1,000 Cranes - The Innocence of My Son, 'I Wish You Happiness...'

1,000 Cranes.  I had been fired from my job because I couldn’t condone making up services numbers on a project, so I was told my services were no longer needed, nor necessary.   I was fired.  No unemployment.  No prospects.  I stood up for what I believed in, yet it was with an outcome that I didn’t expect.  I began to do manual labor.  I painted apartments for my landlord to cover the costs of rent.  I was on public assistance, again.  It was a difficult time.  I was heavy with worry a lot of the time.  I was hurt emotionally from the experience.  A graduate education didn’t matter cause I was beginning again.  I don’t lay my adult worries on my son, but he watched me.  I came home one day from painting and Sonny was doing origami.  He was watching Youtube and learning to fold cranes.  I commented on how beautiful they were.  A few days later, he was still at it.  His little 9 year old hands were folding paper, creasing, and meticulously making cranes.  I asked why he was doing this.  I figured it was to decorate his room.  No it wasn’t.  He told me the story about a Japanese legend that if he folded 1,000 cranes that he’d be granted a wish.  His wish was that I’d be happy again and I wouldn’t have to worry all the time about money, food, rent, lights, gas, and how I was gonna get what he needed.  I was stunned.  I then sobbed when I heard this and held him in my arms.  I reminded him things will get better.  Life just threw us a curveball.  I apologized for not being happy go lucky Mom that he needed.  I thanked him for his project.  His wish meant everything to me.  I got my wish when he was born.  And, this is one of the many reasons my son continues to amaze me…             

Poetry: "Vainglory by Circumstance"

Proud back with a chest high in the air

Swaying with desire

Never knowing when to bend

Afraid to break

Ushering into the wind

Bowing to the ravages of life

A life of hurling lessons

Mistakes that grow into another

Proud back with a chest high in the air

Swaying with desire

How do I stop this?

How do I bend?

When do I allow?

Questions urging a grown person asunder

Begging God, doubting that there is one

Abandoned again for worthier causes

Pleading for respite, but none found

Proud back with a chest high in the air

Swaying with desire

Familiar with a man’s desire for $5

Allota $5’s feeds young, hungry bodies

Those dirty $5’s keeps clothes on young backs

Stinky $5’s keeps a roof over children’s heads

Desperate that my children’s dreams realized

Dreams that look past this circumstance

Proud back with a chest high in the air

Swaying with desire

Stopping for briefest of moments

Catching glimpses of a stranger past dirty shop windows

Recognizing, this is not the dream that I once dreamed

Proud back with a chest high in the air

Swaying with desire

Staring into the broad sky where stars twinkle

Grateful at least it is from a back seat

Unexpected kindness

Throwing Wishes into the heavens

Under another man’s heaving, uncaring, selfish body

Unanswered prayers wash carnal desires away

Proud back with a chest high in the air

Swaying with desire

Hanging on - Hope is all that there is left

February 1, 2013

A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou

	Maya Angelou American Poet, Author and Actress
	We, this people, on a small and lonely planet Traveling through casual space Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns To a destination where all signs tell us It is possible and imperative that we learn A brave and startling truth And when we come to it To the day of peacemaking When we release our fingers From fists of hostility And allow the pure air to cool our palms When we come to it When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean When battlefields and coliseum No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters Up with the bruised and bloody grass To lie in identical plots in foreign soil When the rapacious storming of the churches The screaming racket in the temples have ceased When the pennants are waving gaily When the banners of the world tremble Stoutly in the good, clean breeze When we come to it When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders And children dress their dolls in flags of truce When land mines of death have been removed And the aged can walk into evenings of peace When religious ritual is not perfumed By the incense of burning flesh And childhood dreams are not kicked awake By nightmares of abuse When we come to it Then we will confess that not the Pyramids With their stones set in mysterious perfection Nor the Gardens of Babylon Hanging as eternal beauty In our collective memory Not the Grand Canyon Kindled into delicious color By Western sunsets Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji Stretching to the Rising Sun Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores These are not the only wonders of the world When we come to it We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace We, this people on this mote of matter In whose mouths abide cankerous words Which challenge our very existence Yet out of those same mouths Come songs of such exquisite sweetness That the heart falters in its labor And the body is quieted into awe We, this people, on this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness That the haughty neck is happy to bow And the proud back is glad to bend Out of such chaos, of such contradiction We learn that we are neither devils nor divines When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power to fashion for this earth A climate where every man and every woman Can live freely without sanctimonious piety Without crippling fear When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world That is when, and only when We come to it. This poem was written and delivered in honor of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. © Maya Angelou, from A Brave And Startling Truth Published by Random House

Games Men Play: A Prayer Answered

I flung my prayers to heaven and it rained love.

I ran into Elvis* last night and he poured out his unyielding love for me. He described his attempts at getting my attention. He was angry that I turned him down. I heard his angst. I stood there and took it. He jabbed, to the left - to the right. I tried apologizing but he didn't want to hear it. I tried to say let's give it another try but he wasn't going to have it.

When I realized he was aiming to hurt me and make me feel bad. I checked myself out. His partner in this effort was my neighbor – Angela. I stopped. I realized the madness that was standing before me. So...I encouraged them to get together. Get to know each other. I didn't want any part of it. I walked away.

Elvis ran after me. I gently nudged him aside and told him it was ok. He could leave with her. No harm, no foul. He wanted me to feel bad. It made me wonder if he heard my prayer earlier.

Earlier in the evening, at Peavy Plaza, I stood listening to a band sing a song about love does live here and it will come along. It blarred through the speakers. A sign, meant for me. An ah-ha moment. I heard it God. LOL I giggled. I knew everything was ok. My prayer was officially heard.

Needless to say, I gave Elvis my number but he threw it down as he stomped out. It was his last act of hurt. He was going to hurt me regardless. I wasn't engaging with him. I just picked up the paper then threw it away. Whatever, loser.

I imagine what would have happened if I engaged with Elvis but I knew. I know, I don't want to meet someone at a bar. I want someone to take me to dinner. Let's do grown up things. Let's get to know each other. Let's not pretend. I lived in my truth.

After his outburst, I went to the Saloon and danced. I danced alone. I danced with strangers. I danced. I didn't need someone to define me. I wanted to dance. I danced.

At the end of the night I said a prayer of thanksgiving. I hear you god. Thank you for the strength to keep my life in order. Truthfully...

*Note:  Seriously, his name is Elvis.  An African American man from New Orleans, LA.  

2012 - A Year of Reflection, Reconciliation, and Honoring

Yes.  I know.  I know.  I know.  It's been nearly a year since I've posted a blog. 

What's been going on? Well. My biggest supporter and champion died on November 3, 2011 – RIP "Mommy" Darlene Rose Kills In Water Metcalf.

My Mother is and will continue to be core to who I am.

Amongst the many things I've learned over this last year is, I relied heavily on my Mother's strength, wisdom, and her uncanny ability to help me keep things in perspective. Hence, during this emotional upheaval I needed to find my footing once again so I took a break. I needed private space.  I wanted private time to reconcile my thoughts, feel lost, be confused, and be sad.  Ultimately, I had to learn how to honor my Mother - her life, her lessons, and her legacy. 

Don't worry throughout the year I've continued to write. Not with the same fervor or dedication as before, but I wrote cause I needed it. Some days my writing sessions included lots of crying.  Some sessions included me being fucking mad, begging for reconciliation and asking why, but I wrote regardless. I allowed emotions to ooze out of me.

Interestingly, I narrowed my “Friends” list on Facebook.  I removed people that I felt were detrimental to me or whom I felt did not have my best interest at heart. I deleted those who didn't know me. I felt enormously vulnerable and raw.

In this past year, I did not want strangers or unfamiliar people around me.  I yearned to be around people that I felt 'safe' with.  They included individuals who at some point in my life; protected me, guided me, or provided me with support.  They were the ones who I felt most comfortable with knowing what was emotionally going on with me.

In 2012, I only did a couple of public speaking engagements. Thank goodness. I honored those engagements that I made before my Mother died.  I didn't add any public presentations until after her 1 year anniversary. Traditionally, we are allowed a year of mourning.  I took mine and needed it.

Throughout this year, this song is something that I played a lot.

This song reminds me of the tender moments I had with my mother.  I recall struggling to understand what was going on to me, learning to be in my young body, and dreaming of a time when I wouldn't know pain.  It was during those intimate moments that my Mother would remind me that 'I was Special' and 'Nothing was wrong with me'.

In my mind, my mother was a giant and could do anything.  She could scare away the boogie man.  From my perspective, my mom was an ominous being that the boogie man wouldn't reckon with.  They wouldn't dare.

As I grew older and when I would stumble into this place again, she would remind me to dream big and that the world was a big place.  She shared her excitement to discover it.  She urged me to move so she could come visit me and get away.  It took me until after her death to understand these urgings were her desire and wanting her children to experience the world. 

In her urgings for me to leave the reservation, she told me that there were people out in the world that were 'like me'.  She assured me that being different wasn't bad.  I held unto those words until I met them.  When I heard this song it brought me back to these moments.    

Today, these are the reflections of my time with my Mother.  Oh, there are so many more memories that I have of our time together and I can't wait to tell you them.  She loved it when I wrote about her and she enjoyed reading about my life, my adventures, and my journey.   

What I know is:  My mother is an incredible human being who dared to be a frail.  It was her recognition of her frailty that she found commonality with people.  She connected with them in deep and meaningful ways.

I'm glad I got a chance to tell her,  "Thank you for being my Mom".   

What I've come to know and understand is that I can honor my Mother by continuing to follow her advice:

• Live my life.
• Be happy.
• Do only things that bring me joy.
• Pray.
• Pray, again.  
• Find love and be in love.
• Dance like no one is watching.
• Life is short so I gotta live it.  
• Family is everything.
• Caring for community is essential.
• Helping the People is who we are. 

It is with her courage, determination, and inspiration that I will continue to live my life...

I'm looking forward to 2013.

She's No Different Than Me: The Whore and I

You know her. She walks the streets glancing at cars. She looks haggard. She looks like she needs to rest awhile. She has an air of desperation about her. She's dressed in clothes that are too tight, hair pulled back, way to much make-up on for an early morning walk, and heels. There is a hardness to her. Life hasn't been good to her.

You know if she doesn't make her money there are consequences. Her pimp will beat her. Will threaten her. Force her to have sex for money. Ultimately, humiliate her. Another day in the seedy parts of America.

I think about her journey and mine. How are they related? How with different decisions and choices, I could be her. How when sex has no value because it was taken so often without your consent you learn- it's just another person. You hope for it to pass.  You want it to be over, quickly.

I know the desperation of having someone to connect with. Someone to ease the pain. Someone to shield you from your guilt. Someone who understands the confusion.  Someone to show you salvation. Someone to save you when you don't know how to save yourself.

Sex for a survivor of sexual abuse and sexual assault is different. Sex has a different meaning. Sex is complicated.  

In the trauma of sexual abuse - You learn to disconnect from your body. You let your mind wander into a sacred space as your body is being taken. You turn off the pleasurable notions of it. You wait for it to pass.

You have to relearn the beauty of sex.

Trust and value is something that has to be regained. Trust in people you are intimate with. Value for yourself. It's an arduous process of reclamation. You falter at times. You pray for guidance. You know there is someone who will not violate you in those ways. You believe.  Believe when there isn't anything to believe in.

When your intimate partner gets to close, you reel. You push them away. Physically and emotionally, you need distance from them. It's a smell, a movement, a touch that has you flashing back to those darker moments and times. Unless you know what is going on, you run away from them as quickly as possible. I know, I've destroyed relationships when I didn't know what was happening.

I'm grateful for the people who helped me.  They supported me with love and affirmations when I was coming to terms with these experiences in my life.  They loved me unconditionally.  I'm grateful they supported me along this journey. They were kind to me. They treated me special when I was so broken. They believed in me when I was confused.

They treated me like I had value when I gave myself willingly because years of abuse.  Through discovery I figured out you only know how to re-victimize yourself.  It's familiar.  You know it.  You have to find your way out of the darkness.  You can hear those affirming voices and they lead you out of the depths of your own despair. 

Healing is a life long process. I know this. Memories come and go, unexpectedly. I'm learning to manage them, all the time. I can't say they've all gone away. They are still there. I've let go. I've forgiven myself. I've forgiven them.

What's the difference between me and her. Nothing. I could have been her.  It is because of the people who surrounded me and loved me. The countless hours in therapy. The tears from pain.  The hurt from trying to sort things out.  Ultimately, it was these people who taught me to love myself.

Sex had value. Love doesn't always equal pain. The innate knowing, I am somebody.

We both know of the sacred place in our minds. The place we commune with God. The place we knew to escape to because a human being was reaching in to take our soul. We knew God was there to save us.  We knew God was there with us.  

When I see her, I say a prayer. I wish her well. I hope she finds her way.

With all this said, I know the whore and my life is no different from one another. We made different choices. I could be her. She could be me. I'm thoughtful about this.

I treat people how I'd like to be treated. Kindness. Respect. Value. Integrity. Honestly. I expect the same in return....XOXO, Nick

Resonating Words: Poor Folks Have Dreams by Etta Norwood

I was recently given this essay. This essay is found in, “Seeding the Process of Multicultural Education: An Anthology”. Her essay is a first person narrative with poetry woven in. It's always wonderful to discover people who can tell it like it is...Here are the parts that I was sitting there saying, “Uh huh, Girl.  Talk. You tell 'em”. At the end I was standing up and saying, “Yeah!”...

      “We operate out of class in this country, but we don't talk about it. There's no acknowledgment that there's not a platform from which to speak about class, especially for the poor. And the poor are up against it already. So they don't confront and they don't push because that could create more pain and that would be unbearable.

      Maybe that's why there isn't a lot said about poverty when you're in it. You wait for things to change and look back on your experiences. There isn't any clout from that position, that's part of the not talking about class oppression: talking about it feels like exposure....”

      “I understood. When you don't have anything and don't know where money will come from, you have to save everything. We save because we might need. Everything that you come across is important. So I felt at home in my friend's house because I understood they didn't have anything, either. They saved everything.

      But there's a contradictory side to poverty; spending like there's no tomorrow, as though our happiness had to be consumed today. Who knows what hard time is waiting for us tomorrow? Worse, who won't survive another day?

      Poverty builds some kind of character: to make judgments between the two--saving and embracing the immediate. The money may go in exchange for having joy. The respectability may go in exchange for a good belly laugh. The demure demeanor may go in exchange for a deep, mournful cry that needs to gush forward.

      Money has all value and money has no value. It takes so much to fill what is needed, that, in a sense, it doesn't matter because if you have it, it goes. Money is the pin. It moves everything around. Enough is such a large amount, seeming so far out of reach, that you piss it away if you have any. There is no hope about saving because you're always at a deficit. In its place is an emphasis on the experiences of the day. That's what matters.

      I notice that people with money talk about it a lot. I was sitting in a meeting with employees of my district and they began to discuss the “Rule of 90” as though everyone knows what it means. Their failure to acknowledge class in that room caused them to make this assumption. Then the words savings and annuity come up. It did not fit into my context of living: before, now, or in the future. I don't think about those kinds of things. Because I started with not having enough. I didn't think about piling it up. Getting into neutral territory where you don't owe or you're not doing stuff to get around not having is as good as I can imagine at being...”

      “Poor folks have character if nothing else, character and dreams. And what it seems most people know about people living in poverty is what they don't have, not what they do have.

      This is important. Children become the fulfillment of the dreams. In the middle and upper classes, people talk about what they're going to do with their parents' inheritance. It is understood that this is always something that is either given away, comes to them, or is divided among them. But in poverty there is nothing left to the children. The children are the wealth. It is the children who take care of the parents financially. It is what children do with their lives that is the legacy of their parents.

Someday it will be better

it will get better.

Poor folks have visions and dreams and desires

tucked in tearful places

too tender to be poked at

by the fumbling hands of not caring.

Poor folks have dreams of the somedays:

someday when I finish school,

someday when we can buy that car

or house or land;

someday when I can paint, write or play music,

someday when I can play.

Poor folks have dreams.”

Grow the Hell Up!: Intergenerational Dating

Pet Peeve: a young person who is romantically involved with a much older person. When I see Hugh Hefner with a 20 something year old (60 year difference) I must be the only prude here cause it turns my stomach and makes me angry. Besides the grossness of it, what do they have in common? What do they talk about? How do they look past the decades of life lived?

I am keenly aware of my own aging in reference to my son. I don't intellectually feel older but physically, I know the difference. I can't go out without taking a nap. I can't eat without consequences. I can't drink without compromising my ability to think coherently the next day. Small changes but enough so, I know they are there.

As someone who was younger who dated older men, I know. Don't get me wrong these men were incredible: successful, cute, smart, caring, and adored me. I just never felt right. I didn't feel like we had enough in common. I felt like they wanted to parent me. Believe me, I had a father and mother so those jobs were filled.

It took me awhile to discern my understanding of what was going on. I had to unravel lust and fantasies from what was really occurring. I listened to that voice that kept saying, “this ain't right”.

I look at those couples now and I realize my own stuff I still carry. I project my young self into their relationship and I think I know what is really going on but here is the reality, I don't. I don't know what is going on. I don't know what their love is. I don't know they can't survive past it.

There is a time and place for people of similar ages to date. That's what I know. I know, I should have dated someone my own age. 20 somethings date 20 somethings. There is a process in understanding yourself that comes with that. Both of you are finding your voice at the same time, figuring out what you value, healing old wounds, and can speak in a language that both of you know.

I've given myself a 10 year age limit on both sides of how old I am (39) on who I am willing to date. If someone is below (29<) then I encourage them to keep dating and we'll talk in a few years, if I am single. Finish growing up.

If they are over 10 years above my age (49>) which will put them resoundingly in their 50's then I'd consider it. I'd first want to make sure what they are looking for and what I want are in line. The age of raising kids is dawning and I know it. I'm at the age where I'd like to travel more and see the world. I'm interested in slower activities, movies, theater, comedy shows, jazz/blues concerts...

Don't get me wrong, I know there are mature people who believe they can date mature individuals. I'm just advocating to be self-aware enough to allow a young person their time to be young. Make all the mistakes they can. They have free reign in figuring themselves out. I hate it when it is obscured by someones ideas and viewpoints of life.

Needless to say, Grown folks need to date Grown folks. Allow people their time to mature at their own rate. Don't circumvent their life. Don't short circuit life so you can have the latest and youngest model. Reliving that time is not worth it. If your ass is left because you weren't aware of it then blame yourself. You believed you were enough. Here is reality: it's not about you.

That's what I know about dating someone decades younger/older than me. Proceed with caution. I'm interested in someone who is mature enough to know right from wrong. I'm learning to grow old gracefully. I'm looking for that someone to do it with. XOXO, Nick

An Aha Moment: Surviving and Enduring in the Face of Racism

An aha moment this morning when I realized why People of Color use chemicals and/or spirituality to endure racism, explain away bad behavior, and cope under extreme circumstances.  It doesn't justify abuse but helps me understand the lengths brown people go to survive in America.  Race and class are so inextricably bound together.

As a poor working class single parent, I find myself with white people using ma'am and sir, more frequently:  "Yes, Ma'am", "No, sir".  I've  learned to endure the references to being called, "Chief", and hear derogatory statements made about Native peoples bodies, lives, choices, spirituality.  The more I know about living in America, I realize how unwelcome I am, and I survive at the discretion of liberal white folks guilt.

The white bus driver only 50 feet from the bus stop didn’t care to open his door for the elderly Native woman regardless of the protests of passengers and her eagerly waving.  His way of dealing with it was chastising the elderly Native women by snidely stating, “I see you made it”.  She nodded her head in acknowledgement.  He lurched forward speeding to our next stop.  She nearly fell finding her seat and sat there resolutely.  No sign of anger or disdain, just acceptance.  I guess we need to be thankful that we can sit anywhere on the bus or just have a ride...