed company not only because it would burn my heart and rise up in my cheeks and my ears and force my tears, but because I was afraid to know just who would and would not stand for me.
Those Kodak pictures from that time show me in my youth already navigating the world's mines and expecting that I might blow up first. That little girl had hope but low expectations for others for whom supporting and loving her might be a burden, might even put them in harm's way. That little girl learned to accept defeats that were altogether unfair, more than likely biased, and influenced by a society that valued her less than all the white children that surrounded her. It is with shock but not complete surprise that a raging, narcissistic, racist, sexist, bigoted, misogynistic blowhard has been elected president. It is the culmination of all my fears. It is the ground made quick sand. It is a stray dog jumping up and putting its paws on my shoulders looking like he might bite my face. It is embarrassing the legacy of my hard-working, well-educated, dedicated, God-fearing, loving family and all the sacrifices they made to get me to my basic rights. It is being called "nigger" or watching my friends cursed and assaulted because they are gay or Muslim or Hindi or Sikh (because please don't know the difference) or in a mixed relationship or disabled or a woman, strong or meek, or poor or uneducated or not quite what America had in mind when they narrowed their definition of "American."
When Al Gore and John Kerry conceded I felt deflated. I'd had faith in their abilities to lead, to govern, to be fair and inclusive. I felt that even if they could not ever meet or even understand the needs of my community and the communities of those I love, but I thought they might try. I thought they wanted to understand, that they wanted to unify. I was afraid of the machine that Ronald Reagan and the Bushes drove over communities I loved. But what I feel now is terror. Absolute fear. I stare at my old class pictures, run my fingers over the old faces of friends, classmates, people who have said how much they love me, care for me, enjoyed our friendships who have voted against my very right to live as they'd like to live. We are sinking. That quicksand catches you and takes down slowly. What happens is that we suffocate and drown and don't even know we've gone down. And we all go down.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
It wasn't when people in my feed started explaining what Trayvon Martin did wrong (yeah, Trayvon). It wasn't when a former babysitter typed, "Hey, black people" I suppose to get my attention and the attention of my black people friends as she explained our experience to us. It wasn't when one after another, black men, women, and children were shot and killed by police or sketchy white neighbors or strangers and were shown no justice, but I saw only posts about home renos and favorite cupcakes. It wasn't Colin Kaepernick and all he inspired on one knee getting character slandered and pummeled. It wasn't the endless reaction and outrage to every post begging the larger community to recognize that Black Lives Matter did not take anything away from them but that All Lives Matter spit in the faces of folks they called "friends." It wasn't that.
It wasn't when Brock Turner got away with a rape that everyone knew he'd committed or my revisited trauma when listening to the comments made about "the kinds of girls and women who are sexually assaulted" and the acknowledgment that a black girl or woman in such a predicament may as well keep that shit to herself since no one even gives a fuck about the white girl behind the dumpster. It wasn't one more post about the "gay agenda" and how proud some families feel about "kicking that no good kid out on his ass" because he was somehow born this way but-not-in-my-house-dammit.
It wasn't even watching the unfathomable rise of a straight up racist, misogynist, rotten to the core blowhard in the run up to a presidential election, or seeing friends with friends who support this horse's ass telling me there was nothing they could do about their friend's or family member's opinion and go on about their lives. The build up of racism, misogyny, rape culture, misogynoir, misguided, uneducated and under-educated thoughts and theories that were breaking my spirit. As one childhood friend or acquaintance after another showed themselves to be completely ignorant and unable to use any amount of reason, compassion, or empathy to the plight of peoples other than those that occupied their tiny American, suburban lives, I became discouraged, heartbroken, and wrecked.
I was keeping up with and reading too many articles that painted a bleak picture of our immediate future and I was internalizing the anguish of our collective souls. I was seeing my friends in pain, confusion, despair. Every single day. I'd always come here to find connection I didn't have off line and now on line was threatening my sense of peace, already tenuous, and sending me to the panicked dystopian hell where everyone who looked like me, loved like me, and felt like me would be on the run. Not even the hedgehogs and kitties and other cute things could save me.
When we got to Barbados my offline life was so unbearable that the retreat into the internets saved my life. I didn't want to admit that I was startlingly unhappy, suffering from postpartum depression, and realizing I actually knew very little about how to love and be loved and wasn't going to get it from my husband or distant family. My husband who'd seemed like a charm in New York was distant, unavailable, and overwhelmed in Barbados. He left me to the care and handling of the home and the children and retreated deeper into his own pathos. I did not know how to ask for care and comfort in all the ways it might have taken to get it, but I did know how to surround myself in a virtual world with people who would empathize with me, would root for me, pray for me, and wait for me to arrive every day to share. I needed that love and fought like hell for it no matter its imperfection and its empty promise.
Life off line is messy and beautiful, hysterical, passionate, and tormented. There are hours, days, weeks of high energy, high impact, live on stage business that exhaust, rip apart, and tear at the seams of everything. Whether I am dealing with my daily grind, my midlife struggles, or empathically feeling the torment of human existence, off line I often find myself gasping for air and trying to catch my breath as I see compassion and empathy exit the building. I've tried to share that on line--my hurts, my hopes, my fears, my anger even, but it often feels too tempered. I don't fight. I choose my words carefully. I listen and acquiesce. I am imploring, conveying, hoping, and posting about things I love. My children, fashion, decor, music, art, and all people and especially black people because I love us in our struggles, in our hopes, in our relentless pursuit in the face of unending trauma. I swear I hope I am convincing, showing, revealing who I am, who we are in every mundane, daily moment, but I don't know. I don't know anymore if I am succeeding in either space.
My life on line is beautiful, I'm not fronting. We are a photogenic family who take lots of photos of the major and minor adventures in our lives. There is witty banter and dry, in-the-know wit and humor. I have always been good with a comeback and can put together good images. In the face of the funk I can plant flowers and hope. I love a cute animal doing an insanely cute thing and am extremely passionate about the people, places, and things that I love. I am a well edited and curated catalog of incidents, moments, and images. But it is all edited. An artist edits her work, her writing, her paintings, her collection, her life to tell a more cohesive story. An unedited showing would be all over the place, full of contradictions, promises and lies and love and fear and darkness and light.
I hopped off line because I wanted to be in a private space to mourn and I didn't know what to say. I was hardly able to speak in real life and didn't want to flinch and wince and lie or rant and scream and plead in the place I'd come to seek like minds of the ether, people I know, I've met, and still have to meet. I ducked out when I wondered what more I had to give or contribute. When I thought I'd nothing else to share or say and that, as I have since I was a young girl begging my parents to see me, shouted myself to hoarseness to no avail. I bowed out and eventually watched from the sidelines. I am lonely sometimes. So lonely. I am scared and hurt and frustrated that we are not seeing or hearing each other. That people who have not lived outside of a world of privilege are still leading the conversation about whether or not our lives are even relevant, let alone how to heal all that separates and divides us. On line or off, I had to admit that I am still watching so much happen on the outside, feeling all of it, and screaming, screaming, screaming my head off in the most polite way. And I am not sure who can even hear me or gives a damn.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
WARNING: Some graphic imagery of the experience of a miscarriage.
Miscarriage: failure to attain the just, right, or desired result/end; he expulsion of a fetus before it is viable, especially between the third and seventh months of pregnancy
Miscarriage of justice:
primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. "Miscarriage of justice" is sometimes synonymous with wrongful conviction, referring to a conviction reached in an unfair or disputed trial.
Before I was pregnant with my second child, I'd suffered two miscarriages. Just weeks into each pregnancy (the first at five weeks, the second at ten) seemingly no different than the one that had delivered its promise of a baby, my body, ripe and pumping with hormones and an increased blood supply, began to tear the walls down. My heart skipped a beat and then a small cramp. I felt nervous and my palms began to sweat. I believe I was holding my breath. I didn't want to look, to check. A small cramp was not entirely uncommon or unexpected. My body was trying to tell me something I did not want to know. I knew it and still didn't want to listen.
The cramping began to increase and I was hot. My skin, plump and swollen, got cold and clammy. My breasts and nipples already longing to nurture that baby were so sensitive to the touch that it seemed just my clothes were too much. I felt the longing, the begging, and the pleading. "Please don't let this be." And then the resolve. There was blood. Blood everywhere and I was alone and even when people came to my call, I was alone. The first time in France in my in-laws' upstairs bathroom on New Year's Eve. The second time in the apartment I shared with my soon-to-be husband and our first child just weeks shy of the end of the first trimester. I was at a loss for words. Everything everyone said to comfort me sounded muffled. I didn't want them to talk to me. I wanted them to listen. To listen to the sound of the moment and it was deafeningly quiet. It was so real that try as I might to escape in my mind, I was pulled back into the present with each tiny contraction. A friend of mine, one of my very best, who is also a healer had once said to me, 'we cannot expand and grow all the time. Sometimes we have to contract.' That thought kept coming to mind. I can't say why, but it somehow gave me comfort and the space to accept what was to be.
We wanted another child, a partner and friend for our first, and after meeting with my doctor and receiving the appropriate shots (I have Rh negative (Rhesus negative) blood which means that my blood is most likely not compatible with the blood of the baby and certain precautions have to be taken), we decided to try again. My husband was hopeful and to some degree disconnected from the emotional and spiritual effort it was going to take to get back out there. Encouraged by the all clear from my doctor, he was eager to start the baby-making! I was more apprehensive. The losses had been traumatic, terrifying, and exhaustively lonely. I did indeed want to have another baby but was so scared to lose another. The sense memories, smells, tingles, ringing in my ears, the muscle memory of loss pulled tightly at my core. My heart and gut wrenched, my palms became sweaty, I was nervous and easily agitated and very short tempered.
I didn't watch either of the videos. We came home from the day-late Independence Day fireworks to our cable, phone, and internet service not working. It turned out to be a blessing. As I did a quick review of the latest on social media on my phone I saw the first hashtag: #ripaltonsterling. It wasn't difficult to put the pieces together to see what had happened. I knew better than to even try to watch the video on my phone. Already I was shaking. My heart and gut wrenched and my palms were sweaty. I looked to posts from my 'woke' friends. I was in a panic. Piecing together small details--selling CDs, concealed carry state, gun in his pocket, point blank range, black, black, black, black, black. I knew guys who sold CDs on the street. Hell, I'd bought some back in the day when I didn't know better and could scarcely afford a good meal let alone my favorite music.
Like with the first cramp suffered in the upstairs bathroom, I stood alone. I didn't even want to say the words out loud. I looked down. Blood. Real, thick, dark. Pulled into the present. This is happening. From the bathroom, "Honey, something is wrong." And now from the bedroom, barely whispered, "They killed another black man on the street." The depth of our disconnect even more expanded, there was no answer. "A man. Selling CDs. Pinned down and shot at point blank range." My husband looked up. "No. Can't be. How they can do that?" Nervous, easily agitated, short tempered. I had to move, walk around. I knew not to try to watch the video, the video! I knew that I was suddenly very alone.
Retreating to my bed, to sleep, seemed the best option and I took some melatonin to disappear and went in. When I woke up to the news of the murder of Philando Castile, a young, black man who'd been shot and killed in the driver seat of his car as he'd reached for his permit to show the officer who'd demanded it, I blanched. That his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and his child had also been in the car and that his girlfriend had live streamed his death, dropped me to the floor. Again, I did not watch the video but saw a still. The blood. The thick, dark blood on a white t-shirt on a man sitting in the driver's seat of his car. The scene was haunting, surreal.
I looked down and took stock of my surroundings. That hyper-awareness that trauma brings. I see the floor, the walls, my feet. There is so much blood. I smell the food cooking downstairs. I see the whites of my eyes gleaming with tears and fear. I see blood. A miscarriage. A failure to achieve a desired end. I'm still standing. I sit and try to breathe deeper breaths than the shallow, panicked wisps that are leaking out of me like cold winter smoke rings. All the moments I've ever looked at my feet, my hands, my face, the floor, the wall come rushing to me. I am pulled back to the present.
They have killed another black man in the street. There was no trial, no accusation (none formal at least). This was not justice. It is not just. There has been a rush to find fault in these two men as has been done countless times before. I have taken stock of my surroundings. I stare down at my hands and at my feet. I see the walls, the floor. This has all happened before and before me and before them and before all of us. That in a public court of opinion these men cannot be found innocent of a crime they did not commit because by being black they are guilty. There is a lot of talk about it. Too much for me right now because I need the sound of the moment in its deafening quiet. I need there to be listening.
When we'd passed fifteen weeks during my pregnancy with the little one I felt safe enough to tell people that we were pregnant, but the panic never stopped. I checked between my legs daily. I responded to gas, fullness, fatigue with worry and panic. I prayed and chanted and mantra-d from point to point. I was afraid and I was hopeful. We can do this, I thought. We have before. She wants to stay with us. She wants to be our baby. The gods are shining on us. They want her to be ours too. But until she was in my arms, peering up at me with those shiny, black eyes, I was prepared for the worst. Prepared to lose her, prepared to suffer and hurt and feel anguish in silence. Silence because looking at me in my hurt was too much for most to bear.
It is hard to watch someone in excruciating pain. It is hard to watch them writhe and twist and ache so deeply internally that their body contorts, the way they appear on the outside is hideous to behold, their faces change, their destinies are missed, their paths misdirected. We fear pain like the dark hand of misfortune. We don't want it to touch us too so we turn from it, intellectualize it, talk and talk and talk about it, analyze it, describe it, try to work around it but it can only be confronted deep inside. It is bloody and dark and thick. It is slow and gruesome and sudden. It throbs and burns and pulls. And then gives release.
The tiny space within me that I keep my deepest fears and secrets burst at the seams and I cried for days, endlessly. I'd heard that the little four year in the car, in the back seat, where I now strapped my two children, tried to comfort her mother as her father lay dying in the driver's seat. I'd heard that Diamond Reynolds was taken into custody and I wondered where her tiny girl was taken. I wept at the thought of the rushing, the fast moving, the approach with with Alton Sterling was met in those last moments. Wondered if he said to himself, 'this is just like that guy...' before someone put a gun to his chest. I could not stop crying as I thought about all the blood and its metallic smell, its dankness, its thick, tacky swell as it flowed from the body. I would wipe my eyes and more tears would come thinking of the moments in stillness when even though there was sound and screaming and fury, for a split second the dead silence of that present moment froze the world. *gasp* And then it was done.
I remember the heaviness of the blood, the weight on my shoulders, the pulling in my heart, believing I could never recover from a loss like this. One that had been a secret, one that was private, one that was mine to mull and cultivate. And I came to see, I have to tell you. I have to tell you that these are not just stories on white paper. They are not clean or neat or easily filed. They are real life. The just, right, desired end was that I would bear another child and bring her into this world and love her and have every right to share with her and show her and celebrate with her the beauty of this human experience. I hope I can. The just, right, desired end would be that two men, black men, who had every right, so it is said, to share and celebrate the beauty of our shared human experience would not be dead because they'd been unfairly tried and convicted because they were black.
It's incredible this life. And heartbreaking. Black lives matter. Too.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama in the Jungle: Back to the Suburban Grind.
As the story goes, when my father was born, his grandmother wanted him to be named Stephen after her father. Though he'd already been named Jesse, he was called Steve or Stevie by everyone growing up. I know a childhood friend by whether they call him Steve or Jesse. I am called Stephanie after his secret name, a tiny, little seed planted at his roots in an alternative, dream landscape. He is a hearty and strong succulent perennial, only an occasional flower, low growing, sometimes called the liveforever or sempervivum. I am the flower.
We are so alike, my father and I. There is depth, order, control. We are protective, strong, and quick to anger. I love him. I always have. I respect the man he became and all that he has accomplished in this life. I know that if I am in danger he will come. If I am hurt he will come. If I need he will give. But in order to protect himself from the slings and arrows, knives in the back and punches to the gut, he has had to encase his heart in thorns and booby traps.
I woke up this morning at 5:30. That's too early for me. Though I tried to go back to sleep, as soon as my eyes are opened I find that nearly impossible. My racing mind started tracing lines to all the people I know who were probably awake. Many living abroad where the day was already in full swing, friends on the West Coast who may be having a bout of insomnia or a late night of excess, and my dad. Now that he is in his seventies, 5:30 is pretty early for him too, but the early mornings are a space where I always see my father. Walking the house in quiet, breathing in life in a space where no people means no mask, rising with the sun as he did as a boy when he had work to do. You can take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy. My dad is still a country boy.
A country boy whose parents told him and his four siblings how to survive, and gave them everything they had, which was not much materially but was full to bursting with love, guidance, and support. They told those beautiful, black children how to get out of the poverty they'd been born into and to keep marching forward despite the expectation of the America that they were born into, that they were 'less than.' Education, character, drive, ambition, and familial love and support would help each lift the others. Racism and segregation shaped my father's sense of himself and no matter his successes, he has remained haunted. I can only imagine how he endured the assaults on his character, his intelligence, and his basic rights. Like me, he is sensitive, easily wounded, and anxious. Like me, he hides and protects his heart. Unlike me, he has not found too many to share it with. And that includes me.
The love was tough, survivalist. It wasn't precious or adorable. It wasn't indulgent or demonstrative. There were few hugs and smothers of kisses and compliments and praise. There were high expectations. When one fears failure, when failure in a system set up for you to fail means life or death, there is little time for pleasantries. The hurt of his youth nourished ours and our blooms were sprinkled with his pain. But mine is a fragile bloom. My roots are strong, but the flower is so desperate for the light, desperate for the watering and the nutrients, seeking warmth from real and artificial light sources. I cannot always tell the difference.
My father is the first man for whom I was ever too much. I could tell by the way he looked at me since the beginning of time and shook his head. I wasn't easy because I'm not. I'm all of the things one has to work on, work towards. Work. I was compared to other girls who achieved better and far more than I. Girls who were poised and demure and knew the code and followed it. They were good girls. They weren't wild and didn't talk back or fight or question or practice magic. They were practical and organized and good. There is a part of me that is like that too. Remnants of my attempts to please.
My father is the first man whose love I could feel dangling in front of me but could never reach. My father loves me, but it sparks like an electrical short and cannot sustain itself long enough to provide light. I chase the falling embers, hope it will help me find my way through the tunnel but I I do a lot of feeling around in the dark.
My father is the first man I tried to impress by dancing all around him, literally dancing all around him, who was distracted and saw only a flash and felt a slight breeze from all my efforts, and wondered to himself, 'What was that?' as I whirled past. I still don't think he has ever seen me.
But I am not done with him. I am nothing if not persistent. I am the flower. And I continue to bloom in his face. I remind him that without our roots neither of us would thrive. That it does no good for the succulent to resist its flower. The plants are so gorgeous, have always been some of my favorites, whether they have a bloom or not. But the blossom is such a sweet surprise sometimes taking years to finally bloom. It is more. It is the hand to God, the reaching, the longing, the magic expressed. It is working through the fear and the shame of wanting and needing to be loved. It just is. And we both need it, the light and the love.
As the story goes, I was born so prematurely that I was so tiny you could hold me in one hand. There was a fear that I might not survive, that the cold winter and early arrival might be too much for my tiny body. But my roots dug in deep and I called on everything I knew. The sempervivum, I was going to live and he knew it. So he gave me his name, the one he should have had. I fulfilled the promise of this family name and we are tied. Liveforever.
Happy Father's Day to my dad.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
This is how I feel right now. I am in 9th grade reading Huckleberry Finn with my class and each time they call Jim a nigger, I cringe. And it's said over and over. Many look at me sympathetically, shrug their shoulders, some even touch me on the arm if they are close enough because we all know, no matter how we all long for the adventure, that poor, ol' Jim and I have more in common than Huck and me. I don't deny that most feel uncomfortable with the language that is explained away with a "that's how people spoke of black folks at that time" but when we move on to "A Farewell to Arms" everyone else can drop their shame, their melancholy, longing for the expectation that I have forgiven this past and that "we've come a long way, baby" and get back to modern living.
But I see Jim and I know him because, though you may be looking at me and seeing an upper middle class, well-educated, articulate, funny, put together (at times) African-American (I prefer Black) woman with a handsome, French husband and two beautiful mixed kids, I come from a long line where Jim and folks like him are roots on my tree. I am, as the expression goes, the tip of the iceberg, but under the surface is a lineage of survivors and thrivers, former slaves and slavers. We are mixed by choice and very often not. I spent my early years and my summers on the front porch of my grandparents' home at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Though I lived in a white neighborhood in New Jersey and believed myself assimilated, I sat at the feet of my grands and great-grands and heard about racism firsthand. Not just being called "nigger" or "blackie" or "brown sugar" by white kids testing their power and position in the wide streets of the suburbs, but pervasive, oppressive, strangulating cruelty that only served to threaten and stunt the mental, emotional, spiritual, and social growth of black people. These were not stories or headlines. These tales were the lives of my family and my ancestors. No matter where I am in the world, this is the ground beneath me.
I did not grow up the way many envision black people growing up. Not because it is so rare but because you don't know us. And if you do, really do, then I am not talking to you, but I would venture to guess that you don't really. I dream of a life that is banal, no more exciting or charged than that of anyone else, maybe even the default. The life you think of when you think of every day life. And then I wake up and remember that I am black. That I am a black, sensitive, creative woman who, by nature of being black in America, cannot live an average life. That my life is meant to define, describe, explain, assuage, and calm the feelings of other citizens allowed to live their mundane lives while mine is fraught with symbolism and metaphor and hyperbole.
My grandmother told me often that she wanted better for me, for all of us, was grateful for what she'd seen us achieve in such a short amount of time, hoped that "white people were fair and good" to us. There was palpable fear and doubt, but also hope. I wanted to tell her, to show her that all her suffering and her efforts had not been in vain, that we were advancing. That the rapes, assaults, laws, white supremacy, and pervasive and accepted racism were seen as the horrors they were, were being put firmly in the past, and that WE were being seen for the "content of our character." And the advancement of our family specifically was tied to our advancement as black people in America collectively. Many black families will tell you the same. For us to be able to just be average, regular, unspectacular, under the radar, just living our lives gave her hope. It was the tip of the iceberg. She was sure we'd overcome. I carried that hope for her.
There were small things that reminded me we hadn't come as far as I'd hoped. My father getting followed home by the police on a morning run. People assuming he was a ball player because he drove a nice car. Having a very hard time finding an apartment even with full time employment, good credit, and a clean record. Having to consider that I had a clean record. Listening to people tell me, when hearing my experience as a black woman in America that racism wasn't the problem but poverty and elitism. Um, AND those too. Having to qualify that though, yes, micro-aggressions were not the same as being beaten or killed in the street, dealing with them was still incredibly damaging to the psyche. Having someone, a "friend" write something about "hey, blacks, I've suffered too and look at me" on my Facebook wall in response to more proof of the systemic racism that prevails in our country. Imagine trying to be part of a group or society or country but when the conch shell gets passed to you, everyone talks over you. Tells you it's not your turn.
If we meet you with rage, if we meet you with anger, you call us animals and beat us or pepper spray us or shoot us. If we ask for a fair shake, an opportunity, a chance, you say we are angling for special privilege. If we write stories or articles or blogs about our experiences on the outside, you say we, WE are the ones being divisive. If we tell you we are hurting, we are tired, we are traumatized by the rhetoric, by the hatred, by the violence, the unrelenting insensitivity and ignorance, you say buck up. When innocent black men, women, and children are murdered, people who look like us, in epic abuses of power, and no justice comes on their behalf. When we cry for them, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, cousins, friends, we are asked to consider why they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. We are told that if they'd just listened, behaved, respected the law and the policies that were not designed with them in mind, they might have lived another day to face it all again.
This racist system is real and it's killing all of us. Not just Black people, but our country. It's not that we are a nation divided by black and white because that isn't true. It wasn't then and it isn't now. But racism, complacency, white privilege and its hideous cousin, white supremacy do threaten to tear us apart. And everything that anyone finds great about this nation will crumble into the seas like the icebergs of white and blue and purple crumbling under the heat of global warming. We are dying ever so slowly from a disease that feels impossible to stop. We are sure it is going to overtake us, consume us. It just might. Like people suffering from illness, we can resign or we can fight it with all we have. There is prayer, meditation, and there is love. And love...
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13
I don't deny it, I am sinking, melting into the sea, afraid I will never be solid again. Each week, as I try to do what everyone else is doing, raising their children, trying to give them values and truths to uphold them, I am crying into the back of my hand, afraid to let them see what lies beneath the surface of their gleaming pyramid called life. I held the hope for my grandmother and now I hold it for my daughters. This conversation is just the start. It's the tip of the iceberg but if we don't tend to it, we are bound to hit the parts below the surface and dash all our dreams of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for an average life made special by our content, by our character, by our cooperation, and by our love.
RIP to the victims of the cowardly act of terrorism in at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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.
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.
