Thursday, November 10, 2016
Back to the Suburban Grind: Moving in Quick sand
Back to the Suburban Grind: Moving in Quick sand: 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...
Moving in Quick sand
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.
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.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Back to the Suburban Grind: Choose Life
Back to the Suburban Grind: Choose Life: TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of suicide, death, and loss. Two weekends ago, I sat between two very dear friends, behind the parents of...
Choose Life
TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of suicide, death, and loss.
Two weekends ago, I sat between two very dear friends, behind the parents of a friend who could be better described as an acquaintance, a well-loved acquaintance but a woman to whom I'd never gotten very close, at a memorial service. I was sad, I was angry, and I was very hurt and didn't know how to communicate these emotions. I was sending X-ray beams to the back of her mother's head, pleading with her to see her, understand her, care about her. And was then angry with myself for feeling that way. For blaming her. For wishing she'd cared more, tried harder, had given her daughter a break, just let her be. That wasn't fair. I know that.
I'd run into this woman just a month before at Trader Joe's. I was walking out as she was coming in and just starting her shopping and the exchange was brief, head nods and smiles, a wink. I was in a rush and she seemed lost in thought or her list. I'm really not sure. I didn't think much of that exchange until a few weeks later when I learned that she'd taken her life. She was dead. I kept seeing her face looking down at that list. I replayed every moment we'd been together, her asking me about something or other, talking about the wine at a party. She was dead. And then she was standing over me doing my make up as she'd just started selling Mary Kay cosmetics and needed someone to practice her technique and her sales pitch. I'd said, "I didn't think you wore make up." To which she replied, "I'm trying something new. My mother always said I'd do better to wear some make up." And I resented her mother for putting the idea into her head that she was not enough and reassured her she was. At least that's what I think I did. Maybe she thought I should just shut up because she was trying something new.
She'd been a lawyer and was incredibly intelligent, more cerebral and intellectual than I (or so it seemed). I'd met her through other friends and saw her most often in the company of the others, except for the afternoon that she did my make up and we talked about trying new things and make up and raising children, daughters in particular, (She has a daughter and a son.) and how beautiful my own mother is and how incredible my mother's skin is and that maybe she'd try Mary Kay. This was nervous chatter. Having her there doing my make up, so up close, trying to convince me to buy the lipstick, the shadow, and the face creams when I rarely wore make up and if I did I sought products that would look good on my brown skin, which to my mind Mark Kay was not such a product, made me uncomfortable. I told her as much in a series of emails after our meeting. I did not want to let her down, didn't want her to waste her product on someone who was not going to buy anything. I wanted her to win. I felt her need for approval, for acceptance. And I was upset with her mother for saying she'd do better to wear make up because she clearly did not feel comfortable in it.
And she now was dead. I hurt her hurt and retraced the steps I'd imagined she'd taken before that last, sudden, violent moment. And as sublime as the moment seems in poetry, in story, in song, the truth of it, the starkness, the finality, and the violence broke me. I thought I should have spoken to her at Trader Joe's. Should have looked into her eyes and said something to her, whatever it might be, that might make her choose life one more day. I thought of the acting exercise, "the private moment' where the actor lives a moment where he'd not expect anyone to see him, lets down his guard, experiences the moment unapologetically, unself-consciously, and I hurt all over again imagining those last moments.
Her family and friends were in tears, completely shattered and stunned. There were photographs of her at various stages of her life and I racked my brain trying to recall if we'd ever taken photos at the dinners and parties we'd attended together. I closed my eyes searching for her ghost in photos of us that were never taken. I felt her loss in the world, in my world, but didn't have the proof. Couldn't find a photo in my mind's files. Looking across the aisle at her children, I thought of my own and those years ago in Barbados when the daily routine seemed impossible. I remember the despair of postpartum depression and the loneliness of my marriage and the daunting prospect of attempting to live each day. And I felt that cold breath, that sigh between here and somewhere else and the pull in my chest and the ache in my core as I struggled to choose life. I don't feel at all close to that edge now but that feeling has never left me.
In a bedroom community outside of New York City, the sound of the passing trains is a common occurrence and every time I hear it now, it gives me pause. I think of the photo of her as a young girl in a brimmed hat, looking so like a character from a novel, a kind-hearted innocent, a girl from another time and place. Her eyes in that photo were so gentle and soft and sweet. She, full of promise. There is yellow light around her, framing her in a memory of a perfect moment in a perfect day. I didn't know her then. I also didn't know the young girl in the short hair that flipped at the sides, snuggling a bunny to her chin. But I recognized the woman that she became in her gesture. She was warm. She was kind. She was sweet and loving and good and she seemed, in that moment of love, so truthful, so vulnerable, and so present.
And now she is dead. I say dead because gone doesn't do the loss the justice it commands. Gone could mean that when ready she could return and she won't. I sat behind her mother who did not, could not speak at the service and searched her father's face as he spoke of her, his voice cracking and faltering as he tried to hold her in this world with a sweet memory, for some answer that would explain why this happened. I looked at her ex-husband and her children and all of her friends and colleagues. I did not look in the faces of my dear friends who sat next to me but I did squeeze their hands.
It is so lonely being a human being sometimes. Even when you are sitting next to someone and holding their hands, when you are in a crowd, when you are being feted and loved and surrounded, when you are on a beautiful Caribbean island living the fantasy of so many, there can be illness, depression, pain, and despair that those around you cannot know unless you share, tell them, trust them. It is truly a risk to take. I get it more than I care to admit. But it's a gift this life. I believe it and I continue to choose it. I hate considering making a decision that ends with this choice. I hate that there is no one to blame no matter that I was clearly searching for someone. That no one knew how deeply despaired she was, how she'd tired of it all, how what haunted her began to share this earthly plane with her and that her dreams were no longer a safe place to escape. I hate it so much that I replay every breathing moment I know of her life and imagine the moment she took her last. I want to be there for her, be her witness, acknowledge her just as she was and in my magical thinking, will her back to this plane. But she is more than gone and she won't be back.
If you have suicidal thoughts, please seek help. You can call 1-800-273-8255 twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Back to the Suburban Grind: Offline
Back to the Suburban Grind: Offline: It wasn't when people in my feed started explaining what Trayvon Martin did wrong (yeah, Trayvon). It wasn't when a former babysitt...
Offline
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Back to the Suburban Grind: 5th: The throwback
Back to the Suburban Grind: 5th: The throwback: And just like that, the summer is over and the girls are back in school. Sure, we will have a few more weeks of warm weather that will make...
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