Things I Learned from My Father

(Some Taught On Purpose, Some Accidentally, and There’s No Knowing Which is Which)

(I meant to finish this by Father's Day this summer, but it sat half-done for a long time.  Sorry, Dad.  I love you.)

Coffee is awesome.  It tastes good, and you can have it first thing in the morning.  That makes coffee awesome.  This is an excellent reason to get out of bed in the morning.

When someone asks you how your children are doing when they're not around, you won't know how much it touches your children's hearts when they hear of this later and are told, “When he was talking about each of you, it was as if he had only one child.”  This is important, although you may not know how much.  Your children will know that you see them—really see them—and this simple knowledge of how your eyes danced when you talked about each of them will make them a little teary and remind them of who they are and where they came from. 

Work.  Work hard.  Don't work for titles and accolades.  Work because God has given you the gift of life, and you repay that gift by being a contributing member of the human race.  This requirement of productivity is not restricted to the activities you get paid for.  Human beings were not created to sit around.

When you walk into a room, speak to everyone.  It does not matter if these people are white, black, brown, purple, or metallic.  Speak to everyone.  Don't just speak respectfully.  Speak with love.  All of those people were created by the same God.  He’s your God, too.

Speak to children.  They’re important.  Engage them.  Smile big.  Don’t rush them.  Sometimes people warm up slow.  It’s ok.  Speak to them.  Listen to them.  Look at them when they ask you to.  Meet them where they are.  When they ask you to look at them, do everything you can to look.  It’s how they learn that they are of consequence in the world.  They’re asking for you to validate their worth.  You must, must, must do this.

Eradicating racism happens through meeting eyes, shaking hands, working together, claiming each other, speaking, listening, and eating supper in each other’s homes.  We can’t kill it with arguments and rants, and we can’t kill it simply by telling it to die.  We have to learn how to see through skin to souls.  Truthfully, this isn’t as hard as everyone says that it is.

Your family is not only the people you were born to.

Girls may like dresses, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t know how to pull a bow, process a deer, kick a ball, tie up tomatoes, and find shelter in the woods to stay warm in case they get lost.  If you don’t treat them like they might break, there’s a good chance that they’ll get damn close to bullet-proof. 

Expect your daughters to open their own doors.  Teach them to change their own tires and defend themselves and others.  When people ask you if you’re disappointed that you had 5 daughters, look at them like it’s the stupidest question in the world.  Don’t do it because someone’s watching.  Do it because you really believe that it IS the stupidest question in the world.

Don’t do anything because someone’s watching.  Be yourself.  Don’t hide.

Money is not everything, but it is important.  On both ends of the wealth spectrum exists the danger of forgetting that money isn’t everything.  Also remember that money isn’t nothing.  There is no virtue in being poor.  It’s not what God meant when He told us to “renounce the world.”  Beware of people who tell you otherwise.

Respect your resources.  An old Coca-Cola sign may be the roof of a rabbit hutch.  Never go out and buy a shed when you can build one with a tarp, some spare lumber, and a good post-hole digger.  Don’t spend more money than you have to.

Be teachable.  You do not know everything.  Do not walk into situations thinking that you do.  Offer suggestion only when you are asked.  Do so respectfully, and avoid emotional attachment to what you suggest.  You are in this world to learn—not teach—as much as you possibly can.  When you go into a new situation, be teachable.

There are better decisions and worse decisions, but whatever path you choose will have consequences and will teach you something.  It makes absolutely no sense to sit around praying and waiting for a sign.  Pray, make a decision, and do something.  Certainly there are bad choices, but God doesn’t speak to most of us in neon, blinking signs when we are stopped politely.  He may speak to you, but it’s not going to happen while you’re paralyzed with fear of screwing up.  Move.  God’s there—like the air.  Just keep breathing.

At the same time, if you’re not sure, it’s either not the right person or not the right time.  Wait until you’re sure.

The fact that everyone accepts a certain thing does not make it true.  Nor does this make it right.  Human beings have accepted numerous incorrect assumptions throughout history.  Investigate everything for yourself, and accept that the investigation may have to happen through non-conventional means if you are to reach the full truth. When you find truth that contradicts what you thought previously, be flexible.  Also remember that the fact that everyone around you says that something is true does not make it true.  It makes it what everyone around you says.

Spirituality does not have to look any certain way.  The expression of reverence is as diverse as the human family.  Do not judge yourself for not expressing your spirituality in conventional ways.  Some of us just hear God more clearly while we're walking around in the woods.

God lives everywhere from the sound of the leaves in the trees to the river to people around you to the corners of your own soul.  God lives everywhere.

spinster poetry

One day, I will write you a poem. 

One day, I will write you a poem for every day we were apart,

a poem for every moment we spent not knowing each other’s faces,

not knowing the scent of each other’s hair,

not knowing

not hearing

not being

I will read these poems to you one after the other, in long succession, my head resting on my pillow, your head resting on my stomach,

my voice speaking into the top of your head and not into your eyes

because if I speak those words into your eyes my voice will be lost and something will surely catch on fire

and, baby, we don’t keep a fire extinguisher in the bedroom.

And there’s not enough water in the world.

I will write you a poem for every decision you had to make alone,

for every time you wanted to plan for our future, and I wasn’t there

for every dream you wanted to talk about when I couldn’t hear you

for every time you found yourself somewhere dark, reached out for my hand, and felt only a faint breeze

for every time you worked late, and no one noticed,

for every time you were really hungry, and no one cared.

Baby, you cooked last night, so dinner is in the oven.

I will write you a poem.

I will write you a poem for the children we should have started having when we were younger,

for the career changes which might have been easier earlier,

for the college graduations we will be attending with more grey in our hair than the other parents,

for the great-grandfathers the kids will only hear stories of,

for the years we attended family gatherings alone,

for the millions of “Dating anybody?” questions you had to dodge,

for the weddings you had to go to without me on your arm.

Baby, I will wear that dress you love,

we will dance in the kitchen all night long,

and I will write you a poem.

I will write you a poem for every time you didn’t get to do my dishes,

for every time you did the laundry and didn’t have to pull my bras out before starting the dryer,

for every time you left the house without having to wait for me to put on make-up,

for all of that time spent in the car without having the temperature constantly adjusted to just

the right

degree,

for the years you spent sleeping on basic-colored sheets wrapped in that comforter from college,

sugar daddy, it’s called a duvet.

You can read about it in my poem.

I will write you a poem for every flower you never got to give me,

for every greeting card you never got to leave for me on the kitchen counter,

for every time you had to sit through the guys at work complaining about their wives without being able to tell them how you have never felt like more of a man,

how your woman writes a poem with her every curve,

how you never knew how good it could be.

I will write you a poem… again… and again… and again… and again.

I will write you a poem for every prayer you ever said alone,

for every time you prayed for me,

for every time I prayed for you,

for every time you asked God why you were still walking alone,

for every time you had to patiently make peace,

for every time you lost patience,

for every time you almost gave up.

We will hold hands while we ask Him together.

I will thank Him for you in letters, but for you, I will write a poem.

And when the time comes for the air to leave your lips for the last time,

One way or another,

I will write you a poem.

I will place it into your out-stretched hands.

It will glow with the fire of a thousand moments when we breathed deep,

exhaled slowly,

and felt our hearts beat in unison.

I will swirl around you in all of the colors of the world,

In colors beyond colors,

melting through you, into you, within you,

until there is no space between us

until there is no space.

And no between.

I will hold your hand in the grocery store.

I will kiss you by the river until you need more chapstick.

I will tell your children bedtime stories.

I will let you grab what’s left of my ass when we’re old.

You can read all about it.

I will write you a poem.

brother

Familiar music blares from my always-too-loud phone.  I know what answering will mean.  The shield I made this morning during the walk from bed to speaking and have been using all day to protect others from the Death Star I can feel being quietly built inside will be knocked right out of my hands and smashed on the ground.  For better or for worse, he is good at destroying.  He is also good at other things.  I press "ignore."  He will wait.  Not patiently, but he will wait.  I'm not ready yet.  I may be when he tries again.  He never waits for very long.  Even states away, he can feel it when I'm hiding.

I realized early on the path to adulthood that, beyond my beloved father, I knew nothing of the more angular gender.  I knew nothing of what it is to think in straight lines... to be trapped in pants... to compete in ways which I never seemed to be able to keep track of... to have responsibility before God that is different from my own... to live on the other side of the coin.  I was smart enough to know that I needed to learn.  I asked God in simple words, and He answered simply.

Had said answer consented to occupy less space, I might not have noticed him.  He might have gotten away simply with internet communication and occasional meetings, but somewhere in there I turned my head, and he was suddenly part of what "family" feels like.  Together, we came to better understand other words.  He taught me about "protect" and "respect"... taught me in ways you can only learn from a brother...
taught me in ways you can only learn from someone who is willing to tell you when you have become the enemy...
taught me in ways you can only learn when someone turns up when there are lions to fight, bares his teeth, and jumps into the pit with you...
someone who never needs a list of reasons why he should hasten when he hears, "Help," and knows how to never make you feel small for asking...
or feel small at all...

... and it's not because he walked out of a comic book.  I have flown at his demons.  I know them by name.  He and I have also come nearly to blows, as is often the case when fire meets fire and there's just about anything in the vicinity.  We are not known for our long fuses, but then again, although we may look nothing alike, bits of our souls seem to be cut from the same cloth.  There are times when he smacks the cup out of my hands when I'm trying to hydrate just to see the look on my face, and there are times when I have to push him away because he is standing on the hem of my dress with his big foot while I'm trying to leave the room.
Not on purpose.
But sometimes on purpose.
And sometimes it's really caught on something else, but then I'm one who blames those in her heart first.

Don't make that face.  You are, too.

Somewhere in my mind, the thought of the brother God sent me from another family is stitched to the word "community."  We like to think of community as something out there, not something in here.  We say that we "work in the community," like it's a place and not the corners of our hearts stapled together... or "with the community," like we can work with ourselves.  Like you and me are not made of the same elements.  Like we could separate, even if we tried.  Like turning my back on you isn't turning my back on me which, as it turns out, looks a lot like circles.

Yes, I realize my rambling, but there is something to say about what has happened that has something to do with the way the world smells right now... something about the interchange between woman and man... something about what that has done to so many... something which needs to be laid plain:

There is that which obedience to God protects.  There is that which boundaries protect.

Somewhere in my heart there is a love letter to him, one in which I will explain what it feels like to know down deep that I am heard... that my voice is one which speaks... that what is spoken is heard through the filter of respect, a filter created because the voice is mine.  Through the mirror of his eyes, I saw parts of myself which were before invisible, parts which he still defends tirelessly, just as tirelessly as I defend his.  I will explain in that letter how it feels for the mirror to appear and call for my attention when I think that I may be invisible again... although I suspect that he may already know.  I hope that he does...

Somewhere in that letter will come this lesson:  Respect makes for love like this, love which doesn't need to go away and hide... all-inclusive love for life and for humanity which rejoices with the chance to read this letter to his wife, to her children, to their children... love which turns into service and fosters the development of others, of groups of others, of a family which comes in a billion different shades of love, love which stands in the sunlight and announces, "This is what community feels like.  This is what it feels like to be the human family."

It's what I mean when I ask, "Unite the hearts of Thy servants..."  
It's what I mean when I sing, "All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding."
It's what pumps in my heart when it beats, "We all come from God, and unto Him do we return."


I smiled when the phone rang.  She saw the picture of his brown face and the face of his daughter on the screen.  "Who's that?"
"My brother."

purple, turquoise, and yellow stitching

Dear Tomato Red Dress with the Purple, Turquoise, and Yellow Stitching,

You make me feel wistful.

Dress, I know that you don't remember, but I can still feel my fingers tugging through what I didn't know then were curls, pulling at knots the wind had created to smooth my unsmoothable tresses into a thick braid held together all day all by my corkscrew hair made screwier by Southern summertime humidity rendered nearly unbearable when coupled with my own nervous tension at the knowledge that the cool breeze now finding the back of my neck made the mole, also on the back of my neck, visible to the other students sitting behind me who would soon point out, oh-so-politely I'm sure, that I (snicker) had a tick (giggle) stuck to the back of my neck (guffaw).

Thanks. It's called a mole. But thanks, you know, for... noticing...

Dress, it was called "middle school." I always wondered what the "middle" was for... middle of what? Hell? Self-destruction? A hormonally-induced mad house? Why couldn't I play with dolls anymore, and why was playing outside getting so boring?

Dress, I was the eternal new kid, and I was alone until I suddenly found myself in the midst of writers and feelers and dreamers and crusaders. I flirted with the Beatles, long skirts in beautiful colors, exchanging notes in the hall with a boy who was a little shorter than me, and my first pair of heels, brown sandals which made me taller but didn't stop me from running. There was something magical about coffee and sleep-overs and laughing through class together.

Dress, I remember thinking that I could be happy, very happy, if only my nose were smaller and I didn't have to wear glasses. And if my hair would just be straight and orderly like the other girls.

Dress, I think I got lost sometime around the bra. The memory that steps forward when I ask my mind what the first one looked like is the raging embarrassment I felt when my mother pushed me into Victoria's Secret, and a woman with a measuring tape pushed me towards a drawer filled with the horribly uncomfortable things made of humiliatingly smooth lace and shine. My unfailingly delicate and feminine mother bought the Sprite bra, a satin number printed with lemons and limes. Teenage angst forced me to rage further against my mother, the measuring tape, the underwire, and the grave injustice of the system in general, but I modeled Sprite alone in the bathroom after the house went to sleep. I outgrew it much faster than I wanted to. It lived in my drawer unworn for years just because it was so delicate and feminine.

Delicate and feminine.

Dress, I don't know why exactly, but my skirts got lost in a sea of over-sized t-shirts and dragging jeans hems. My eyebrows grew. My skin exploded. My nose seemed of nearly epic proportions. I cut off my hair, determined to divide what I had failed to conquer. I worked very, very hard at disappearing. I tried very, very hard to pack all of my delicate and feminine into a box and put it in the attic. Delicate gets broken, and feminine appears to be conquerable. I was determined to yell, "Don't touch me," with my every step... with the way I held my shoulders. My voice was too afraid to come out when I was asked to sing solos.  Pictures from that period testify.  You could see how I kept my light covered.  How I watched it closely so that it never got big enough to see.  How I couldn't see how many of the point-and-laughers were fighting the very same battle.  How I couldn't see how impossibly hard the world conspires to be on girls at that age...

These days I wish that I could scoop myself at 15 up, wrap my arms around her, look her dead in the eye at 2 inches from her nose, and say,

"Stop it.
Stop trying to pretend that you're the smallest thing in the room.
Stop trying to go where you will have to fight to find yourself.
Stay away from the shadows.
You were created to sing to the sunshine."

Dress, I'd be wearing you because your tomato redness would be the only color for the armor of my fierce, fierce love for her just as God made her, your purple, turquoise, and yellow stitches the color of every bit of life that knitted together into flowers blooming just because.

Just because she was beautiful.
Just because she was beautiful.
Just because she was beautiful.

We would stretch our arms to the sun and twirl in circles until we fell down.

Love,

war paint

(I feel moved to mention that some of this gets a little graphic.  Please tread lightly, and hold your own hands.)

Yesterday I went out to buy some new war paint.  Inside this store with a billion colors and textures and lights and scents, I found the perfect shade of war paint.  It covered the places where my tired and stressed show and made my face smooth and ready for battle.  I also bought some stuff for the hairs that grow out of my head.  This stuff is supposed to make the curls bounce and shine.  Hopefully this will serve to further confuse the enemy.  I did this because I am a woman. 

I want to elaborate here, because part of being in this small room is that I can say what I want... what I seldom get the chance to speak aloud.  I love being a woman.  Everything about being a member of this gender makes me want to jump for joy.  I love war paint.  I love skirts.  I love colors and ruffles and flowers and the swirl of my hair.  I love my perfume so much that I have to fight the urge to drink it.  I love how strong my legs are, and I love the way that all of me curves.  I love that I dream of the scent of babies' heads.  I love communication and estrogen and friendship and nuturing and thongs and justice and brains wired to knit all of that together in a way incomprehensible to most of the men I know.  Men, I appreciate all that you are, but I thank God that He decided to make me a woman.

There is a story of womanhood stuck in my head. 

There is a story of a woman who was walking in the cool crispness of the night air recently, no doubt enjoying the way the breeze felt as it kissed her face.  She walked alone, leaving wherever she was before and using her long legs to carry her wherever she was going.  She was minding her own.  Perhaps it had been a long day, and this was the first taste of freedom after a long, hard grind of her own stone.  Perhaps her car was just up the block.  Perhaps the song in her head was sweet, and she was dancing a little inside, picturing a mug of hot tea and maybe a cookie or two while watching something that would make her laugh...

Three men pulled up in a car. 
One of them pulled out a gun. 
He pointed it at her and instructed her to get into the car.

Maybe she didn't think about how if she just sat down right where she was, she likely would survive.
Maybe she didn't think about how if she ran and screamed, someone likely would hear her.
Maybe she didn't think about how low-life peices of shit don't often shoot the gun they're aiming, that it's seldom loaded, that she could probably get away.
Maybe she reacted to the perfectly natural fear in her gut and not to the logic in her brain and got into the car.

She was raped by all three men and dumped on the side of the road.


This story haunts me.

I am haunted by this story when the wind blows too loudly outside my window, causing branches to move in the trees.  I am haunted by this story when I have to walk from a lit door to my car.  I am haunted by this story when a man walks around me from behind, even in plain daylight. 
This story chases me in my dreams... chases me while I think about my favorite walks in the moonlight... chases me when I think about my sisters and bedtime stories in nightgowns, all piled into a double bed and our travels and our hopes and our dreams... chases me when I think about my neices... chases me when I put on my bra... chases me

into the war paint store

and I'm so sick of being told that the smart thing to do is to not walk alone at night. 
The smart thing to do is to call someone to come and escort me... like my legs don't work, and I'm not smart enough to remember where I left my fucking car. 
The smart thing to do is to be vigilant. 
I should remember that I am not free to enjoy my music in my headphones, my hair in a pony tail, solitude, and evening crispness at the same time.
I should remember that you and I do not live in the same world, that I can be as strong as I want and still not safe
that this story is chasing me
always
chasing me

Until I take a deep breath, turn around, and bid it to come on

Where I turn around and fly into its face with the fury of every woman on this earth whose breasts have ever been made darts for the idle fancies of the men around them...
the fury of every woman who has ever graduated from anything...
the fury of every mother who has ever watched her child hurt in any way and proceeded to seek and destroy...
the fury of every girl who was ever touched unwillingly...
the fury of every father who has ever sent his daughter out into the world and had to sit on his hands...
the fury of every bit of what should be strong and beautiful broken down to small and manageable...
the fury that happens when you attack what God told you to protect...

You see, there is a little part of me that wishes that you would sneak up on me in the night.  I have never made someone bleed.  I don't really want to bring that part of myself out because the rest of me wonders if that's called tempting fate... if I will really react like I did that time that bee flew into my face and I almost knocked myself out hitting the deck... but I'm going to let that little part speak. 

She needs the exercise. 
She needs to stay ready to bring it should danger ever actually come
(which makes me angrier still... why should I have to give harbour to Rage just in case I should ever need it?)
and she needs to speak...
out loud...
too many can't...
and this is a small room, but she

needs

to

speak

Somebody once told me that the violence won't stopped until the attacker is afraid of what he is attacking.  I took a class where someone taught me to break bones and expect blood and scream from my guts.

I want you to walk up on me.
I want you to ask me into that car.
I want you to try and get away.
I will come after you, and I won't stop and I won't resist and I won't pause and I won't hesitate.

Think through your decisions. 

I smear on war paint every morning, and the only thing I've got that can't be fixed is my self-respect.

And I keep hearing "Fathers be good to your daughters/ Daughters will love like you do..." and thinking,

"Who gives a shit in times like these?

Fathers,
Teach your daughter to say NO
Teach your daughter to run
Teach your daughter to scream
Teach your daughter what it feels like to break things with her hands
Teach your daughter to fall on their backs and kick anything within reach
Teach your daughter to roll and to pin
Teach your daughter to hit a nose hard and from below so that it bleeds and then use that knee quickly
Teach your daughter that she is beautiful and powerful and worth protecting
Teach your daughter how
NOT
TO
GET
INTO
THE
CAR.

It is of the utmost importance that I add
Sister, I don't blame you.
I don't know what I would have done in your place, and there are no words for how sorry I am for your story... and I don't blame your father. 

I blame monsters. 
I blame monsters that I want to tear to shreds.
I blame a society that doesn't hold its boys enough.
I blame gangs and poverty and schools and prisons and guns and ignorance and prejudice and history and disempowerment and fear and hate and blame
I blame a society that taught me to seek protection instead of be protection.

It's what I remember when I put on my war paint.

connection

there came a moment in the middle of the song when she suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room & after that she never forgot she was part of something much bigger

-- Brian Andreas, Storypeople

it came free with the soul

There's a phrase that has been circling my mind for some time.

"It came free with the soul."

I saved it somewhere safe, thinking one day a poem would come out.  Hasn't happened yet.

It came free with the soul.

Inspiration comes from God, I guess... only it seems that there are those who would seek to put God in a box, saying that He only looks like one thing... that He doesn't move around and within and between and above and below and "every other side to which we are exposed..."  Thus the times when I feel Spirit raining from the trees, shining from the sky, squishing between my toes, glittering before my eyes, fluttering in my heart, smiling from the face in front of me, I hope it's safe to call that God.  And that eye we see all that with?

It came free with the soul.

I was thinking yesterday that I have become almost nearly exactly what I always wanted to be.  I sleep alone but swaddled in the warmest colors I know, accompanied by dreams of swirling shapes and safe voices, and awakened to hot water which magically rains as I happily dance myself clean.  This happens nearly every morning.  I am no one's mother, but I am auntie to some of the loveliest little ones I have ever known and have been blessed to lay hands on some young people whose names I still breathe in prayer whenever they come before my inner eye.  From the tips of my toes to the ring in my nose to the hairs growing out of my head to the degree I'll eventually fetch from a stage, I am nearly exactly what I always hoped I might be but never really thought I'd grow into.  All this.  So much that I am sometimes so full that it seems that the only rational response would be to run out into the street and explode.  I am blessed and richly favored, and it appears that

It came free with the soul.

I read where Baha'u'llah wrote, "My calamity is my providence.  Outwardly it is fire and vengence, but inwardly it is light and mercy..." but somehow when the moment is upon me I always find it hard to remember to knit together the fire I feel with the light of which He wrote... and although I have felt burned by vengence, it is never clear until later that it was mistaken mercy.  It took time to sense the Hand in which I was so tenderly held, but I really must remember that

It came free with the soul.

So although I still feel the burn of that last fire... and oh, I still have to keep it covered because that shit hurt... deeeeeeeep b r e a t h . . . I heard Spirit moving in words I heard sung this morning... "I hear the angels whisper that troubles don't have to last always.  I hear the angels whisper even the day after tomorrow will one day be yesterday.  I hear the angels whisper this, too, shall pass..." and remember that although sometimes I don't see where He is going with all of this, there is a path.  It happens that

It came free with the soul.

So... me?  The one with all the impatience?  The one screaming in the face of injustice?  The one who can't wait to get up and run?  Let it wash over you.  There is no way you could afford this.  Fortunately, this, too, is part of the deal.  It came free with the soul.