Deuces
A few weeks ago a huge email fight erupted over Willy’s Place with my siblings. The kind of fight that drags the heart into the pit of the stomach and leaves a memory of shame. Why am I ashamed? When you feel unwanted and have believed yourself to be unwanted, the shoe of shame seems to wear well. Throughout the many years of disagreement over the sale of our fathers legacy I have felt the pressure of their opinions, the pressure of their imposed fears and the perceived lack of trust in me. True or not they are part of the story of a shoe that fits. Roe v. Wade was reversed and the ensuing rage suddenly became clear…this feeling inside of me is a greedy monster with beady eyes and its held breath and pounding heart a reflection of a dying world. A man’s world. A man’s world that holds the opinion that proximity to whiteness is better, a world that seeks to pick apart, judge and look down it’s insecure nose at anything other than. A world where only they matter… A dying world willing to take us all down with it!
Those of us who know accept the fact that the only way forward is together in integrity and with a forgiving heart. I have chosen to live in forgiveness, first and foremost for myself and when that cup runneth over for others as well.
I laugh when people act like racism and sexism and inequality isn’t real and then I hold my tongue because all I have to say is to black and brown bodied females/femmes. Come what may I prepare a place for you. Let’s keep moving forward, no matter what!
Often in my time of self imposed suffering the words from months ago when i hurt my back ring loud in clear and cut through all my thoughts… pain is the thing that stops us dead in our tracks and no matter how much we desire to push forward the pain forbids it. It grounds me, forces me to stop and think and see. It demands a purging, a purification, a transformation. I remember reading parts of Ecclesiastes while I was in the hospital in pain where it says something like there is a season for everything and that there is nothing new under the sun … To be fully alive is to experience all that life is. The whole package means joy and sorrow come for us and it’s reminding me that even though it feels like I am losing my mind, I am not crazy at all.
Amidst the stress of not knowing how to state my case to my siblings without fighting live the signs of benevolence in my life. The Adria hotel on 222nd street as I drive to meet a friend, the virgin mother and her pink roses, swan medicine gracing me as I walk my park, the miracle of purposeful work that sustains my sons and I, the deuces I’ve been holding up and signing off with appearing through shapes as I move through the world, the t-shirt of a complete stranger that reads “just add guests and serve”...
Sometimes we cling to something so hard that our attachment crushes the life and possibility right out of it. I have vividly imagined and lived and relived my devastation over losing Willy’s Place and because the mind is so powerful I lose sight of what’s true and real now… Willy’s Place is already mine. The strained relationships with my siblings deserve resolution and even finality, the projects I have in mind deserve to come to life because the world needs resourced women looking out for one another more than ever before. The vision requires that I lose myself and all my self imposed blocks and barriers and give this to its highest calling.
What moves me most is this reclamation of my lineage, my parental and cultural inheritance, my birthright, my land. No more second guessing what I know is real and true. Willy’s Place is not my whole story, it’s just a chapter and a perfect place to start.
