road trips…
surrounded by my friends this weekend, i had a roadtrip. shana came down from cali, sarah from upstate, and together with liz, we all crowded into the car and headed for atlantic city. a place i didn’t realize i knew nothing about.
it was a spur of the moment thing. three hours in the car in the early evening hours of sunday and we were headed to bright lights…the east coast’s attempt at vegas.
i’m not much of a gambler. something about putting money into a box and not getting anything out bothers me. i’m cheap i guess. even so i brought a twenty down with me and broke it down for change…planning to play around a little. i was among friends and that was the point. not to mention casinos are a sociological experiment. people, all sorts of people, huddled in a vast smokey windowless room staring at blinking screens and colored cards.
shana and liz jumped right in, trying out the roulette wheel and later black jack and craps. shana was the student – asking questions of the dealer so that she could understand what was happening. that’s how we met reggie, and charles.
once our fun was exhausted there we moved to the club onsite. that’s where we discovered we were on the precipice of oldness. mingled in with people who probably weren’t much older than us but felt so much oder. the music was from the era of my parents, the dance moves had no booty shaking. even so, shana and i danced – all of us laughed at the sequined men onstage and the ridiculousness of us out there dancing.
shortly after a barry manilow cover we went upstairs. sleep evading me and shana, a few hours later she convinced me to go back down to the casino with her. two last bets on the blackjack table. she lost. followed up by my only two bets. a win followed by a loss and my ability to leave with the same ten dollars i came down with.
we followed that up with a drink at the bar with guiermo who told us his life story including the adventures of indira and pepe.
three hours later we were up and headed to baltimore to see our friend michelle and her girlfriend. after a meal we continued on to the american visionary arts museum. inspired and moved, we chatted for a while and then began the drive home. just like that…so muc rolled into one day. and it was beautifl.
May God break my heart so completely
that the whole world falls in. — Mother Teresa
new york is many things to me. i find myself a fickle child when nestled in her concrete bosom. at once i am mortified to discover that few people make eye contact, and the northeastern equivalent of “excuse me” is to walk through me as if i’m not standing there. at the same time, there are things that i thrive on. things that make me want to do and be more. things like art…things like poetry.
today we went to the nuyorican cafe. it was a slam and the place was packed…i’m sure beyond capacity. all nesteled together – one big diversity fest, poets took the mike in turns. they brought to a homemade stage of a crate palet – the voice of soldiers in far off wars, women in search of orgasm, hearts in need of love. they invited a crowded space into the interiors of cancer and dead fathers.
i found myself awestruck. something i haven’t been in a while. taken by the varying voices – the diverse cadence that made me listen and evaluate how much i care about mcdonald’s pulling out of jamaica and dating a 22 1/2 year old…dare i say…man.
sitting with the darkness on my upturned face, listening to the echo of the mike amplifying words beyond ink…i was elated and saddened. it has been so long since i’ve written anything. so long since i had concrete thoughts made abstract on paper – wordy dreams made concise in front of an audience.
i must admit i wrote a little at the metro station. waiting for a train that never came as the workers scattered over the tracks picking up trash, i found myself scratching ink to scavenged paper trying to remember what poeting felt like. like an imposter practicing a craft that is borrowed.
only it wasn’t always borrowed. and right now i’d like to be more than a mike and pen groupie.
my friend lizzie is responsible for yet another of my girl crushes. the first was staceyann chin from def poetry jam on broadway. the new one is sarah jones, writer and star of “bridge and tunnel” – also on broadway.
it isn’t that i’m a broadway groupie. actually, tonight’s “bridge and tunnel” was her opening night on broadway. in the past it had successful runs off broadway. it sold out for 7 months i believe. but that is neither here nor there.
both are amazing poets – wordsmiths – artists.
but tonight is sarah jones’. “bridge and tunnel” was amazing. it was funny. it was sad. it was compelling. it was timely. it was smart.
and less important to the population at large…it made me want to write. not blog…but sit down and toil with vision over something greater.
i don’t know what yet…but i want it.
my favorite from tonight:
- you are the human equivalent of secondhand smoke, seemingly harmless and yet killing me.
ultimately, i see in these women things i want to see in myself. passion and a keen eye to the world. compassion and ability to make other people compasionate.
if you get the chance to see it…see “bridge and tunnel”…and if you don’t…seek out your most beautifully inspiring and intelligent friend and spend a few hours together.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10347182
it appears that the legacy of some words goes well beyond the borders of their origin. for my part, i have been privy to *igger in two countries and i am apparently preparing for a third (see above article).
however, what disturbs me more about this article is not the use of the word – but the ignorance behind the logic. it seems there is a group of folks in new zealand who are encouraging the maori to smoke, drink, gamble, eat badly and sex the days away…”because white people are trying to stop the maori from having fun”. it reminds me of the twisted thinking in south africa that leads some to say that “aids is America’s Idea to Destroy Sex”.
i’m not naive enough to think that everyone has my best interest at heart. at the same time, i am also aware that sometimes looking for conspiracy is counter productive. in matters of health…aids, cancer, diabetes…it is best not to rely on pills (as this article encourages) or wild ideas…but to err on the side of safety of the masses.
i have a friend that thinks that i look at the world, at people, without hope. that i see it through dirty glasses that mar and smudge the truth. i disagree. i tend to see the world capeable of infinite beauty that is sometimes marred by the evil residue of distress.
watching “once were warriors” got to me today. staring at a blinking screen and finding mysef engrossed in the lives of this family. watching it unfold and wanting to affect some other kind of change, some other reality than the one that unfolds.
it was thought provoking. it was dream inspiring. it was tear calling. it was a look at myself and the world around me. it was an invitation to look at lives outside my own.
sitting in orientation for my rotary scholarship this weekend i discovered something i didn’t expect.
a common nuerosis.
it isn’t really that severe…but sometimes i think of it that way. the feeling of paranoia tand discomfort hat befalls me whenever someone who “looks like me” does something that i see as embarassing or stereotypica.
the guy sitting next to was russian- born and raised. he was also ridiculously well traveled. coincidentally there was another russian there. and as training programs often do, we were broken into small groups and made to act out one thing or another.
for her part, the russian woman was the “russian fairy” and kept saying things to that affect. and true to the character she was playing, she urged the guy in her skit to stay loud and obnoxious like a good american.
at her first mention of being “the russian fairy” he groaned and rolled his eys. by the second he was muttering to himself, and possibly to me, that all russians didn’t act that way.
i nudged him and smiled.
“i never thought about other groups doing that,” i told him. i was excited but dismayed. here he was, suffering from the same irrational embarrassment that i do when i watch the news and pray that whatever new foulness or stupidty that is about to be aired is not the result of browness.
for his part, wise beyond my short sighted thinking, he said, “any time you are the minority you are subject to these feeilngs of paranoia and embarrassment.”
and he’s right. when i travel abroad and i see an american acting out as athe trademark “ugly american” i am ashamed. if people from my university do something idiotic i am shamed. when folks from the south seem to fit the stereotype of the south, i cringe.
but it is stupid. i didn’t think that that woman’s behavior was a)particularly shameful or b)in any way indicitive of russians at large any more than the rude germans i traveled with in southern africa make up my feelings for germans.
that said, i know for some people it does. for some people, a bad experience with a rental car will represent the shotty workmanship of a ford and a texan with a twang will be the entire lone star state. that said, that known, i don’t think i should hold myself responsible for the behavior of every person in the world i might have some connection to…six degrees of me is a heck of a lot of guilt to play with.
as for russians, i think of them like i think of most nationalities…it takes all kind but i’m glad i met the ones i did. hopefully they think the same of me
“I was born by the river in a little tent
And just like that river I’ve been running ever since
It’s been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will
It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die
Cos I don’t know what’s out there beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will “
it always comes…change.
in small bursts that surprise me. in a long stretches day after day. peeking out a head and making itself known…this is different today. and this. where you live, what you eat, who you know.
the only constant is change.
and so it is.
my friend asked me the other day if tolerance means taking christ out of…you fill in the blank. i would imagine he means christmas, schools, america in general. i started to respond to him but the computer ate it so i thought i’d muse on it here.
i don’t think that tolerance means taking anything out of your life. but that is just it. it is your ife. i don’t take the feminism out of mine…if you call God a he when i refer to Her as a She…that is my choice and i do what works for me.
part of it is the idea that if people don’t agree with you they must be agaisnt you. if i’m repbulican and you aren’t then you disagree with everything about me. but that isn’t true. the world is more nuanced than that.
mostly i think people let themselves get caught up in things they realy don’t care about. i’m not sure i believe most christians care if target has happy holidays on a sign welcoming them in. most time the spirit with wich something is given is far more important than the gift itself.
i think bill orielly or whatever is name is was looking for some publicity…something to get riled up about and managed to pick one of the lames things ever. i can’t say i’ve ever been offended by someone wishing me well…god bless you from jew, gentile or muslim is still a mighty nice thing for someone to wish me as far as i’m concerned.
even so, the big problem rests in the word tolerance. i tolerate my 3 month old niece shrieking in the back seat of the car until my sister can get a boob in her mouth. i don’t enjoy it, but she can’t help it and i know she can’t help it and eventually she’ll stop and i’ll get to coo at her and make her laugh. i think that tolerating other people is akin to that. grimmacing while they do their thing and waiting…or in some cases, praying, that they stop it immediately.
i understand that it is easy for me. i’m not especially wed to religion. i like God, i think she does amazing work and i try to be a part of that work. but my muslim friend’s belief that she should pray 5 times a day does not give me pause, neither does my christian family’s belief that jesus is the way to salvation, or my buddhist friend’s belief that this life is the result of my last life. i am intruiged by all of these views. i sometimes engage them in conversation. i mull them over and measure them against my own heart. and when i pray i keep them all in my prayers.
that’s how i think most people do it.
i’m not talking the zealots like pat robertson or terrorists, trying to incite good people to follow blind rage…i’m talking about most people. people who believe that God loves them, people who don’t believe in God at all. i think most people are fair. because it isn’t about religion. tolerance – or whatever you call it – is about allowing people to live (as long as it doesn’t harm) as they decide to live…as you decide to live. i don’t know anyone who wants someone deciding how they raise their kids, what they read, where they go. tolerance isn’t just for jesus.
all said, i wish people were less tolerant and more understanding, less tolerant and more engaged, less tolerant and more forgiving, less tolerant and more thoughtful, less tolerant and more interested, less tolerant and more open. i don’t think that means that jewish people should have to celabrate christmas, but i don’t think that means that christians have to stop either. i think that means i can call God Her and you can instruct your kid not to say “one nation under God”. i thimk that means that you can have your rush is right bumper sticker and i can laugh about it with my friends.
we can all tolerate those things…and if we work at it…we might just move beyond tolerance altogether.
it dawned on me today that when i say goodbye this round…before i head off to new york and cali – i am saying goodbye for a year. not just the …i’ll see you next holiday or when i pass through to my nieces. this is…goodbye until i cross a great big expanse of ocean. twice. once to get there and once more to get back.
goodbye.
and it isn’t the longest i’ve been gone. far from it. but like every goodbye it brings with it the reality that life moves on. i have a friend who is getting married next july. others with kids…probably more to come. some sure to move.
when i say goodbye – it is to things how i know them now. to how i remember them. not just goodbye until i see you again.
i’ve been thinking politically lately. maybe that isn’t the right word. socially conscience? aware? something…anything.
not that i was little miss oblivious before. anyone who knows me knows that i have my subjects. i have things that rile me up and get me talking a mile a minute and going on and on about the world and how i deem someone is messing it up for the rest of us. even so…pulled into the academic world of kris has proven to be a time of reflection on things less self-centered and sometimes things that don’t always linger in my mind.
for instance…the death penalty. i’m from texas and our extremist way of dealing with criminals upsets me greatly…we either set them free in a fraction of their sentence or we kill ’em. i’ve always erred on the side of more punishment is better. but all of a sudden i’m having these “discussions” about how few countries in the world actually kill people…how racially biased the stats are (no surprise for me there)…how against the supreme court fiction (i still have to do some reading on this one) it appears to be.
and i can’t say i’ve changed my mind. it is hard for me to get all worked up over this particular thing when there are so many other things to get worked up about…but i’m thinking about it in a way i never really did before. or at least in a way i haven’t in years.
in some ways these discussions are fascinating. they give me insight on myself and the people i meet. all of a sudden what you do for a living is less interesting – but your thoughts on religion, class versus race as the biggest issue in america, and abortion all well up in me and drag out my opinion and force me to re-examine where my opinion came from to begin with. to ask myself if i still agree.
at the same time i find myself feeling guilty. i find myself in discussions with kris about consciousness and social movements. his research reaches into these things. these have been and will be a way of life for him.
and for my part…i don’t want those things to be my whole life.
it may sound horrible, but it is true. sometimes i want to fight the good fight, be up on my reading, help someone in an intimate way or affect change on a larger scale…and then sometimes i want to curl up a book that has no chance of enlightening me on the struggle of the masses or music that mentions revolution in certain or uncertain terms.
sometimes i just want to laugh and be stupid. sometimes i just want to think about how pretty diamonds can sparkle on a finger and not about the armless people that make that sparkle possible.
and no one has told me to feel guilty. no one wagged a finger and called me bad. that is a burden i created and carry for myself. because i know where the diamonds come from…because i know if i don’t speak up there is no guarantee anyone will…because if you know you cannot unknow.
even so…filled and still filing myself with information about the world around me…sometimes i need a break from trying to counter misconceptions about black people or fighting for the right to decide what happens to and in my body.
some days i will watch the constant gardener and others, drop dead fred.
as walt whitman phrased it so eloquently…”do i contradict myself? very well, i contradict myself. i am large i contain multitudes”.
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