An avalanche of chills covers me in epiphany
And this once desolate icicle called my heart – gives pause
I was not ready for the shiver given on this
Thus when the tingle does vanish I am left with naught
But the sounds that words cannot express
And this simple gift of truth from you to me
You are all I ever wanted
Not because you are anything
But simply because you ARE
Welcome to the world my child
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In light of the weekend’s Micheal Dunn verdict in Florida, I feel the need to bring this post to the forefront again.
NY Daily News: NYPD Allegedly Assault Staten Island Family – Killed Parakeet
I am the mother of two suns.
Two black suns.
Two black suns in this country, this United States of America.
My late-husband and I together did our best to navigate them through the minefields.
In their Sesame Street days, they are taught – this is the land of opportunity. They learn, that the color of your skin shouldn’t matter. And we said shouldn’t matter because even at that young age of theirs, neither of us as black parents could get past the ugly truth lodged in our throats and say that it ‘doesn’t matter’.
In their grade school days, they are taught – this land of the free. They learn that some of us have to work twice as hard most times to afford it. When in stores, they learn do not touch anything unless you have the money to buy it. We do not yet teach them that they are not being watched because someone might think they will break it, but because someone might think they will steal it, but they learn.
In middle and high school – they are taught this home of the brave. They learn as long as they are brave within the accepted boundaries, and those boundaries are fluid. They learn that the police officer who was their friend in day care and grade school, may not be so now that their voices have dropped and their awareness of the world at large has risen. They learn this even when sometimes that officer is an officer of color.
I am the mother of two suns.
Two black suns.
Two black suns in this country, this United States of America.
Our parents and my generation learn for the all the Martin Luther Kings and Malcom X’s there were the Emmitt Tills. That for the Rosa Parks there were the Eleanor Bumpers, for the Jesse Jacksons there were the Michael Stewarts, Yusef Hawkins and right around the corner from where my parents used to live when my sons were still children, Anthony Baez.
And as my sons made their way to manhood they learn that there are too many Rodney Kings, Amadou Diallos, Patrick Dorismonds, Abner Louimas, James Byrds, Sean Bells and now Jordan Davis.
In between what they are taught in school they are taught manners and respect and pride and faith, yes because it is the right thing to do. But they learn it may also keep them alive.
Yes, we were strict. Yes, we had rules. They learn to think of others as well as of and for themselves. They are taught responsibility and, like all children/teens/young adults, begrudgingly learn it.
They eventually learn curfews are not because I did not trust them to go out into the world, but because I did not trust the world to give them back to us. With one son sometimes too nice for his own good and the other sometimes too hot-tempered for his, if they are in the house, I am not worrying at 1am, at 2am, at 3am. I am not worrying if this will be the night, the night that the nightmare comes true and we get the call. The call that is the nightmare of every parent that must raise black boys to black men.
The nightmare that became the unfortunate reality for Sabrina Fulton and Tracy Martin – because like Stewart, Hawkins, Baez, King, Diallo, Louima, Dorismond, Byrd, Bell and Davis we know there are far, far, far too many Trayvon Martins out there never heard about in the news.
I am the mother of two suns.
Two black suns.
Two black suns in this country, this United States of America.
They were taught that red of our flag is for the valor in fighting for the right to live free; the white for the purity and innocence of our thought and purpose and the blue for the justice to protect those rights. Though as black men those inalienable rights wouldn’t be put to paper for them for another 100 years, and to some form of actuality for another 100 years hence. They learn it can also be the red of their blood on a baton, the bullet from a gun, the edge of a blade or a fist from the white-hot rage of someone having his or her worst day that encountered them having one of the worst of theirs and the blue of their body growing cold in the morgue from the result of that confrontation long before I get the call.
They learn that their All American names will get the door to open. Then they learn that their not so all American looks will sometimes have those same doors close in their faces.
They are taught that though it is certainly better than it has ever been, they learn that there is still quite some ways to go.
My suns are now adults, living their lives as men. My late-husband and I did the best we could with what we had. We got them through the minefield to black adulthood relatively unscathed. I no longer have nightmares of the call. I go to sleep at night trusting we will all safely see the morning unharmed. However, I am guessing, so did did Evelyn Lugo when chaos crashed through her door.
Things like this happen and a mother’s worry does crop up again on such occasions – after all…
I am the mother of two suns.
Two black suns.
Two black suns living their lives as black men in this country, this United States of America.
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Go see what others are slicing about today:
Write, Share, Give: Slice of Life | Two Writing Teachers
You unexpectedly run your fingers gently along the side of my face and, knowing me well, before I can think to question you about it, you place your lips upon mine and we kiss.
Gently.
Passionately.
Tenderly.
Hungrily.
When we slowly pull away we are breathless and I open my eyes to the dark emptiness of my room.
And realize it was only a dream.
Now, I lay awake undecided.
Am I more afraid that I won’t have that dream again…
…Or that I will.
Some of my holiday cards arrived at my job. The glitter from one card fell out of the envelope and dead into my lap, highlighting an area that really does not need attention called to it, especially while I’m at work. When one my of co-workers jokingly asked what happened it went like this:
Me (looking down seeing the extent of mess for the first time): Well, you know how with fairies their kisses always leave a trail of sparkles?
Him (cautiously, knowing it’s going to be bad): Yeah…?
Me: Well, Tinker Bell was attempting cunnilingus again as I was getting dressed. The little bitch is sooo good, but won’t take no for answer when I have to go to work.
Him (laughing): What?
Me: I look like I’ve been vajazzled under these pants.
Him (groaning): Dammit, I had to ask.
Me: That’s what you get for looking at my crotch.
There is (or was depending on when you read this) a Facebook meme asking users to list 10 books that have stayed with them in some way. The books did not have to mean anything to anyone but the user.
Here is my list in the order of which they popped into my head:
1. The Kushiel Legacy (Series) – Jacqueline Carey
2. Harry Potter (Series) – J.K. Rowling
3. Spenser (Series) – Robert B. Parker
4. X-Men (The Phoenix Saga) – Chris Claremont
5. The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso) – Dante Alighieri
6. Othello / Romeo & Juliet / Macbeth / Hamlet – William Shakespeare
7. Teacup Full of Roses – Sharon Bell Mathis
8. If Beale Street Could Talk / The Fire Next Time / Go Tell It On The Mountain – James Baldwin
9. Incarnations of Immortality (Series) – Piers Anthony
10. Holy Bible (King James Version)
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#1 (The Kushiel Legacy (Series) – Jacqueline Carey) and #9 (Incarnations of Immortality (Series) – Piers Anthony) on this list I have written about in an earlier blog post and you can read why I love them here. Below I give little summaries not of the books themselves (I trust that you know how to Google or Wiki it if interested 😉 ), but why they remain with me.
Harry Potter (Series) – J.K. Rowling
As a reader of the books and watcher of the movies I adore this in its entirety. Not having children of the target age initially designed for I didn’t come into the Potter world until I saw the first movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”. As a sucker for things magic, warlock, wizard, witches et cetera, I had to read the book that created such a delightful movie. Only then did I learn a) it was a children’s book and b) it was series. Still, by the time I finished reading the books published to that point Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I was hooked. Author J. K. Rowlings has invented such an amazing in-depth world that is and yet is not part of our own, while never forgetting that at its core it is still a young adult book. In most children/young adult literature series the characters stay relatively the same age for years. J. K. Rowling penned theses character in as true sense of a bildungsroman possible given the fantasy. Reading/watching the characters develop over the years, I really did have a sense of watching the characters grow and come into their own. The entire series was phenomenal storytelling that captivated me and opened up a genre of books (young adult) I never would have considered reading otherwise.
The following quote has been attributed to actor Alan Rickman who portrayed the Severus Snape character in the film version of the books:
When I’m 80 years old and sitting in my rocking chair, I’ll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will say to me, “After all this time?” And I will say, “Always”
That sums up my love for the books and their movies in its entirety.
Spenser (Series) – Robert B. Parker
I admit it, were it not for television, I likely still would have never heard of Robert B. Parker. Luckily for me, the television series “Spenser for Hire” happened. I fell in love with the characters; none of whom were perfect (though the leads were perfectly cast in the show). I found out in the third (and final) season that they were based on books and after reading “Ceremony” it was a done deal. Robert B. Parker’s writing is witty, intense, mellow and detailed with nuance as he slides you into his Boston. Both the requisite tough and tender, Spenser (with an “S” like the poet), a former boxer, former Boston cop, now private investigator is a well-read, often quoting classic poetry, yet one smartass S.O.B. and an excellent cook. He has his own very strong sense of morals and what happens when doing what’s right clashes with doing what’s right– as it often happened. It is both the strength and the albatross of what makes his friendships and relationships work.
X-Men (The Phoenix Saga) – Chris Claremont
Yes, X-Men as in the Marvel comics and movies, The Uncanny X-Men comic books to be specific. Yes, Storm – a character who was strong, female, and stop the presses, Black – opened the door introducing me to X-Men and the Marvelverse, however, it was Chris Claremont’s writing that kept me in the building. From the Phoenix’s fiery ascension (ironically from the waters of New York City’s Jamaica Bay), to its death, The Phoenix Saga took a little over three years to tell in its entirety and I was there for every step of it. The very human dynamics of the mutant x-men working with their powers, and in the case of Phoenix powers that eventually prove to be far beyond her ability to control with dire consequences, was not something I expected in a comic. The world at large was just coming into the concept of a graphic novel, so this level of storytelling for a comic book was unheard of. Yes, they were humans with extraordinary powers, but they were human first and that is what called out to me.
The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso) – Dante Alighieri
Finally reading this as an adult away from school, I needed two detailed abridged versions along with the original to fully appreciate the scope of this masterpiece. Yes, on the literal surface, The Divine Comedy portrays Dante’s adventures in his imaginative realms of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, which is intriguing enough. However, these adventures or so much more than what is on the surface. Other than the Holy Bible, it was the first book I read that dealt with the demands Christianity makes on invariably fallible human souls. Though told through the character’s view this is not just one man’s struggle, but the struggle of all who strive for morality and find unity with God as we try to travel the right road.
Othello / Romeo & Juliet / Macbeth / Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Who is better at delving into what makes man, and woman, tick and then deliver it to us in finer verbiage than Willie Shakes? No one. While his comedies show display our foibles with rapier sharp wit, it is his tragedies that really cut to the human heart of us. These four in particular being the prime examples of his craft.
Teacup Full of Roses – Sharon Bell Mathis
Though technically a young adult novel, I was ten when I read “Teacup Full of Roses” at the suggestion of my teacher. I fell in love with the book because it was the first book I read clearly where the characters were contemporary (1970s), from the city and above all the characters were Black. I could easily relate to the hopes, dreams, nightmares and failures of these people because they lived in my world. There is much conversation on how the media does not provide an accurate portrayal/accounting of people of color compared to real life, and this is at the adult level. Imagine how much more this is so at the child level. Until then the only black character I knew in books was Jim in Huckleberry Finn. Some will never understand how amazing and important this is to a child of color, but it is.
If Beale Street Could Talk / The Fire Next Time / Go Tell It On The Mountain – James Baldwin
Ah Baldwin, in turns made me yearn, made me made angry, made me resolute. Not yet fully aware of the world at large, I did not know the importance of his writing at the time. I just knew this was our lives being told true as I knew them to be. I was exposed to passion in black love, anger and Christianity in a way that was not toned down and pretty. Teacup impressed the ten-year old me, but Baldwin blew the teenaged me out of the water.
Holy Bible (King James Version)
Ah the Bible. I worried as Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go. I understood the father’s joy when his prodigal son returned home; Abraham’s torment as he led Isaac up the mount, as he resolutely obeyed God’s word and Mary’s pain as she cried for her child on the cross. And Song of Solomon / Song of Songs – well, that’s its own love. For me The Word was never about my potential destination to heaven or hell. It never really about His word per se, the analogies/parables between man and deity took second place to the stories of the people themselves and how we relate to and with Him.
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Dissecting this list I realize the connection between all of them is that, it is always about the people in them and their stories. Whether fictional/biographical/auto-biographical – it is how the protagonists / antagonists relate to themselves, to the immediate people who are a part of their daily lives and how they relate to the world the world at large. Good or ill, it’s all about what makes them tick. And how deeply can they pull me into it their world and make feel me it in mine.
I have a Facebook friend who recently loss her husband. Like I did then, she feels all alone on her path of grieving. I wrote the below a few months after the loss of my husband. As others who walked the path before me reached out to me, I share this now so she knows she’s not alone on her path either.
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What Is Proper?
I look over these years of my life from childhood until now.
Intellectually, I know I’m just a brief dash of eternity. But in my heart, half of that “dash” was my entire life with him.
What is the proper form of grief? I’m being told how well I am doing, how strong I am. If I don’t look as though I’m going to huddle in a corner and sob my eyes out any second, is that sufficient token to gauge my passion? I sometimes feel as though, I was expected to immediately fall apart and because I have not, it’s as though all these years with him have been a farce. For every few sets of real flowers he gave me, he also gave at least one artificial one “because like me, they will still be here when everything else is gone.” But since no one is there at night when I’m falling asleep exhausted clutching those same flowers on the bed, is that form of sorrow any less worthy? So who was pulling the masquerade? Bill? I honestly thought the artificial flowers would be gone first.
What is the proper time of grief? My mother passed away years ago and I still deeply feel her loss, but there is no expectation of a potential replacement for her. I’m expected to carry on and someday find a replacement for the irreplaceable. But when is ‘someday’?
If a year from now some new form of happiness enters my life, am I in too much of a rush to dismiss what was by pursuing it? What if a year from now I find I still cannot take off my wedding ring, am I flat out holding on far too long?
Oh God, a year from now – another dash of eternity I can not comprehend when I’m trapped in pseudo time warps.
I hear a song on the radio and for a moment we’re dancing so close together. But then it’s over and I’m forced back into the reality that he’ll never dance with me again. Then I’m feeling even more the fool for once again letting myself get sucked into a happy memory when I know the end result of such reminiscence is pain. I know it won’t always be like that, but right now I feel like I am wading and wading along a shore of my own tears, trying to find an answer in the tide, but it’s on a crest just out of my reach. I’m so close, yet so far from the solace there.
“One day at a time” I’m told. Right now, I’m just trying to get through one minute at a time.
I’ll work on getting through a whole day later.
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I also offer this:
And this:
3am wake-up to catch a 5am flight. Don’t want to wake him yet, so I trod to the bathroom in the dark.
The splash of cold water on my cheeks is bracing and I cuss waking him anyway.
“Crap! I know, sorry!” He yells.
“What do you know?”
“I left the toilet seat up again.”
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Just having a little fun with today’s Friday Flash 55
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I can type in a cadence,
While I write some prose
Yet it is seen all in print or pixels,
What voice is given those?
I’m New York City born and raised,
Yet by southern women bred,
But rarely either of those things known
The first time my words are read
You don’t hear the rapid staccato
Of my native Harlem streets
Or when it’s breathy and drawled
Like a Carolina belle so sweet
But yet you hear me
No, my voice is then a rolling brogue
Or a clipped Queen’s English call
Or Any language that wants to be dVerse
Wait, do you know any Klingon at all?
Because for all my written verbiage
There is one major limitation
My voice is solely in province
Of you, the reader’s imagination
This when anger ravages, my throat’s rawness is real
When heartache tears my soul asunder, I choke then
Stillness brings my silence, while silliness peals laughter
And you know this, though not one word is spoken
Ah, but yet you hear me
Yes, you hear me
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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting The Bar ~ Hearth, Home and Common Speech
He hangs up the latest hand-me-down
Something else his brother has outgrown
Hating his brother’s favorite of ordinary brown
Grateful at least his underwear is his own
Mike dreams of the day of going uptown
And the price tag is for him alone
She steps into the enlarged paneled room
Where Manolo & Versace jumped to her call
She covers the self-loathing she consumes
Hating her reflection on the mirrored wall
Casting aside yet another custom-made plume
Victoria complains of nothing to wear at all
Crashing glass wakes Jenny from a dream so sweet
And knows Dad’s drunkenness is profound
The lumbering sobs signal her mother has just been beat
She won’t be protected from this newest round
Tears blur the pastel characters on her sheet
She takes the pain without making a sound
Knowing all his habits to the “T”
Leslie’s watches him undress as before
Patiently waiting, naked as you please
For the look of surprise when he opens the closet door
Even as his Uncle swears, this won’t continue to be
Leslie’s not stopped as he kneels on the floor
She cries out and bangs on the locked closet door
Desperate not to make Mommy sadder
Fearing a worse repercussion if she did it “once more”
The frustration makes Shelly madder
As she clutches Big Bunny and clears a spot on the floor
And finally loses control of her bladder
Prejudice is an injustice! Fight for Equality!
Public words Rick’s parents have always touted
Having lived in a home of hypocrisy
Their true feelings he’s never doubted
Hoping his loves endures the difficulty
Of his fear of being outed
The commissioner blinks hard as sweat gets in her eyes
But Marlene can’t stop to wipe them away
She will reappear in a few moments with refined lies
“Oh I’m just a little under today”
But right now she desperately feels for hidden supplies
Her jonesing having the ultimate say
To judge in this age is not for us to call
The clock ticks on our own souls’ debts
Whether made of the mind or a physical wall
The secrets who can say better yet
The susurrus to which we all befall
In smiling silence of our own closets
I was parsing out some advice to a friend a couple of days ago who then commented “Why do you always have just the right answer, Raivenne?”. Of course me, being me gave her a sarcastic and completely narcissistic, but humorous reply at the time, but it set me to thinking. It was not the first time I unintentionally found myself in the role of wizened advisor as of late and had a similar comment made regarding it. It made me wonder were my advisors, when I have questions?
I lost one set of grandparents before I was born. I lost the other set by my mid-twenties. I have no siblings. Other than my sons, I am estranged from everyone I am related to by blood by mutual apathy. My family is the one created from marriage and from those whose lives have intertwined with mine over the decades. Even so, my personal family is small and at this stage of my life, pretty much without elders.
Some things are irreplaceable. Recipes I never had a chance to learn, childhood pictures and family stories forever lost. Apologies that never had to chance to be given or perhaps received.
It started hitting home one day when a group of us peers were sitting around the dining room and realized we were now the ages of our parents, aunts, uncles et cetera when many of us met and become the tight-knit group we were. We are now the elders. Back then, none of us in our early thirties to early forties lives, were ready to embrace that title. Now at fifty and one of the youngest of that core group, and having already lost a few of them -including my husband- there’s no denying it.
When my husband died, the few elders I had loved, trusted, would turn to for advice were no longer among us. Luckily among my peers in real life and one or two from the Internet a wellspring of information and inspiration was found and I happily get by and for the most part thrive on it.
Mine is an interesting sort of elder-hood at this moment. I have no grandchildren, no nieces or nephews. No immediate young family to look up me with their expectant eyes while I bake pies and look oh so wise over my bi-focal glasses. My late-husband and I somehow raised two very self-contained men who at this point in their lives are even less ready to see me as crone than I am. Most of my motherly advice, worldly wisdom -such as it’s not- goes to my younger peers. The twenties and thirties among my friends who are where I once stood 20 -30 years ago. And you know what?-that works for me.
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Slice of Life – Two Writing Teachers – Write, share, give: SOLS time
Raivenne-lations 