He loves him.
Never apart. Never without
the tickle of whiskers, the feel of fingers, the
coffee breath pontificating
the warmth of forever embers glowing.
He loves him.
She loves her.
Once eyes locked.
Heat rose.
Something inside her went click.
That was it.
The moon never leaves the earth.
She loves her.
He loves him. She loves her. He loves him. She loves her.
She loves her. He loves him.
Please. Open. Your. Eyes.
Sincerely,
We, The People
Last week I had open heart surgery at the Facing Race Conference in Baltimore http://colorlines.com/facing-race-2012/. I was in serious danger of having a White supremacy -related cardiac arrest. The daily stress of race related slights, ignorant remarks, and racial stereotypes in the news, on TV, and in my daughter’s classroom were taking their toll. The unhealthy diet of judging my beauty against the norm, of basing “good, “right”, and “true” on “White”, of wishing for a new nose, different hair, eyes, lips clogged arteries. The pressure to be a strong bridge across the racial divide was pushing the damaged muscle to its breaking point. The everyday news of injustice, inequity, and the needless suffering of people of color, people of gender, people of difference, people, was sapping my will to resist the oncoming collapse.
And then I stepped in to Facing Race. Rinku Sen, editor of Colorlines magazine and executive director of Applied Research Center (ARC), hosts of the conference, stepped on stage. I was breathing heavy. I was walking slowly with the weight, pain radiating.
Rinku Sen was the first responder.
“Transformative is what I am after. I don’t want to reverse the racial hierarchy. I want to take it apart. I want to change the course of human evolution.”
A jolt went through me.
“We are so well equipped to do this. We are such good strategists. We know how to run campaigns. We do this work with so much heart, and so much humor. We have so much resilience. We can survive anything. We can do this. We can take the country and the world closer to a new humanity.”
The weight began to ease inside me.
“If we do our part, then our kids will do their part. And their kids will do the next part and the next kids after that will do more. I am counting on you to do this with me…Our ancestors demand it. The dead demand it. The living demand it. And we can answer them, if we stand together. We can set the path for true human liberation. We must start today. I know that together, we will get there. “
I was revived, still damaged, still in pain, but ready to live, ready to fight, ready to be healed. There is so much more to tell. The power of the speakers, dancers, comedians, artists, children, elders, changed me. All the faces together facing the madness that is White supremacist, patriarchal, heterosexist, ableist, classist hierarchical lifted me up. That weekend, my chest was opened up. Years of toxins were released. New connections were built. I was transformed. I was ready to walk the liberation path again.
At home in Delaware it passed with little fanfare. Perhaps we would light some dhiyas and put them out on the front steps. But my mom would soon blow them out, murmuring about the fall leaves catching fire. I remember holding illegal sparklers in my hand, arm stretched out as far from my body as I could. I was nervous that police would come and see my holiday transgression. In the pitch dark of a suburban, North American, East Coast, November evening I thought about the monkey-god Hanuman leaping across the sea to Lanka.
The first time I visited India in the fall, I was 18, just graduated from high school, taking a year to discover my roots before going to college. My two best friends from school came with me. That night, we perched high up on a rooftop in Gujarat, languishing in the evening cool after a day of sweat and mosquitos. The night pulsed with drums beating from the street. Shots of light zoomed from roof to roof, the playful warfare of longtime neighbors. New bangles sang on our wrists, gifted to us by a real life queen of old India. On the streets, families piled onto scooters in their fancy dresses, off to trade sweets with friends. No one spoke of the great deeds of the warrior prince. No one spoke of his return from exile. No one spoke, but the scent of victory, of triumph, of duty fulfilled was thick in the air that festival night.
This year I forgot about it. Life has been too full with living. We recently moved back in with my parents, that same old house in the suburbs, those same dark November skies. My kids, still small, are in tune with the other holidays we celebrate; Thanksgiving, Christmas, Passover. Their world helps them to remember these days, to anticipate, to expect. This night I forgot, and so they did not know. But at the last minute, my mom said, “Let’s put out the dhiyas. Let’s do sparklers with the kids. Let me sweep away the leaves.”
Together we stood on the front steps, the chill in the air keeping us close to the house. The kids were dressed for bed, flannel nightgown and footie pajamas. My mom held the sparkler tip to the dhiya’s flame. The old sparkler, unlit for years, burned slow before bursting. The kids gasped. I opened my mouth and sang, “Ram nam raas peeje, manava!” A song my grandmother taught me that year, 18 years ago poured out from my heart. My daughter told her teacher in school, “We said Happy Diwali last night!” Perhaps I smell the scent of victory in the autumn night, perhaps the monkey-god still leaps across the sea. Last night, we were three generations bringing light to the darkness, three generations erasing ignorance with knowledge, three generations singing songs, Diwali, last night, Diwali.
I ride the Regional Rail to work and back again, from outside to in, Center City to Marcus Hook, where the oil refinery shoots plumes of orange flame and the ladies at the diner call me hon. I watch the signs – Eddystone, Crum Lyn, “The Gas Light”. A worn billboard, paint curled, letters faded, stands tall midway. I can just make out the hopeful plug:
“Visit our suburban city, and see what’s new in Glenolden!”
The first time I saw it, I laughed. But the joke is too old, and too sad to be funny. The lost luster of the suburban dream reminds me that I am not as young as I used to be.
I ride the Regional Rail from my hometown, seeing it with my 36 years old, consciousness-raised, social-science eyes. The Chester Transportation Center speaks its truth to me. Promises broken, people unmade, climbing too many stairs just to wait for a train to somewhere else. University City still ten stops away.
I ride the Regional Rail to work, from outside to in, Marcus Hook to Center City, where the fountain at LOVE park shoots plumes of purple water and the lady at the chinese food truck knows I need more hot sauce. The sky scrapers rise up, the murals sing praise songs, and I am young once again. My pulse quickens with the beating heart of the city until it’s time to ride the Rail again.
I drew two pictures, just like the book suggested. I was home alone, beads of sweat pooling in the crease between my thighs and the swell of my baby-filled belly. The crayola box was covered in a thin layer of dust. I selected brown and red and peach and yellow, blue and gold and pink. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.
Fear: I drew a dark, windowless room. I drew myself lying on a bed. My big, brown bulging form was strapped down by black wires and cords. I drew two women near me and colored their faces peach and gave them long blond hair. I drew word bubbles rising from their mouths. “#*?! ” they shouted. On my right calf muscle I drew a large red X.
Hope: I drew myself sitting up in bed and my husband Jon next to me. I drew a brown-skinned woman smiling nearby. I drew a river flowing out from between my legs and a small brown baby floating atop. In the air above the baby, I drew a star.
A few weeks later: I sat up on a delivery room bed at Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago and pushed. The room was bright. I closed my eyes and went inside myself. I sensed the people in the room: my husband, my blond nurse, and my friend Sandhya. My right leg spasmed and I shouted incoherent commands to this team of supporters. “You!” I pointed frantically towards no one with my eyes closed. “Rub my leg! Up! No, down! Left. More left. No. Outside!!” I felt hands on my leg, easing the cramp into a dull ache.
The nurse’s voice warned me of the next coming wave. “Focus on your bottom!” Words you only hear in a delivery room or at the gym. I breathed in deeply, standing somewhere inside myself in the dark, wondering who this child would be. “Do you want to feel the head?” I reached down between my legs and felt a patch of hard skull covered by soft hair no bigger than a quarter. I wondered why my baby’s head was so very tiny. I imagined I was pushing out a small doll. It seemed very doable.
The doctor appeared between my legs. “Hi Aarati, I am Dr. Starr. Your baby is almost here. Let’s get another good push.” I pushed my soul against hers, willing her into the world. I felt a sudden gush, a rush, and thrust myself against myself. “Wow! That’s a lot of water! Here she comes!”
Asha. Hope. Kimberly. From the meadow of the royal forest. The hope from the meadow of the royal forest was born. All hail brown-skinned, all hail pink-skinned. Born on water and under a star. She is here, she is here, she is here!
I never thought I’d be one. I didn’t exactly plan it, or want it. It just made the most sense. Three months after earning my Ph.D. and becoming Dr. Aarati Kasturirangan, I left the world of the career-focused and became an S.A.H.M. – stay at home mom.
Now, I stand at the edge of my time as a S.A.H.M. I I have sang silly songs, kissed boo boos, run races, and wiped bottoms day in and day out for 4 years. I cannot say for sure whether or not being a S.A.H.M has been better for my kids than if I had been a full time Ph.D.
What I can say for sure is this: I am not the same person that I was before I became a S.A.H.M. For four years I subverted my own intellectual needs in order to be the primary care-giver, for better or worse, or just for different. I have woven my children into the fabric of my being. This new me, now steps into a new role. No longer S.A.H.M, but firmly grounded, career building M.O.M.
What will this look like? I hope it will go something like this. In the midst of an important meeting, when I am feeling frustrated, tired, and at my wits end, I will hear a small voice in my head,
“Knock, knock. Who’s there? Pee! Pee who? Pee ewe, you farted.”
May the wisdom of the S.A.H.M. stay with me always. There is no problem so big that can’t be solved by a good knock knock and or fart joke.
On your marks. Get set. Go!
I am a helicoptor hovering, at once in motion and still. I slowly push forward. The landscape beneath me is shifting slightly, but I am still here, waiting. I have plotted the course. The maps have been drawn. The gas tanks are fueled. I can see the destination in my minds eye. Change is afoot.
Like all the changes that have come before, I felt the signs first. My heart wandered away from the present into the future. My brain churned through the possibilities. My body grew heavy with the burdensome weight of the now. Something new was calling to me. “Begin the next chapter. This part of the story is coming to a close.”
The signs shifted from internal to external: tarot cards, dreams, spirit animals, unexpected books, songs I hear in passing, the unsolicited wisdom of an acquaintance. The collective unconscious made manifest is my guide. This is part of who I am, how I navigate.
My six months ago tarot cards were clear. The cards said, “You want to reengage with your career. Tough economic times will make for stiff competition. You will struggle. You will need to be patient.” The last card, the final outcome in the reading was TEMPERANCE; a picture of the Greek goddess Demeter pouring a rainbow from out of a cup. Demeter, goddess of seasons. Rainbows, the rare moment when rain and sun combine and show you the pathway to a new world unseen.
I have not seen a rainbow in years. I can remember most of the raibows I have seen. This summer there have been three. The first came in June, on a road trip to a the wedding of a close friend. Driving from D.C. to Connecticut, we begin the passage through Baltimore and the air is a misty soup. Suddenly we see it to the east. A double rainbow spanning to entire sky. Vibrant, unbroken, it stayed with us for over an hour. My children’t first rainbow, the first augury of the summer. Change is afoot.
The second and third rainbows came a month later in the land of rainbows: Hawaii. It was a family reunion in paradise, a memorial for a my husband’s grandmother, a once in a lifetime trip. Another double rainbow welcomed us as we drove off the lot of the rental car company onto the mountain highways. The next one hung lazily in the sky the evening that my husband and I were out celebrating our anniversary.
After months of waiting, wishing, struggling, and stoking the flames, the fires have been lit. Though I sit in my condo in D.C, still at home, caring for my two children, my mind wanders into the now near future. A job in Philadelphia. A new job for my husband. A period of transition living with my parents in Delaware. Then a new home in Philadelphia, a new life for my whole family. Signs pour in more quickly now. I will be working for a Quaker organization. The words of an old friend, raised in a Quaker family, spring to mind, now full of meaning. “The way opens.” The new chapter has begun.
I wake up early. My parents are snoring in their bedroom. I peep in. Daddy curled over on his side, shirtless. Deep belly breathing. Mommy sleeps with one eye open. Doctors on call always do. She lies flat on her back. Her hands are clasped together as if holding a phone. She is ready to spring up, but doesn’t. No calls came tonight.
Early morning light paints the hallway yellow-orange. I pee with the door open because I am alone but don’t want to be. I crawl back into my bed and close my eyes. I wish I could still be asleep, but I am not. My stuffed bunny and I talk about breakfast and what’s on tv. We get up and stand at the top of the stairs.
I am scared of those stairs. I am not sure what I am scared of. Downstairs is tv, and food. Upstairs the comfort of warm, breathing parents nearby. The stairs creak. The stairs are steep. The stairs are dark and the wood is smooth, almost slippery. Peril. Danger. The front door to the house sits at the foot of the stairs. Warm light pours in through the small square windows. But I cannot see the couch, the carpet, the living room from here.
What if it’s not there? What if this is a dream? What if they hear me and wake up? I want their company, but it’s 5am, they need their sleep, and I want this time. To watch The Great Space Coaster, to eat cinnamon and sugar toast, to sing my own silly songs.
I clutch my bunny to me and take a breath. I sit on the top step. Today I will slide down even though I am six and can walk down the stairs like a big girl. This way I can be safe. I can be quiet. I can watch the light change. I can peer through the slats of the rail into the silence of the living room. I can watch for the signs. It’s what I do every morning. I am the early bird. I am the worm catcher.
Something about her captivated me. Her waist was so narrow I thought it could fit between my thumb and pointer. Her eyes were wide and earnest and far away. She was enraptured, tortured, swimming in the deep waters of pain and love. Her soul married Krishna, a Hindu God, butter thief, lover of women, and consultant to Kings, when she was five years old. Her parents later married her body to a powerful lord, but she remained faithful to Krishna in her heart.
Her love for Krishna over family led to her being ostracized and attacked by her powerful in-laws. Krishna protected her from these assaults. He turned poison to ambrosia. He transformed a bed of nails into a bed of roses. Venomous snakes became garlands of flowers. She fled her in laws home and traveled the country, composing hundreds of song in praise of Lord Krishna. She became famous for her beautiful songs and the purity and strength of her devotion. She grew old but did not die. She spent her last moments on earth performing rapturously in front of a crowd of hundreds, collapsed at the feet of a statue of Lord Krishna and vanished.
Meerabai. Poet- saint. Chanteuse. Her Raags are still performed today.
I met her in a comic book when I was 8 or so. She was a beautiful illustration of a woman in love, a persecuted soul, a spiritual leader. I fantasized myself into those pages. My long eyelashes drooped sorrowfully and a playful half smile formed on my lips. I held my veena to my body, caressing the strings with a passion that I could detect but did not yet understand. I would name my daughter Meera in hopes that she would follow in the footsteps of this tragically mortal woman immortalized in pastels and word blocks. She was more beautiful than Cinderella, braver than Snow White, and more tortured than Belle. She was my fairy-tale princess. She was better than a fairy-tale princess. She was a real person.
In my 20s I worked as a rape crisis counselor and prevention educator. As a counselor, I was surrounded by women in love, persecuted, and tortured. Their lives were not romantic, beautiful tradegies. Life was painful, complicated, and real. As an educator, I spoke to hundreds of teenage boys and girls. I talked about the power of stories and the messages in fairy tales. I wanted them to know that love did not have to equal pain and abuse. During those years, I thought often of Meerabai. Her story glorified pain and suffering. I would not name a daughter after her. I did not even know if I wanted children anymore. Comic books and fairy tales were fantasies concocted for and by men. For a time, I let Meerabai go.
She has been calling to me lately again. There is an itch inside of me. A place in my mind that flashes her picture. A small voice in my head trying to remind me of this one thing – Meerabai was no fairytale. She was a real woman.
She was born in 1498AD. She wrote hundreds of songs that are still sung today. She refused to join her husband on the funeral pyre. She left her family to wander the country. She sang to crowds of hundreds. She challenged the priests of the day with her devotion and piety. She did not heed the words of men because Krishna was the only true man. These are the things we know about her. How much more is there that we do not know?
I want to know the herstory of Meerabai. I do not want to be her, or name my daughter for her. I do not want to fetishize her or idolize her. I do not want to know the comic book version of her. I want to know her pain, and her resilience, and her conviction and her insanity woman to woman. That is the story I can learn from. That is a story I can tell my children. Meerabai lived.
Identity: community psychologist.
Psychology: the hows and whys of people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions
Community: all the wheres that we live, work, and play in, and all the people you think of as your people.
Community psychologists want to know:
1. How do our communities make us feel, think, and act awesome?
2. How do our communities make us feel, think, and act like crap?
3. What can we change in our communities so that we feel, think, and act awesome more often than we feel, think, and act like crap?
Why I became a community psychologist:
1. daughter of a psychiatrist: curious about why people think, feel, and act crazy.
2. daughter of a city public works official: aware that changes in the community lead to changes in people for better or worse.
3. add personal life experience and inclinations and mix.
What I have learned from being a community psychologist:
1. It’s hard to be sane in an insane world.
2. Considering how insane the world is, human beings are pretty sane.
3. People can survive a great deal of hardship if they have the right kind of community support.
4. The right kind of community support is often in short supply.
5. Communities can change, have changed, will change, and should change. Our evolution as human beings depends on it.
6. We can never eliminate all human suffering. But if we could eliminate the 75% of human suffering that comes from people being thoughtless, oppressive, jackasses, it would make the other 25% so much more bearable.
7. I am working on getting rid of that 75%. How about you?
american incarnations 