Felissa was the first of the three. She lived a million miles away in California. Melissa came later. We will have a playdate with her one day. Jafortu was the last, named after the label J42 on the back of a plate, no story.
“Felissa is visiting her grandmother!”
“Melissa was mean to me in school.”
“Jafortu likes mac n cheese just like me. ”
The sisters were always nearby but never quite here.For six months, stories of their likes, dislikes, comings and goings, speckled her 4 year old chatter.
Then last week:
“My sister’s are dead.”
“Oh no!. I am so sorry. That is sad.”
“It’s OK. Blankie, Puppy, and Other Asha are my sister’s now.”
A woven blanket. A small stuffed dog. A brown skinned, black haired puppet. Holdable, huggable, here.
On Monday morning, in the bright light of a cold January Martin Luther King Day, President Obama gave us an opening. Like many presidents before, he honored the sacrifice and strength of our soldiers, but then, he turned the tables:
“…we are also heirs to those who won the peace, and not just the war. Who turn sworn enemies into the surest of friends. And we must carry those lessons into this time as well.”
He reminded the world that bravery can mean something besides a willingness to engage in violence:
“We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully. Not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.”
He affirmed that an investment in peace everywhere is the key to security at home:
“America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe. And we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad. For no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation.”
He linked our country’s security to peace and justice for the most marginalized:
“And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice. Not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes; tolerance and opportunity, human dignity“And we must be a source of hope to the poor and justice.”
In his first term, President Obama often relied on violence, assassinating Osama Bin Laden, authorizing drones, increasing detention and deportation of immigrants. But, in this moment, at the start of his second term, the most high profile figure in the world challenged the narrative that says violence is necessary to build security.
I reject that narrative. I embrace this one. My work has always been and will always be this.
Obama’s actions do not reflect his words, but I am happy he said them all the same. I believe he is struggling as I do, as we all do, to walk the path of nonviolence. In his speech, he also spoke of the evolution of humanity. Ending our addiction to violence is a part of this.
In our daily lives we each wrestle with moments of choice. How do I respond when my child is screaming in my face? With a spank, yelling back, walking away, manipulation? My boss has sent me an email that makes me upset, what do I say to respond? This driver just cut me off, do I give him the middle finger?
These are the weapons of everyday, every moment. Few of us must deal with the availability of a vast army at our disposal and the righteous anger of millions fueling our impulse to use it.
He gave us an opening. He gave himself an opening. I want to walk through that door.
I am at school. It is empty in my classroom. I walk through the long halls out to where the playground should be. Instead there is a forest. I see the kids and teachers hiding in the trees. I know what they are hiding from. I climb a tall oak tree with huge branches. I hear a sound like a huge dream beating. An enormous egg shaped purple dinosaur monster approaches me. It says,”‘I will eat you and everyone here. If you don’t want me to eat you, go get me some ice cream.” I run inside the building. I search and search and search. I find the ice cream in an old canvas magazine rack. I carry the cold tub of Breyers chocolate out to the backyard forest. The monster is gone. The kids are gone. The teachers are gone. I stand alone with the ice cream as it begins to melt. I am hungry, and it is my favorite flavor, but I will not eat it. My stomach churns. Did I save everyone? Did I save no one? Did I save myself?
Age 16:
The sun glares off of the sand dunes. I feel the power of the dark horse beneath me. My hair is whipped by the wind. My robes flap and flail behind me. My people ride behind me with urgency. We must return quickly for the ceremony. I arrive at the longhouse. There is trouble, famine, war approaches. I am the clan leader. The high priest tells me that it is time. We walk out to the side of the building. A long iron rod sits in a bed of hot coals. The starshaped brand will mark me forever. I I raise my bare right foot. He places the brand against my sole. I do not cry. This is the only thing I can do.
Age 23:
I stand on a sun-drenched hillside. The bright green grass blows lazily in the breeze. There are dozens of children around me giggling joyously, at play. A gray cloud moves across the sun and the breeze turns cold. Over the hill crest, I notice water rising. A bulbous form the size of a hot air balloon emerges. The tentacles reach toward me – so many I can’t count them. They grab small bodies, lifting them into the air, squeezing them. I fight one arm at a time. I can do it. I free one child, and the now empty arm seeks out and plucks another child. This will never end.
Age 36:
I sit in the driver’s seat of my old four door silver Honda civic. My husband, my two children, my parents, my grandparents and all my kin by blood and by spirit, sit in the car with me. I am excited to take this journey with them all. We are taking a vacation to Ocean City, M.D. I pull onto the bridge that crosses over the water. I can smell the salt air, feel the summer heat on my skin. The radio is playing “Miss Independent” . Then, right in front of me, a silent wall of water, 10 stories high, appears before me. Above me, the arching water touches the blue sky where seagulls soar. In the car, we are all silent. There are no words
All the prophecies said end days. Which means, this is the beginning. 2013 will be the first year of my life.
This is the beginning.
I have never been here before. Never known this me. Never seen her dance on this New Years Eve, heart sore from loss, yearning, grabbing, getting, all the stretching of self that happened in 2012.
I have never been here before. Never fought this battle, never pulled up my boots and said, “I will beat back the rising tides, I will find ways to end war, I will take on the impossible tasks: stable climate, peaceful humans, healthy world.”
This is the beginning.
I have never been this before. Shaper of humans. Child grower. Safe harbor. The one who holds tight while she lets go. Home Maker. Goddess.
This is the beginning.
For many people, apocalypse came in 2012 as predicted.
Hellfire. Plagues. Evil darkening the skies. Shattered world.
A moment of silence for all who suffered.
Now break the silence. Shake the mountains. Tear the skies
With your voice. With your spirit. With your ever rising souls.
Break through this apocalypse. The new world wants you.
To come.
Build.
The Beyond.
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.
american incarnations 