Back to the Suburban Grind: Thelma and Louise and Me

Back to the Suburban Grind: Thelma and Louise and Me: After the whirlwind week between Christmas Eve and today, I found myself with the first free moments last night.  The girls were passed out ...

Thelma and Louise and Me

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.

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.

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.

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...