Just put your fingers on the keyboard and type it already!
I am usually much more gentle and compassionate in my tone when I engage in the Self manipulation of writing.
I have not yet figured out how to keep my ego from feasting on the harvest of my healing journey. I manipulate myself into writing. It is a brutal conflict with my own mind and the very ideas that spring forth from it. I came here to document my thoughts and prayers; things I am critically thinking about and fervently praying for. They are too many and too rapid in sequence of arrival and departure that they have kicked up a tornado of depression era dust bowl proportions that have me doing all manner of distractive tasks besides writing to call in fresh air. Truth is, it is probably going to get darker and more stifling before a breeze is felt. Maybe by the end of this release. I hope so. I keep wanting to stop writing. Deleting and typing and deleting sentences over and over. Judging the thoughts before they come out of my head and plink out onto the keyboard.
“I am an uncoachable writer” See! That thought just came to my mind and I let it bang itself out on the keys without editing for accuracy.
This may be progress.
When I write by hand, the words get log jammed. My hand can only move so fast and maintain the penmanship that was criticized into existence by my mother and Mrs. Kolker, my third grade teacher. Cursive penmanship was an actual part of elementary curriculum when I was a child. The kids today could never! Consecutive loops on ruled paper and long division tried my very soul! I wanted to satisfy the adult authorities in my life in hopes that I could gain their silence and approval. Either would do. They really laid the praise on heavy for perfection in elementary school. Silence was a slippery concept for all of us. Mrs. Kolker, standing behind the rolling chalkboard at the back of the classroom talking to another teacher during our supposed-to-be-silent work time. Mommy, lecturing me about the importance of slowing down to focus so as not to make careless mistakes or messes, simultaneously lamenting how long it took me to do anything. Then there was me, Little Miss Talks- Too-Much-In-Class-On-Every-Progress-Report-Ever.
I spent much of 1989 fighting for my life in a quiet rivalry with a girl named Amanda who had hair like Marsha Brady, and perfect penmanship that she wrote with perfect pencils kept in perfect cases. Mrs. Kolker edified Amanda as the standard of student excellence. Mrs. Kolker said that eyeglasses were a sign of intelligence. “Only smart people wear glasses,” she would peer over her frames at the class and wink at both of my four-eyed nemeses. First, Michael Gurley, who picked his nose and ate it. He had the nerve to be a bully! No joke, this kid was a full blown racist at like eight years old. Couldn’t wait to get to school to eat boogers and call me a nigger. Also, awful penmanship on this kid and so far from smart. But, he wore glasses. This fact made him a smug recipient of Mrs. Kolker’s praise. I would go rounds with Mike, get loud with him, and by the time Field Day came around, I punched him in the face. He ran, I chased him and flung him around by his shirt pretty good. He settled down after that.
I subverted erasure to document my intelligence by taking my big brother’s tortoise rimmed school boy frames, (think Boyz II Men’s Nathan Morris or Dewayne Wayne vibes) to school on picture day and slid them on just before I sat for my photo. I would have evidence of how smart I knew myself to be, dammit! Screw Mrs. Kolker, that cakewalk vision chart in the nurse’s office, and Amanda’s perfect pencil case that never seemed to get dirty. (While my vision has not yet turned 42, I still LOVE to turn up a lewk with a fierce frame! Bonus points when they’ve got a little Blue-light blocking purpose behind them).
Mrs. Kolker was known for colloquial outbursts such as, “ain’t ain’t a word, cause it ain’t in the dictionary” and other contradictory behaviors that tap danced on my tiny nerves. My two ponytail + bang + barrette, perfect vision having self was thrust into seething competition with the Amandas and Michaels of the world for much of my life and I doubt they ever knew themselves as archetypal villains in my black girl journey through academia and the workplace. Hell, I’m just realizing the residual weight of it as I gently chide myself to keep typing. I can’t believe I’m telling you this.
Progress?
There’s a vague memory of me poking Amanda with a freshly sharpened pencil but the details are fuzzy. Did I poke her with a pencil on purpose? Absolutely. Did fear and home training beat out rage to prevent me from a full on stabbing? Quite certain of it. Or, did I just daydream about drawing blood from the back of her arm? Several times per week. I remember staring so closely at the section of milquetoast flesh between her short sleeved t-shirt and chair back to realize that Amanda was, in fact, ashy. Do you know how hard you have to stare at a white person to notice dry skin cells? I had created my own hypothesis that there was something in the near translucence of white flesh and blonde hair that rendered me invisible, unsmart, too much of myself. I deduced that while blood was our equalizer, it is best kept inside our flesh. It would be unsafe and inhumane to continue experimenting with curiosity and rage. Thus was the beginning of my suppression and internalization. I don’t remember Amanda’s last name, or what came of her after 5th grade. I know that my disdain for her was wrapped in envy and a gnawing insecurity for a very long time. The binary between my bang and her bangs was too wide a chasm between worlds for me to attempt to draw any bridges. I felt crushed by the pressure of Mrs. Kolker’s comparison, my mother’s admonitions to worry only about the quality of my own work, and the very high bar that I set for myself. Hard fact—I wanted Amanda to like me so that I could reject her.
It’s wild that sitting down to write a thing comes with all this unpacking about Mrs. Kolker and girl named Amanda. All this knowledge and heart and creativity and love and spirit and magic and blessing and essence and Self…and I gotta move Amanda’s ashy arm and Mrs. Kolker’s mean ass to the side before I can tell this next part.
I suppose this, too, is progress.
I keep picking at this pimple in between my eyebrows. Stress, oils and dirt transfer from my hands and keyboard. A stress response I am slowly rewiring/rewriting like live explosives. I have buried countless drafts in my google drive. Landmines triggered by the publish button.
I haven’t worn makeup since September 27th. My signature custom acrylic nails have been a memory since October 5th. While I have a full fledged skin care routine that is fitting for a woman of my age, I used the makeup and nails to keep my fingers out of my face. It’s a coping trick I began using to deter my anxious picking. I haven’t had the blockers of dull acrylic tips and ‘spensive NARS foundation as vain personal protection for my skin lately. I am learning myself anew.
On October 6th, I returned home from a week of spiritual initiations and cleansing that prohibits my use of makeup, perfumes, extensions, alcohol or drugs of any kind for a period of one year. I dress in white clothes exclusively and cover my head at all times. I have new and deepened practices of prayer, study, eating, speaking and being. I won’t be taking selfies or posing for photos, and will have limited to no interaction with large crowds outside of work requirements. These proscriptions are not enforced or ordered by an institution. They are religious obligations that I have been chosen to ascribe to in honor of my elders, ancestors, angel guardians, and Orisha. The commitment is lifelong, and this year allows the blessings, prayers, and energy, ase to settle. Lucumí, also known as Santeria, follows the Yoruba religious tradition Ifa, as it has been practiced in Cuba for centuries. If you would like to learn more about it, www.aboutsanteria.com offers general overviews that will answer any questions you may have. I won’t avail myself to share more than what is above.
What I will share is that this path has opened something that has been shut up inside me for a lifetime. There is a shedding and subsequent emergence, focus, clarity, and willingness that has been bound up in stories that denied my humanity, and ideologies that would not hesitate to split my flesh with lead to spill my blood. Metaphorically or otherwise.
This too is progress.
I’ve been thinking lately about my journey as a life coach and how I can best be of service to Black Women who are resisting erasure every day and attempting to thrive inside a system that we are also actively dismantling. The maddening of Black Women is never given as much visibility as attention is given to the perception of our anger. I’m still thinking and praying about much these days. Many of these thoughts are still processing. I’ll be back to share more of this raw expression and truth telling. I won’t promise to scale, or design, or market, or monetize because that talk keeps Little Miss Talks Too Much in a defensive stance, backpack against the wall, wielding a freshly sharpened No. 3 pencil.
It takes as long as it takes.
💖💖💖💖💖
Absolute perfection. I'll be rereading this for study.