Recently, writing has been challenging. Especially here. I wrote a piece in August that WordPress tells me is being posted today. It’s October. What? I wondered why the stats were so low.
I joined a writing magazine to keep me inspired, and I’ve been working on a never-ending essay about family and food. So. If you get this piece on Dolly Parton and kindness almost two months later than when I wrote it — it’s because I’ve been in some kind of fog, and I apologize. I began this blog in 2011. And with publishing inconsistencies, I’ve kept it going. There are days when I want to shut it down. But then, I cannot let go of the many words that beg me to put them on paper. I grasp the color blue for sorrow or yellow for joy. And then there are days like today. When I have to keep putting black ink to the white page no matter the chaos and uncertainty that we all live with in the United States.
A dear relative died yesterday. She was 91 years old. I talked with her often. I will miss our conversations. We talked about real things like the state of democracy and family connections. Perhaps that’s why the color blue looms large for me today. Fly high, Cousin Ethel.
I won’t forget to post this little follow-up to August. Excuse the tardiness. I’ll get back to work.
It’s been a while. If you’re expecting to see something deep, something about food or family, I’m not doing it today. Well, actually, I’m sorta thinking deeply. I’m thinking about kindness, the crown of human decency.
The news this week has been about Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. Broadcasters and YouTubers are trying to outdo each other with remembrances of Dolly Parton while I feel like most of us have been stunned into silence, that specific kind of silence one experiences when a good person dies. I didn’t know a lot about Tim Curry. My niece’s response to both of them dying on the same day was,
“What is happening?!”
As for me, I was trying to process Dolly Parton’s death. People wanted to know, “Why is a Black woman mourning the death of a White female country singer?” Because she was more than a color or gender or musical genre. I never knew or met her, but I have felt the kindness she brought to this world.
In this time of political insanity, a genuinely kind person and an extraordinary philanthropist felt compelled to use the money God gave her to help millions. She’s gone. I’m sad.
There have been many public figures, men and women, Black and White, Asian and Hispanic, Religious and Secular, whose death blindsided me. But something about Dolly Parton’s death broke me.
Ms. Parton helped save the lives of millions through her donations to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for research of the COVID-19 vaccine. Her Imagination Library has gifted over 300 million books to children around the world. She made public statements about the worth of every human being and stood behind Black Lives Matter after the killing of George Floyd. She gave millions to revitalize a Black Tennessee community. She paid for housing, medical expenses, food and more for people she did not know. Not out of obligation. There was no fanfare or chest beating. She did it quietly and with humility. She did it out of genuine, deeply rooted kindness.
Meanwhile, politicians filled with malice promote meanness and vile, tawdry behavior, and justify merciless violence — killings — while corrupting the messages of diverse scriptures. These demons take away millions of lives.
For a moment, but only a moment, I felt despair. A good soul left this earth while bad ones eat, drink, and live their lives without a thought of one good deed (just say “good morning,” to somebody, damn it!) for another person.
Janis Joplin sang, “Take another little piece of my heart now baby.”
There was a song I listened to as a young girl. Both Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole did covers of this song. The refrain is going ’round and ’round in my head:
“Pick yourself up Take a deep breath Dust yourself off And start all over again.”
I’m takin’ back the pieces of my heart, baby. There’s a piece drenched in empathy, with a tiny sliver set aside for those I consider demons. Another piece carries generosity and the desire to serve. Still another corner is for clarity. The soft, cottony section is for tenderness; it allows me to accept and feel love. And, of course, there is that brilliant Light within that illuminates kindness.
Thank you, Dolly Parton. Your authenticity is a shining example. A reminder to always ask myself: am I being kind?
Christmas morning, my 77th, I sat on the side of the bed feeling weighed down by a peculiar sadness. I say peculiar because I couldn’t define it. It wasn’t loneliness. I’ve been alone many Christmases. It was something else that I couldn’t place.
I’d spent musical Christmases singing to nursing home patients, school children, and incarcerated men and women. Their presence was sweet and satisfying, like a good wine on the back of the tongue. I’d spent Christmas in an ashram in India, enthralled with the magic of the people and the heat. Christmas in temples, churches, and spiritual retreats left me swooning in the magic of sacred music. In each place, there was light in the faces of the people, a brightness. I dare say, a tenderness.
I sipped my coffee, chewed on a waffle, and considered this.
As a child, I received splendid gifts on Christmas morning: a toy nurse kit that included a stethoscope, a miniature microscope, a dollhouse, and paper dolls with cut-out paper clothes. My brothers received model airplanes and warships. It feels like I can still smell the glue. My sister received a full-sized doll as large as a three-year-old. Candy canes and oranges came in Grandaddy’s bulky packages of fruit, nuts, and other goodies. Eating the contents of those packages never gave me a bellyache, which meant I was well enough to ride my first two-wheel bike with my father walking beside me. The gifts made me happy; they gave me pleasure. But the love gave me joy.
Defining joy,Merriam-Webster says, “…a feeling of great happiness or pleasure: delight,” and Cambridge Dictionary says, “Great happiness or pleasure.” But pleasure is not joy.
There is considerable discussion about the distinction between happiness and joy. From what I gather, happiness is dependent upon external realities: the food we eat, the places we go, the people we are with, or the material things we gather. Joy is an internal state of well-being, contentment, maybe even gladness. Gratitude produces a state of joy.
On my 65th Christmas, my holidays changed forever after a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which became a chronic relapsing condition that left me blindsided. Six months of hospitals and rehab, medications with strange names, and IVs three to four times a week left me sad and fearful. My friends became heroes. One gave me an artificial tree with lights. Others came by and brought small gifts. These things and the company brought me happiness. The love behind the gifts brought me joy.
I was baptised at ten years old. As my body was lowered into the pool of water, I could hear the church members singing Take me to the water to be Baptised. I was underwater for only a moment, but it felt like an eternity. As Reverend Cole lifted me out of the water, I experienced a tranquility, contentment, and open-heartedness that I will never forget. I was filled with Joy.
So where was that joy now? Maybe it was waking up to the realization that I would soon be 78. No!
I have figured it out. On the morning of my 77th Christmas, I was missing joy. I also realized that, for me, in the background of every joyful experience is the hum of creation in the form of music. Christmas carols, Gregorian chants, traditional African-American hymns, or Eastern-based chanting. Whenever, wherever there is music, joy wells up within me. It reminds me of a verse from a rendition of a spiritual I love.
Over my head, I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere.
Christmas is gone, and my life in this village is filled with snow and ice. There are clouds and empty tree branches. But there is sunshine. There is contentment. There is sweet music. And there is joy.
Yesterday I visited one of the colleges in the Philadelphia area. Most campuses are open to the public, and it seemed like a perfect Fall morning to find a bench and catch up on a knitting project. As I entered the parking lot, I slowed. The lot was nearly full. Wait, what?
It was move-in day.
Across the grounds, students and parents stood in lines of 20 or 30, anxious for introductions to people they were meeting for the first time. Boxes and furniture were hauled from cars and trucks and moved into dorms. Faculty members trotted in and out of buildings. Parents gingerly backed their vehicles into and out of parking spaces. “What an exciting day for them,” I thought. But not for me.
I spotted a space and rushed for it, pulled in. There were no signs forbidding parking. I bit my lip and sat for a moment, feeling a little guilty when a father, lugging a set of plastic containers, gave me an irritated glance. Heck.
I grabbed my knitting bag, exited the car, and walked towards an open bench just past the driveway. Whoa! Directly across from the bench was a line of animated students waiting for their campus welcome and tour. I stared, then turned back toward the car.
I was disappointed, but the truth is I was visiting their home. It was as if I had arrived uninvited to a generous feast of sweet treats, pizzas, and flowers. Resignation and courtesy were my only options.
I looked around again. The campus was renovated over the summer, and the bench I had always used was no longer there. However, about 75 feet away, there were two benches just across from the track. A couple of students (kids to me) occupied one of them. Lines? Nope. I use a cane and don’t like walking across grass, and I could feel a whine coming on. As I plopped down, a little tired from my trek, on the bench next to the students, they paused their conversation and greeted me.
I’ve begun a new morning habit of setting an intention for the day. My intention this morning was to listen. To birds. To cars. To the wind. So, that is what I did; I listened and learned that the young man and woman were seniors, excited about being on campus and catching up on summer news.
She: “Peter and Maggie had a baby.”
He: “What?! Wow! Did they finally get married?”
She: “Yup. Isn’t that a trip?”
Feigning attention to my needles to stretch out the time, I pulled threads, making six short rows into one.
She: “It’s so good to see you!”
He: “Can you believe it’s our last year?”
She: “No! (Pause) It’s going to go by too fast.”
My heart fluttered. Memories of my own college years — that went by too fast — surfaced. I never made friends like these two. I was often alone, the chronic introvert. After a semester, I left school and joined a theater company. The theater was where I met my buddies. The theater was where I belonged. In the theater, we were bold, young, and unafraid. I imagined these seniors to be the same.
He: “I can’t wait to see everybody again.”
She: “Do you think Maggie will bring her baby?”
I listened. Here’s the thing: I will never see my first theater mates again. Almost all of them have passed away. Drugs. Cancer. Old age.
The sun was now fully on my face, and perspiration dripped into the corners of my eyes.
“It’s been so lovely listening to you guys,” I said. “But the sun is roasting me.”
I stood as they laughed and waved. I looked back toward the bench I had started for initially. It was empty, and there were no lines. I headed for it, looking forward to being in the shade of that marvelously large tree.
Opposite that bench was another where three young women sat. (There are lots of benches on this campus.) Once again, I listened. They were juniors or sophomores, cheerleaders, practicing old and new chants for the year. As I approached, a young woman with glorious dreadlocks looked up and greeted me. She wasn’t just being polite. Her smile held her heart.
A helicopter flew overhead.
“I’ve never seen a pink helicopter!” I said.
“It was yellow, I think,” she smiled.
I smiled back.
Thinking about it now, I feel teary-eyed. Any one of the students I met would have offered me and my cane a seat on the bus. Kindness and respect. After about 30 minutes, I put my knitting away. The young women were leaving to meet their friends. The young man I had seen earlier was passing by and gave a wave, a big smile, and a nod of his head to this grey-haired knitter.
As he made his way to some event or other, the thought came to me: I don’t need to worry about our future. Young Folks, you are doing just fine.
A pope died. A new pope was chosen. A very dear old lover passed away. Some of my favorite artists, whom I have enjoyed for many years, have transitioned to perform, write, and dance on a heavenly plane. I’ve never liked change. Perhaps, been afraid of it even. Ironically, one of my favorite songs is “Everything Must Change” by the late Benard Ighner. I’m considered an elder now, and I’m finding impermanence increasingly disquieting.
But it’s summer, and I’m indulging in its beauty. The seasonal drift from spring to raging heat offers me a sense of liberation from political nightmares and brings with it an obstinate optimism. As authoritarianism plants its ghastly footsteps in too many places across the planet, we are divided. Yet, we are also connected. We hold before us an eternal optimism that protects us like an ancient knight’s armor. We have a battle cry: JOY IS RESISTANCE.
Growing up, I struggled with finding joy at home. At 11, I was weighed down by the constant fighting within my family and desperate for laughter. Most of the time joy felt as distant as an air balloon over the Atlantic. But then spring would arrive. Spring, with its sweet smells. Spring with its flowers and brilliant colors. The sky seemed bluer. The delicate green of spring grass was accented with purple crocuses and yellow tulips. The pussy willows along the streets assured me that everything would be just fine. Spring brought joy.
There were cocoons in trees lining the sidewalks where I walked home from school. Those white cottony things, almost transparent, had lumps inside that I didn’t understand would turn into butterflies. Boys, ever annoying little boys, threw rocks at them or batted them down with sticks. I usually ran beneath a tree to get away from those white lumps knocked loose because they landed on my neck or in my hair. But as spring wore on, the lumps inside became beautiful, magically colored things, liberating themselves from bondage. As I ease into elderhood, I reflect on this memory from my earlier years: the cocooning times.
Joy and An Abundance of Eggs
Eggs — The subject of economic dismay that’s led us into this year of low expectations and turning the American Dream into a nightmare for many.
My father used to chastise me because, as he said about my mother and me, “Whenever I walk into this house, you two are going at each other!” This, even before I was 13. But the night before Easter Sunday, something magical happened. Joy fired up a powerful resistance to any family issues. All of us kids joined Mom as we gathered around dozens of eggs. There was a renewal, a resurrection, a rebirth, if you will, of the delight human beings are meant to experience.
We stayed up past eight o’clock, selecting stencils and food colors for our boiled eggs and filling Easter baskets for ourselves and cousins. Those nights were special. The evening routine of dinner, dishes, homework, and perhaps a harsh “I told you to finish your homework!” was abandoned for an experience of limitless childish joy. We did not whine — “but it’s still light out” — when we heard neighborhood children playing kickball in the streets. What we cared about was decorating eggs. What we experienced was joy.
Obstinate Optimism as Resistance
The spirit of the times requires — demands — that we maintain joy in our resistance. We are living through overwhelming changes in politics and culture. Dreams for peaceful coexistence can only survive and manifest in optimism.
Children are dying from measles – a disease we had eliminated from our country. People are being kidnapped, placed in prisons and concentration camps, or starved mercilessly by authoritarian governments. There are dictatorships throughout this world, and we, in this country, are as politically divided as we’ve ever been — some say since the Civil War. “Divide and conquer” is as old as humanity itself, and we fight against this abomination. And still, people are bursting with obstinate optimism.
We have been through tragedies before, and we have come through them to celebrate the return of the Light. Optimism, Joy as Resistance, is the best of the human spirit. Claiming our joy is necessary nourishment if we are to survive — and thrive.
The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was developed to make broadband internet services accessible to low-income households. Sadly, the program has been discontinued – a casualty of legislative haggling.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reports that initial funding for the ACP, which provides subsidies to eligible participants with internet service provider (ISP) contracts, ended in June of 2024. Additional funds were not approved during Congressional budget negotiations. Perhaps some legislators were clueless; maybe others just didn’t care about the needs of isolated seniors, students needing access to learning options, residents of tribal lands, and rural communities. Perhaps some legislators just plain ignored the fact that internet access is often critical for medical care, jobs, social security, Medicare, and housing information. It’s a situation fueled by unkindness.
Several ISPs, in an unexpected Godsend, have stepped up to fill gaps left by the termination of funding.
I live in a township with a large and diverse senior population. Over the years, I’ve met several residents who embrace technology for all that it can offer. In other words, more than just email. Some residents, however, are nervous about online usage, even as they recognize the advantages technology offers. Some do not know how to use a computer. Yes, that’s a thing in 2024. Some simply cannot afford the costs of internet service providers and they are left out in the cold. That’s where ACP is beneficial.
I get it about distrusting online activity. There are dangers out there.
Targeting of seniors by scammers is high. Media coverage of identity theft has panicked women I know. There are also challenges that include “clouds,” automatic updates, and social media misinformation and untruths. I know a woman who was targeted by a man looking for lonely seniors in order to steal hard-earned savings. She lost a significant amount of money.
And my personal gripe – no exaggeration here: I loathe the hours I spend with technical support associates who don’t know their jobs. So yes, there are real inconveniences with the internet.
My point is that isolation for those without the internet is real ─ and alarming. A woman in my building told me about her feelings of isolation and depression during the pandemic lockdown. Unfortunately, there were no “pods” in this seniors’ building to help alleviate loneliness. The value of connecting with others and receiving ─ sometimes lifesaving ─ information through the internet cannot be overstated. ACP support for internet access is critical.
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It was 1995, I think. I remember it was around 11 p.m. The neighborhood children were in bed and the streets were quiet in Oakland, CA. I poured a glass of wine and relaxed in front of my new gift. It was mid-summer, but it felt like Christmas morning to me.
My employers, God bless ‘em, who were software developers, had given me one of the company’s old IBM personal computers. It was a clunky machine that put me over the moon. Taking a sip of wine, I stared at the dark screen.
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Six years prior, I worked at a college that had invested in computers and software training for some of its administrative staff. I was fortunate to be included in the training. Although cautious about the technology, I was excited.
We had to learn a lot quickly. Word processing software felt complex to an administrative staff that had been swatting away on Selectric typewriters ─ some of us for decades ─ using typewriter correction tape, inserting carbon paper for duplication, and making countless trips to a mimeograph room.
Some quit the training, preferring to stick with typewriters until the new technology was mandated. I chose to struggle on. It would serve me well. Like the delight of discovering a new bread recipe, meeting a new man, or watching buds on a tree become leaves, I was filled with excitement. Life was taking on new energy.
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I turned on the computer. MS-DOS loaded, and things took off from there. I don’t remember the internet icon. Netscape? Maybe. The guys at work must have given me a password because suddenly there was the twittering, singsong beeping of the “handshake,” and the image of a globe appeared on the screen.
Scooching closer to my desk, I anticipated a new world with cultures and places vastly different from my own: different languages, ways of walking and talking, and delightful food traditions. I never looked back. The internet allowed me to “get off my block” and fully engage with the world. Technology saved me.
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Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic lockdown. I loved being alone but was missing in-person connections with friends. Then. Along came Zoom.
It saddens me that seniors and other isolated citizens need, but can’t access, broadband internet. Online access allowed me to attend community and civic meetings, free and live performances from the Royal National Theatre in London and other entertainment, visit with friends from afar, and participate in myriad activities and make connections during the Covid lockdown. Again, technology rescuedme.
No one should be without broadband in a world where, some say, another pandemic is imminent. Come on legislators. Quit haggling. Include the ACP in September’s budget talks.
Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring. I’ve never trusted Phil. That darn groundhog’s got a 30% accuracy record. Yet, this time, bingo! The weather was comfortable as we slipped into March.
I began this post during a late March snow. I looked out my window and saw cardinals frolicking in snow weighted branches. Cardinals are the ruby red messengers of optimism. I hadn’t been aware of my critical need for their beauty. I had been listening to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” over and over to calm the part of me that’s frightened by the news.
The birds came in groups of three or four and seemed to enjoy a game of hopping in and out of the snow. Watching them, I was reminded that beauty and play are essential for my survival as I struggle to experience the benevolent heart that exists within these United States.
That’s a strange phrase, isn’t it? “These United States.” I remember my elders using that term as I grew up. When they referred to this country they would say “these United States.” My. So many seem to struggle with the middle word. United.
Things will right themselves. There is this thing called karma, you see. It’s a natural law. It’s how things work. Nothing remains dark forever. Hatred and malevolence have always been banished by Light. Fascists have always met with inauspicious ends. But in the meantime…
I need to bathe in the beauty of things.
One of Webster’s online definitions for beauty is: the quality or group of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or the mind…Perfect.
Across the street, the college green blossoms and withers through movements of the seasons and is visually poetic. Beautiful. Yet. I have yearned to nestle into the comfort and beauty of the body, something I have not really done since my Guillain Barre diagnosis (an auto immune disease affecting the muscles and nerves) and it’s severe complications in 2012. After being in a wheelchair for about two years, I wondered “what’s the use?” and gave away my expensive suits and dress clothes to a women’s organization.
I have never disengaged from old wisdom that emphasizes the importance of inner beauty — a kind spirit, a quiet heart, and gentleness. I quote words from Hindu and Christian saints about the importance of spiritual beauty. And still, I want more ruby red color, more hair color, and beautiful clothing. Shouldn’t my body reflect my inner joy?
I have two friends who are models, and through them, I am learning more about physical beauty. It’s not shallow. There is a powerful relationship between one’s appearance and the ability to love oneself and others. I’ve even started watching the haute couture runway shows on YouTube. I don’t need to wear Givenchy. I need to allow my own brilliance in the colors I use and the clothes I wear.
I bought a wig. I put on make-up. I got a couple of new pieces of clothing. Yes. I embraced my twenty-somethingness. In the middle of all the political and social drama, the fricking snow, and that poor man upstairs who died in apartment 309, four cardinals frolicking in the snow on the branches outside my window reminded me that beauty is one of nature’s most healing qualities. So, I donned the wig, painted my lips red, and darkened my eyebrows. And had a friend take a picture. I preened in the mirror.
The lipstick that has been in my purse for at least five years ─ pre Covid lockdown ─ is cardinal red. I’ve always loved cardinal red lipstick. From the time I found a tube in my mother’s purse, I knew it was for me.
However, rules around the use of make-up were complicated. My mother’s relationship to using face powder, lipstick, and rouge was a paradox. Churcfh ideology said girls wearing make-up were whores. I have listened to ideas like: Women who wear makeup are sinful or shallow ─ parents, church doctrine, activist and socially conscious friends. No more.
Sojourner Truth said: Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.
The brew is flavorful, and the hint of chocolate on the back of my tongue is a calming sensory experience for the many thoughts and feelings I have in this stream of consciousness.
After months of procrastination, I’m gaining clarity about this post. I’m not writing about food this time, although I’m sure that a large bag of chips will make its way to me as I write about kindness and ─ oddly enough ─ empaths, people who have a high sensitivity to stimuli, including other people’s emotions. I’m writing about being empathic ─ not empathetic.
While researching, I came across a definition about the difference between empathic and empathetic. In an article published by Stylist, an online magazine based in the UK, Lucy Fry writes the following:
Being an empath is developmental, whereas empathy can be learned.
Fry continues: Empaths easily lose themselves in feelings. For most people expressing empathy means making a concerted effort to see the world through someone else’s lens in a kind way. For an empath, however, it can get confusing. These types of people absorb others’ emotions so quickly and easily they’re sometimes unsure which lens is whose. The boundaries between the self and others can be thin, which means they are super sensitive to other people’s needs but can also entirely lose track of their own.
You’re too sensitive, Sala. Sigh. I’ve been told this numerous times.
You want to hear the heart in the voice. Alexa’s words landed like sparks in a dry field.
Yes.
Not too long ago, I was irritated by a conversation I was having. I felt that the person wouldn’t shut up until she had me submerged in the cesspool of anger she swims in all the time. All. The. Time.
I’m a human sponge. I soak up other people’s emotions like others suck up soda through a straw. When I’ve gone to the movies, I’ve found that I feel almost physically pulled into any violent action on the screen. I feel overwhelmed. So, I don’t go to the movies. I don’t read violent novels. I have an enduring crush on Stephen King and have slept with his book On Writing next to my pillow. But I have never seen, nor will I, a movie adaptation of his books. I was traumatized as a child by Hitchcock’s Psycho. I’ve never seen a Tarantino film, and I did not watch Game of Thrones ─ my sister advised me against it. Give me the Hallmark Channel, Notting Hill and Madea.
Don’t. Judge. Me.
According to Dr. Judith Orloff, a board certified psychiatrist and expert on the subject of Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs): Empaths absorb other people’s emotions.
There it was: absorb. While others define themselves as extrovert or introvert, I’m defining myself as an empath. The Cleveland Clinic notes that you may also identify with being a highly sensitive person (HSP), a personality trait that was first used by psychologists in the 1990s to describe someone with a deep sensitivity to the physical, emotional, or social situations and information around them. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/highly-sensitive-person/
My parents, Bill and Libby, joined millions of American Blacks who moved to northern and western states during the Great Migration from the South. I will never know the depth of their disenchantment on discovering the same racial discrimination and limited economic opportunities in Washington, D.C. that they had left behind in South Carolina.
Exposed to Mom’s anger and disappointment at having had to leave her beloved career ─ teaching ─ to raise five children in poverty and her mood swings from having to witness my father’s humiliation and rage when private builders told him ─ a master brick mason ─ that “coloreds” weren’t being hired, I absorbed their every emotion. I cried a lot. When teachers sent us home from school the day President Kennedy was assassinated, I threw myself on my bed and sobbed. And despite my empathy for my family and our world, I became unkind and angry.
Mine or Yours?
A White neighbor called to vent about another devastating U.S. Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action and the efforts to obstruct racial diversity in higher education. They’ve been busy taking rights away these days. She ranted, not taking a breath and not allowing me to speak. I listened. When she was done, she thanked me for allowing her to “get it off my chest.” I responded, “Good. You need to know that I did not take it onto mine.” Her silence was brief but obvious. She had been hoping I would join her anger.
“I lived through those days,” I said. “How can you possibly be angrier than someone who experienced those times?”
I felt the wind go out of her sails. I was honest. I was direct. I felt powerful. It’s not that I don’t get angry. It’s that I have experienced self-protection and learned ways to know if it’s my anger, not someone else’s.
Childhood Educators Are Saints
During my ─ if-only-they-could-be-forgotten ─ adolescent years, the vice principal of our junior high school took me under her wing. A tall woman with dark chocolate skin and closely clipped hair, she was a no-bullshit, take-no-prisoners administrator. She offered a wide, memorable smile that, behind her back, prompted cowardly kids to call her “King Kong.” Fiercely principled, Mrs. G. was a potent advocate for young people. If, however, one was foolish enough to challenge her authority, you did so at your peril. I didn’t know too many kids who were willing to face their parents for being suspended or, even worse, expelled.
My grades were poor. Incidents of colorism – discrimination based on color within the race ─ fed my anger, and I was filled with anxiety about American culture. Additionally, adolescents are markedly known for meanness, and one day I found myself in a fight with a light-skinned girl who looked Caucasian. She was not. A ring of girls surrounded us and chanted “Fight! Fight!” This, not surprisingly, led to a sit-down in the principal’s office. Mrs. G. put her arms around my shoulders. “Walk with me.” We walked the halls. She didn’t use the word “colorism” or demean other students for their behavior. She spoke kindly and told me I was smart, that I could do better. Something inside me softened, if only for a little while.
My Ways of Empathic Protection
Therapy and Psychotherapists
During my twenties, I was led to a compassionate therapist who taught me something: Anger and repressed fear were my defaults. If I couldn’t identify or own my feelings, I could not respond to life circumstances authentically.
Prayer
I found a spiritual path that focused on the love of God ─ not “fear” ─ as the unseen guidance. I could no longer sing “saved a wretch” in the hymn Amazing Grace. I sang “saved a soul.” Chanting became a daily practice, and service ─ volunteering, a lifelong practice for me ─ took on a golden hue. I was becoming softer, more vulnerable. When, after 30 years, I left California for the east coast, a friend told me gently that he had watched me transform over the years. “You’ve lost that explosive anger.” I was moved ─ my own feeling. I remember saying to someone during those years, “I like a lot of soft around me.” In the company of softness, I felt ─ and feel ─ good.
Food
Ahh, yes. I knew I’d come back to the plate. Beginning with family meals for the seven of us in our two-bedroom apartment and extended family gatherings to visits with my grandparents in the south and church picnics, food preparation and pure laughter became a major empathic lifeline. Hugs were plentiful. Empathy was strengthened. I learned that in cooking, sharing, and eating good food, life could be joyful. But it’s been a rocky ride here. Sometimes my empathic protection revealed itself in weight gain. The soft protection of bulge around the belly. Other times, my love of sharing food and company with people I love has been the empathic lifeline.
Nature
I call my apartment a tree house. Outside my windows, the leaves of the trees serve as curtains in the summer. The southwestern sun keeps my apartment warm in the winter. I am heralded with birdsong, and I hope the circling hawks don’t see the rabbits occasionally nibbling by the side of the building.
Okay.
Now that I’ve finished my coffee and reflections for the morning, I’m on my way to juice apples and pears in the safety and comfort of my kitchen, a comforting place where I always experience the “soft around me.”
Before we aged, my mother and I, cream rose to the top of glass milk bottles, and eggs, large and brown, were sold in neighborhood grocery stores by storekeepers who bought from local sources. I was a nine-year-old girl hanging out at the table watching my mother make banana pudding. I never dreamed of growing older. Mommy would always be as she was right then, frozen in time, never changing, sending us away when we were bothersome and making us work when we were bored. A belt near one hand and a spoon in the other, it seemed the way it would be. Forever. With my nose too close to the bowl of food for her comfort, I never thought about age.
Focused and careful, with respect for ingredients, she slowly layered the baking dish with vanilla wafers, custard, and bananas until it was filled to the brim. Then she topped it off with meringue and baked it. She was a good cook, having learned her way around the kitchen after she married. Then her fingers began to curl, and the mixing bowl became too heavy.
Wavering between veganism and vegetarianism for decades, I just plain forgot about something as simple and delicious as banana pudding. I forgot about licking the bowl. I forgot about the sweet stuff.
My relationship with my mother was not an easy one. Daddy, after a hard day of brick laying, would walk into the apartment and ask, “Are you two at it again?”
She was not easy to please. But her banana pudding was royal. God bless her. She is no longer here to argue with. Still, I savor the memory of hanging over the side of her bowl, and the tenderness that manifested itself in a meringue that peaked just right.
It’s never been said that this bowl-licking life is easy. But when we get to lick the bowl, it’s sweet.
“Let us break bread together on our knees.” I remember Mom’s soprano filling the apartment with melody.
The lyrics are branded on my heart, and I’m reminded of three principles spawned from eating with family and friends. Gratitude. Service. Healing.
Gratitude for having access to food no matter how humble. Service in preparing food to share with others. The Healing that comes with sharing prayers, laughter, and companionship.
When I allow myself to feel the sadness that can come from eating alone ─ a consequence of the pandemic lockdown and my being medically unvaccinated ─ I recognize that sharing a meal is fundamental to self-nurturing.
I don’t remember the exact holiday. Some 50 years ago, at Passover, Rosh Hashana, or a Friday evening Shabbat, I sat across from my Jewish hosts. I knew nothing about Judaism except for what they explained about Kosher meals. Nineteen years old, Black and, most definitely raised Baptist, I nevertheless felt an intimacy with my new friends. We had mutual history: slavery, oppression, and escape from bondage. I relaxed into the comfort of being welcomed and learning about a new culture. I felt…nurtured and accepted. But I also nurtured and accepted them when I agreed to share a meal ─ “break bread” ─ with people I barely knew.
Mull outlines the path taken to our fast food, take-out culture and how we’ve become a society where so many of us are accustomed to eating alone. Family dinners, it seems, have been relegated to the back burner of American life. At first, I was reactive, thinking, “Well! That’s not my experience.”
Reaction instead of response is always a misstep.
By the time I finished reading, I was responding to Mull’s analysis that “By all indications, Americans want to cook and eat together.” Agreed. I rarely feel bad when I’m sharing mealtimes with others.
I grew up in a family that bonded when eating together. Maybe it’s because each of us contributed to the preparation of a meal. A task might not be pleasant, but it contributed to the health and joy of the meal. Yes, I said it. Joy. There was nothing like Daddy rolling from his chair onto the floor to exaggeratedly crawl away from the Thanksgiving table because the meal was so good and filling. Of course, once on all fours, he became a horse. There were plenty of siblings and cousins around to take advantage of his back.
My father liked to fish, bringing home perch or shad or whatever unlucky vertebrate took hold of his line that day.Cleaning fish taught me a kind of focus in the kitchen. Mom was always nearby watching. If I grabbed them the wrong way, the scales would prick my fingers.
“No. Do it this way!”
And I would do it as she instructed. When the fish’s body was smooth enough to run my hand along both sides without getting caught on the scales, I was ready for the nasty part ─ gutting. Sometimes, there was roe, a delicacy that, to this day, I will not eat. Call it caviar if you want.
The grossest part was the beheading. Looking into the blank eyes of a lifeless creature was my personal science fiction movie. With vacant eyes staring, it seemed, at me, I looked the other way as I severed the head from the body. And there, my friends, is another delicacy I will not touch ─ fish heads in any dish whatsoever.
We did not fillet our fish. I remember only too vividly my mother reaching into a child’s throat to remove a spiky bone. She may at times have resented motherhood, but she would not let us die.
We blessed the food. We ate the food. The fried fish, accompanied by biscuits, collard greens, mashed potatoes and gravy was well worth the trauma of the cleaning. In those moments of blessing, intimacy filled the space. If Daddy was home, we’d have spirited discussions about what was going on in the world. Assassinations ─ Gandhi. Malcolm X. President Kennedy. Civil Rights. Daddy shared some important wisdom: “Don’t ever judge another man unless you’ve walked in his shoes.”To this day, I hear his voice in my head as I meet all kinds of folk.
The pandemic has caused many of us to reevaluate and reprioritize our values and forced folks to slow down and acknowledge ─ positively or negatively ─ the people and communities surrounding them. For me, ironically, the lockdown highlighted the absence of cooking for folks and sharing a meal. I delighted in self-examination and sharing my time with the food writings of Ruth Teichl, Verta Mae Grosvenor, Edna Lewis and the delightful food adventures of Peter Mayle. I truly loved the stillness and nature’s rejuvenation and protection of the animals. However, there was something missing. I know it takes time to plan, shop, and prepare meals. But there is a huge ripple of love in the heart when serving others ─ that love is serving myself.
I was in a large vegetarian kitchen of an ashram. There were maybe fifteen of us or more. We were engaged in various stages of preparing the meal for a holiday celebration. Some were kneading bread, others chopping fruit and vegetables; a huge caldron of soup was being stirred and tofu “turkey” artistically prepared. The enthusiasm in preparing a meal to serve so many people ─ literally a few hundred ─ filled the room with ─ you got it ─ Joy. It was joy that came with gratitude for the chance to serve and for the personal satisfaction that comes with feeding others.Nurturing for them, nurturing for me.
Shortly after moving to Philadelphia, I lived in a house with a woman who lived in filth. I didn’t know this at first. When I went to check out the house, it was immaculate, but by the third week, the truth had revealed itself with the dog poop in the front yard that was left to dry on flagstone plates. The flies and stench irritated the neighbors who told me that it had been an ongoing problem. The laundry basement reeked of a cat litter box. My housemate was either unwilling or unable to help with kitchen and bathroom duties on a regular basis. I had been duped.
In a phone call with a clergyman, I whined, “Is Philadelphia hell?” He was kind; he chuckled, and gave me practical advice. Meditation, prayer, and finding someplace to volunteer. This made me feel better, and I began volunteering at a grocery coop where my job was ─ wait for it ─ weighing cuts of cheese and slicing bread. I was not homeless. I was not hopeless. My search for a new home began.
I ate in my room with the door closed, and in the days that followed, I consulted a psychic who told me: “Your housemate has unhealed trauma. People who live in filth have unhealed trauma.” I could hear Daddy’s voice again.
“Don’t ever judge another man unless you’ve walked in his shoes.” Lordy. What a mess.
Shortly after that call, I found some compassion, ordered pizza, and we ate together. Tensions began to dissolve, and I found my own apartment.
“Breaking bread opens people up. If you get in the habit of this as a family, you can talk about anything.”
My friend Tina said this to me almost 20 years ago. She and her husband had an ironclad commitment ─ which they keep to this day ─ to family dinners. At that time, they had eaten with the children every single day for 15 years. And I want to say that her children have become the most grounded, healthy, loving adults I know. Healthy traditions give birth to healthy families. Healthy families spawn unity. Unity is what we need in these miraculous, challenging, and eventful times.
Sala
KINDNESS: THE CROWN OF HUMAN DECENCY
Hi.
It’s been a while. If you’re expecting to see something deep, something about food or family, I’m not doing it today. Well, actually, I’m sorta thinking deeply. I’m thinking about kindness, the crown of human decency.
The news this week has been about Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. Broadcasters and YouTubers are trying to outdo each other with remembrances of Dolly Parton while I feel like most of us have been stunned into silence, that specific kind of silence one experiences when a good person dies. I didn’t know a lot about Tim Curry. My niece’s response to both of them dying on the same day was,
“What is happening?!”
As for me, I was trying to process Dolly Parton’s death. People wanted to know, “Why is a Black woman mourning the death of a White female country singer?” Because she was more than a color or gender or musical genre. I never knew or met her, but I have felt the kindness she brought to this world.
In this time of political insanity, a genuinely kind person and an extraordinary philanthropist felt compelled to use the money God gave her to help millions. She’s gone. I’m sad.
There have been many public figures, men and women, Black and White, Asian and Hispanic, Religious and Secular, whose death blindsided me. But something about Dolly Parton’s death broke me.
Ms. Parton helped save the lives of millions through her donations to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for research of the COVID-19 vaccine. Her Imagination Library has gifted over 300 million books to children around the world. She made public statements about the worth of every human being and stood behind Black Lives Matter after the killing of George Floyd. She gave millions to revitalize a Black Tennessee community. She paid for housing, medical expenses, food and more for people she did not know. Not out of obligation. There was no fanfare or chest beating. She did it quietly and with humility. She did it out of genuine, deeply rooted kindness.
Meanwhile, politicians filled with malice promote meanness and vile, tawdry behavior, and justify merciless violence — killings — while corrupting the messages of diverse scriptures. These demons take away millions of lives.
For a moment, but only a moment, I felt despair. A good soul left this earth while bad ones eat, drink, and live their lives without a thought of one good deed (just say “good morning,” to somebody, damn it!) for another person.
Janis Joplin sang, “Take another little piece of my heart now baby.”
There was a song I listened to as a young girl. Both Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole did covers of this song. The refrain is going ’round and ’round in my head:
“Pick yourself up
Take a deep breath
Dust yourself off
And start all over again.”
I’m takin’ back the pieces of my heart, baby. There’s a piece drenched in empathy, with a tiny sliver set aside for those I consider demons. Another piece carries generosity and the desire to serve. Still another corner is for clarity. The soft, cottony section is for tenderness; it allows me to accept and feel love. And, of course, there is that brilliant Light within that illuminates kindness.
Thank you, Dolly Parton. Your authenticity is a shining example. A reminder to always ask myself: am I being kind?
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Posted in Commentary, Creative Non-Fiction, Empathy, Essay, Kindness, Philosophical rants, Political reflection, Reflection, Writing from the heart
Tagged Dolly Parton, life, music, Political reflection, Writing