Farai Chideya, theroot.com
For some people it was 9/11. For me it was Hurricane Katrina. “It” is the moment when you realize that the safety net you thought was beneath you has been shredded, the implicit promise of the American dream shattered.
One image that…
Disney Princesses As Cover Models
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For Eryca
What I wanted was to lift my body in unnatural postures
High above the earth, to dance,
To live beyond ideas.
Imagine feeling assured you were beautiful.
Girls wanted to run their fingers on my skin, also guys; I bit off their
hands.
If called to, I could wait beneath the water a long time.
I could let a bird pick leeches from my tongue.
So in the moment of youth when other people embrace passion
I fell back on discipline. My throat
Was capable of many different sounds but the pleasure
Was in keeping silent, letting parts of me be seen.
Sometimes a plover mistook me for a log
But that’s not deception; I really look like a log.
I survived the great extinctions,
I pretended to be myself.
To let you know me, I need only move my eyes.
2.
Like me, you had a father and a mother,
You grew up in a particular place, a particular time.
Your skin displays the scars of that place.
You’ve decapitated chickens, eviscerated live fish.
You carry yourself with what, to other people, seems aplomb,
But the impulse driving such behaviors,
Necessary in themselves, has infiltrated daily life. In arguments
You’ll drag another person under water till he drowns.
Though I grew very large, though I developed great capacity of mind,
I was afraid of my mother. Afraid not just of scrutiny
But of being the object of someone’s pride.
What was I protecting?
She was willfull, yes,
But tiny, generous to a fault.
In Egypt, the family crocodiles were adorned
With bracelets, earrings of molten gold.
Then mummified, laid out in the tombs.
The word itself is from the Greek:
Krokodeilus, pebble worm.
3.
What manner of thing is your crocodile?
*
It is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it has breadth; it is just so
high as it is, and moves with its own organs. It lives by that which
nourishes it, and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.
*
What color is it of?
*
Of its own color, too.
*
‘Tis a strange serpent.
*
‘Tis so, and the tears of it are wet.
(“Antony and Cleopatra,” II, 7)
4.
When I was a child, I was given a stuffed crocodile.
Don’t think this strange; most humans have dolls resembling themselves.
My sister had one, too.
Tiny marbles filled the sockets of its eyes.
The skin was stitched together up the belly, where it’s soft,
And though it was only a foot, perhaps ten inches long,
The jaws were clamped together with a tack.
Presumably this kept the little row of teeth from hurting you,
But the tack protruded from the bottom of its chin,
Sharper than any tooth.
I remember rubbing over it, back and forth.
When my mother died,
I was right beside her.
She’d been unconscious for a day.
My sister and my father were there, too.
I leaned down close to her left ear, I whispered,
Thank you for everything you did for me,
Thank you especially for what you did for our girls.
Then, immediately, the color left her face,
She was no longer in her body.
And she sank beneath the lagoon.
5.
Picture, by way of analogy, a mountain range.
Some interruption of traffic, perhaps a flood, has blocked the rods,
But communication between the villages is maintained over steep
foothpaths,
The kind used ordinarily by hunters, originally by their prey.
Some people speak more openly by inefficient means.
And the steeper the path, the more
Arduous the climb,
The more likely we are to believe.
Someday I won’t be hungry.
I’ll watch an egret stepping through the reeds.
The miser imagines there’s a certain sum to fill his heart,
But for sorrow there’s no remedy.
It requires what it cannot hope.
We’ve known each other, earth, a long time.
When the light rests low on the Nile, the Ganges, the Everglades—
I could be anywhere—
Day is discontinued, motionless.
A voice is what you have.
— James Longenbach
I’ve wanted to update you a bit on how things are progressing. I feel like so much of my last correspondence radiated a sense of “downer jams” (As my wife would call it) in relation to my current internship experience. While I cannot promise this current letter will be much brighter, I did find something cathartic in the process of writing to you. Specifically, just the mere sense of you existing somewhere in the world (As you inhabit a good portion of it) provides a spiritual sense of confidence, motivation, and focus.
I’ve been here for a couple months and while the process hasn’t become any easier, I am beginning to gain perspective on the challenges I am facing. In particular, I recognize that much of who I am is contained within my area of focus. I guess, what I am trying to articulate is that much of what causes me: anxiety, stress, doubt, guilt, etc…..Is not something to be pushed away from, controlled, or otherwise “managed” as much as it is an excellent point for exploration.
In the past, I’ve confused expressing these emotions, especially my uncertainty, as a point of weakness. I felt that it was proof that I didn’t have it together or that I was lacking a particular ingredient for success. Often the opinion of other people tainted this perception even further. Comments like: “I don’t really understand where you’re going this,” “You don’t sound confident,” or simply “Fabrice, you’re all over the place”. It felt like other people could never tolerate what I was presenting, that I was in some way a manifest of how to be completely, utterly wrong. The suggestion to correct this “issue” was to work on how I present information. Specifically, I was told to monitor the manner that I conveyed ideas and to pay attention to my level of “confidence” and resolution. As I look back on it now, I realize that frankly, this particular way of being never suited me.
Going even further, I completely resent the idea of anyone having it all together.
What I’ve seen in other people that garnered my respect wasn’t how well they presented, spoke, gestured, or embodied something. It was more about how they wrestled with it. I find myself in rapt attention listening to someone describe how they got it wrong. It’s like the mistakes they made contained all the valuable wisdom I could ever possibly want to know. The truth seemed more evident and knowable in the struggle than it ever does in success.
I enjoyed your classes because of the level of experimentation you brought to the table. I recall a number of your courses beginning with a) That this was the first time you’ve taught the class b) You had some ideas on doing the class differently c)You had just read something interesting over the past few months which inspired a new perspective. I always found you tweaking the direction based on participation, interest, and passion. You abhorred the idea of using all manners of grades, measures and data-analysis driven whatever.
Much of what we can learn about the state of our nature doesn’t lie in the data. It lies within our own experiences, shared and private. Imagine what we could know, could tolerate if we didn’t always have to seek some verifiable truth. If we could simply be comfortable with saying “Ok, for this particular situation, it seems to exist and therefore it’s worth checking out.” Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, but I wonder what would happen to our communities, if instead of waiting around for prison population data, statistics from educational test scores, and rates of reported violence, we actively attempted to engage what we and others experienced firsthand. What would come of situations like genocides if we didn’t wait for the quantified amount to show up on our desks?
With this said, you expressed knowing something that I think people have a hard time accepting: What happens in life is unpredictable. Furthermore, Many times I would come into your office completely unannounced and feel like I was on the verge of falling apart with everything I wanted to tell you. I used to leave thinking that maybe you’d thought I was crazy or just completely random. My experience on internship has kind of diminished the inherent narcissism that I carried around with me. When working with my clients, I find that they manipulate my space even more so than I do. In many respects, how I approach any situation is actually about the interaction between myself and others. I see that I went into that space because it was something you engendered as much as I did. You had the patience to tolerate my behavior of curiosity and exploration. Because of this, I am grateful.
I’ve never had a problem being honest with people, I’ve always wanted to be the first in the room to say: “hey, I really don’t understand this.” Or “I’m struggling with this” and I know better now. I see how that this has informed my sense of presence and provides a strength that others can misread. My open approach to things, my nervous energy, is an assertion to an actively searching nature. I don’t have all the answers and I never want pretend I do. I don’t believe that hinders me from being a role model or a leader (whatever that means)and most of all it doesn’t get in the way of my being a productive therapist. If anything, it colors my sense of life with a sense enthusiasm and acknowledging what’s in front of me.
Over the weekend, I went out with a few friends from internship. Incidentally, some of the discussion centered on race, class, and other things. I was in a group of people who described themselves, including a Korean-American as being: “white”. The conversation turned into this monster of describing how diversity classes had ruined them in some way. I mean, it became really intense, just the hostility that a course could lead people to feel. Incidentally, your name was brought up and I listened while some students completely misunderstood everything you stood for. I made an attempt to broaden their perspective but I didn’t want to get into an argument. On top of that, I felt utterly repulsed by some of the comments the Korean-American made, he kept insisting over and over that he was “white” and was in fact “whiter”. He wore it around like some strange nonsensical badge and it only got worse when his friends, one of which is an intern with me, stated that they refer to him as: “slanty-eyes”. I mean, I just couldn’t understand it. It didn’t seem appropriate or funny or even required. I’m completely about being offensive for humor’s sake but only when it comes to generating some truthful discussion , only when it potentially lead to something worth talking about. There was really nothing to say, I felt trapped and stunted. I knew that if I started, which I did later, I wouldn’t be able to shut up.
“I mean, did you hear that guy? Did you hear him? What was he even going on about? I get that he grew up in a particular Chicago environment, I get that he has claim to any identity he chooses but doesn’t he understand the perpetuation of some idiotic idea? Doesn’t he get how sad it is to be laughing at himself in front of other people? Doesn’t he want to treat himself better? Why doesn’t he even have to believe in race!? It’s just a socially constructed concept!”
I don’t know if there’s any balance for any of this, the tension is obviously there and I think of all the things I went through in my life and I just don’t know. I’m not sure what the answer is but I know it’s something I have to seek out and strive to articulate. I know that it’s on my tongue, somewhere, not the exactness of it but the process of it the living of it all.
I find solace with a client whose is from a region around Ethiopia (Actually, he said that they’re not anymore and they gained independence, I cannot recall the country off the top of my head though). He’s dealing with a tremendous amount of difficulty involving an impulse to fight (He’s been jailed multiple times and has sustained serious injuries), low self-esteem, and lack of relationships. He comes in and we sometimes talk about my family or sometimes, like today, he opened up about his father and how he wanted him to be a child soldier at the tender age of 13. He explained that he was “groomed” to fight and that his mother was the one who kept him and his siblings from war. He struggles with the naming of things and expressing himself but he told me today that he’s inspired to come in. He says that he looks forward to being here, even though he finds it painful and he feels weak.
It’s an interesting experience to work with him, he’s served as a reminder that I see and approach things from a slightly more international perspective. Part of what works with him, is that I’ve been able to share myself in a way that confirms our shared experiences. He’s embraced what’s happening in the room because I’ve let him know that I’m human and a potential brother.
Furthermore, I’m thinking that the work I’d like to do in the future with an international base. Any thoughts, suggestions, whatever it might be, I always look forward to hearing from you.
I’m not sure what I want to do but I know I have to do something. If I wait around for the data to arrive then it might be too late.
Sincerely
It would appear that today, marks my last full day in Chicago.
A retrospective of sorts.
7/27/06
a60sBeatleChild: dude. dont you leave for chicago like, tomorrow?
Zero Gs 17: yes.
7/29/06
The footsteps are door knocks of opportunity, and I enjoy the sound right before I leave.
Right, so here I am in Illinois. I’ve never wanted to update from here because this place didn’t actually belong to me. Now that I’m here, it still doesn’t really feel that way. Still, my brother brings his music here and it’s nice to know that it can travel all that way. You know, many times I had felt that I was searching for something that would take me an incredible amount of distances. I would read books and watch my sense of self float away in the words that I would read. Sometimes, I would have to stop myself from getting carried away and believing that I was that characters whose words I absorbed. Music would lay out the beautiful countries, cities, states, lonely houses, abandoned train stations, cracked pavements, and shivering graveyards that my finger prints would never mess up. Relationships were highways routes to the soul, I really believed that I could go cover myself in the smell of someone. I swear to god that this morning, the person sitting on the couch of my living room listening to the mournful tender hearted lion blues that Samantha’s palm played across my back while somewhere inside of her some deep ocean decided to committ suicide by drying itself out and filling its void with sand. I could have sworn I was there, and now I don’t feel so much there anymore. I really thought I could escape in other people, but I can’t get as far as I really wanted to go. Even if I could come up here in hopes of following Samantha it would have never really turned out that way. I’m much too simple for that. I would have been changed simply by the Illinois air hitting my lungs. Look at me now, I say, look at me now. Are you still in Florida, people ask.
Nope. Not anymore, and probably not for awhile. This is more morose than I originally intended, I swear it’s just the a/c of the hotel room blowing these transient sad thoughts into my brain. it’s not really me.
You’re predisposed to tragedies. The kind of mess I’m left to clean.
8/20/06
Fabrice Lubin is from the future.
He is the culmination of past consciousness:
the stoic face of Indians, the hard tongue of fathers, the sweet jazz hands of lovely singers.
He knows the words for feelings we have yet learned to express,
the things our eyes say without crying.
He finds joy in music and in people.
He is ready to put headphones on and listen to you sing.
Those songs, the one you speak in the shower, the one you write on shoes before you trip on the floor of your lovers.
Let’s wail them together! I am willing to listen, I am WILLING TO LISTEN.
Praise be to the ghostly static of your intangible silence,
there is nothing that holds us together better.
I would put more, but I cannot. It’s hard to read these things, to know this person and that I am no longer. Here, I am being a completely different entity these feelings that I once had were there and now they’re gone. Just a series of static text, missing all of the life that it takes to really capture what was going on.
Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe I had it just right. Maybe the polaroid of text, captured the moment just the way it should be.
I have always been strange.
None of this makes sense.
I am leaving, I don’t know what else to say about it.
There was a time where I didn’t know anyone, there was a time when I was utterly afraid of walking by myself. There was a time where I would strike up conversations to guard myself against being in my own solitude. Now, I go to movies alone and dinner alone. Now, I have a family to come home to. Now, it’s not so bad.
I am moving to Indianapolis and I am not ready. I’m really ill equipped.
My memory is all bits and pieces, I cannot recall anything. I am glad I wrote it down.
For some reason, I always felt alone.
