First of all, Black Lives Matter!
Second, the thing I feel I am lacking most is an air of questioning.
Third and last, the only way I will be able to do my duty is to roll up the cuffs, dream big, and dig for truth.
If I am to spur this curious bone to grow, am I to start at the very beginning? Perhaps I take notice of the first codependent formations, that were only discovered a handful of years ago, and sit there and hold her through quiet explanations. As I lead her, we will discuss a harder way of growing but one that might help her feel right to question. She will build boundaries. She will not run.
Perhaps I applaud her imagination but ground her in facts. We float past piles of homes on the way to cello and gymnastics and we talk. She starts to let her mind wander but I make her see a little more. I start to expand upon the creation of us and them in the first place. I lead our imaginations back down the generational line, but for its facts. She dreams big. She digs deep.
Perhaps she learns to stand her ground when a teacher, or guardian, or friend throws ice cold lies into life. She holds them accountable and stutters but asks more questions. She ties us to others with the words “love your neighbor” tatooed on their foreheads, an invisible brand from all their years of practice. She starts to turn down distrust. She opens more and finds better ways of conversing. She signs up to join the ranks for persons, for the love of people and their lives. She and I make terrible mistakes but only once.
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Some of my earliest memories are of a child psychologist’s office that I visited from ages 2-6. I had to text my mom to remind me of my appointment frequency. She remembered we usually went once per month. I am surprised because all I can recall is the smell of his office, a typical doctor’s office smell with a large waft of leather. In his office occurs some blurry interrogations with jostled paper dolls used to explain family dynamics. Besides that, a bad taste in my mouth collects but without concrete memory to back any solid reasoning.
My parents divorced when I was one and my dad remarried when I was two. It was a 50/50 time share between both families which was tough organizationally and during holidays, but was a blessing in disguise. I knew plenty of people whose parents tried to “stick it out for the kids” but ended up dragging the whole ship down. I was grateful to grow up split in two. Both families influences soaked in me deeply.
My mother raised me at her home as a single parent. We had a very distinct schedule at her house because she worked downtown during the day until 5. I attended an afterschool program until I was 10 and then joined many of my friends in the latchkey club. I spent a lot of time alone after school which turned out to be a kind of delicious freedom. Occassionally, I hung out with my girlfriends down the street but mostly I stayed home, watched The Simpsons, pretended to do my homework, and made Pillsbury biscuits. Somehow my beautiful mother was able to juggle everything. She worked all day to then come home and make me dinner, for which she had to learn how to do quickly after the divorce. She drove me to all of my sporting events and music lessons and somehow saved up enough energy to help me build clay layers of the earth’s crust or watch Brigadoon. She says to this day, “God gave me what I could handle when he gave me you.” She’d said this so many times before but recently, it truly struck me. I know that I was a relatively easy child plainly because of my stark lack in curiousity. I liked comfort in famliarity. I needed no adventure. I wanted no arguing. I just wanted a smooth road to coast on. But what my mother doesn’t know, was that the gift was mutual. She gave me a fierceness in stillness.
My dad’s house was a complete flipflop from my mom’s. With his new marriage came the perks of older stepbrothers and stepsister, and stepmom. The house was always full, always moving, always loud. There was usually some kind of problem to fix or situation to handle. People broke limbs, played baseball in the backyard, made peanut butter shakes, had calc exams, and practiced instruments. These new siblings and stepmom and I grew together. I call them as they are. They offered me a bonus present my blood would not have given to me. I found my loud there. I made lots of big mistakes. I got scraped so I spit on it. I learned to take up my own space and not back down, through hell or high water.
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My jolly ol’ husband of 8 months and partner of 12 years, is in large part the catapult to my curiosity. This person I get to share my life with fosters me like a lame bird into the sea of knowing. His fire and passion for answers and his even-keel demeanor make him the posterchild for instruction of all sorts. He reads and comprehends. He listens carefully and remembers exactly. He watches, he practices, and achieves goals. Damn you, Capricorns! 🙂
Early on, I recognized my learning differed from many, including Gabe’s. Without a keen interest for research or a mechanical mind, seeking to learn became trivial. I read incredibly slowly. I was taken out of certain classes for my inability to comprehend as quickly as my peers and I had to study hard and long using 45 different methods in order to remember half of the answers. The thing that really got me in trouble was my inability to trust myself. On occasion, I’d finish tests with time to spare and scan the room. Seeing fellow students scribbling, sent my mind into spirals. The eraser was unleashed and my probably correct answers were scathed by my secondguessing. This mistrust is still in need of a shift.
Over the years, Gabe has singlehandedly opened me up to new music, broader, more critical thinking based in love and acceptance, pushed me towards pursuing other answers than my intuition, shared with me experiences, adventures, and places that have challenged me physically and mentally, and encouraged me to find my footing in becoming a lifelong learner who is capable of grasping concepts in her own, imperfect way. It is a breath of fresh air to have grown with someone who has been so patient. I think he saw the me I could be long before I did.
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With the world on fire and my fellow millenials growing into our places in the workforce and as parental units of this country, I find myself scouring. Everyday I am looking for something to fill my cup. Typically, social media gets my ass to the plate. But what I’m discovering more and more is that yes 100%, we have to show up immediately for those BIPOC individuals. Storm the streets. Patronize their businesses. Vote and write letters to the forces supposedly leading our country. But, in addition to this, what else for the long term? Well white folks, I’d say it’s time to be quiet, listen carefully, foster curiosity, seek people out for differing opinions, and look backwards at yourself. We cannot change what has come and gone but we can explore our whys. All of us have an inner child harboring deep pains and triumphs that bring our very own specialities to light. It is with those gifts of experiences and the desire to learn deeper that must join together to change the future.
A Homegoing 