Finally

I called my grandmother tonight on the phone just to see how her brother was doing.  Of course I have other things I want to tell her and I also want to see how she is doing.  I call her a few times a week now.  I never used to do that.  As my grandfather became ill, about 6 months ago, I began to call her once a week.  As he worsened my calls increased.  Now that she is a widow, I try to call 3 times a week.  

The calls are short.  I don’t want to be a burden to her.  I know that so many people call her all day and, in being such a classic and lovely woman, she will put her best smile on even for a phone conversation.  Recently I did call her because I needed her.  I felt really hesitant to do that, especially because the call had to do with my own marriage troubles.  I didn’t want her to hear about my marriage (even in its state of disrepair) and then consequently long for her marriage.  But, I have to realize that she will do that anyway.  And then something incredible and surprising happened, but also not so incredible and amazing, I suppose.  I poured my junk out for her to see.  I knew she would understand and she did.  She empathized with me about how hard marriage is.  And then she was able to tell me how hard it is for her that my grampa is gone.  Then we both cried on the phone.  

Back in December we threw this huge party at our house for a family member.  It was too much for me.  I can plan these things, but the execution makes me itchy.  I played the perfect hostess and tried my best.  The next day I called my grandmother and I told her that I don’t know how she did that for years with my grandfather.  And for some strange reason it cracked her up.  She just laughed and laughed on the other side of the phone.  It was hearty, belly, tear-producing laughter.  It was contagious and we both just laughed.  I called to tell her about it because as I was in the midst of serving appetizers, I thought of my grandmother entertaining in the 1950’s.  Her and I are so much alike.  We are best suited in the work place and out of the home.  I am a much better cook than her, but we are wild women.  We need to be free range.  We will do things that we have to do, but it will kill us.  We will serve our nicest food to the biggest bull-shitters and roll our eyes fiercely as we stroll back to the kitchen for more.    

I told her about my experience out of exhaustion and we connected in this funny little way.  And then she just couldn’t stop laughing about how ridiculous it was.  I know exactly what she looked like on the other side of the phone.  Her breath got wheezy she laughed so hard.  

This evening, during our phone call, I shared with her another thought that I knew she could relate to.  Again she laughed and laughed.  My mother and aunt were with her and they didn’t know what was going on.  I laughed with her.  I laughed because she was laughing, and because life is ridiculous, and because I knew that her laughter was genuine.  I didn’t intend to make her laugh, I never do.  But I am so glad I did.  She told me that she will probably wake up in the night and remember and laugh some more.  I believe her.  I have seen and heard her do this.  It’s like she stores little bits of funny jokes in her pocket for a late night snack that she can enjoy on her way to the bathroom to sustain her for the long night of darkness and loneliness.  

In the moments after laughing where you sigh, and giggle remnants pop up, my heart felt full and glad and satisfied.  You see, it is not just that my mother and I have a strained relationship, it is that out relationship is non-traditional.  My mother is biologically my mother and she carried me in her womb and she has the cesarian scars to show for it.  But for all intensive purposes, she was not able to be the mother I needed when I needed it.  We do not have a traditional relationship.  I am her peer.  She is my peer.  She did not mother me.  In fact, I mothered her.  So our relationship exists because we have a similar family circle.   

I have always wanted a traditional mother, though.  Everyone does.  When we don’t have one we have a huge hole in our souls.  I am lacking in the parental unit department.  It has been a long and lonely road.  Yet my grandmother has been my constant.  She has been my sun.  I can safely orbit her and know where I am and where my home is.  I have realized that my grandmother is my mother.  When we share these moments and they make me feel whole, I have these tastes of pure happiness and completion I have been looking for.  It doesn’t make up for the times that I have felt like I have been hurled toward a black hole, or a concrete wall, but it helps.  Those moments where we are so strongly attached over the phone, draw me out from the event horizon of the black hole.

In my college anatomy and physiology course I remember the day we learned about gametes.  Males produce sperm constantly.  Their bodies are on a clock where they constantly make new, fresh, sperm.  This is why Larry King has tons of babies and he is an old, wrinkly, man.  Females produce a fixed number of eggs and these are always with us.  We are born with these eggs.  All of our ovum that we are ever gonna have are in our little baby bodies before we are born.  This means that the egg that made me were once in my mother's ovaries whilst she was in her mother’s womb.  My grandmother once carried me in her own womb.  That shit is profound.  When I heard that in class I thought, well at least the woman I love the most carried me in her womb.

I feel so glad for my snippets of joy that I get to have with my gramma.  I appreciate all of the memories and I cling to them.  I am so happy that I get to go through the relationship evolution and maturation with her that most children go through with their parents.   

Thank you, more please.

I hope and pray so desperately for all the motherless children out there to find someone that can bring them this feeling, too.  I hope for you, I really do.  I pray for you, I really do.  

Biracial Baggage- more on race...Surprise!

I was dealt this hand.  It is a strange hand, or at least that is what I think about it.  I am biracial.  My mother is white and my father is black.  To be an american with that parentage is no walk in the park.  I will not explain any of that in this post.  That is hard and exhausting.  But I will explain my experience, which is also hard and exhausting.

I do not look like my parents.  If I am in any store with my mother or any member or her family, it is not assumed that we are together.  If I am in a restaurant waiting with anyone in my father’s family, it is not assumed that I am one of their party.  I am brown.  I look Latino.  I look Hispanic.  I look Mexican.  I do not pass for Black.  I do not pass for white.  It was not a problem for me that I did not look like anyone in my family (except for my brother and my sister), until I was 5 when someone so kindly pointed it out to me (proof that race is a social construct; but a construct that is given so much weight).  

It was hard to feel anxious as a child.  I felt anxious because I didn't look like my father.  I was afraid someone would take me from him.  It was hard to have people admire my mother for adopting brown siblings.  I hated explaining myself and my existence.  I mean, who likes to do that anyway?  No one.  No one likes to explain who they are or how they are.  It is dehumanizing.  

I knew that I belonged to them and they knew that they belonged to me, but everyone else needed convincing.  That quickly tires a child.  Grown ups thought of me as a pleasant child.  I had good manners.  My hair was always creatively displayed.  I was energetic, witty, and talkative.  I could engage adults in a conversation.  And then suddenly they would look at me and say, “what are you?”  This continues to this day.  As an adult, I get it less, because I intimidate people (this is what friends tell me).  But I will occasionally find a brave person whose curiosity gets the best of them and they blurt out, “what are you?  what is your backround?  what ethnicity are you?  what is your heritage?”  They try to be diplomatic about it.  But once you open your mouth to ask a stranger these things, you can no longer be considered a kind person or a diplomat.  

You are being a nosey shithead.  

I know that people hear the way I speak and they see my skin and the 2 things do not sit right with them.  They want to know about my race because then they can categorize me and put me in a box.  They want a cheat sheet on how to treat me.  Latina, Middle Eastern, Native American, Indian, Southeast Asian- who knows?  

But, oh my, they are curious.  Then they find out that the only language I speak is english, and they really get confused.  I recently found out that was another way for people to ask about my race. I thought it was kind of genius of them.  But my answer only confused them more, which pleased me greatly.  

I used to answer people, gladly.  Or I would have them take a guess.  Now, I just sigh in exasperation.  I should just come up with some smart ass answer.  But I was raised to be more polite than that.  And I also know that I am still a minority, so I need to be kind and diplomatic so people won’t judge other minorities harshly because of me; the of the many burdens for People of Color.

Once when I was in high school my mother and I were at a large craft store finding a pattern for a costume.  A woman with a cart wandered over to look at patterns, too.  In her cart was a little girl, all of 4 years old.  The woman looked at my mother and I and said, “Can my daughter meet your daughter?  Can she meet you both?  I want her to see people that look like us.”  The moment was profound and charged with a kind of electricity I have never felt before or since.  Sometimes I feel something similar when I see a biracial family, but it is not as poignant as this moment was.  The woman was white and her daughter was brown like me.  The woman saw us and immediately knew what we were.  She truly saw us.  And she wanted us to see her and her child.  Most importantly of all, she wanted to give her child a taste of seeing people like them- a person like her.  My mother said, “Sure,” and we walked over to wave at her daughter sitting in the cart.  The mother said, “Look!  This girl is just like you.”  And she smiled at her daughter who shyly glanced at me.  I was glad that this woman was brave enough to speak with us.  Seeing them together was just as important for me as it was for the girl.  When we see people that look like us, we feel less alone. 

It is just so rare that I see someone just like me.  

My sister always says that she feels complete when we are all together as a family.  Or at least, when there is a heard of brown people orbited by a stray white or black person, we are better equipped to handle the side eyes or the comments.  Together it more easily rolls off our collective brown skins.  Together we can laugh about it in the car afterwards.  Together we can joke about how we couldn’t put an entire spanish sentence together if our life depended on it.  Together we can make jokes about race to lighten the mood, and our laughter eases the tension because we all understand how awkward the jokes are.  

Thinking of this moment, with the young girl and her mother, makes me weep.  I know what that loneliness feels like and I know that insatiable desire to fit somewhere.  This thirst is not often quenched when you inhabit the kind of skin that I do.  I never feel black enough.  I never will be white enough.  Alas, I am not Latina and I never pretend to be.  I straddle these 2 divided worlds and I have to make my home somewhere in between.  And I know that no matter where I rest, someone in my family doesn’t quite get it or doesn’t understand why I placed myself here or there or anywhere.  

It is quite lonely here.

Thank you. More, please.

i want to be the type of happy and content where i am not bitter and resentful when good things happen to other people.  i guess i have always felt like there isn't enough.  it must be the consequences of being a poor kid.  i hoard goodness.  i believe in scarcity because it seems to haunt me and follow me wherever i go.  i cannot watch others enjoy the sweetness in life because somehow i think if they get the good stuff that somehow means i don't get to have any.  it is like there is a large steamy bowl of fresh, hot, happiness at the dinner table.  and if everyone before me takes a big scoop, then i am screwed and i don't even get to lick the spoon.  

for years i have avoided choir concerts and music performances because singing makes me so happy and it is painful to watch other people have that joy.  i resent everyone who ever had a honeymoon.  we paid for our own wedding so we never got to observe that highly popular tradition.  every vacation our friends take, every plane ride, trip, facebook photo on the beach- makes me so bitter.  

when i see someone with their best friend it makes me so sad that mine lives too far away to share the mundane things of life with.  and when someone has a job that they love, i think i look at them as if it is their fault i am unhappy at mine.  it is as if i believe there has to be some universal balance of misery.  so if someone else is happy, that means that i have to be served a heaping plate of shit to eat.  a very sane, small, part of my brain knows that this is simply not the way the world works; and that all this nonsense is actually contrary to what my faith says.  but it is simply how i feel and how i perceive things.  i wish i didn't think this way.  but i do and it is absolutely miserable.
  

i watched this movie about a year ago and it made me weep.  WEEP.  It is called "Happythankyoumoreplease."  i hate telling people the things that i like.  It feels to vulnerable and i fear being judged for my taste.  like how i watched the Tim Burton version of "Alice in Wonderland" and i thought it was the best thing ever.  It spoke to me really deeply- i am not even kidding.  i keep it a secret because that is really intimate information.  i don't usually like Tim Burton movies, as his style is too dark for my taste.  but this one got me.  adult Alice makes her way back to Wonderland but never remembers being there.  everyone else remembers her and so she spends the rest of the film trying to figure out if she believes she is the same Alice everyone else remembers.  more weeping.  

"Happythankyoumoreplease" is another movie that poked a little too hard at my gaping, festering, wounds.  the female protagonist struggles with self esteem and worth and she doesn't think she is beautiful or worth loving.  i am giving away a lot of info here.  but her character says some stuff that resonated deeply.  her name is Annie.

Annie: So, I’m trying to let go of the whole idea that we have to pay for our joy with sorrow or tragedy; that there has to be some sort of karmic balance, but it sure feels that way.  You know what I mean?
I do this thing...I can’t believe I’m telling you this...about a year ago, I was in this cab and this cab driver- this indian guy- started telling me all sorts of stuff.  He was just looking at me in the rearview mirror and he said, “Bliss.  Bliss is your birthright.”  And I was like, “Uh...? 45th and Madison?”  He said, “You have great potential in this lifetime. The key to your life is gratitude. You do not give enough thanks.”  I said, “Well- how do I do that?” And he said, “Simple.  Say, ‘thank you.’” I said, “Well...when?”  He said, “All the time- right now.”  And he said when I say thank you I should say ‘more please.’
Tony: “Wait.  Thank you, more please?”
Annie: “Yeah.  That with gratitude the universe is eternally abundant.  So I’ve been giving gratitude a shot.  Thank you, more please.  Thank you, more please.  Thank you, more please. How crazy am I sounding here?

• later in the film

Annie to her best friend via voicemail: “So here’s what I have to say to you before the damn beep cuts me off: Sadness be gone.  Let’s be people who deserve to be loved...who are worthy.  Cuz we are worthy.  You’ve told me that for years, and now I get to spit it back at you.  Yeah, I know.  I’m totally gonna get nominated for the Sincerity Award.  Fuck it, I don’t care, I want to win it.  You’re a good man.  Go get yourself loved.  That’s all I got.”

i am right there with Annie.  

happythankyoumoreplease.

Rihanna, "Man Down"

Folks, be careful- there are triggers in this post, for sure.  

I do not follow popular music.  I hate radio stations.  Songs are overplayed and I grow tired of something that might have been decent.  damn repetitive.  We also live in a society that is hyperaware of its celebrities.  I heard about this new Rihanna video where she shoots a man that sexually assaults rapes her (let’s just call it what it is so we start on the right foot).  This intrigued me.

I guess people have their underpants all rumpled up  because this video is violent.  I listened to the song, and the song is rough.  Rihanna did respond to the hubbub on her twitter with some flippant comment about  'real life.'  This was a teachable moment and I really wish Rihanna would have taken advantage of it.  But I wonder if she even knows what she is dealing with- that she at this moment has a soap box that she can stand upon.

Watch the Video if you haven’t because I am about to spoil it.

The video starts with Rihanna shooting a man in the throat and it is very graphic.  The man lies lifeless on the ground with blood pooling around his head.  This is a very alarming scene depicting very real violence.  But to leave it as just “gratuitous violence” would be missing the point completely.  Her song is not about random acts of violence.  People are not upset because the video is violent.  People are upset because the nature of the violence is a woman aggressively defending herself, they just haven’t realized it yet.    

I am pretty desensitized to violence.  My generation (the Columbine Generation) has seen it all.  Our movies and video games are horrendous.  I have an older brother and I have seen the movies he watches and the games that he plays.  However, I am not completely numb to all of the destruction.  I still feel very tender when I watch movies or certain crime centered tv shows.  When fights broke out in my high school, I remember physically shaking as I witnessed someone being beaten before my eyes.  Violence is real in this world and I know it.  

So, Rihanna is right. 


One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, and about 1.3 MILLION women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year (note that the US Department of Justice says that “domestic violence is one of the most chronically underreported crimes”). And women are usually victimized by someone they know.  

One of my favorite documentaries, This Film is Not Yet Rated, talks about the rating system for movies (MPAA) in the USA.  Watch this film and let it blow your mind (watch instantly on Netflix).  The film examines lots of issues dealing with censorship and the portrayal of life in film.  The big debate in the film is about sex and violence.  The things that the MPAA deems appropriate for 13 year olds to see are rape, violence (murder galore, beatings, gun violence, blood splatters, bloody massacres), and sexual violence.  The things they thought children couldn’t see were females having sexual pleasure.  


Let me say that again.  


It is okay to see women get beaten and raped and shot, not okay to see them in a consenting and positive sexual encounter that results in an orgasm.  They also discuss at length the complications they found while trying to come up with a rating about a documentary on the Iraq war and the life of soldiers (uncensored, unfiltered, unscripted).  The soldier's use the foulest of language and the footage is graphic and violent.  It seemed like the documentary almost broke the MPAA rating system.  They couldn't seem to agree on how to handle the content because it wasn't a scripted movie.  The situation is complicated.  How do you rate real life?  

Rihanna's flippant twitter response about her video depicting real like reminds me of this MPAA conundrum.  

I finally watched the video for myself and noted:

1. Yes, that is some graphic violence, she shoots a man in the throat and he dies
2. Rihanna depicts herself as a vibrant and beautiful member of the community
3. She hugs children and kisses old women and greets people kindly
4. She goes out to a club for a night of fun and dancing
5. She dances with an attractive young man
6. He comes on strong but she pushes him away
7. She heads home looking happy
8. He follows her home and attacks her
9. She fights him, loses and is raped 
10. She is crumbled in an alley
11. She gets up, runs home, and pulls out  gun hidden in her home

I am not advocating that someone should emulate her if they find themselves in her position.  But I am hoping that people think critically about the content of her video.   

Our culture swallows the horrid reality that, on a regular basis, women are physically and emotionally beaten, and raped, and killed.

Our culture swallows whole that that sort of thing is okay for 13 year olds to see in films.

Charlie Sheen, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Chris Brown, R. Kelly.  Abusers of women.  Rapists.  Molesters.  There are many more we do not know about.  We praise these men.  We pay them.  We do not punish them.  We do not hold them accountable.  Chris Brown threw a chair at a window in his dressing room on the set of Good Morning America because they asked him about beating Rihanna.  Did they press charges?  No.  

I am not advocating vigilante justice, but I imagine that if any of their victims when after these men, they would be charged and tried.  Maybe if the justice system and our culture served victims of domestic violence and sexual violence better, Rihanna’s video would upset me.  

I think most folk do not have a problem with Rihanna’s video depicting rape.  What got them going was that a woman got up off the ground and killed her rapist.  That act upsets the balance of our created universe of sex/power/control/gender dynamics.  The video spits on the patriarchy.  

This video is alarming and disturbing- do not get me wrong and go bat shit in the comments section.  Her previous song about domestic violence “Like the Way You Lie,” literally makes me nauseous.  My stomach churns just thinking about what that song means.  When I first heard the lyrics, I knew what it was about; a woman in an intimate relationship with a partner who beats her, he keeps beating her and apologizing, she keeps staying even though she knows its a lie, it escalates and he eventually kills her.  This video has over 6.5 million hits.  My father-in-law said he liked the song.   

I was horrified by the lyrics because I know that this shit is real.  When I finally saw the video, I was almost sobbing by the end of it, because I know that domestic violence and intimate partner homicide is on the rise.  I want to know why more people are not infuriated over that video.  But I already know why folks are not upset by it.

That kind of behavior is silently approved. 

When a man beats a woman she deserved it (I have heard male comedians joke about this).   

I encourage you to self-educate.  Read these facts on domestic violence (I quote a lot of them).  Read anything that Inga Muscio writes.  Read Yes Means Yes about rape culture.  And for the love of god, do not watch movies or support films that depict ladies getting beaten and raped without thoughtfully talking about them.  

  

Haters Anonymous

Hi, My name is _________, and I am a Hater.

I wrote this when I was still in college *ahem* over three years ago.  But it reminds me of the recent political unrest that has lead to the murder of 6 people in Arizona, including a child.  

May God have mercy on us.  

I was doing research for a project that I was involved with. The project had to do with society’s interaction with the LGBT community (queer folk for most of us that do not know what all the letters stand for); especially the Christian church. As I was looking for articles on the internet I came across a report about hate crimes. This report had been compiled and contained hate crimes in chronological order from 1998 until 2002. The report was 51 pages long and appeared in relatively small print.

        I scanned the article, thinking that the hate crimes would only be a few pages and then the rest of the article would be a discussion of some sort. I was surprised to see that all 51 pages were accounts of hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, gender (toward women), religion, and sexual orientation. 

I printed it out so that I could read thru the accounts at my leisure on my commute to and from school and not have to rely upon the computer (I would also use it as a source for a paper that would accompany the project). 

I soon realized that the task of going through 51 pages of hate crimes was not as easy as I had anticipated. I stopped frequently and would find myself starring into space as I tried to imagine the things I read about actually taking place. The words were so disturbing that at one point a member of the group I was in, placed their hand on the article, and told me to quit reading it. But I was compelled to read of the ugliness of the world. Someone had to. Someone had to know how all those people died from the hate that someone had nurtured for so long. 

The stories were of beatings, burnings, sexual abuse, gunfire, and murders. Of persons, men, women, and children of all shapes, sizes, religions, and sexual orientations. I thought to myself, is this what God wanted? I mean, even if he did find people’s lifestyles deplorable, are we to kill and beat these people to death? Obviously not. God doesn’t hate people. He doesn’t even hate the haters. I can never let myself hate so much that I would destroy human life- never ever, ever.

I know a girl whose father sexually abuses her. This is not the thing of the past, but of the present. He is a coward and not worthy of the title “father” or “man.” He is sick and despicable. I promised myself that if I ever met him in person that he would have the indentation of my fist and teeth in his face and limbs. I promised myself that he would know me and that he would know that I know what he does. I know that God wants me to forgive him and to not feel this way about him. I know that God’s graces are extended to him, though I do not want them to be. But they are. God’s love is big enough to forgive a molester and a rapist and pedophile. And honestly- sometimes I really dislike this about God.  I really want God to hate the people I hate.  And some people go out of their way to form their god into a being that acts and thinks exactly like themselves.  But I am a douchebag, and an evolved douchebag at that, who knows that God is so much different than me.  And this is a really good thing.  God’s ways are better than whatever I imagine. And I longed for the day that I would want to change how I felt about this despicable person. And it came. 

I realized that my hate for this man was the same hate that motivated crimes that took so many lives. Now mind you, I am not just picking some random man to beat or kill; I wanted to harm just my friend’s abuser. I saw the bruises she tried to hide, I saw the scabs she tried to hide.  And I knew there were wounds he gave her that I could not even begin to imagine.  And I wanted him to taste his own blood, maybe swallow a tooth or two.  I felt rage and hate, justifiably.  But it is the same hate in God’s eyes. I hated, and I already murdered him in my heart. Yes, he still lives and breathes (which I regret that he has the privilege) but I cannot live my life with that hate. I cannot allow myself to have that hate that killed a 6 year old girl with a machine gun, the hate that ran a car over a group of black kids, the hate that hung a black man in his front yard, the hate that tied a homosexual to a fence to die, or the hate that carved “fag” in the skin of a college student. I cannot let that same hate have a place inside of me to nurture. God said, “Love.  Love everyone.  Love everyone through your actions.  These actions should look ridiculous and largely generous.  Give your love outrageously to everyone, especially the poor.  And while you’re at it, love your enemy, too.” I think he did that so we could peer into how tremendous he is at loving and forgiving and giving grace. 

So hate has made me flinch. I cannot hear the word without having those stories flash like lightning in my stomach and the nausea rise a little. The night after I finished reading the entire compilation, I turned off the light at 1am, and I was petrified. I was petrified of the hate pool that I so willingly contributed to, to the hate that we participate in, and of how God must be so sad that we have it so wrong. I had nightmares that night that I kind of remember, and that I appreciate not remembering. My husband told me the next morning that I was talking so much in my sleep that I woke him up. I might have been calling for him or help or something. I don’t know, but it wasn’t good. I never talk in my sleep; that’s just how disturbed I was by all that I had read.

In hating, I too committed a hate crime. May God forgive me, as he is willing to forgive them, too. I don’t want to participate in that anymore. No more. 

Oakland 1.0: Tamara and the Patchwork Family

            I lived in Oakland, CA once upon a time.  I did this christian-y program that had me there for a little under a year.  I rarely talk about it for numerous reasons.  Mostly I miss it: I miss the friends I made, I miss the job I had.  There are few people who I think would care to sit and listen to me as the dam breaks.  I am also terrified of re-enforcing negative stereotypes, that I am often silenced; don’t want white people to misunderstand and misconstrue.  

But I think it is time to start telling.  I will start with a small person I met.  She was a 5 year old girl, named Tamara.  She lived a few houses down from our duplex.  She had an older cousin who lived with her named Dante, in 4th grade, and a younger brother, Calvin who was under 2.  

Tamara, Age 5

Tamara: a perfect, silly, little girl.  I saw her butt crack often.  Not that I should talk, but her pants barely stayed up.  We tied a brightly colored soft scarf through her belt loops to keep them up.  It kinda worked.  We had dance parties.  She showed up at the door of our duplex and asked for a banana or yogurt, or an apple.  She would get pink yogurt on her chin, it would drip on her shirt.  Her water glass would end up sticky.

Her eyes were brown and sparkled brightly.  She smelled sweet and her hair was spongey-soft.  We would rip up cereal boxes and then paint with glitter and glue on the back of them.  She asked questions that were so deep they scared me, and she taught me profound spiritual truths about faith and illustrated for me the basics of Jesus.  

Calvin, Age 2

 

             My roommates and I were very close to her and her cousin and brother.  Their parents were young and struggled, and their grandmother was overwhelmed and overworked.  We eventually made it a habit to invite them over once a week for dinner and we would eat and pray and talk...with these little people that we loved so much.   Sometimes Calvin’s diaper sagged and he played alone all day.  We saw him outside playing as we walked to work, and he was still there when we came home.  We brought diapers and wipes home and we would change him so his baby soft skin would not get a rash or irritated.  We would always walk the kids over to their house to inform their parent or sitter where they were.  But sometimes we were met with apathy, sometimes grief, sometimes they had so much weight on their shoulders that the whereabouts of a 2 year old were out of their heads.  Sometimes Calvin smelled like pot.  Tamara was holding her uncles hand when he had been shot.  Dante shyly hid that he could barely read.  

But when they were in our homes we loved them and they loved us.  And we were the most ridiculous looking family ever known to man.  Hands down.  A jock that stood at 6”4’, 2 gorgeous blondes women, an indian guy, a tall geek with strawberry blond dread locks, and a mexican (looking) girl, with three black children.  And let me tell you- I think we were all in love with it.  We ate grilled cheese one night, pancakes another.  

Dante dancing with a mexican-looking girl.

One night a week everyone in our home would gather for a bible study, and the kids knew that they could not come over to play while we did that.  It was grown-up time.  But Tamara would knock on the door; looking cute, and pathetic, and lonely.  I am glad I did not have to turn her away.  I refused to  answer the door and look at her sweet face.

One day we were playing in the driveway of our duplex and Calvin looked up at me, reached his arms up and puckered his lips.  I thought, what the hell, and gave him a wet 2 year old kiss.  A few times as I was coming home from work, he would see me on the sidewalk and he would break out in to a run, arms out wide, to embrace me.  It was delightful and heartbreaking at once.  I felt his love and I loved him back, but I knew it would not last.  I would go home in a years time and he would play alone on the street again.  

The moment that fucked me over the most was when Calvin was playing with one of my male roommates (who adored Calvin deeply) and Calvin looked up at him brightly, like his sister but with longer eyelashes, and said, “Dada!”

My roommate and I made eye contact, laughed, felt embarrassed, and ignored it.  We did not talk about this incident; because if we had it would have broken our hearts into a million bits.  This young baby’s proclamation had summed up so much; the closeness of all our bonds was genuine and powerful.  But we were leaving soon, and this college-aged guy could not be his father.  In a few months this baby recognized the love and family he wanted and assumed that this guy must be a dad, his dad.

Tamara, Sparkling

Our assignment had us in Oakland for a year, and we knew we would leave soon, ripping universe-sized holes in their little tiny hearts (that had already been broken too many times).  But we were lucky as hell.  They moved out and left the neighborhood before we did.  They left us.  My heart shattered.  I am so glad they were the ones to leave.

Real Life Wedding Vows

I am not here with you because of the big party, the fancy clothes, the good food, the cake, and the gifts. I would marry you again today in a flash flood, in a hurricane, in nuclear holocaust, in rain, in sleet, in blizzards, wearing a burlap sack with a half-crazed officiant who barely spoke broken English. I would marry you if all that awaited us was a cardboard box and roach roommates so that we could be together each day.

I know that I will disappoint you and that you will disappoint me because we are not perfect, but I promise to try to be better and do better for you and me each and every single day.

I promise that I am not marrying you secretly hoping that you will change, but because I wouldn’t change a thing about you. I utterly adore everything about you right now. And the only thing I want from you is for you to become a more brilliant you, like a black and white photo that suddenly becomes vividly colored. I want to hold your hand as you become Technicolored walking in to Oz.

I promise that I will let you tell me when I have betrayed myself, and thus you. I won’t hold it against you when you call me out, but I will be thankful, appreciative, and I will try my best to fight my way back to the core person that you married. In turn I will never let you lose sight of yourself. Even if you want to break it, I will hold a mirror up to your face so you never forget who you are.

I promise not to expect everything of you, because that will destroy our relationship. But you will always be my favorite and my preference, and my best friend. I promise to not keep secrets from you, because that would be our Achilles heel. If I wonder if I should tell you something, I will definitely tell you about it.

I may find other people physically attractive, funny, charming, sexy, or interesting, but the unique recipe that is you is the most divine combination of all those things and more. I would never give you up for some one-dimensional characteristic. You are absolutely the living end for me.

I will faithfully stand by you when life throws its most dastardly things at you or us. I would rather have my back against the wall with you than be alone or with anyone else.

I know that your body will change. The fat pads will come slowly or quickly, hair will grow or fall out, wrinkles and stretch marks will betray our efforts to stay chiseled and perfect, but all of that doesn’t matter to me. You are not your physical body, and yet I love your physical self so much- it does not define you. I love whatever package you are wrapped up in, and I know that you love mine.

I promise to stick by you during debilitating, terminal illnesses. If you cannot remember who I am or who we were together, I will not abandon you- though you wouldn’t know it if I did- it would still break my heart knowing you would never abandon me. I promise to tenderly change your diaper, knowing that it humiliates you, but it doesn’t bother me because you would lovingly clean me up if the tables were turned.

I promise to never betray you or myself for worldly things. Money, things, power, lust will never lure me away from you and the life that we build together. I won’t be your Benedict Arnold.

We will stick together if all of our plans fall apart. Even if we can never pay off our debt, our jobs continue to suck, layoffs come, unexpected pregnancy happens, the pregnancy we want eludes us, our parenthood wasn’t as grand as we had expected; we will never abandon each other. With each heartbreak that we face, I will wrap bandages around your wounds, and then you will clean mine up and we will use lots of gauze. But I will remain dedicated to you and I won’t allow my pain to blind the truth that our love is greater than all of that pain.

I will stand up for you and fight for you, even if you don’t ask. I won’t let the world trample you to smithereens.

These are my promises to you and I promise you nothing less.