Left Hook

Valence, with a deep, sensual Guyanese accent that has never left him despite 30 + years in the US, tells his son that in all the years he has known me, if ever I’ve been knocked down, I come back with a left hook.

Valence and Troy spent the better part of that 1st Sunday in my new home eight years ago, trying to secure the 8’ beveled mirror to my new dining room wall. It is an extremely heavy mirror and had not left its previous home in over 40 years having had it left by the previous owner before we moved in. We had moved into a 5-bedroom English Tudor in New Rochelle from my coop in NYC. With its sprawling lawn, flagstone patios and later the swing set and trampoline we had installed in the back yard just 15 years earlier, it had been a wonderful place to raise a family. The previous owner did not have room for this mirror in their new townhouse and so left it behind. Luckily for me, my new home had the perfect wall. I could look at reflections of the room through the mirror as I passed it and reassure myself that everything was going to be ok.

So Valence saw me as victorious in this new stage I was entering in my life.

Of my few friends from Howard University, Valence is one of them. Having him with me that day was both validating and reassuring. Thirty + years have passed since we graduated Howard and yet our friendship allows us to see past the effects of time and through to the people we still are. His presence filled me with a deep sense of connection, comfort and support as I transitioned from a married woman of 18 years to soon to be divorced with an eleven year old daughter and two very angry and confused teenage sons.

We worked hard that day, while reminiscing about our days at Howard.

Since graduating high school I’d felt disconnected, separate and apart probably because while other students were pledging, partying and hanging out at the "Punch Out", the snack bar where backgammon and chess were played rather than go to class and thus you “punched out” of school, I was working full time and attending classes around my work schedule. The school had given me a student loan in 1st semester freshman year, something they had never done, and I was working and studying around the clock to get through. Valence was one of the few who I connected with since we had lots of classes together, despite my schedule and knew how hard I worked.

He knew that I woke up three days before students were required to move into their assigned dorms and that I decided then that whether I had the money or not, I was going to Howard, the only school I had applied to. Between the $150 I had made that summer as a directory assistance operator at the phone company in NYC and my best friend’s mother who raised money for me in three days, I took the foot locker my step father bought me and got on the train to D.C. for college.

In high school I had been Sr. Class Secretary, a cheerleader, on the debate team, a member of student council, named “Girl of the Month” by the Chester Chamber of Commerce, 3rd runner up and the 1st African American to place in the Delaware County Jr. Miss Pageant. Later that summer after high school graduation I won the Miss Black Pennsylvania beauty pageant and performed with the then Jackson Five, Curtis Mayfield, the Staple Singers and Stevie Wonder at Madison Square Garden in NYC.

To go from “Miss Popularity” and being known by everyone in the community to simply another young, creative freshman who did not realize what it had taken to be able to experience a college education, not to mention an education in "life" in Washington, DC in the 70's was quite a transition for me.

So there was a sense of accomplishment with this new house as I grappled with disoriented sons, a new town and school district, a new less than comfortable minimal household budget and a miniature dachshund who did not understand that we were never going back home.

In our own version of sign language, mommy use to tell the story of how I would crawl after roaches in our Bronx walk up apartment on Dawson Street. She would use her fingers to describe my crawling motion from room to room putting one finger in front of the other to show how I almost got one but never being allowed to pick it up (thank God). I would bang my head against a wall in anger and frustration. My older and younger sister like to remind me of how I use to beat them up, pulling their hair, rolled in those sponge or pink plastic curlers and pushing their heads up against the wall. One would run to get mommy to save the other. I was smaller than both of them and yet, I use to say, “I had their minds”. They called me “evil”. I think I was just quite “spirited” …

On Sundays we would go to church with three older caring women that I think my grandfather paid to take care of us much of the time. “Little Garland” my cousin, who was more like an uncle, took me to kindergarten everyday. As a teenager we went to a church where the pastor could sign for my mother and step father. It was a Pentecostal church and I became best friends with the daughter of one of the deacons. The church sponsored my 1st and only summer camp experience where after three weeks of intense bible study and prayer, I was saved and took on an entirely new persona, spoke in tongues and returned home to set the example on how to live a christian life, even to my mother and stepfather.

Growing up in this way was like getting a running head start into adulthood without realizing you’re not running, you are being pushed. I drew motivation from sweet and the bitter sweet and it propelled a drive that continues today. One of my mantras has been “I always enjoy a challenge” (I may need to change that one, hmm) ... I often wonder how different life would have been growing up under different circumstances.

I came to embrace biblical scripture, especially Psalm 27; slogans that keep me rooted in a positive attitude most of the time, from Burt Bacharach’s lyrics in the song, “Raindrops keep falling on my head” to the poem written by Langston Hughes, “Hold Fast to your Dreams for if Dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly”, I hold on to that optimism as if my life depended on it.

If I was going to have to have a stepfather, there was no better than the man we called "Dale". He was not only a sweet man but patient and sensitive. He had a stride in his walk and while trying to keep up with him for example on Saturday afternoons walks to the supermarket, I unconsciously took on his stride to keep up. He was 6’ and walked with a strong steady gait. Head straight ahead with a confident yet gentle presence, I realize how much it represents my determination to keep moving forward and reaching as far as desires would take me. When a goal I had set was just out of reach, I’d contemplate what it would take, pray and meditate to figure it out, imagining a confident stride that would get me there.

The broken ankle has been a tough one though. It's as if the newest challenge was to take away my confident stride, replace it with immobility and a well defined limp so as to test my strength, character and integrity. Unemployed with my youngest in her 1st year of college, the last thing I needed was a broken foot to slow me down.

“Can’t” is a word that I’d like to have removed from the dictionary, it is associated with the suggestion that we should only exert ourselves until we hit a wall that appears insurmountable. “Stars burn clear in the darkest night”, as Rumi would say, “Do that Yourself”. Nonverbal, shining, simply being, even with multiple fractures of the ankle….

How is it sustained though? As long as we keep breathing, we have another day to say I can.

I’ve moved a couple of times since Valence and his son helped me put up that mirror. It hangs over my sofa now in my living room of 4 years and reflects back on an entirely different life.

I realize now how much support and positive feedback has motivated me to stay motivated. If I had a dream, there was always someone near who helped me make my dream come true. Whether it was special interest given to me from the YWCA board members who noted an ambitious child who only needed some direction to move forward, (an experience that was rare for an African American in the 60s), to my real estate instructor @ Howard, Dr. George Snowden, who taught me the business of buying real estate that later allowed me to buy my 1st coop in NYC many years ago and when I sold it became the down payment for our beautiful English Tudor in the suburbs, to the family who took me in and became “family” in D.C.

Through the life long friend who dropped everything to take care of me when I could not walk.

The lyrics from a favorite song that pops into my head, a poem, book or a soft embrace, a gentle intimate kiss, the sweet memories of Sunday school hymns; the neighbor who shops weekly for my groceries and the other one who takes out my recycling, the strength and passion that comes from the left hook only endures as long as the support of people who get me … through each day. Through the most difficult Sundays of winter when snow, ice and the cold would suggest I dare not venture to church, a member would pick me up, practically carry me in and over ice, where an entire church congregation was preparing to worship and praise God, and I humbly join in.

When Valence calls to share an experience and to have a good laugh, I appreciate how much my inspiration from sources, spiritual and mortal, motivate me to get up every morning, swinging and counting my blessings.

Visualizing Dale, I look forward to the day that I get my stride back and practice my left hook.

DARKNESS

Flash backs

Long hallways with lights from a distant tunnel leading to a room that leads to where?

Looking out a window @ 110th Street @ Central Park North. Past the fire escape and across the street and into the park. Looking up from my window to see someone whose intent was to have his spit on my face. He’s spitting down and I pull away just before it lands where he had hoped. Good reflexes. Mine.

Was that you? You would do that? An eight year old boy who thought that a spit down to the apartment below and into my face would be cool. The beginnings of the realization that my life does not matter; except to me.

Music – Latin dance – rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. Bongos, percussion, rhythm. Connecting to rhythms.

I feel the familiarity of an experience from long ago, back when we lived in New York.

Shadows, swinging swings and wrought iron fences protecting us from them and them, from us.
I think because there is so much of my past that is unknown, I naively move forward into the darkness.

So when I watched and explored the performance of a member of the Last Poets a few weeks ago, I began to question his past and compared his to mine. I asked him to take a photo with me and after studying it, began to see similarities. We could have been siblings, me growing up with deaf parents and born in the Bronx, and he growing up in Harlem and although I think I'm smart, I think he’s brilliant. I wish I had a brilliant older brother to look up to. (Better still, a lover).

Miracles Everyday.

I would be Aunti Di to his and he would be a miracle to mine.

This time in my life feels very good.

Mambo, salsa, sign language as my 1st language and contemplating what it must be like to be an 80 year old Jew from Newark, married to the same woman for over 50 years; a genius in his own right and still setting the expectations for his business.

Visualizing mommy dancing in our living room in Chester …

And the broken ankle even fits … crutches, balancing on one leg, appreciating what yoga has taught me that I cannot utilize at the moment; relearning up and down and down and up the stairs, navigating the exits to and from; heavy glass and revolving doors; insisting that I can do it myself; fighting my self and self conflicting desires to watch syndicated TV distractions in place of writing and reading. Recognizing the difference being deaf and not being able to walk temporarily! Noting how blessed I am in this life ... to be able to hear ... anything.

Navigating reality, embracing the 1st morning light, past disappointments that were blessings in disguise.

Meditating and loving this time.

There’s a Hole that’s waiting in the future, Mona, it could already be filled with when we get there.” Richie Havens, what were you thinking with those lyrics?

Waiting in the Future and experiencing epiphanies and flashbacks.

The hallways seems clearer now and Central Park North is still the same, 54 years later…

Are we?

Perhaps We Should Touch Hands to Understand

I use to think of myself as a pretty good writer. Lying across the bed at home on West 2nd Street in Chester, Pa., I'd write down thoughts I felt I couldn't share with anyone.

Oftentimes I would write about one boy who occupied my mind most of the time along with the minds of many of the other girls in school. He was tall, handsome, smart and a starting forward on the varsity basketball team. But that’s a subject for another time.

As I think back on my tendency to lie across the bed and write, it was usually about boys and later men who continued to behave as though they were boys, without regard to the impact of their behavior on me.

When I think about the attention I've given those "boys" most of my life, I ask myself the question: "Why do I spend so much time focused on them?" Is it my gender? Does it have to do with the fact that I am single and unconsciously still searching for the one who will make my life all that I grew up thinking it should be, conditioned by society as I've been? Reflecting on “why didn't he call me back or when will I see him again?” I think, ultimately it has had to do with my soul’s searching: the journey that God assigned to me that would ultimately lead me to the answers.

I must admit that lately I've been quite content with my aloneness. I noticed this especially after recently dating a guy after only two weeks and cringing whenever I saw his number on my caller ID just before my favorite TV show was about to come on. I'd tell him I'd call him back but only did so out of obligation. Or after courageously admitting that I did not think it was going to work and feeling relieved and ready to celebrate when he accepted my decision with respectful humility; enjoying the peace and quiet of his absence within minutes of his leaving. Am I bad? Nope. Even in the short two weeks of dating him though, I missed the company of a man once he was history... missing the feeling I once shared of a male soul mate connection. As Richie Havens’s lyrics expressed in his album, Stonehenge, “Shouldn't All The World Be Dancing”, “perhaps we should touch hands to understand”. To me suggesting the soul's desire for human understanding and a universal soul's connection.

I never knew my father. The story is that my mother, who was deaf, was raped by a man she knew. A modern day date rape, as it were. The deaf community in the Bronx in the 50's was close knit and my Godmother told me that my mother had been at a party with friends including her when an acquaintance suggested they go to another party together. My mother went along and according to the story, was raped by him. Nine months later I was born and several years later, one summer, we drove from Chester, back to NY as we often did to visit my mother’s friends and our family. I was asleep in the back seat on my mother’s lap when we stopped at the intersection of 145th Street & 8th Avenue. Someone opened the backdoor and pulled on my arm. "You want to come with me?" The man asked as he tried to pull me out of the car. I frantically took refuge in the comfort of my mother's bosom. That was the 1st time I ever remember seeing this man, and the last. Was that him? My mother did not seem to object to his attempt at taking me out of the car which bewildered me. Sometimes I think back on that moment and wonder what was going through her mind. She used to get upset and angry whenever I would ask her who my father was and would go into a tirade about her integrity. Arms flailing, a shrilled sound coming from her throat, she would ask if I thought she was “cheap”. I didn’t know the word in sign language nor English until she taught me this word in this context. Fortunately, I’ve forgotten the sign for “cheap” which is symbolic in and of itself. That is a memory of my mother that I often think about that upsets me. To know that her own personal turmoil was trying to come to grips with her own view of herself. The consistent response I use to get from this question triggered a reaction from her, an emotional explosion that terrified me to the core. Feeling her pain, seeing her defensiveness and needing to somehow figure a way to protect her from her own self loathing, I would collapse into her arms in tears as my unspoken way of communicating that she was loved by me despite whatever turmoil was going on inside her soul. This is what it meant to be the child of my mother; unconditional love. I am her most ardent supporter (to no one in particular) and defender of her behavior towards me as a child to this day. She helped write the story I now share. I use to tell myself that all of the men in my life had abandoned me just as they had her, from father to grandfather to boy in high school to boy on college campus to lover to husband to boyfriend and on ... and yet I continue to write about them … in my mother’s and my defense.

Maybe that is the point. I have been fixated on the male human species because of what I have perceived as rejection from birth. I search for meaning from those who I have perceived as having no regard for my being. How many years of prayer, bible study, church, synagogue, buddhism, therapy, books, retreats, meditation, relationships … have I had to experience to come to this realization? Ultimately, God has answered my earnest, sincere prayers.

I’ve experienced a metamorphosis. I like that word. It gives me the visual of the man who woke up one day to find he was an insect. He struggled with his newly conscious physical state, attempting to hide from the world around him and eventually discovered that his state was a necessary step in his evolutionary process. God’s answers ...

A few careers that superficially defined me, divorced after 18 years of marriage, three babies, various relationships and years later, I again write about my thoughts on boys, men, husbands, sons, lovers ... fathers, the human male species in the hopes of continuing down this evolutionary process we call my life and enjoying epiphanies long overdue. Writing not so much about the opposite sex anymore as much as about those who I believed for way too long abandoned me, rejected me ... somehow allowing all of this to control me, ironically now helping me realize my true self has nothing to do with them at all but about me and my perception of myself. Unconditional Love. It's as simple as that.

I still enjoy a good song on the radio as I lie across the bed, writing my thoughts while the world goes by on the highway that was West 2nd Street. I’m in a much better place now ... Here’s to you Mommy. I love you.