A Little Shock

As I sat on the end of a bench waiting for my subway to work yesterday, I heard someone coming down the platform coughing loudly and wetly (yes, that sound is definitely on my “least favorite” list, especially since the coming of Covid). I glanced back and saw an unmasked man (of course unmasked) pushing a shopping cart full of trash. He was white and a little rough looking – disheveled, hair all over, mumbling to himself.

He stopped beside the bench, almost parallel to me, and turned to look at me. After a few seconds, he resumed his walk down the platform with his cart. As he passed me, he muttered, “Nasty dreads. Need to cut ’em off, burn them, burn them all off.”

Folks who read my woefully-occasional posts may remember a troubling one from last year about an angry and disturbed Black man at my station who took an instant, enraged dislike to me. He, too, spat out some hate as he walked past me. In that case, it was very obviously directed at me. In the case of this morning’s ugliness, it’s certainly possible the man on the platform yesterday was simply opining in a general way, continuing aloud a conversation he’d been running in his head about the merits or not of locs. I mean, it’s possible, but fairly unlikely. And, as I was the only person near him and the only Black person with kinky hair done in twists and the person he had so pointedly turned to look at, it was pretty clear his comment was a response to me, was meant for me to hear.

Let’s set aside the sad fact that I’ve never gotten my act far enough together to grow locs. I accept that many people don’t really know what locs are and can’t see that my two-strand twists are definitely only two-strand twists and not locs. Let’s also move past the fact that no one should be saying “dreadlocks.” In this man’s case, given his obvious distaste, he’d be exactly a person who’d say dreads instead of loss.

So, setting all that aside … what the actual fuck? Hating a hairstyle is one thing. Wishing to see hair cut off is admittedly a lot and pretty disgusting. Wanting to burn off someone’s hair? That’s about 78 levels beyond.

In that post about the other Stacie-hating man on the train platform, I talked about my Spidey senses, about how I’ve learned to trust my fear, trust my sense of danger. I didn’t have as much fear of the man I saw yesterday as I did of the man in the first situation, but I had enough fear, enough that I knew not to pretend I was safe near him, knew to keep close watch on where he moved on the platform. Which is why I noticed that he came off the train at the same transfer point I did, why I made sure to position myself away from the platform edge in case he felt inspired to push me to the tracks.

In 2014 I was in San Francisco. It wasn’t my first trip, but it was the first time I was pushed to be aware of the outsize number of angry, unwell people who seemed at all times to walk a tightrope between keeping things together and exploding with violent rage. I’ve lived most of my life in New York City, often in neighborhoods that are considered sketchy, and I’ve never felt as constantly close to danger as I did on that trip.

And no, I don’t feel constantly close to danger in my city today, but the fact that I ever feel close to danger here is new and entirely unacceptable. The fact that, since midway through the second phase of the pandemic, I have had that feeling again and again is new and entirely, unsettlingly unacceptable.

Nothing happened yesterday. The man wheeled his cart past me and on toward the elevator. My connecting train came immediately and drove me away from him. Done and done. But I am still unsettled.

Still unsettled, feeling as though something has been stolen from me, that my city isn’t as much mine as it has been all these years.

*

After work, I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. I opted for a person rather than the self-checkout, and the cashier was a young-young man. When I handed him my customer card, our fingers touched and we got a shock. We both flinched back from it. I apologized and we laughed … and the checker from the next aisle said when she was a kid, girls believed that getting a shock from a boy meant he would be your husband one day. (Was that ever a thing when you were a kid? Definitely wasn’t for me. What a wacky portent to attach to static!)

My cashier looked aghast (the first time I’ve wanted to use that word to describe someone’s expression). I told him not to worry, that I was old enough to be his grandmother, so not at all interested in marrying him. The woman cashier laughed, and I added: “If you need a granny to knit you a sweater, though, I’m the one.”

The look on my cashier’s face! His eyes widened and softened and he looked about ten years old, looked like a boy who needed and really wanted a granny who would knit him sweaters. My heart melted. It was all I could do not to actually offer to knit for him. I smiled, paid for my yogurt and veggies and took my mushy-hearted self home. A much better random encounter to end my day than the one that started it.

When I wrote the first part of this essay, I was going to title it, “Burn Them All Off.” But then I had that little shock at Foodtown, that reminder that the city is still mine most of the time, that there is danger but there is also light and sweet-faced young people who want to be cherished by their elders. It doesn’t erase the morning’s unpleasantness, doesn’t erase the reality that my world has changed and I need to be more wary than I’ve ever needed to be in my life. But I welcome the spoonful of sugar.

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In 2017, I took up Vanessa Mártir’s #52essays2017 challenge to write an essay a week. I didn’t complete 52 essays by year’s end, but I did write like crazy, more in 2017 than in 2015 and 2016 combined! I’ve kept working on personal essays, kept at my #GriotGrind. If you’d care to join, it’s never too late! Find the group on FB: #52Essays Next Wave.

What I Would Give for Surprise

Officer Rusten Sheskey of Kenosha has returned from administrative leave. He will not face any disciplinary action for shooting James Blake.

And it’s Tuesday. A Tuesday like any other. Nothing shocking, nothing out of the ordinary. One more in the forever line of days of being at constant risk in this land of the free (whites) and home of the (trigger happy) brave.

* * *

Let’s talk about Golden Shovels, shall we? I’ve been so tired the last few days, I haven’t had time to think about how hard this form is for me. All I’ve been able to do is churn out a poem and get it posted. I posted a comment earlier that showed me at least part of what the road block is for me with these poems. Yes, having a prescribed set of words and word placement is restrictive. The bigger issue is that the lines I’m using as my source text are from Clifton’s poems. Using them feels rudely audacious and makes me even more self-conscious than I would normally be. So yes, the task I’ve set for myself for this month is specially designed to trip me up. Brilliant!

Despite all of this, I am actually starting to feel more comfortable with the form. Not snuggled in the way I was with the tanka. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that cozy in another form, but I am feeling less like a combatant, less under siege. That’s a good sign, of course, and it’s kind of right on time. It’s usually around the middle of the month that I stop approaching my chosen form as if we’re cage-fighting. It remains to be seen if I can approaching something closer to actual ease with this.

Tonight’s source text is from “the times.”

No Charges

That confidence, safety, certainty is so white,
so very, blindingly white, and
the heat of it burns, glowing, as I
watch it dance, saunter, flaunt its might.
I understand.
I do. I might be the same, except
nothing in this unwelcoming birthplace has afforded me that
freedom, that comfort. Instead, I
have built every good thing I am.
And today what I feel is tired,
as again I spit out a bitter draught of understanding.

---

National Poetry Month 2021: the Golden Shovel

As I’ve done for the last forever, I’ve chosen a poetic form, and I’m going to try to write a poem in that form every day for the month of April. I don’t always succeed, but I always give it my best shot. The “Golden Shovel” was created by Terrance Hayes in tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks. I learned about it from my friend Sonia (aka Red Emma). I’ll be using Lucille Clifton’s poems as my starting point this month. Here are the rules:

• Take a line (or lines) from a poem you admire.
• Use each word in the line (or lines) as the end word for each line in your poem.
• Keep the end words in order.
• Give credit to the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines).
• The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.

If you pull a line with six words, your poem would be six lines long. If you pull a stanza with 24 words, your poem would be 24 lines long. And so on.

Should be interesting!

You’re not even trying.

I’m tired. Beat to my fucking socks. Once again hearing Zack de la Rocha’s lyric, like the only song this country will ever want to sing to me: “Don’t you know they’re counting backward to zero?” So damned tired.

The source text for this poem is Lucille Clifton’s “grief.”

Pause

I am thinking of
a number between naught and eternity. Many
stories, many artful shadings of all colors.
Pause --
as we listen for
your revision, your retelling of the
tale. It's your story, your myth.
The reconfiguration of
Black death in Amerikkka.
Pause --
because he thought it was a taser. And pause for
the self-flagellating knife-cuts of our scoffing laughter, for the
rejection of your tired, lazy myth,
for this one more time of you revealing the bloody soul of
Amerikkka.

---

National Poetry Month 2021: the Golden Shovel

As I’ve done for the last forever, I’ve chosen a poetic form, and I’m going to try to write a poem in that form every day for the month of April. I don’t always succeed, but I always give it my best shot. The “Golden Shovel” was created by Terrance Hayes in tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks. I learned about it from my friend Sonia (aka Red Emma). I’ll be using Lucille Clifton’s poems as my starting point this month. Here are the rules:

• Take a line (or lines) from a poem you admire.
• Use each word in the line (or lines) as the end word for each line in your poem.
• Keep the end words in order.
• Give credit to the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines).
• The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.

If you pull a line with six words, your poem would be six lines long. If you pull a stanza with 24 words, your poem would be 24 lines long. And so on.

Should be interesting!

What I Don’t Want to Say

Since Wednesday, I’ve been thinking about all of my Asian friends … but I haven’t been checking in with any of them. Not directly. I’ve certainly clicked “love” or “care” or “angry” on their FB comments. I’ve shared articles they’ve posted. But I haven’t reached out.

And, clearly, I feel lousy about that, or I wouldn’t be writing about it now.

Last year, people started checking in on me. Sometimes more than once a day. Lots of people. Close friends, not-so-close friends, people who weren’t really even friends at all. I got emails, texts, notes on Messenger and IG. It was a lot, and I had no idea what to do with any of it.

It was early June. It was right after the murder of George Floyd. Yes, because that’s why everyone who knew me was checking in.

(Of course, when I say “everyone,” I am lying. There were some unsurprising and conspicuous absences from the cavalcade of “How are you doing?” messages. The folks for whom Floyd’s murder didn’t register, didn’t matter, the ones who were entirely pissed off and threatened by the uprising that spread across the globe but couldn’t acknowledge the wrongness of the killing that sparked the protests. Those people didn’t check in. And yes, I have those folks in my various “friend” lists. I leave them there so I can get the occasional glimpse of what’s happening in that mindset. It’s bracing, to say the least.)

I appreciated that my friends and everyone else were thinking about me. I mean, I mostly appreciated it. I was also really frustrated by it because, often, the checking in was accompanied by a request for me to do something — when was I going to start posting about it on FB, when would I write some essays? And yes, people had reason to expect some kind of written response from me, since that was a way I’d shown up after so many other murders of Black people. But I went silent last year, so a lot of the people who reached out also asked when they were going to hear from me.

And that didn’t feel good. It felt, instead, as if I couldn’t just rage and grieve in private but had to share, had to do some rib spreading, let everyone see my feeble, shredded heart.

And I really am not trying to sound as much like a jerk as I sound right now. I love my friends, and they love me. I imagine they struggled with what to say to me just as I’m struggling right now.

I haven’t been contacting my friends. And that’s because I remember how I felt over the summer and don’t want to pile on. At the same time, I have to be honest and admit that I have no idea what to say. I certainly don’t want to say, “How are you doing?” because how can anyone be doing right now? What would I have wanted people to say to me last year? What would have felt less like pressure and more like love?

And maybe that’s all there is to say, maybe that’s what I would have wanted to hear last year. My love feels thin today, though. Doesn’t feel like nearly enough, though it’s the only thing I have in abundant supply.

There’s no neat and tidy bow to tie around this. I’m sad and angry and angry and angry. And I feel like a bad friend right now. Raging and grieving in private feels selfish today.

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It’s the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge!
Head on over to Two Writing Teachers
and see what the rest of this year’s slicers are up to!

What I Didn’t Do

Content warning: Atlanta shootings

I had a crap day today. I’m overtired and cranky. I discovered a huge error in the big project we’re slogging through at work. There was a worsening of a pain in my right arm that feels distressingly similar to how my rotator cuff tear started four years ago. I left work too late to make it to the UPS store, which likely means it’s too late to return a nonsense purchase I made a while ago.

I had a crap day on Monday when I hurt my hip and smushed my finger in a door and had a snarky interaction with a neighbor who refuses to wear masks or respect socially-distant space.

I could have an entire blog dedicated to writing about the crap days I have. The days when I come home feeling defeated. The days when it’s hard to get out of bed because what’s the point when everything sucks. The days when I’m more sad, angry, lonely, tired, fed up than I am anything nicer. I generally have pretty good days, but I have quite a number of super-bad ones, too.

I don’t imagine I’m all that unusual. Don’t we all have crap days sometimes?

I had a lousy day. What I didn’t do was pretend that my unfortunate day was a reasonable catalyst for terrorism. What I didn’t do was go on a killing spree and explain my actions by saying I was in a bad mood. What I didn’t do was make my victims out to be villains who left me with no choice but to end their lives. Somehow I managed not to do any of that.

I had a crap day and this is what I did: some impulse grocery shopping when I was finally on my way home and got back here with watermelon, tortilla chips, and ice cream (hey, my binge doesn’t look like everybody’s binge). What I didn’t do, it bears repeating, was kill anyone and then blame them for my violence.

I’m not surprised that a police officer (one who has been revealed to be — surprise! — a racist) would talk about Robert Aaron Long’s act of domestic terrorism in a way that offered up excuses for the murder of eight innocent people. I’m not surprised that this racist police officer told the killer’s story and erased the victims from the narrative as easily as Long did with his racist, misogynistic violence. I’m not surprised. But I am, too.

I had a bad day. And it was made worse by the reverberations of this latest act of white male violence against people of color. Robert Aaron Long isn’t some lone wolf, some individual crazy guy who had a bad day, some unfathomable mad man. Long is one more in a line of violent white men we are asked to ignore over and over again. This morning I wrote on FB that he looks like all of his brothers — like Dylan Roof, like Tim McVeigh, like Biggo with his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, like every murdering incel. They all look alike, because they are all alike. And we are asked to ignore everything that is plainly similar about all of them, asked to pretend that each of them is a stand-alone case of mental illness rather than force the conversation about the violence of angry white men, rather than act.

I had a bad day, but I’m still here. I wish I could say the same for the eight innocents who were gunned down yesterday.

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It’s the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge!
Head on over to Two Writing Teachers
and see what the rest of this year’s slicers are up to!