Dear 30

Dear 30

Be kind.

Remember how when I was little
All of my dreams of you involved mommyhood
I had babies, birthed babies
Babies with arms and legs and hearts to love
Babies I held and nursed and chased around
Catching them before their chubby little legs gave out

Remember how when I was little I thought that my dreams would surely come true

Everyone has a dream
Everyone draws this dream out
Colors it painstakingly in marker
Labeling each part lovingly
hopefully
greedily
carving out the shape of the future
with assurance that my carving was supposed to happen
would happen
happen (shrug) to everyone
That's why they make dreams

The truth that I was working in the medium of mist
Utterly lost

Or ignored?

30, be kind.

Sometime between now and the morning and always

I will forget.

I will forget that I awoke to clean sheets
Sunshine
Bursts of hydrangeas in the back yard
A real fountain spilling real water

That I arose, cooked whatever I wanted
Made my own coffee
With not one, but two heaping spoons of real, raw sugar
Just enough cream

That I walked outside to remind my toes how much we love the feeling of the ground
Kissed the flowers with my eyes

That I raised my arms and stretched each bit of this body
I will forget that my hair shone in that sun
That my soft curves may have actually hugged a thousand people
And will hug a thousand more
And a thousand after that

I will forget the inestimable blessing of raising this voice
(Where did it come from?)
in praise of the All-Merciful
He Who, from everlasting, knew the pattern imprinted on the fabric of my soul
Who fashioned me from nothingness
Who makes my heart to beat
Who fills my lungs up with love
And makes me to overflow

I will forget that I live in safety
Sleep peacefully with my windows open
Dream sometimes of the gardenia blossoms outside my window
And of swirling colors

I will forget that a tall, unutterably kind man daily wraps his arms around me
Whispers his love into my ear
Listens to my secrets
Keeps them close to his heart
And proves worthy, again and again and yet again, of my trust

I will forget that there are small children I get to auntie
That I remember the way their small selves fit into the crook of my elbow while they napped
That aunties get to shower with gifts
And tickle
And teach
And listen
And search out lost smiles
And keep stories safe
That I get the chance to serve families
To support friends in the hardest of jobs
To build community

I will forget that this time in my life involves indulgences
Material indulgences
More than I need
More than so so so so many have
All that
And spiritual meals including dessert
every day

I will forget.

Be kind.

Remind me that you have brought me
Running
Sailing
Swimming
Floating

Here.

On purpose.

Remind me that there is still time to hold my own babies in my arms
That there is time to replace those dreams with other dreams
That I have choices

Remind me that I am loved from more directions than I ever dreamed
That I have more souls to thank than I will ever have time

That the voice you placed in my head and my heart will be useful
Has been useful
Is useful

That the next 30 won't be measured by a child's mist carvings
And are made of something that stretches "... in front of us and behind us, above our heads, on our right, on our left, below our feet and every other side to which we are exposed."
Something stronger than mists
That bends.

pines

We were talking the other day, singing to each other about homes...

me with my voice
and you with your many souls moving, it seemed, from the trees...
called from the woods and the collective memory
of the battles you fought... the babies you birthed... the tears you cried... the pies you baked... the children you taught... the prayers you prayed... the songs you sang,
songs you sang to Him about the home you were building...
the home for when this earthly house decays...
the home for your soul because what was home now was so thoroughly painful, so systematically stifling, so all-encompassingly dehumanizing...

My soul felt called to attention by the legacy you left...
to the power you left soaked into an earth wet with your tears and blood and the sweat from your brow,
trees standing tall like strong arms holding up hope where hope might only be imagined,
air thick to stifling like so many judgment-laced glances,
so many assumptions
so many condemnations
from
so
many
sides
to a place so dark that understanding only comes in lightening flashes, gone before I can focus my eyes...
so dark that my own skin means that I can only feel it from the periphery, feel it radiating from souls walking into and out of the room of my life...
so dark that color still colors everything like a red sock in the whites...

I asked you there what I could do.
I heard your voices join mine.
You moved my heart to a place where the only desire is more voices - where the only longing left was that of throwing my life down to build the path to Him Who is the Hearer of all cries, Singer of all songs

- where I loved so much that I could not breathe -

And I felt my heart cease to beat alone.
I felt my heart cease to beat alone.
I felt my heart cease to beat alone.

*

This memory sits fresh on top of love and more love like just enough pillows made of just enough smooth softness,
and I am among your little daughters again,
and in the quiet hours of the night when one of yours comes to me and her heart says, "Speak. Tell me what you saw,"

I tell your daughter to always know that she is born of love and of strength and of love and of faithfulness and of love.
We speak of drums and prayer and sounds and souls and dignity.
We speak of the fight against the forces that seek to cover her light over with darkness, to tell her, loudly and from all sides, that her light is, in fact, darkness.
We speak of remembering what those whose skin she shares lived and died for.
I tell her that if she keeps her mind open and the conversation with Above in the front of it, she will know when it's her heart speaking.

And I tell her heart that it will hear what mine has heard.

That you are all around, waiting to be hailed.

And that, baby, we none of us beat alone.

too big

Last night was one of those nights in which I was completely over-whelmed with how GIANT the task I'm engaged in is. This job and the magnitude of what we're doing here are completely on the abnormal end of the scale.

NORMAL: Mom and Dad make baby. Mom and Dad raise baby to be contributing member of society, complete with random psychological issues inherent in the process. Baby turns into adult. Adult make own choices and runs (a part of) the world. Wash, Rinse, Repeat, right?

I mean, sure there are manifold variations on the theme, but come on...

MY JOB: 3 single women in their late twenties with very little administrative support and shockingly small financial resources take turns raising 9-10 teenage girls in varying stages of crisis. Women must fight against a society which not only objectifies women but praises them for objectifying themselves, drugs, gangs, their own hormones and the hormones of those around them, an education system which has forgotten them except when it comes to punishing them for the attitudes that they developed in response to their trauma, lack of positive role models, and the persistent lack of ability to connect meaningfully to anything meaningful, not to mention a spiritual structure which, obliviously of course, doesn't recognize the profound impact of culture on the language the souls in question speak because, let's face it folks, we don't all speak the same language.

Oh
Dear
God
what
am
I
doing?

I am over-come in such moments with the fact that there's a good chance that all I can do for them is pray, attempt to shed some light, pray, love really loudly, pray, and maybe hope that something Written sticks in their heads. If they get to college or a job and not prison or immediate pregnancy, the operation will be a success.

Which in reality would be among best-case scenarios if they were of the few who actually get 2 semi-functioning parents... so does that mean that the parenting is the problem? Our parents are also under-supported, under-resourced, and, likely, having a lot of the same all-encompassing questions I am, which are really centered around one big question:

Is it enough?

To which I'm pretty sure the answer is a resounding NO. It's not enough. Simply providing for basic needs and praying for the best is just plain NOT enough... NOT enough for anyone. We are not our bodies; it's not just a material world, and I sure as hell am not a material girl... which means what? I have some ideas of some directions from guidance I'm constantly striving to immerse myself in and an ever-widening scope of what it's not supposed to look like, but it's slow going. It's very slow going.

Where is the through-line? How much of this is just stepping out on faith?

update of sorts

I'm so entertained by the previous/first post. Once I get past the typos (there are few things that bother me more than typos in things I’ve written and put out there, only to find them, I find them… *sigh* … flawed) I've already moved some on the inside... not that I won't make more typos... just that some things have moved and shifted in the not so much time already passed. I remember the events surrounding that message, and it’s interesting to see the progress and lack thereof.

Anyway, I was talking about blogs with a friend of mine who has recently started one, and I decided that I would like to try again. I work a job which presents some interesting confidentiality issues from time to time, but I think I’ll just have to work around them. There are things I’m learning which I’d like to put out there into the world. Additionally, there is the ever-present need to be heard… something which, although dancing around that button where the defensiveness about my capacity to handle my life lies (“I depend on me”), I can’t deny. I needed my sister to read the statement I had to write for the job promotion I’m up for at work. There’s still some bit of something about this that’s just about being received.

Speaking of the job, I got the one I hinted at. I work at a group foster home as a direct care giver to 10 high school-aged girls. They are amazing and wonderful, and I there’s something fire-like about how much I love them. I do not get paid nearly what I should here (no one does, system being what it is); I recently calculated and realized that I work 50.5 daytime and 32 night-time hours and thus make significantly less than minimum wage. In other words, there are reasons that I feel poor and pressed for time. This job is also plagued by those problems inherent in top-down administrative systems which generally make me furious, as I have so very little patience for such things. It’s a recurring theme these days in a few areas, people making decisions affecting others without the benefit of consultation. I have no idea why people would want to run an organization like this without true consultation. It sounds exhausting… and actually looks exhausting. Honestly they’re trying, working with limited resources, and have the best intentions at heart. Otherwise I’d have bounced long ago… but I haven’t. It’s been hell on wheels for long stretches of time, but changes were made, and everyone is the better and wiser for it. All of this by way of saying that, while I love my girls madly, this is surely not the last job I’ll ever have.

I’ve always loved diversity and learning about different cultures, but I have developed what I would explain as a somewhat child-like love of this particular segment of Southern black culture… child-like because I am so very ignorant and shamelessly inquisitive and openly delighted with the unending poetry of speech and action. Examples, examples… there are so many… my 4.5 billion questions about what my girls are doing to their hair and how and why… how amused I am at being affectionately referred to as “Ms.Bahiyyih with her big ole head” and being accused of “cake bakin’” (flirting) and hearing boys they don’t like told to “go sit down with all of that”… the looks on their faces when I turn up the radio for a song they expect me not to like… and then there’s what happens when we go to the devotional gathering on Tuesday nights.

I have kids I thought I was never really going to connect to. They responded with a massive attitude every time I said anything to them. They refused to speak to me except when absolutely necessary. They essentially pushed me away as hard as possible, and I couldn’t find an in. I took the last of them to Tuesday night dinner and devotions the other night, and they watched my brother kill that drum and me sing until my vocal cords were done (I think we were still popping from Sunday morning at Louis Gregory… more on that later). They shouted along with the songs, smiled their little faces off, and have been absolute peaches since then. They’re glad I’m around. They want to ride when I go to drop others off. They say good morning when they get up and good bye when they go to school. It’s not over, but the door is open. Prayer works.

You know what else works? LOUD prayer. When the volume is turned up on negative influences in life, the spirit has to be louder to even be heard. The noise of the break-down of the world is almost deafening. Baha’u’llah says, “A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.” I think that applies.

The world has dealt these kids hands that would make me throw in the cards and retreat into a corner of myself. They have not resisted most of these pressures necessarily, but my girls are not squashed. They are powerful. They meet the pain with over-flowing joy and/or a great big “f*** you” delivered with back straight and head held high. I live in a pretty permanent state of awe. It’s something that the rest of the world needs. Diversity is so healthy…

More on all of that later…