sunset

I am sitting down to write something for me.

I'm going to write it about cool, crisp air that asks politely for a cardigan,
About the peach-colored glow lining the mountains just past sunshine,
And how I wish that I could paint the curve of the rich, patchwork gray and green and yellow of those mountains onto the insides of my eyelids...
How I can't stop taking pictures of how tall they are and how I can't believe that I can climb them even a little,
How the variation of height and texture must make them taste somewhere between the crunch of the greens I picked the other day and that chocolate cookie that looks like a child's tongue stuck out in taunting.  It is filled with what I can only assume must be clouds.  And butter.

Since I am writing for me, I will also mention how soft the grass swishes under my feet,
the way the wind moves feathery green shrubbery in a soft jostle,
that bird calling out to the half moon,
and stopping to prop my feet up on the chair in front of me.

I will avoid all mention of the list of bandaids I have been applying to this battered beater in my chest (steady, soldier).
There are still raspberries on the counter.
And poetry left to pour.

Yes, I am going to write something for me.
Just me.

for want of sunscreen

After a long, slow sunrise, a man's insides blurted out “I love you” to a woman in glasses and sweatpants. For those of you who haven't heard, these words, especially when uttered on the outside, make a woman hope in the parts that she usually keeps shut tight.  Shut because open is so dangerous... so risky. Sunshine on sensitive skin burns... for who knows how long...

I've been playing it safe... playing it smart. 

After my last bad burn, I acquired a wide-brimmed straw hat... you know the kind.  Brim stretching well past my shoulders, swooping elegantly at just the right angle so that the innocent passer-by would assume (it's only logical) that the hat was to protect my skin (not made for sun exposure) from the sun (it's not my fault that parts of my parts are white) (and should be protected)

(who knows what could happen)

(who knows who might see)

(best to stay safe)

(besides.  Who doesn't like the woman in the beautiful hat?)

(No one.)

I wore my hat everywhere.  I wore it to work.  To the store.  To the river.  Out.  In.  Around.  It was, as you could well understand, practical.  I was safe from the sun, carrying my shade around with me.  I would not, could not burn.

Your sunrise warmed me slowly. 

My toes felt you first.  A gentle need to be touched, to find that warmth from where I could see your light beginning to glow, just over the horizon, just headed this way...

... and I knew when it was happening, the whole time I knew... knew in my bones... knew that if I ever got to see what noon looked like (there was no way), it would be friendly sunshine... only warming.  Again warming.  I'd likely still be able to wear my cardigan.  You don't take your cardigan off when you're just friends.

As that morning broke and the sun climbed its way up my curves to the back of my neck, I started to realize that my hat was getting in the way... started to loosen that thing up... maybe slide that thing off... careful... but maybe it was safe... safe to let my hair down, spin a little, twirl a little because maybe falling down wouldn't be as hard as always having to hold that hat up... make room for that hat... find places where wearing that hat made sense (looked easy)... where I might let your warmth turn to heat as the sun rose, burning off the dew, warming the cold corners, browning me slowly enough... just slowly enough... until I would be...

... on Fire.  I was on fire.  I was burning, looking for my hat... where did I put my hat?  Why am I thirsty and tired and dreaming in nightmares of falling... always of falling... and your face, disappointed, looking at me (tired and disappointed)... and I can't seem to find my hat.  And I can’t sleep because I’m too busy panicking.

I sat, on fire, desperately waiting for you to notice.  Notice. And join me. Because in all of that being on fire, I seemed to have misplaced my hat.

I thought about it, and, for more than a moment, I considered that the hat might have burned off... that I might not need it... that maybe...

The problem with the sun is not that it burns.  The sun would be fine if it would just reach down and consume you.  You might not care so much if the sun just consumed you instead of setting.

Which you did.

Abruptly and without warning.

Or so it seemed.

I want you to know that I saw the signs.  I mentioned them in passing as one might say, "Glance in the rearview mirror.  Aren't those pretty colors tonight?"  Everyone else was moving along behaving as though they saw nothing... felt nothing... and I kept wondering why no one else noticed that you had stopped sitting right beside me.  Had stopped holding my eyes with yours...

I saw the colors.  People have said before that it's pessimism... some kind of lack of ability to see my own light. It's just that I was the only one close enough to see. The only one who could smell the wind change. 

And I've been walking around like that first few hours when you know that you're warm and you know that you're a little more pink than you should be and you know that there is a possibility that...

maybe...

perhaps...

Yes, you're a lobster.

You've never been so burnt in your life.

And it hurts like hell.  And you can't sleep.  And it hurts like hell.  And when you move, you can't believe how much it hurts.  When you breathe.  When something brushes against it.  When you think too hard.

It's called sun burn.  Poisoning maybe.

Anyway, I'd like to be friends.  With my mind, I'd really like to be friends.  Not to have to acknowledge that, without so much as a formal pause, I took my hat off, flung it to the wind, tried spinning in circles as long as there was the least bit of light... I remember it now, the circles and how you pulled me close and held me there, inhaling the scent of my hair...

But I found my hat.  

It was lying over there.  

Slowly, with lots of encouragement, hand-holding, and aloe vera, I'm trying to learn to laugh again.  

Or at least how to let myself just lay there while I give in to the tears I've been fighting.

With all of me.

For longer than I'll ever say out loud.

And putting my hat back on. 

Monday night

I told you.  I speak in poetry these days.

I speak in poetry because it might actually be the voice of my self… the voice that comes out when I have to put feelings to paper… have to.  The drifting colors in my mind’s eye sometimes become so loud that they must manifest themselves into words.  I, in turn, must let them out to run all over the page.

If we ever occupied the same space, you could never tell that they were all my sisters.  My skin stands in the middle of the spectrum, as full a continuum as ever there was.  There is something stronger than skin that connects me to each of these women.

There is something in their fiber… something unyielding… something that refuses to allow doubt into my mind… something that fights at the mists, tears at the veils, pulls back the layers, and shouts, loudly and to all of me that can hear:

“There you are.

There.

Look away if you want, but between the light and the shadow, you exist.

When you forget, we will remind you.

You exist, and we can see you.

We can see you.

You glow, and you are not lost.”

And when I doubt myself, you materialize as though you were waiting, watching on the out-skirts for that moment when I would find myself both trapped and under siege

One of you heard me in a dream… months since the last time we ran into each other in person, and she actually saw me, project at hand, afraid that I couldn’t.  Told me don’t be afraid.  Told me God (she calls Him “Daddy”) has given me the ability to complete anything that is presented to me.  Told me don’t argue.  Told me don’t be afraid to move and shake and change and keep on… even when you can’t see what’s over the next hill.  “All is well when we dwell in love.”

Could hear me, even through her dreams.

Another has never tolerated my wavering belief in myself… has never allowed that I deserve anything but everything… has never for a moment considered that I might not be made of gold.  I have, at times, feared disappointing her (turns out I’m only made of human)… forgetting that she sees the God in me… stays fixed on the God in me… can’t stand to hear the things I say that seem to cover up the God in me... seeks Him out.  My wavering she indulges, but He never disappoints.  And she spoke and shared and listened and reminded me, with strong conviction (she is made, among other things, of strong conviction), that my destiny doesn’t involve disregard, isn’t tied up yet, and remains open for interpretation.  My own interpretation.

I had the strongest sense today that my heart was in the Hands of Someone Whose Hands Heal. 

I was torn recently.  A seam gave out somewhere not visible on the surface.  I’m working on sewing it up, but the needle pricks are sometimes more than I can stand, and sometimes I have to pause, to rest, to remember why I’m sewing and not just tossing the dress of a life I’m living out… worn out… must have been if that seam blew…

So I stop, I stretch, I lay flat and remember that, if all else fails, the ground, with no help from me whatsoever, will hold me up.

Also call for help. 

They can hear you over the noise. 

They can always hear you.

Will always want to know your favorite color and what you learned in class today.

Will always read the words once you’ve lined them up again.

Also Life is, among other things, a gift.

Breathe.

Begin again.

To S., High School Graduate (Who is Just Getting Started), With Love from His Ms. B

S. and I met each other about 4 years ago while I was still working in a group foster home.  I still refer to him and his younger brother lovingly as "my boys," although they are rapidly approaching manhood and never really were "mine."  

I am honored that they keep me in the loop of their lives and was happy to be given the chance to speak this bit to my dear S. in person at the celebration of his high school graduation this past Thursday.

*

These people, they don't know me, so I'm going to start with a line I stole:

"Excuse my French / Emotion in my passion / But I wear my heart on my sleeve like it's the new fashion"

I also want to set our stage with another phrase:

I am enormously proud of you.

(That one's all mine.)

I also stole this line:

"Know you are where you are not by chance, but by the design of your Creator, for your own development and for the development of those around you."

It reminds me of an article I read once.

There is a tribe in East Africa called the Masaai.  Wikipedia tells me that the Maasai are an ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known of African ethnic groups, due to their distinctive customs and dress and residence near the many game parks of East Africa.  They speak a language the name of which I cannot pronounce that is a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family that is related to Dinka and Nuer.  The Masaai are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania: Swahili and English.

They have cultural traditions that look nothing like ours.  Or at least that's what it looks like when you just look with the eyes that allow you to see only the surface

The Masaai distinguish the men from the boys.  Becoming a Masaai man involves these special rituals with special clothes and special colors and music and behaviors.  The men in this culture tend animals, hunt other animals, and fight to protect their home, their women, their children.  They do that fighting with spears, with knives, and with their hands.

Now, back to my article. 

It was about a young college student named James Nampushi.  Mr. Nampushi said:

"I must work hard.  I must work hard.  This is a miracle to me.  To be here, is God.  I must work hard because I know where I came from and where I am now.  So I have to do something..."

S., there is something you have in common with this man beyond the fact that your skin color is much closer to his than it is to mine.

S., you must work hard.  You must.  That you are here, this is God.  You must work hard because you know where you came from and where you are now. 

The last part is the clincher: So you have to do something.

You and Mr. Nampushi.  You both have to do something. 

Mr. Nampushi grew up in the tribal Masaai community that taught him certain things about what it means to be a man.  He learned these things, and then he decided that the salvation of his people in a world that is growing by leaps and bounds involved, at least in some small part, continuing his education in a land far, far away from his comfort zone to learn things that the people in the culture he came from couldn't teach him.

Things that he had to learn for himself.

From himself.

From the rest of the world.

From people who were different from him.

Sometimes drastically different.

Ms. B, what's your point?  I can hear you asking with your eyes, kiddo.

Here comes the preachy part.  Get ready.

Know this:

As a Black man who grew up in an urban environment and finished growing up in foster care in South Carolina, the statistics that you face at this critical juncture of your life are damning.  Do not, do not, DO NOT LET THIS LIMIT YOUR EXPECTATIONS OF YOURSELF.  Push the messages of thug life, victimization, materialism, the voices of entitlement and violence, as well as the voices that tell you that because your skin is brown your brain was not made to process just as much information as anyone else walking around away.  Throw them away.  Ball them up, tear them into shreds, and incinerate them.  Open the windows of your life, and blow the ashes out into the breeze.

Know this:

God has done a lot to bring you to this point.  You and I can both think of times in your life when He could just as well have abandoned you in one way or another.  He didn't.  Think about that.  Think about what it means that the All-Knowing, All-Wise Provider and Creator of All decided to hang onto you.  Decided to provide the hearts of all of the people in this room to love you and believe in you and try to show you what you are made of.  Do you think that this was an accident? Think about it.

Know this:

You have been blessed with a voice.  You have choices about how to use this voice.  By now surely you have learned that people listen to you.  Consider what you hear, consider the biggest picture you can, and choose your words and actions wisely.

Know this:

Your academic achievement to this point has not been indicative of your capacity.  We both know that, and now so does everyone else in the room.  I get it; you were busy with other things.  Your childhood included more violence and loss than mine, and your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that makes plans and provides motivation, has been otherwise occupied over the past few years. 

I've got news for you.  You've landed.  From now on, not nearly as many things are going to be handed to you as you're used to.  You're going to have to prove that you deserve them.  You're going to have to put your shoulder to the grindstone and push.  Go show us what you can do.

Actually, forget us.

Show yourself what you can do.

I am proud of you.  I don't have enough words to be able to tell you what it does to my heart to see you graduated... to know what I know of your story, to see you tall and strong, to see your clear eyes looking off onto the next thing... proud isn't the right word.  I am blessed.  Blessed and richly favored.

Don't mistake this for a stopping point, though.  True, you get to pause, be congratulated, and look back at how much road you've covered... but, baby, it's so far from done.  It's really only the beginning. 

Go.

Go get it.

Go get into it and on it and all over it.

There's work yet to be done.

We're your tribe... we're your people... and we need you. 

And by we, I mean the world.

More On Girls Who Read

First, read this.
Then, read this.


By the time the girl who reads grows up, she knows that the only men worth having are Darcys.

Mr. Darcy and the girl who reads meet at least twice every year as she slowly relishes Pride and Prejudice as though she is eating a really, really good chocolate cake.  You know the kind--rich and soft with buttercream frosting and raspberry sauce?  You have to eat it slowly.  Relish, one might say.

Women who read are all Elizabeth, and we can relax because Darcy will love her every time.  Love her every single time.  Without fail.  Darcy is good like that.  Consistent.

Every time Elizabeth is too smart, especially for a woman, Darcy loves her.  Every time she's not the prettiest girl at the party, Darcy loves her.  Every time she speaks her mind to the point of argumentative, Darcy loves her.  Every time her family is a complete disaster, Darcy loves her.

This is the dream... the impossible, unbelievable dream.

I want to be clear, this--tall, handsome Darcy finds you, fights for you, marries you, and, with long declarations of passionate love, carries you off to his mansion to live happily ever after--is not expected to happen in the real of life of a girl who reads.

Real life is different. The girl who reads will readily admit that she is far too aware of this fact.

As she grows up, the girl who reads is done settling.  She's done dating around, done giving it time, done waiting it out and seeing if he will eventually show up in one form or another.  She's been hopeful.  She's been patient.  She has worked on herself.  She has been open to possibility.  Sometimes she's stubbornly, hard-headedly, stupidly refused to see the reality of the object of her affection and lived to be deeply embarrassed.

And she doesn't want to talk about it.

She's stopped looking.
She's stopped waiting.
She's planting her herbs in the pots she's gathered herself, determined to fill her life to over-flowing with cooking, knitting, music, clothes, the paint on her walls, her family of friends... determined to make this life, this one right here, the one she's actually living, the very best it can be.

Without Darcy.

Alone.

She's going to do it because life is too short to waste it pining over men who won't appreciate the subtleties of her morning routine... who won't notice when she has her nails and toes done... who won't allow her the emotional space to cry at the end of that bad movie that reminds her of her dad... who won't have enough thoughts and feelings about the world to keep up with her. They won't be strong enough for her darkness, and they won't be able to light the corners of her heart with laughter.

She won't waste any more of her time.

She's going to assemble her own life.  It won't include you.  You took too long.  She couldn't find you, no matter how many internet dating sites and blind dates she, humiliated, suffered through.

When you meet her, realize that she's learned to be loud because she's afraid.

Afraid that you will see her frazzled edges (the ones she tries to keep covered with pedicures and fresh flowers in her house) and run the other way.  Afraid that she'll never be pretty enough for you to stay.  Afraid that she'll never be able to think of enough interesting things to say.  Afraid that you don't like kissing her as much as she likes kissing you, and afraid because she likes kissing you as much as she likes kissing you.

Afraid that if she tells you too much about the actual state of her heart, you will think that she is trying to pressure you into fixing it... into staying... why aren't you running away again?  Or worse, that you will figure out what she keeps in the locked box in the very back of her very back-est hiding place:

That she very desperately needs to be loved... all the way loved... and is waiting for that.

Holding out.

Holding way, way out.

She's not looking at you because she doesn't want to see you not looking at her.  She will almost run away from you because she doesn't think that you will chase her.  She doesn't think that you would ever want to catch her.

When you ask her how she is, she will be fine every time.  Fantastic even.  Great.  Doing really, really well.  She will look you right in the eyes.  When she's not fine, she'll look down before you catch her almost-tears.

And she is doing really, really well.  She has a career.  She is educated.  She has interesting friends, a dynamic life, purpose, passion, intelligence.  She has books.  She has lots of books.  Her life is useful, and when it is not useful, it is interesting.

You didn't read the book, so I'll tell you what's important about Darcy.

He's steady.  Darcy means what he says.  You know that from the kind of man he is.  When he tells Elizabeth that he loves her, she can trust it to her very core.  It's not going to change.  He will die loving her.

He has principles.  He's not doing this casually.  Darcy doesn't do anything casually.  Girls who read aren't into casual.  If it's going to be casual, we'd rather be reading.  The book lasts all the way until it's done, and if you're not ready to be done, you can read it again.

Also, Darcy wants Elizabeth.

He doesn't just like her.  He wants her.  He doesn't just think that she is interesting.  He wants her.  He wants to hear her thoughts.  He wants to tell her all about his insides.  He wants to take her, to hold her, to ravish her--you can hear it in the way he speaks to her.

Yes, we want you to have a job.  We want you to have an education of some kind.  We want you to have interests and passions and other things, but what's seductive about Darcy isn't his money.  It isn't his height.  It isn't his place in the world.  That's not why he's the object of so very many day-dreams.

It's him.  It's the kind of man he is.

Do you want a girl who reads?

Ask her out.  Take her to dinner, take her to coffee, cook with her, take her for a walk... it doesn't matter.  Ask.  Pick her up.  Drive.  Pay.  Insist.

Listen to her.  Make eye contact, and hold it.  Speak.  Say something important... something intelligent or vulnerable or funny or honest.  Give her time to say something back.  She may be a better listener at the start.  Use patience.  Ask her what she's read.  Ask her what she learned.  Don't talk about the weather.  She sucks at small talk.

If she'll let you, read what she writes.  She may say no, but it's mostly because she's afraid you'll be bored.  Ask again.  Her writing is the clearest way she's learned to articulate the parts of herself she protects, and you need to know about those parts.  You need to love those parts.

Realize that her life is orchestrated to not need you... to avoid needing you.  She doesn't need you.  She wants you.  Want her.  Sometimes, need her.  Tell her so.

Bring her flowers.  It will be best if you picked them out of a yard somewhere.

Let her be loud.  Look for what she is hiding.

Put your hand on the small of her back at parties.  Hold her hand.  Kiss her in public.  Claim her.  Wrap your arms around her while she's doing the dishes.  Distract her.  Spend the whole morning in bed.

Tell her that she is beautiful.  She may never have heard it in her whole life.  She may vehemently disagree with you.  Hold her head in your hands, look into her eyes, and tell her that she is beautiful.  When she cries, tell her again.  Mean it.

Don't say it if you don't mean it.

Don't fear her tears.  She fears them; be strong enough for both of you.

Fight with her.  Make her yell at you.  Let her cry.  Give her time to speak what needs spoken.  Hold her when it's over.  Don't leave.  Instead, stay.

Hold her.  Know how much it takes for her to admit to you that she is struggling.  She may want to talk about it, but she may not.  She may just want you to hold her.  Do it.  You may never know how much that helps.

Tell her that you love her.  Tell her the moment you know it.  Tell her again.  Tell her on the phone.  Tell her by text message.  Tell her in front of her friends.  In front of your friends.  In front of strangers.  Tell her again and again and again.  It will take her a long time to believe you, but those moments will sustain her while she learns to accept that you're telling the truth.

Wait.  Be patient.  There are parts of her that are growing that never grew before.  She's been hurt and disappointed every single time she's tried this, and trusting you takes courage every single day.

She's creating a space for you right up front--a warm, arms wide open, soft space for you to land.  She'd like you to stay awhile.  Stay forever.  You'll be stronger together.

It's worth it.

You will push and pull each other into better humans... she will dream big enough to keep up with yours, big enough to pull you into hers, to create whole new cities of dreams you never allowed yourself before.

Look for a girl who reads.

Don't just date her.
Love her.
Don't stop.

Kindness

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

-- Naomi Shihab Nye

Thank you for sharing what you found, Sara... 

(You can find her words at http://mygreatleap.blogspot.com/)

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.