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.