I am ready now to share my story. It won't be finished in one sitting, it will come in bits and pieces. As it flows I will share in the increments allotted me by my 14 month old who naps infrequently and plays independently less frequently. It may end for you before I have completed it, it may be too sad or too raw and you may choose to stop reading, but I will continue until I have nothing more to tell.
First an apology; I am so very sorry I never meant to make you sad or angry. I only meant to share the world; to open your eyes to the things that exist that you may never see. I wanted to show you my life; uninteresting and dangerous, joyful and pathetic. I wanted you to see that injustices exist and honest people don't always succeed. I wanted to tell you that it isn't enough to live kindly and quietly you have to trudge along and no matter what the day or the universe delivers, you must never ever give up. And eventually and honestly you have to tell your story. Here is mine.
I will start with the saddest parts and the hardest truths. Then, we can work from there. It will be easier to continue once you've had time to digest. Other people will come in and out of these pages, I hope they are not angry. I will not tell their story for it is not mine to tell, I can only tell their part in mine. I pray that they understand that they are the arms of my starfish, unnecessary in some aspects but completely necessary to the quality of my life and the completeness of my story.
I am not perfect. I am not all that I dreamed of being. I have done things I am not proud of. I have hurt those that I love. I have received assistance that could not be paid back. I have asked for help and not been grateful enough, until time passed and people left and I realized how lucky I was, ultimately until it was too late to say "thank you". I have done things that I am not ready to mention, things to painful to bear. I will carry these acts with me trying to recognize them for what they are; a part of my journey and a part of the past, the very past that I must die to if I ever wish to move on. I falter. I fail. I have failed myself and I have failed others. But I love deeply and unconditionally. I try not to judge. Most importantly I try to recognize that by the most beautiful and intricate silken thread we all share a commonality in this web of life. I try to look into your eyes and recognize that you too have a story. And I listen. I hear what you are saying and I understand. I hear your pain, sometimes I can feel your story as deeply as you do. I have been places I do not wish to mention, but I know what you speak of and I hear you. I hear you weeping softly in the middle of the night. I see you laugh while secretly your heart is breaking. I know what you are going through. I understand.
Quickly now, the baby is stirring and today's time for writing is coming to an end. I will introduce you to the characters in my story; the people in my life. I am an "almost orphan"- my mother has, for the majority of my life been present physically (with a few complete absences from time to time) but emotionally absent. I am not nor have I ever been angry or bitter; she is a product of her time, a product of the late 1950's when women graduated (sometimes barely) from high school and then had children when in fact they themselves were children. She did not want us, she did not love us, but at 18 years old she did what most of her friends were doing, she had a baby, my sister, Renee. Then times starting changing. Gloria Steinem called. Women were changing. They were voicing their desires, they were expressing that their lives weren't fulfilling, the children weren't enough. The women burnt their bras and disobeyed the rules. They walked on city halls and marched for independence, often forgetting about or leaving their children behind. In the 1970's women became powerful, they left home and got jobs, starting in menial positions that quickly turned into something much more. Women found their voices and became "somebody". It seems that everyone forgot the children. My mother was a part of this movement. I remember my father's face, his disappointment and his feelings of failure when my mother announced that she would be getting a job. I remember thinking, screaming inside "hey what about us?". We became an integral part of the "unimportant job" of running the household. My sister and I cleaned and cut the lawn, we took care of our younger brother. We prepared supper and made and packed lunches for school and work days. We did laundry. We had jobs of our own and we went to school; Renee was finishing middle school and I was just starting. We were young women who did it all. My sister deeply resented my mother. I did not care. I figured it was the way it was and it must be this way for everyone.
Our father, now recovered was a functioning alcoholic. He was tough and sarcastic. He was everything that you would imagine an Iron Worker to be - strong, handsome, and hard working. He swore like a sailer at all of us. He yelled and demanded. He whistled and pointed with 1/2 of an index finger (the other 1/2 lost in a construction accident) and directed and yelled some more. He started every day around 5 a.m. puking in the small bathroom off of the kitchen. He would then stoke the wood stove in the winter, make himself a cup of tea, return to the bathroom for his daily "moment", wake our mother and leave for work. My mother would awaken after we had gone to get the school bus. I do not ever remember my mother waking with us and helping us get ready in the mornings. I do remember my father loving my mother completely and selflessly. I remember knowing that my mother was first in my father's eyes. I remember always knowing that although often mean and always tough my father loved the 3 of us deeper and truer than my mother ever would. I knew from a very early age that my father loved his 3 children enough for both he and my mother.
Renee does not speak to me and hasn't in years. Growing up we were never close in the sense that we shared great times, we were survivors moving through an experience we both dreamed of leaving behind. In our adult lives we became inseparable. Our children were like siblings. We loved each other and needed each other and shared stories from the past. We walked through life together; her husband's illness, my mother's callousness, the death of our beloved grandfather, and failed marriages. I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason, but I know that I contribute greatly to my sister's sadness. I know that in order for her to survive now, in order for her to live a complete life she must cut me loose. I will always love her. I miss her everyday. But I understand; we do what we must to go on.
My brother, Austin could not for a very long time, step in shit if he was walking through a field crowded by cows and dogs and horses. He married his best friend, one of the most beautiful woman I have ever met in person. They shared the same love of the sea and fishing. They worked hard and bought a huge house on the water. They moored their boat in the backyard, like a painting, only prettier. They had 2 beautiful sunkissed children, small and smart, cookie cut-outs of themselves. Their life seemed perfect. Austin had a successful business and his wife quit her high paying position to be with the children. And slowly the shit got deeper. He started with pot. Then beer. Lots and lots of beer. He started hanging out with losers that his wife could not stand and refused to socialize with. More pot. More beer; earlier each day and more frequently. He stayed out late at night. Then he met coke. His wife had an affair. Everything gets messy here. She left. The house was sold. More pot. More beer. More and more coke. More losers. Another house, not as nice as the first, but on the sea and pretty. He hid his sadness in his work. But then he let his guard down. The shit got deeper and the field got smaller. Less beer. Less pot. More coke. And some crack. Only a little at first, to numb everything. And people starting leaving. The business started failing. First the boat, then the van, then the girlfriend. Bye-bye. A few arrests, minor stuff - shoplifting, traffic violations. Deeper shit. Less beer. No pot. Coke. More crack. The business is gone. Jail time, briefly given up for rehab. Arrearages in child support. Sprung from rehab. Absolutely no visitation with the children. Pot. Crack. Pot. Crack. Ecstasy. Crack. Crack. Crack. House gone. Boat, kids, wife, van, life...gone gone gone. He tried to cling to life for a little while. He worked odd jobs and found a loser girlfriend who turned him on to summer concerts and the ecstasy. He worked less. He stopped seeing the children. He stopped calling us. He stopped existing. More minor arrests. Now he is doing 6 months in a maximum security facility in Massachusetts. Covered in shit. He doesn't care. His plan is to get out, go on welfare, qualify for food stamps, and pay the Massachusett's minimum of $18 per month in child support. "Fuck the kids, I mean, they're young, they'll get over it" he told me in a collect phone call from jail "when I get out I'm living life on life's terms. Gotta stay away from the pipe man, it ruins lives. A little beer. A little pot. Fuck the ex-wife, fuckin' bitch and fuck the kids". The shit came in fast and hard.
My best friend has lung cancer. The best mother I have ever known - the person I modeled many of my traditions and mothering after has a terminal illness. And every day she lives. Every day she fights oozing eyes that get "stuck" closed, bloody sores on her head and nose and ears and sores festering on her feet that render her almost unable to walk. Every day she gets up and LIVES. She laughs and loves. She NEVER complains. She worries about everybody else. She worries that she has made people sad; as if she became sick on purpose. She apologizes if she cannot keep up. She apologizes if she briefly expresses discomfort. She gets me through every day. She is my rock. I look for her every morning and every afternoon. I know exactly what her day entails, what she is doing, what she is making for supper. I live vicariously through her.
If a fairy came into my apartment right now and offered me one wish, it would be that Janet's lungs would heal themselves; that in her next PET scan miraculously the cancer would be gone and her lung regenerated. That would be my one wish. That is how very much I love the friend that is a mother and sister, the only family I really have. If I could trade places, which would make much more sense considering she never smoked a day in her life and I smoked on and off twice, once in my youth and after my divorce, I would. I would take her lungs as my own and give her mine; she is after all a much better mother wife daughter and friend. But life isn't fair like that, cancer doesn't ask for volunteers. It cannot be returned or regifted. Although Janet and I came up with the perfect plan.
My grandmother is 88 years of misery and suffering. The woman hates life. She is vital and strong and healthy. She lives alone on her own. She walks faster than most 20 year olds, she does laundry and food shops. She drives but, "only during the day and only on secondary roads" (as if these day secondary road traveling fools have lives of lesser value than those night moving highway riding souls). She complains relentlessly. Most conversations start out on a positive note, but always end with crying in which she claims "I just want to go home, I want to see my husband". I can tell you this, it will be a long hot ride to visit that man, I loved him so, but an angel he was not. I can also tell you that he is not sitting around counting the minutes until his beloved Lee joins him, he is moving and shaking, drinking and singing LOUDLY. He is crossing his fingers making deals with Lucifer, "keep her up there, keep her there, please....please...". She wants to go, Janet does not. Simple enough. How about we take Janet's cancer, put it in a pretty gift bag with a bow and little card saying something like "here's something you said you really wanted" and we give it to my grandmother? Why isn't that a choice?
My grandfather, God rest his poor emotionally beaten soul was not a good man. I loved him. Desperately. And he made it clear, very early on that the feelings were not mutual. He loved pretty things. Women. My mother. My sister. I was not pretty and he did not love me (not yet, the love came much much later, when he needed me). He was very handsome, often mistaken for Clark Gable. He was very funny. He was tall. He could sing. He had charisma. He was a bigot. He was a bastard. He was not faithful. He was perfect and imperfect. He loved life. To its absolute fullest. He loved his house, it was pretty. He loved his yard, it was pretty. He loved his pool, it was very pretty. He loved himself. He loved flags. At first it was the flag with the martini glass on it that he would raise every day at 4 o'clock, indicating cocktail time had arrived. Then he loved the flagpole on his front lawn, he was a very proud American, drunkenly true to the flag, never leaving it outside overnight (it was not lit) taking us with him to ceremoniously take it down and fold it each dusk. Explaining to us that it was imperative that we never let it touch the ground and we never leave it out in bad weather. He further explained that if tattered it must be brought to the Veteran's Hall to be properly burned and disposed of. He collected the flags of other countries (they were pretty) possessing hundreds at the time of his death. He was proud of this country it was pretty. He served in the Navy during WWII, "the fucking German Asshole didn't see battle" according to my grandmother, he had pretty jobs stationed in Oklahoma and then Hawaii, inspecting fighter engines and airplane parts; pretty unimportant stuff like that. One day while returning from the funeral of a friend "the fucking German Asshole" fell, and failing to put out his arms to break his fall, he hit his head. Hard. He went into a coma and died of complications a week later. I believe he chose to die for 2 reasons; first, my mother and grandmother had started sending him to rehabilitation clinics to overcome his alcoholism (never too late, even at 79, right?), and secondly, he fell a few days after voting in the November elections between Gore & Bush and that whole political un-pretty debacle. He never recovered to learn the truth. Perfect timing.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Tired of Being Afraid
Today I am tired, almost too tired to write. Exhausted from trying. Trying to understand. Trying not to hate my circumstances. Trying not to hate my neighbors. Trying trying trying. It is draining to put on a positive face in a world of hatred. I am tired so very tired. I've asked myself "what am I doing here?", "how has this become my life?". Do you wonder; how did I arrive here? To make a long story (which I promise to tell eventually) very short, I fell in love with a beautiful kind compassionate man, we got pregnant and had to choose between 2 apartments; mine in Queens or his here in East Flatbush Brooklyn. After much deliberation we decided that Brooklyn afforded us the luxury of my staying home with our son for as long as possible. Now it seems impossible. I do not think I can stay here much longer and yet I have no other choice. At 43 years old and after a long hard journey I have found the love of my life and yet you don't want me here. You make it clear, every day, each and every day, that I am not welcome in his neighborhood.
At first, I thought I was here to learn acceptance; to be accepted and to accept difference. I do not believe this now, there is no acceptance of difference here. There is no tolerance. Then I thought that maybe I was here to make a difference. I tutored a young boy for free and I believed that this was the answer: I was here to help change things. I planned and thought, I prayed and plotted. I came up with the skeletal plans for a "Trickle Down Mentoring Program"- starting with local high school students and community leaders we could do some sort of Book/Movie Club, carefully choosing books and movies with a message, the high school students could then meet with and mentor middle school students, who in turn could visit the elementary school students and read and do art projects with them. This program would not only show each participating individual their value in their own world, but their value as productive members of society. This program would offer hope to children and young adults who have very little positive experience and very little hope in their lives. This program would CHANGE THE WORLD. I apparently was too hard on the student I was tutoring "forcing" him to work at the level his teacher expected of him. Unlike the student's mother, I refused to do the work for this boy, I worked closely with him urging him to think, offering him options to choose from and encouraging his creativity. I met with him between 3 & 5 days a week in my home. I gave him snacks. I talked to him not only about his work but about his world and dreams. I listened to him as he cried about the injustices he felt he suffered at the hands of his father. I listened to him dream of becoming a professional football player. I introduced him to my visiting 20 year old son who took the boy outside and tossed the football around with him, but ended the game when the football landed in a pile of dog shit: commonly left on the sidewalks and pavement in our area. After the homework was done, the boy would stay at first watching me prepare dinner and eventually helping (at his request); tasting vegetarian fare and learning basic culinary skills. He would leave only when his mother would finally call or when I would tell him our visit must end. And then, after a session of challenging work, he never returned.
At first I was devastated. Now I understand. I cannot change anything here. I can only live kindly. I can only live clean. I can only live my life. The quality of life here may be unacceptable in my heart, but it is the level the people that live here have chosen to accept.
Walk with me to the playground. Come with me, I want you to see what I see. First, we awaken, in our bright sunny clean studio apartment. In our comfy bed. What awakens us is the beautiful sound of a prattling 1 year old. His father is Tobogonian and I am American, but today he sounds Chinese, there is a lilt to his "language" that is melodic and choppy, firm and monotone. I can feel his tiny brown hand on my back and in my hair. I open my eyes to his morning "drunkenness" he is awake enough to "talk" but his eyes are still heavy with sleep. I do not want to get up today. I do not want to face this world. I am tired. I am laden with trying to find hope. But I have no choice.
So we dress and we load up the stroller. Remember, breathe and change your posture before we walk out into the hall. Remember: be tough. Only today I forget. My guard is down. I cannot put my shoulders back today. I cannot be angry. I cannot.
Off we go, watch out for the dead cockroach to the left of the door, it is dead but large and will make an intensely gross mess if it is stepped upon. Let's go down in the freshly mopped elevator that now smells of a mixture of old pee and orange cleanser. Remember, don't touch the walls. Can you hear the delight of the children in the daycare on the 1st floor? Stop & listen for a moment> it is a wonderful sound to carry around for the rest of the day. Please hold the first security door as we head outside, my stroller is cumbersome and hard to steer. It is a pleasure to have you with me.
Once we are outside I need a minute to focus and to put a hat on the baby's head, it is bright out here today. As we walk out of the gated area look at your surroundings; notice but don't be obvious, can you smell the reefer? That is coming from the 3 men on the bench to your left, the guys with the do-rags and the sagging jeans, the young men with the impeccably matched tee-shirt/sneaker/hat ensembles.
As we pass through the fenced area, look across the street into the yard of the playground we never visit. Notice the people. What do you see? There are men everywhere we look. Getting high on the benches near our apartment. Playing basketball in the park. Sitting in the playground. Don't watch too closely. You won't like what you see. Step around the trash and the spit, if you need to close your eyes and pretend the spit is slug slime, we do that sometimes and then, its not so bad. Here we take a left onto Foster Avenue. As we travel to the playground on 40Th Street things change. There are garbage bags randomly placed on fence posts by proud homeowners tired of cleaning up after ignorant passersby. The large apartment buildings fade and single family houses appear. Look closely. The first floor windows of these homes are covered with wrought iron bars and intricate works of iron. At 37Th & Foster you'll see the house that burned in a fire last summer. You cannot miss it: it is a side-by-side an eerie Siamese twin, one side is perfect and the other is marred, ruined, covered in charred siding, peeling, moulting, snake-like, except something is wrong. This house has been vacant for over a year. Ruined for over a year. Burnt unidentifiable objects sit, like unwanted orphans, on the front lawn and nothing changes. Not in this house, not in this neighborhood.
Fuck this. I'm tired of writing. Tired of reaching out and trying to make you understand. Trying to make a difference because the fact of the matter, THE FUCKING TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS THAT THE PEOPLE I NEED TO reach will never read this. I don't want to make this a nice story for your enjoyment; I want to tell you the truth.
As we walk away from the projects you are fooled, smoke & mirrors baby, that the area is getting better, but pay attention the improvements are superficial. As are the people that inhabit this bizarre world I've entered; nice cars nice clothes, shit attitude zero tolerance. As we round the corner to the football sized park/playground pay close attention to the visitors here. Picnic benches line the perimeter of the park. An older Indian gentleman sits at the first bench to our right, reading the paper he nods and says "hello". The 2ND bench is empty of a patron but covered in burn marks and graffiti and gum and gook. A "dredded" black man, about our age wearing jeans, a tee-shirt and work boots sits as if defeated on the next bench; he is either very sad or very stoned. His eyes are blood shot and his head lolls a bit to the left, he smiles and nods as we pass. As we head up to the play scape, we pass the basketball court where two young black men in shorts, tee shirts and sneakers are playing. There is a thug under the other backstop, standing on an overturned garbage can he dragged onto the court. He is doing pull-ups in a wife-beater tee shirt, sagging jeans, dingy whitish grey underwear so sweaty they are clinging to the crack of his ass, tims ( Timberlands - the ghetto choice for "work" boots) a do-rag topped by an impeccably straight billed baseball cap. Both his tims and his baseball cap still boast price tags (Minnie Pearl goes Project). As we near the play scape which is divided by height and a "danger factor"(the number of railings) into a section for toddlers and a section for older children, try not to be alarmed by the small black boy, whose upper lip is slimy with snot, teetering at the top of the older children's 'scape. If you look to your right, about 15 feet away you will see, seated at a picnic table a black man, around 30 years old or so, eating McDonald's. If you look closer you will see it is a Happy Meal that he is picking at and as he talks on the phone one can assume that he is the father, grandfather, uncle, older brother, mother's boyfriend, he is snot boy's guardian. Let's follow our baby to the swing area where there is a little black boy around 6 years old quietly saying "help I'm stuck". If you were surveying the area, as you will learn is necessary, you would have seen this boy slip in back by the man with dreds. Tying his left shoe I lift the boy out of the swing and help him to the ground. Without an exchange of pleasantries he takes his backpack from the fence post and skulks alone out of the park. Snot boy is screaming, who knows about what or why, and his guardian does not move.
Look beyond the guardian, to the handball court where you can see about 6 players, all black men, ranging in age from about 25 - 45, and another 10 "fans" again, all black men, cheering and smoking and drinking. It is nearly 2 in the afternoon and I am ready to go home.
To get to the exit gates we cross through the non-working sprinklers and see 2 older black gentleman deep in conversation. Passing the last bench nearest the gate an older Spanish Couple waves to the baby and says "adios". We take a right and then a left back onto Foster Avenue, and as we walk quickly to avoid the rain, the single houses seem to lay down and the apartment buildings which constitute our projects loom defiantly on the horizon.
Nearing our building we are passed by two black men and a black woman pushing a stroller "hey whitey, you so fuckin' white......whitey......" I don't turn towards them. What is the point? I know that as the only "whitey" around I am their target. Understand this, it is not the words that hurt as much as the laughter and the fact that these 3 people are adults approximately our age. The mean and calculative laughter makes the behaviour unbearable. I struggle to keep myself together. Just 1/2 block more. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
Nearing the front steps to the first of our 2 "security doors" I see the troubled teenager from across the hall. He turns and holds the first door open then unlocks the second door for us. This is the 13 year old who skips school more than he attends. After his mother and older brother leave in the morning he gets high with his friends in the hallway. Often he is rude disruptive and has respect for no one. I have seen him pull a butcher knife on the woman that lives upstairs and the police frequent his doorway in our hall on the 5Th floor. I have seen him pee in the elevator. Today is no different. As I enter the elevator I push the stroller through the pee, willing the wheels "levitate". And this is where I need you to leave. I have reached my breaking point and a sadness from very deep within releases itself. A raw and guttural sob that I am unable to contain escapes me and I begin to shake. At the 5Th floor we enter the hall and navigate carefully through the 2 blobs of silvery spit on the floor.
Today I cannot take this. Today it is not okay. Today I simply cannot be positive. I cannot accept this as my now....this is simply unacceptable. Today I hate just about everyone. I do not hate my child and I do not hate my lover. But I hate you, because you get to leave. And I hate the guy eating McDonald's in the park. I hate the dredded stoner on the bench, and the thug doing pull ups and the parents who have no idea where their 6 year old is (he's leaving the park after being stuck in a swing, he's on his way, don't worry) and I hate the threesome laughing at my expense. I hate you for reading this and for not being able to fully grasp what I am trying to tell you. Today is not my day. Today I am not proud of who I am or what I feel . Today I become what I have fought my whole life. Today and just for today, I am a bigot.
At first, I thought I was here to learn acceptance; to be accepted and to accept difference. I do not believe this now, there is no acceptance of difference here. There is no tolerance. Then I thought that maybe I was here to make a difference. I tutored a young boy for free and I believed that this was the answer: I was here to help change things. I planned and thought, I prayed and plotted. I came up with the skeletal plans for a "Trickle Down Mentoring Program"- starting with local high school students and community leaders we could do some sort of Book/Movie Club, carefully choosing books and movies with a message, the high school students could then meet with and mentor middle school students, who in turn could visit the elementary school students and read and do art projects with them. This program would not only show each participating individual their value in their own world, but their value as productive members of society. This program would offer hope to children and young adults who have very little positive experience and very little hope in their lives. This program would CHANGE THE WORLD. I apparently was too hard on the student I was tutoring "forcing" him to work at the level his teacher expected of him. Unlike the student's mother, I refused to do the work for this boy, I worked closely with him urging him to think, offering him options to choose from and encouraging his creativity. I met with him between 3 & 5 days a week in my home. I gave him snacks. I talked to him not only about his work but about his world and dreams. I listened to him as he cried about the injustices he felt he suffered at the hands of his father. I listened to him dream of becoming a professional football player. I introduced him to my visiting 20 year old son who took the boy outside and tossed the football around with him, but ended the game when the football landed in a pile of dog shit: commonly left on the sidewalks and pavement in our area. After the homework was done, the boy would stay at first watching me prepare dinner and eventually helping (at his request); tasting vegetarian fare and learning basic culinary skills. He would leave only when his mother would finally call or when I would tell him our visit must end. And then, after a session of challenging work, he never returned.
At first I was devastated. Now I understand. I cannot change anything here. I can only live kindly. I can only live clean. I can only live my life. The quality of life here may be unacceptable in my heart, but it is the level the people that live here have chosen to accept.
Walk with me to the playground. Come with me, I want you to see what I see. First, we awaken, in our bright sunny clean studio apartment. In our comfy bed. What awakens us is the beautiful sound of a prattling 1 year old. His father is Tobogonian and I am American, but today he sounds Chinese, there is a lilt to his "language" that is melodic and choppy, firm and monotone. I can feel his tiny brown hand on my back and in my hair. I open my eyes to his morning "drunkenness" he is awake enough to "talk" but his eyes are still heavy with sleep. I do not want to get up today. I do not want to face this world. I am tired. I am laden with trying to find hope. But I have no choice.
So we dress and we load up the stroller. Remember, breathe and change your posture before we walk out into the hall. Remember: be tough. Only today I forget. My guard is down. I cannot put my shoulders back today. I cannot be angry. I cannot.
Off we go, watch out for the dead cockroach to the left of the door, it is dead but large and will make an intensely gross mess if it is stepped upon. Let's go down in the freshly mopped elevator that now smells of a mixture of old pee and orange cleanser. Remember, don't touch the walls. Can you hear the delight of the children in the daycare on the 1st floor? Stop & listen for a moment> it is a wonderful sound to carry around for the rest of the day. Please hold the first security door as we head outside, my stroller is cumbersome and hard to steer. It is a pleasure to have you with me.
Once we are outside I need a minute to focus and to put a hat on the baby's head, it is bright out here today. As we walk out of the gated area look at your surroundings; notice but don't be obvious, can you smell the reefer? That is coming from the 3 men on the bench to your left, the guys with the do-rags and the sagging jeans, the young men with the impeccably matched tee-shirt/sneaker/hat ensembles.
As we pass through the fenced area, look across the street into the yard of the playground we never visit. Notice the people. What do you see? There are men everywhere we look. Getting high on the benches near our apartment. Playing basketball in the park. Sitting in the playground. Don't watch too closely. You won't like what you see. Step around the trash and the spit, if you need to close your eyes and pretend the spit is slug slime, we do that sometimes and then, its not so bad. Here we take a left onto Foster Avenue. As we travel to the playground on 40Th Street things change. There are garbage bags randomly placed on fence posts by proud homeowners tired of cleaning up after ignorant passersby. The large apartment buildings fade and single family houses appear. Look closely. The first floor windows of these homes are covered with wrought iron bars and intricate works of iron. At 37Th & Foster you'll see the house that burned in a fire last summer. You cannot miss it: it is a side-by-side an eerie Siamese twin, one side is perfect and the other is marred, ruined, covered in charred siding, peeling, moulting, snake-like, except something is wrong. This house has been vacant for over a year. Ruined for over a year. Burnt unidentifiable objects sit, like unwanted orphans, on the front lawn and nothing changes. Not in this house, not in this neighborhood.
Fuck this. I'm tired of writing. Tired of reaching out and trying to make you understand. Trying to make a difference because the fact of the matter, THE FUCKING TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS THAT THE PEOPLE I NEED TO reach will never read this. I don't want to make this a nice story for your enjoyment; I want to tell you the truth.
As we walk away from the projects you are fooled, smoke & mirrors baby, that the area is getting better, but pay attention the improvements are superficial. As are the people that inhabit this bizarre world I've entered; nice cars nice clothes, shit attitude zero tolerance. As we round the corner to the football sized park/playground pay close attention to the visitors here. Picnic benches line the perimeter of the park. An older Indian gentleman sits at the first bench to our right, reading the paper he nods and says "hello". The 2ND bench is empty of a patron but covered in burn marks and graffiti and gum and gook. A "dredded" black man, about our age wearing jeans, a tee-shirt and work boots sits as if defeated on the next bench; he is either very sad or very stoned. His eyes are blood shot and his head lolls a bit to the left, he smiles and nods as we pass. As we head up to the play scape, we pass the basketball court where two young black men in shorts, tee shirts and sneakers are playing. There is a thug under the other backstop, standing on an overturned garbage can he dragged onto the court. He is doing pull-ups in a wife-beater tee shirt, sagging jeans, dingy whitish grey underwear so sweaty they are clinging to the crack of his ass, tims ( Timberlands - the ghetto choice for "work" boots) a do-rag topped by an impeccably straight billed baseball cap. Both his tims and his baseball cap still boast price tags (Minnie Pearl goes Project). As we near the play scape which is divided by height and a "danger factor"(the number of railings) into a section for toddlers and a section for older children, try not to be alarmed by the small black boy, whose upper lip is slimy with snot, teetering at the top of the older children's 'scape. If you look to your right, about 15 feet away you will see, seated at a picnic table a black man, around 30 years old or so, eating McDonald's. If you look closer you will see it is a Happy Meal that he is picking at and as he talks on the phone one can assume that he is the father, grandfather, uncle, older brother, mother's boyfriend, he is snot boy's guardian. Let's follow our baby to the swing area where there is a little black boy around 6 years old quietly saying "help I'm stuck". If you were surveying the area, as you will learn is necessary, you would have seen this boy slip in back by the man with dreds. Tying his left shoe I lift the boy out of the swing and help him to the ground. Without an exchange of pleasantries he takes his backpack from the fence post and skulks alone out of the park. Snot boy is screaming, who knows about what or why, and his guardian does not move.
Look beyond the guardian, to the handball court where you can see about 6 players, all black men, ranging in age from about 25 - 45, and another 10 "fans" again, all black men, cheering and smoking and drinking. It is nearly 2 in the afternoon and I am ready to go home.
To get to the exit gates we cross through the non-working sprinklers and see 2 older black gentleman deep in conversation. Passing the last bench nearest the gate an older Spanish Couple waves to the baby and says "adios". We take a right and then a left back onto Foster Avenue, and as we walk quickly to avoid the rain, the single houses seem to lay down and the apartment buildings which constitute our projects loom defiantly on the horizon.
Nearing our building we are passed by two black men and a black woman pushing a stroller "hey whitey, you so fuckin' white......whitey......" I don't turn towards them. What is the point? I know that as the only "whitey" around I am their target. Understand this, it is not the words that hurt as much as the laughter and the fact that these 3 people are adults approximately our age. The mean and calculative laughter makes the behaviour unbearable. I struggle to keep myself together. Just 1/2 block more. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
Nearing the front steps to the first of our 2 "security doors" I see the troubled teenager from across the hall. He turns and holds the first door open then unlocks the second door for us. This is the 13 year old who skips school more than he attends. After his mother and older brother leave in the morning he gets high with his friends in the hallway. Often he is rude disruptive and has respect for no one. I have seen him pull a butcher knife on the woman that lives upstairs and the police frequent his doorway in our hall on the 5Th floor. I have seen him pee in the elevator. Today is no different. As I enter the elevator I push the stroller through the pee, willing the wheels "levitate". And this is where I need you to leave. I have reached my breaking point and a sadness from very deep within releases itself. A raw and guttural sob that I am unable to contain escapes me and I begin to shake. At the 5Th floor we enter the hall and navigate carefully through the 2 blobs of silvery spit on the floor.
Today I cannot take this. Today it is not okay. Today I simply cannot be positive. I cannot accept this as my now....this is simply unacceptable. Today I hate just about everyone. I do not hate my child and I do not hate my lover. But I hate you, because you get to leave. And I hate the guy eating McDonald's in the park. I hate the dredded stoner on the bench, and the thug doing pull ups and the parents who have no idea where their 6 year old is (he's leaving the park after being stuck in a swing, he's on his way, don't worry) and I hate the threesome laughing at my expense. I hate you for reading this and for not being able to fully grasp what I am trying to tell you. Today is not my day. Today I am not proud of who I am or what I feel . Today I become what I have fought my whole life. Today and just for today, I am a bigot.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Not Exactly a Walk in the Park
I have so many questions, there are so many things I don't know and some of the things I do know I wish that I did not. There are so many things that seem simple and there are too many things that seem wrong. Why is gas $4 a gallon. Why is the level of health care one receives determined by the type of insurance the person possesses? Why are some public school 5th graders studying and learning from Social Studies books that are older than they are, while other 5th grade students have 2 brand new books for each class; one for home and one for school. Say for instance, my father has a better paying job than your father, does that make me more worthy? If not, why do I have better health insurance and why do I receive a better education. Why has the world become numb? Why do I feel, every single day, as if I am crazy. Am I the only one who can see what is going on?
When I first moved into this neighborhood, this ghetto, this project I was 6 1/2 months pregnant. I was pregnant and at 42 I was very very naive. I thought, I actually believed that the people here would be nice to me. I believed that I would be accepted. On my very first outing alone, off to the market around the corner I passed a group of teenage girls. As I walked by they asked me "what the fuck are you doin here"? I was shocked at the behaviour and the language. I was shocked by the confrontation. I lost my emotional footing. I went home and I sat in the scratched and worn leather chair. I stared at the window that is impossible to see out of due to the filth that has accumulated between the double pains. Dirt I have tried to scrub away but cannot. I tried squinting through the blurriness. I tried to focus: my vision on the group of girls cackling below, and my thoughts on what had just happened. I could focus on neither. Nothing seemed clear and nothing made sense.
Revisiting that moment, 2 years later, I realize how very much I have changed. I am not the naive woman that moved here. I am not the woman that thought this would be an adventure. I am not the woman dumb enough to believe that strangers would be kind to me if I was kind to them. I am not that woman. I walk differently. Once I pass my thresh hold and enter the 5th floor hallway I stand up tall, combatant, ready. My mantra is "I will kill you with my bare hands, I may be small but I will fight you to my dying breath". Before I exit my apartment I ask the Universe to guide me, I ask Mother Earth to walk with me and I ask God to keep me in the palm of His Hands. As I enter the elevator, I hold my breath fighting the stench of human pee, I stand still in the middle of the elevator avoiding the walls that sometimes drip with spit. As I exit the building I take one last breath as myself and I become the woman necessary to walk these streets and survive.
I hear all of you. I see your heads shake as I walk by. I am taking my 14 month old to the playground. I hear the slurs, "nigger lover", "half-breed", and "white bitch". I want so badly to respond, but know that I am much safer keeping my mouth shut. This is after all your world, not mine. I walk by the drunks passed out and passing out on the park benches at the playground we do not visit; the playground right outside of our door, the playground we should be able to go to on a warm night after dinner, but we cannot; it is too dangerous, especially for me. I try not to notice the garbage that lines my path to the safer playground 10 blocks away. The broken beer bottles, the plastic bags, newspapers, food containers, and dirty diapers. "I can do this its okay, I can do this, it's okay". Keep walking. Keep breathing. And I am singing. Broadway tunes and silly made up songs to my boy, my beautiful innocent baby. He giggles. I walk. I breath. I sing. I hear your sighs and I hear your disdain, I hear the "tsks" and the hissing. From your toothless mouths I hear a language, that I once loved, tortured, tangled, and maimed; the only word I can make out is "la....la...la". In your broken French, in your Creole, I hear you call another black woman "a fuckin' lazy American". I am afraid of your beliefs your curses and voodoo, I see your oils and statues and books in the stores that line our streets. I see your churches and hear your singing that sounds less like music and more like dying animals and my stomach turns. And I walk. "This is my now. I can do this." I think of more songs and I sing. Louder.
As I walk more questions. Does your religion accept intolerance? Have I personally offended you? Why do you refuse to speak the language of the country where you live? Why are you so filled with venom? How did this happen? Doesn't your God teach forgiveness and acceptance?
It is necessary to go deeper into the 'hood in order to escape from it. We pass away from the witchlike Haitaiin vendor women, sitting wide legged - hiked skirts exposing dirty life. Now we walk by men. It seems that during the days you segregate yourselves. We pass man after man. Young and old. Drunk and high. Out of school and unemployed. Loud and obnoxious. Smoking cigarettes and smoking reefer. Drinking from 40's and spitting on the sidewalk. Peeing in alleys and on parked car tires. Swearing and swerving. We walk and we sing. We avoid eye contact. We are walking out of this world.
More questions. Why aren't you working? Do you all work night shifts? How do you pay for the cigarettes and alcohol and reefer; these luxuries that do not come cheaply. Where do you tell your wives, mothers, girlfriends, grandparents you spend your day? At whom are you angry? Don't you know that life is good and that this is it, we all get only one turn? Don't you know it's better out there? Don't you want better if not for yourselves for your children and their children?
If I walked by the teenage girls today, that 2 years ago asked me "what the fuck are you doin here" I would have a response, not THE ANSWER, but a response: "I'm living here, just like you, exactly like you. I happened to meet and fall in love with a man who lives here, so now, I live here too. I am not rich. I am not well off. I struggle. We struggle week to week and paycheck to paycheck. There are weeks when we carefully consider what we will eat and what we can afford. We have received eviction and shutoff notices. Through our situation our children have experienced disappointments. We struggle, but we love. We work together. Most importantly we understand that this is merely a small part of our journey. Our jOURney: yours and mine; The journey that we are all on together. So, what the fuck am I doing here? I am trying to love and understand you. I am trying to understand the madness and through it all I am trying to find myself".
Finally we are on the edge of the danger. We are at the playground 10 blocks and one world away. We run and swing and play and slide. But only for awhile. For soon schools will let out and the other playground will become overcrowded. The confrontational angry teens and the men sober enough to walk will wander down here. So to be smart and safe we will leave. We walk back slowly because the truth of the matter is at some point, we all have to go home.
When I first moved into this neighborhood, this ghetto, this project I was 6 1/2 months pregnant. I was pregnant and at 42 I was very very naive. I thought, I actually believed that the people here would be nice to me. I believed that I would be accepted. On my very first outing alone, off to the market around the corner I passed a group of teenage girls. As I walked by they asked me "what the fuck are you doin here"? I was shocked at the behaviour and the language. I was shocked by the confrontation. I lost my emotional footing. I went home and I sat in the scratched and worn leather chair. I stared at the window that is impossible to see out of due to the filth that has accumulated between the double pains. Dirt I have tried to scrub away but cannot. I tried squinting through the blurriness. I tried to focus: my vision on the group of girls cackling below, and my thoughts on what had just happened. I could focus on neither. Nothing seemed clear and nothing made sense.
Revisiting that moment, 2 years later, I realize how very much I have changed. I am not the naive woman that moved here. I am not the woman that thought this would be an adventure. I am not the woman dumb enough to believe that strangers would be kind to me if I was kind to them. I am not that woman. I walk differently. Once I pass my thresh hold and enter the 5th floor hallway I stand up tall, combatant, ready. My mantra is "I will kill you with my bare hands, I may be small but I will fight you to my dying breath". Before I exit my apartment I ask the Universe to guide me, I ask Mother Earth to walk with me and I ask God to keep me in the palm of His Hands. As I enter the elevator, I hold my breath fighting the stench of human pee, I stand still in the middle of the elevator avoiding the walls that sometimes drip with spit. As I exit the building I take one last breath as myself and I become the woman necessary to walk these streets and survive.
I hear all of you. I see your heads shake as I walk by. I am taking my 14 month old to the playground. I hear the slurs, "nigger lover", "half-breed", and "white bitch". I want so badly to respond, but know that I am much safer keeping my mouth shut. This is after all your world, not mine. I walk by the drunks passed out and passing out on the park benches at the playground we do not visit; the playground right outside of our door, the playground we should be able to go to on a warm night after dinner, but we cannot; it is too dangerous, especially for me. I try not to notice the garbage that lines my path to the safer playground 10 blocks away. The broken beer bottles, the plastic bags, newspapers, food containers, and dirty diapers. "I can do this its okay, I can do this, it's okay". Keep walking. Keep breathing. And I am singing. Broadway tunes and silly made up songs to my boy, my beautiful innocent baby. He giggles. I walk. I breath. I sing. I hear your sighs and I hear your disdain, I hear the "tsks" and the hissing. From your toothless mouths I hear a language, that I once loved, tortured, tangled, and maimed; the only word I can make out is "la....la...la". In your broken French, in your Creole, I hear you call another black woman "a fuckin' lazy American". I am afraid of your beliefs your curses and voodoo, I see your oils and statues and books in the stores that line our streets. I see your churches and hear your singing that sounds less like music and more like dying animals and my stomach turns. And I walk. "This is my now. I can do this." I think of more songs and I sing. Louder.
As I walk more questions. Does your religion accept intolerance? Have I personally offended you? Why do you refuse to speak the language of the country where you live? Why are you so filled with venom? How did this happen? Doesn't your God teach forgiveness and acceptance?
It is necessary to go deeper into the 'hood in order to escape from it. We pass away from the witchlike Haitaiin vendor women, sitting wide legged - hiked skirts exposing dirty life. Now we walk by men. It seems that during the days you segregate yourselves. We pass man after man. Young and old. Drunk and high. Out of school and unemployed. Loud and obnoxious. Smoking cigarettes and smoking reefer. Drinking from 40's and spitting on the sidewalk. Peeing in alleys and on parked car tires. Swearing and swerving. We walk and we sing. We avoid eye contact. We are walking out of this world.
More questions. Why aren't you working? Do you all work night shifts? How do you pay for the cigarettes and alcohol and reefer; these luxuries that do not come cheaply. Where do you tell your wives, mothers, girlfriends, grandparents you spend your day? At whom are you angry? Don't you know that life is good and that this is it, we all get only one turn? Don't you know it's better out there? Don't you want better if not for yourselves for your children and their children?
If I walked by the teenage girls today, that 2 years ago asked me "what the fuck are you doin here" I would have a response, not THE ANSWER, but a response: "I'm living here, just like you, exactly like you. I happened to meet and fall in love with a man who lives here, so now, I live here too. I am not rich. I am not well off. I struggle. We struggle week to week and paycheck to paycheck. There are weeks when we carefully consider what we will eat and what we can afford. We have received eviction and shutoff notices. Through our situation our children have experienced disappointments. We struggle, but we love. We work together. Most importantly we understand that this is merely a small part of our journey. Our jOURney: yours and mine; The journey that we are all on together. So, what the fuck am I doing here? I am trying to love and understand you. I am trying to understand the madness and through it all I am trying to find myself".
Finally we are on the edge of the danger. We are at the playground 10 blocks and one world away. We run and swing and play and slide. But only for awhile. For soon schools will let out and the other playground will become overcrowded. The confrontational angry teens and the men sober enough to walk will wander down here. So to be smart and safe we will leave. We walk back slowly because the truth of the matter is at some point, we all have to go home.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
bug watching
this morning, in the extreme heat, i sat in my 5th floor studio apartment located in the projects and watched a bug crawl in circles. i watched the bug (a very large flying ant, i believe) frantically circle one floor board's width, falling occasionally in a crack and climbing out. it circled, fell, panicked, crawled. circle, fall, panic, move. circle, fall, panic, move. and i realized i am the bug. these movements represent my life at this moment. i am stuck, not between cracks on a floorboard; i am stuck in a crap neighborhood with crack addicts. and dealers. i circle the streets looking for a way out. i fall back to my home. i panic, breath i think, accept this as the present. breath. i move about again, looking for a way out.
i silently promised the bug that as soon as my nursing baby fell asleep, i would not kill it, but gently place it outside, which in essence would be the same thing as killing it. there are pigeons outside of the window and this bug would be a snack. i didn't promise it life, i promised my hands would not kill it.
i do not make a habit of bug watching. due to my living circumstances i am more aware of the creatures living with me. this morning i removed 2 pill bugs from the bathtub and placed them on the tiny outer windowsill. i admit that i smothered a daunting centipede, which i first mistook for a clump of my fine blonde hair. the 'pede was much too close to the baby. i removed one mouse turd from the crib vowing not to complain to my baby's father when he comes home from work.
he will be tired and hot. the last thing anyone deserves after hours of laboring is to come home to pestering and complaining. i keep it in. sometimes i can feel it, the complaining, forming a bile filled life in the pit of my stomach. but i keep it in. on really bad days i kneel on the bath mat with my face in a towel and sob. but this does not change the present. it is merely a temporary release of the fear inside. the fear that i may live here forever. the fear that i will become the people around me. the fear that i will accept this place. the fear that just stating these things will make it so.
i am reading. tolle. quinn. kurtz. ram dass. i am trying to grasp these beautiful concepts. i see them almost like shadows. i see the possibility of enlightenment. is see the possibility of light in me. its' right here in front of me - on a shelf i can clearly see, of which i can read the contents on the labels on all the jars, but i cannot reach anything there. no step ladder nor stool nor counter exists to climb upon. the shelves are such that they cannot be climbed or shimmied. there is no compromise. there is no shortcut. i will grow to reach the contents on the shelf. the shelf will not bend to meet me.
so i read. and i sob. i nurse my baby. i blow gently into the black curls on his sweaty brown head. i feel the sweat from his body running down my arm. i close my eyes and chant "i can accept this, it is the now, i can accept this, it is my now". i watch my beautiful boy sleep. i envy his peace. i watch the bug crawl in circles on the floor board and i promise it no death at my hands. i put the baby on the bed and pick mouse shit out of the crib. and i wonder how many others are doing exactly this. here. now.
i silently promised the bug that as soon as my nursing baby fell asleep, i would not kill it, but gently place it outside, which in essence would be the same thing as killing it. there are pigeons outside of the window and this bug would be a snack. i didn't promise it life, i promised my hands would not kill it.
i do not make a habit of bug watching. due to my living circumstances i am more aware of the creatures living with me. this morning i removed 2 pill bugs from the bathtub and placed them on the tiny outer windowsill. i admit that i smothered a daunting centipede, which i first mistook for a clump of my fine blonde hair. the 'pede was much too close to the baby. i removed one mouse turd from the crib vowing not to complain to my baby's father when he comes home from work.
he will be tired and hot. the last thing anyone deserves after hours of laboring is to come home to pestering and complaining. i keep it in. sometimes i can feel it, the complaining, forming a bile filled life in the pit of my stomach. but i keep it in. on really bad days i kneel on the bath mat with my face in a towel and sob. but this does not change the present. it is merely a temporary release of the fear inside. the fear that i may live here forever. the fear that i will become the people around me. the fear that i will accept this place. the fear that just stating these things will make it so.
i am reading. tolle. quinn. kurtz. ram dass. i am trying to grasp these beautiful concepts. i see them almost like shadows. i see the possibility of enlightenment. is see the possibility of light in me. its' right here in front of me - on a shelf i can clearly see, of which i can read the contents on the labels on all the jars, but i cannot reach anything there. no step ladder nor stool nor counter exists to climb upon. the shelves are such that they cannot be climbed or shimmied. there is no compromise. there is no shortcut. i will grow to reach the contents on the shelf. the shelf will not bend to meet me.
so i read. and i sob. i nurse my baby. i blow gently into the black curls on his sweaty brown head. i feel the sweat from his body running down my arm. i close my eyes and chant "i can accept this, it is the now, i can accept this, it is my now". i watch my beautiful boy sleep. i envy his peace. i watch the bug crawl in circles on the floor board and i promise it no death at my hands. i put the baby on the bed and pick mouse shit out of the crib. and i wonder how many others are doing exactly this. here. now.
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