Category Archives: Writing. Loving.

I’m late with this week’s post.   I wish I could say that it was because of a blizzard that took out the DSL connection, but that’s not true.  I got nothin’.

Winter has been light this year.   Mid-Atlantic winters, like folks, are highly unpredictable; sometimes dramatic, sometimes heavy and aggressive, sometimes light.  This year, temperatures have been warmer than usual, and we’ve had few of the bitterly cold days and nights that we experienced over the past three years.  The two bags of rock salt, 25 pound bag of sand, and my shovel have been tucked away in the trunk of my car for over three months.  I’ve found myself using my thermal undershirts to protect my skin when I dye my hair.  No one will see the brown spots.  It’s an under shirt.

Last week’s ten minute snow gale was one of the strangest winter shows I’ve seen: blizzard for ten minutes, then sunshine.

“It’s too warm for it to stick,” said a woman standing next to me.

She was absolutely right.  But I was caught up in the “woe is me” of bad snow memories:  the D.C. winter when my toes went numb while waiting for a bus, a day that became the motivation for moving to California; my car buried in four-foot drifts–I could only find it because of the tips of the wipers black against the snow pile.  Then there was the day when my tires were spinning in the ice and snow at the curb, and men walked by as I poured sand and struggled with a shovel against the wind.  “How can this be?” I asked myself.  They were laughing as they walked.  I hope they were enjoying the snow.

I enjoyed snow once.  I remember Mom making ice cream out of fresh snow; those were the days before soot covered the window sills within two hours.  And I remember Daddy picking us up from school before a blizzard was in full swing.  There was my 16th birthday party–my only party–when my friends got snowed in at our apartment and their parents came to pick them up.  I remember watching the snow against the light of street lamps while midnight bells welcomed Christmas morning.  There were some good times with snow.

But then, there is the danger of snow.  On my first continental train ride from California to D.C., the train made its way through the Rockies with the cars creaking and moaning up the Colorado hills.  It felt as though we were moving at 10 miles per hour, the train carefully scaling the ice-covered tracks.  Inside the cars, there was total silence.  We all held a collective breath as we listened to the brakes screeching against the ice and gusty winds.  The cars started and stopped; started and stopped.  In my car, people stared out the windows.  No one read a magazine.  No one drank a beer.  Nobody slept.

We’d passed a field where two cows, seemingly lost, chewed slowly in the wind, kneeling and apparently unaware of the fact that they were freezing to death.  They could not see the train.  They were already in a place far beyond the icicles hanging from their frozen coats.  As the train reached the peak and began its increasingly rapid descent, we exhaled, picked up our food and drinks, and resumed our conversations.  Laughter–much too loud–accompanied the powerful collective thought– one could die in the snow.

So, it’s winter.  Sometimes harsh, sometimes mild.  This, thankfully, has been mild.  When I lived in California, I longed for the drama of robust autumn colors and brittle winds.  But, now that I’m here, I’ve been indulging in mental flailing about.  And that is today’s post–a mental flailing about with snow.

Have a great week.  Spring is on the horizon.

I was walking with a friend through a Berkeley park.  Park walking is a good time for telling the truth.  There is, after all, sooooo much to talk about.  I asked how a mutual acquaintance, Renee, was doing and, all of a sudden, it was on.

“She’s going out with Jennifer’s husband,” said my friend.  I was stunned.  I literally stopped in mid-stride, my leg in the air.

“What?”  I asked.

“Everybody knows it.” 

Well, I didn’t know it; from everything I knew about the woman, it did not ring true.  There was absolutely nothing to back it up.  I was very annoyed. 

“That’s not my experience of Renee,”  I said coldly.  The way I answered surprised us both.  We looked at each other.  “She does not poach other women’s husbands or boyfriends, ” I said.   And with that, I turned and walked away.

When we were children, we were taught that “the truth will set you free.” 

Truth-telling is a healing experience.  Hearing the truth is equally valuable.  Truth can heal a broken heart, derail the train to infidelity, and stop gossip in its tracks.  I’m betting that truth can even prevent wars.  There is this moment of relief when the truth is stated out loud, a quietness in the heart.  A person can “let go” in its presence. 

Truth is absolute.  For instance, everyone that is born into a physical body will die a physical death.  That is the truth.  It levels the human playing field, makes all people equal, and makes the political fear mongering and religious posturing that we see today even more ridiculous. 

Here’s another truth:  fear and love cannot exist within the heart at the same time.  If, in any moment, the heart is filled with fear and anxiety, there will be no room for the tenderness of love.

I  remember the only private conversation I ever had with my paternal grandfather. It was the last time I saw him, and I was around 19 or 20.  We were in the sitting room of his home in South Carolina.  I was a tempestuous young woman, one who always questioned things in a way that seemed  to easily irritate adults around me. 

So I was experiencing a bit of fear as Granddaddy leaned back in his rocker.  He was elegant and dignified, and the filtered sunlight at his back outlined his tall, muscular frame.  He looked like an African chieftain or a god, and the moment seemed like a rite of passage somehow.  But I did not ask any questions that day.  I listened.  As we sat together, just Granddaddy and me, he would talk, then take long pauses and sips of lemonade. 

He talked about being a Black parent in the south during the time of struggle, and how he had to be hard on his children to keep them alive.  He also talked about how rebellious my father was.  He took a sip of his lemonade; I gulped mine–silently I hoped.

“You do things as a parent to protect your children, and at the time, the children think you’re being mean to them.”  He took another long sip.  I sipped from my own glass.  (Truth:  there is nothing as refreshing and comforting as homemade lemonade in the southern heat.)

I recognized my own rebellious tendencies, and it is true that I felt as if people were hard on me.  I have never been an advocate of the status quo, and I experienced great trouble in expressing my thoughts evenly to others.  My ideas sounded rebellious, but truthfully, I just saw the world a different way–I still do sometimes.   

“Your daddy always wanted to try new things,” Granddaddy said, and I was grateful that he kept the focus on my father.  I felt like he saw in me the same exploratory quality, and that he had decided this was a good thing.  I felt like he was trying to make it easy for me somehow.

“Sometimes, as a parent, you just learn not to worry.  You  may not like the decisions your children make, but you know it will come out right.  I’m real proud of your daddy.  I am glad that he became who he became.”

 Granddaddy took another pause and as he did that, I felt peace.  I experienced that moment of relief, that all engulfing stillness that comes with the truth.  That day, fear was pushed out of my heart and love came in to take its place.  I could let go of worry because, at least for the moment, I knew I had his unconditional love.  He had shared the truth with me.

And that’s when I came to this conclusion:  Absolute truth is love, and love will set us free.

I am sad today.  I feel as if I lost a relative, a close personal friend.   Her music filled me up.  Her voice gave me hope.  Her sound healed my heart. 

Along with sorrow, Death brings, perhaps, a little insight.  This week the topic of addiction is on the minds and in the hearts of people all over the world.  Whitney Houston’s public struggle with her addictions should force us—all of us—to open our hearts to the inner battle that is so fierce and real for each and every person. Not a single one of us can sit in sanctified judgment.  Every one of us has a demon, an addiction that is not necessarily a chemical dependency.

Over the years, I have seen many good folks succumb first to despair, and then to chemical addiction.  The sociologists and psychologists and folks think they have all the answers, and perhaps they do.  They talk about treatment and intervention and go on and on.  But with all their knowledge, addiction doesn’t go away. 

Drugs, alcohol, sex, food, and relationship cravings can push a seemingly invincible warrior into the abyss.  Only one person can win the battle.  Families can’t do it.  Friends can’t do it.  Preachers can’t do it.  Laws can’t do it.    

Now, let’s get this straight.  A chemical addiction is just one way that deeper issues manifest.  Let’s talk about the craving for relationship. Women and men around the world are familiar with relationship addictions that are just as troubling as any chemical craving.  In fact, sometimes relationships will lead to chemical addictions.  The craving to be with people—and it is a real craving–even when they are bad for us is our response to terror.  We are afraid to be alone with our own thoughts.  We are running from our own sorrow, shame and heartache.  But we are also running from our own beauty.  Cravings are the attempt to still the belief that we are not good enough as we are. 

Women hear over and over again the age-old myth that it’s better to be with any man or partner than to live one’s life alone.  Stop the lie.  This craving for relationship, no matter the cost, is filled with the same “highs” and “lows” of any other addiction.  How many of us surround ourselves with people who reflect back to us our own self-dislike, self-doubt, and low self-esteem rather than surround ourselves with people who reflect our true greatness and light? 

Acknowledging a relationship addiction is harder than calling out a chemical dependence.   If we could understand on a deep, deep level; if we could shine a light into our hearts and marvel at what we see, there would be no addiction.  The very breath and fiber of our being is filled with the holy essence of God, and once we consider that as even the possibility, then we’ve put a leg higher up on the ladder of life. 

Battling addiction is about erasing our own feelings of unworthiness.  Knowing this doesn’t make fighting our demons necessarily easier, but if we just accept, once again I say, the possibility of that truth—that the spirit of God is our very breath—perhaps, no guarantees, but perhaps, we can win the war. 

I once had an unstable manager.  She would give a person flowers and a thank you note one day, then scream at the person the next day.  Although her behavior was erratic (and I imagined chemically induced), the responsibility for eliminating my addiction to unstable personalities was my problem, not hers.  I know about being addicted to persons who are unpredictable and unstable.  I know the battle of fighting the addiction to people who do not lift me up. 

So, I am sad today.  I didn’t know Whitney Houston personally, but her struggle is every person’s struggle as we continue to fight to see our own best self through our own hearts and eyes.  To surround ourselves with greatness and to live in the light of our own inner greatness is the battle.  We will win it.

My prayers are for Whitney Houston’s daughter, her mother, and her whole family.

I’m on a rant.    Try as hard as I might, words get misinterpreted or misheard; somebody thinks somebody else is ignorant because of the way they turned a phrase or used a word.  Judgments are made about a person’s intelligence because of words.  I’m not talking about words of hate, fear, anger, or despair.  I’m just talking about regular words.  Folks don’t hear each other.   

“Hey, Britt.  How ya doin?”

“Did you just call me a bitch?”

Okay.  I’m exaggerating a little.  But not by much.  We don’t listen, and as a result we don’t really hear.

American English is not an easy language.  I have a lot of compassion for people who are trying to learn American English as a second language.  Where else can a word that sounds the same be spelled in two or three different ways?  Hear and here.  They’re, their, and there. 

Folks will also use the same word to mean completely different things depending on their geographic or cultural background.  The word “fresh” is a great example.

1.     “Don’t get fresh with me!” says the parent.

Translation:  don’t be disrespectful and try to make yourself an equal to the adult.

2.    “That girl is just fresh.” 

Translation:  The girl is sexually provocative and acting older than she should at her age.

3.    “These eggs smell fresh.” 

Translation:  The eggs smell bad.  They aren’t safe to eat.

4.    “The milk is fresh.”  “The flowers smell fresh and sweet.”

Translation:  The milk is okay to drink.  The flowers smell good.

5.    “It’s fresh, exciting…” sings the song.

Translation:  It’s new and innovative.

FIVE different contexts.  Is there any wonder that it’s hard to hear what someone is saying?

So given the contextual complexities of the language, why don’t we try to listen harder?  I understand that there are circumstances where the language of the broader culture makes one more easily understood.  Still, isn’t it rather unforgiving to put all the responsibility on the speaker.  As my sister says, “it takes two for relationship.”    

Okay, so about “fresh.”  Regional and cultural contexts matter.  I have personally heard fresh used in all five contexts.  Within the context of culture, who can judge what’s right or wrong?  We can talk about the need for the use of a word in the context of the larger culture, but we cannot strike the use of the word in all of its contexts.  That would be a serious linguistic bias.

The word fresh will have a different meaning depending on whether a person is from the northern or southeastern United States; whether a person is 75 or 15; or whether a person is from a rural or an urban area.  It also matters whether a person is Caucasian or non-Caucasian.  This being the case, I say that we need to learn to listen more deeply.

Now, clearly there are people who won’t agree with me.  That’s okay.  This is my blog.  A woman once told me that my contribution to a discussion didn’t matter because I was from the “country.”  I was shocked.  I had shared an anecdotal story about my grandparents’ farms in the south.  I shared it with a lot of love, and I guess something in what I said led her to believe that I’d been raised in the rural south.  I was not raised in the rural south.  At all.  She had stopped listening and made an intellectual judgment based on racial and linguistic bias. The pity, really, was for her, but I will never know what led to her judgment, and I will never know if she ever learned to really listen.  She died last year.

Lesson?   We’ve got a lotta listening to do–a lot to learn about  hearing what people are really saying when they say what they say.  We don’t really have a choice. 

We can do it. 

Today’s word is not in any way synonymous with the condiment slathered on fried potatoes.  That would be too easy. 

I’m writing about “catch-up,” a white-hot energy.  “Playing catch-up” is an experience where we feel we have to make up for lost time, and it’s an experience that can lead to excitement or anxiety.  As I grow older, (ah, these birthdays and the reflections that go with them…) I look at the benefits and folly of playing catch-up.  Since I feel like somewhat of an expert on the subject, I want to say that I choose to be excited rather than anxious about running from behind to get where I want to be.  

When I become anxious, catching-up is like an internal cattle prod pushing me to do everything that I didn’t do when I was younger.  This is just not possible, but the internal dialogue is intense.

“What about retirement?” (Who’s retiring?)

“Sing.  Perform!” (Doing that.)

“Publish.” (Doing that.)

“What about marriage?”  (Sigh.)

When I am excited, catching-up feels like I’m managing a colorful kite that’s  soaring in the wind above my head, where’s it’s been for a while, until I decide to reel it in.  With this game, I recognize that my catching-up is not so much about status and impressing others as it is about knowing—knowing who I am and what I want; knowing who I want to be around (I do not suffer ignorance gladly) and what makes me happy.  Catching-up is about being able to tell the difference between environments that are healthy for me and those that are toxic (insecure bosses need not apply!)…you get the drift.

Then, there are the things that will never be caught–up.  Just today, in a conversation with my mother, she asked,

“Did you ever have any children?”  She’s forgotten again.  This happens more frequently now.

“No, Mom.”

“Why not?”

“I would have had a very different life with children.”

“Different?”

“Yes.  I would never have traveled or met so many people or learned so much about myself.”  She does not understand a word I am saying.  Learn about myself?

“You can still have children.”

“Do I look like Sarah in the Bible?” 

“You can always adopt.”  Sigh.

 Regret is such an oily word.  There is too much emotional residue that you cannot wash out once you have played in the waters of regret.  I don’t regret my choices, but I do look back on them, even when the reflection comes with doubt.   

In a workshop the other day, a woman talked about foster care and, just for a moment, I felt this tug, a push to look at what my life might have been had I not stood in opposition to family and societal expectations for women. 

“You can,” she suggested, “be a foster parent.”

Oh, yes.  I remember.  God’s delay is not God’s denial. 

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the fire of regret was gone.  One of my favorite songs is one that was sung by Edith Piaf, the great French singer.   

Non, je ne regrette rien.  I regret nothing.

For me, it’s about the balance of things when playing catch-up.  In this game, everything must go under the bright light of reflection, but nothing should ever be submerged in the oily waters of regret. 

There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole…

I’m a little late with the posting this week. It’s been a time of deep reflection as the words keep resounding in my head:

“I’m happy with what I’ve got.”   The words were spoken so long ago.

I was sitting in the lobby of the welcome inn at the base of Mt. Rainier.  My boyfriend had gone to the bathroom.  I want to say right off that I was a fish out of water from the get-go.  I am not an outdoor enthusiast.  I don’t like hiking, and I do not find snow sports invigorating.  My idea of a ski trip is a hot drink in the cafe while I watch folks glide or tumble down snowy hills.  However, that morning I was in love.  The sun’s rays bounced off the peaks of the Cascades so brightly that the mountains appeared to be draped in diamonds.  It was breathtaking. 

 I had gone on this day trip to share an outdoor bonding experience with my boyfriend, and that was how I happened to be reading a book, taking in the view, and checking my watch in exasperation.  I mean, really, how long could a bathroom run take?  

 A tall, sixty-ish Caucasian man appeared in front of me.  His gray hair had receded to the middle of his scalp and his glasses did not seem to be helping him much with the map he held in his hand.  His taut frame was swathed in khaki pants and a checkered sports shirt—everything neat and creased.  I was the only Black woman in the lobby—and a woman who could be singled out.

 “I’m happy with what I’ve got.”   

 The truth is, I could have been at home doing the things I loved—baking bread, singing, or writing poetry.  To hell with bonding, I thought later, it’s way overrated. 

The man had addressed me in such a business-as-usual-just-another-day kind of way.  I was stunned.  It took perhaps five seconds for our eyes to meet as he blocked my view and less than that for him to respond.  When my boyfriend returned with food (it had been more than the bathroom after all) I could not explain what had happened inside me.  Having allowed myself to be drawn into someone else’s assumptions about who I was, I witnessed something inside of me, something lovely, something that identified with the colorful wild mountain flowers, evaporate like snowflakes dropped into fire.

 It only took only a few seconds for our eyes to meet and for him to respond.  It took years for me to release the rage and, frankly, shock.  

This man may be dead or alive, but I only have one snapshot of his existence on earth:  the memory of words expressed about someone he didn’t know based on the color of her skin. 

What snapshots do we leave behind?   This week, with a death in my spiritual community, I’ve thought about word snapshots a lot.  There are folks who’ve been hurt by my words and folks who have found healing.  Which snapshot do I want to leave behind? 

I’m not a political analyst, anthropologist, social worker or scholar.  I just know the power of words.  

That night, as I wandered through my apartment in search of healing balm, I turned to the writing of poems.

We all let loose with the unintentional on occasion—like at our family gathering after my brother’s funeral.

“There are two chicken dishes here. This red pepper thing,” I announced, spearing a breast of ruby colored chicken sprinkled with large pepper flakes, “and real chicken.”  I looked over at a plate of perfectly  golden brown thighs and breasts.

My favorite aunt is a fantastic cook.  She now stared at me, her eyes widening as the words “red pepper thing and real chicken” blanched her consciousness.  She reached for a piece of the red pepper chicken, her eyes never leaving my face.

“Uh.  Did you make it?” I stammered.

“Yes,” she nodded. She spoke with just a hint of a hitch, a reminder of her stroke several years ago.

My sister reminds me that the proper use of language (and a little tact) is a virtue—probably on equal par with cleanliness being next to Godliness.

“I didn’t mean…it’s just that… I don’t eat chicken. I’m a vegetarian.”  I stuttered as I pulled the fork from the peppered bird and turned away.

“Great,” I thought.  “That made things so much better, didn’t it?”  Not really…

I want to change the way we use language.  I want to be the word-super hero, the one who swoops in and wraps folks in a cape before they say or write the stupid things that have been churning like butter in their brains—and that they may regret later.  I want to warn them that thoughts become sound and that sound has power.  I want to spread the gospel that we can choose between sounds that uplift and those that demean, hurt, and disempower.  I want to stop the hemorrhaging of unconscious expressions pouring into our lives like river banks overflowing.

Every day, it seems that someone has plunged his or her feet into the cesspool of bad public relations caused by stupidity, bigotry or both.

“Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?” and this:

“If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

The Georgia school district spokeswoman who responded to the national outrage around these homework questions for third to fifth graders said that they were trying to blend history with math.  I don’t believe this for a second.  Still, somewhere I heard that you can always give someone the benefit of the doubt.

It would be more appropriate and truthful to blend southern segregationist history with math if a sentence began with:  “Ten African slaves planned their escape from a plantation over three days.  They would have to go ten miles a day to get to freedom…”—or something like that.

If I could wave a magic wand (ah, Harry Potter…), I would imprint the advice of my elders onto the brain cells of every person’s consciousness.

“Think before you speak.”  Or write.

Working against intentional bigotry or stupidity is bad enough, but ignorant expressions spew from the mouths of well-meaning friends, family, associates, and colleagues every day.  Prejudicial and two-dimensional representations of other people, cultures, and belief systems demean and dehumanize in ways that reach far beyond the boundaries of race and ethnicity.

But we are so resistant to change.  We resist questioning our assumptions about people, places and things.  We resist acknowledging the possibility that something we say could be demeaning. We resist hearing others tell us how our words sounded to them.  We resist empathy, which allows us to hear another’s truth of what they have experienced from us.  We resist self-exploration that leads to self-forgiveness and would rather wallow in the sewage of defensiveness and/or guilt.  Resistance is the linchpin of bigotry.

When Gallaudet College, a college for the deaf in Washington, DC, was looking for a president in the late eighties and the students insisted on a deaf president, some folks wondered out loud if the college was ready for a deaf president.  Had deaf students evolved enough to manage their own affairs?  After all, if they couldn’t hear…  Well-intentioned folks who had lived and worked with the deaf for many years were expressing undeniably patriarchal views.

Do our words uplift or demean and humiliate?  Do our words inspire or create fear, sadness, pain, and separation?

We’ve only just begun.  Ah, Harry…may I borrow your wand?

Sound has power.  The sound in obreptitious fills the mouth, but breaks the air like a punctured balloon.  It’s the unpleasant presence in relationships.

The dictionary says that “obreptitious” means to gain through concealment of the truth, and I gather that it is a word often used in law and associated with fraud.  That doesn’t work so well in relationships.

Obreptitious a big word, and I had promised myself that I wouldn’t use such words.  It has a lot against it.  It has four syllables.  You have to look at it three times to make sure you pronounce it correctly.  Such words are generally a nuisance because nobody uses them in everyday talking.  Imagine…

“Hey, Susan!  That was an obreptitious statement.”  Or whatever…

I don’t even remember how I found this word.  But I knew when I heard it that there was something in it for me; something to think about.  Do I want to live my life concealing the truth of what I believe in the hopes that people will approve of my life, ideas, and behavior, or do I want to live my life as an authentic person?  I care about the habit of telling the truth.  I care making an effort to be real, authentic, and open.

This word, ultimately, is about hiding; about keeping secrets, and secrets, as we know, are not such good “friends.”  There are times when concealment seems necessary, but in the end, concealment is a deal-breaker.  It kills trust and squashes vulnerability.  Without trust and vulnerability, real friendships don’t exist.  Ever tried to be friends with a corporation?

Corporations and politicians use concealment to gain money and power.  Just look at the mess our political and economic systems are in.  I know…the Supreme Court says corporations are people.  Good luck with that.

I once witnessed a testy turf war between two former corporate business partners.  The executives of one company had developed an elaborate strategy to announce important company changes at a staff assembly without the former partner knowing about the meeting.  On the morning of the assembly, the back doors to the auditorium burst open and the executive team of the former partner sprinted down the aisle to take seats in front of the podium as the announcements were made.

It takes a lot of energy to live with concealment—a.k.a. secrets—for gain.  Sometimes folks conceal information to get revenge or to hurt another.  Like when an ex-boyfriend surprised me by introducing me to his new wife that he had married two weeks before.  We were living together at the time.

Sometimes concealment is used to gain protection for the family or to gain stability in a changing and unstable world.  Growing up, I had often complained (to myself of course) about not having a big sister who would take on all the big sister responsibilities I had.  It’s been said to be careful what we wish for.

“This is her second daughter,” my grandfather would announce when introducing me to people who knew my mother.  I was 19 and in the middle of my only trip alone to South Carolina to visit my grandparents.  I dared not ask for explanation, and saved my questions for when I returned home.  It was not a pleasant conversation, but worse than that, lives were shattered from good intentions.  Sadly, more than 35 years later, the damage of that concealment—for my older sister—remains.

Over the past twenty years, I have made some hellish mistakes in my attempts to demolish the wall of concealment in my personal life.  As determined as I was to level the wall, I found myself holding it up because it’s a fact that everybody doesn’t need to know everything–whether about me or anybody or anything else.

But, I’ll keep trying.  And that is my New Year’s resolution.