Author: amini4

Thank Goddess for Anita Baker in this fuckshit of a time! Tunes hit different 30+ years later. Turn your music up, fam. Survive and dance.

My first memories include my mother screaming from being beat. And I haven’t stopped screaming since.

There are never enough dollars. Too few apologies or heroes. Minuscule softness. Scarce amounts of words that do some justice to get your point across. Nonexistent fearless listening. Not enough time for confrontation, healing, closure, understanding, reparations. Too little time for life. Never enough ok for ok’s sake. Definitely no safety for good. And barely any deliberate truths. No time to see it through or work it out. Omission of open questions and justice. There just is.

Thankfully I just am. That’s more than enough.

Are you practicing self care or self absorption?

Setting boundaries or isolating?

Elevating to your highest self or just languishing in perfectionism (psssst, it’s not real)?

Healing or still twirling in your martyrdom and victimization?

Communing or surrounding yourself with noise and distraction?

Being intentional or just making lists?

Glow up, fam. Happy new year.

The stark and subtle impact of being beaten a lot as a child by people I loved, who I also know loved me, that I had to respect and yield to no matter what, is that I am hyper aware of all forms of violence. Even the quietest, most subtle aggressions scream loudly to me. Sadly, my trigger responses are still under construction and so I look like I’m overreacting to small things to people with different conflict styles, especially the avoidant ones or lying people pleasers. I’ve learned though, not to be scapegoated at least for these very human responses by others who don’t respond like I do. I live in my anger, boundaries, truth and indignation in real time and for as long as I need. As long as it takes to work through and get the point across. But it means I call bullshit early and have low tolerance for lies and harm, even if I too, will harm to protect myself. It can be lonely and sometimes I just wish people would throw them hands instead and keep it all the way real. Or just leave. Anything besides being told and shown violence and having it be called family, friendship or love. But people aren’t safe enough to know themselves always and stop these small kills. So I’ll just continue going off and calling it like I see it.

I dreamt of taking a bus trip with an assortment of people I know from my actual life and some I didn’t (there were maybe famous folks I’m fond of or folks I passed through experiences with, but don’t “know”). We traveled to an interesting and unprepared place. It was a large home or lodging of sorts, maybe a literal residence owned and operated by a church or clergy, and it didn’t have enough beds to accommodate everyone. So this meant it didn’t have space for me and in this particular dream I was with my wife, so it didn’t have space for us. Room after room, bed after bed, bargaining with person after person and no space, not even on the bottom of a twin daybed. Not one friend (I get the strangers not doing it) offered up their space, to share or to just have. It hurt. It was a first-off-the-bus-run-in-grab-your-bed situation. I can’t remember where our position was on the bus, but how we went from being social and connected on it to being stared at blankly or with sympathy, but with no help baffled me. And it also didn’t.

At some point the trip coordinator, a former work acquaintance, shared with me on the hush that the clergy who ran this place died and before doing so had changed his will and testament to condemn same-sex relationships and wrote whatever other manner of hate rhetoric and bullshit. I took this to mean that we shouldn’t keep making a scene about a bed since clearly we weren’t welcome. And so clearly, because of who I am in real life, wanted to jump into action, but I was so tired and just wanted a place for my wife and I to lay our heads.

In the next part of my dream I managed to bunk with a young Shirley Chisholm, but in our own house. This was before her run for political office or the presidency. She was fiery and saucy, beautiful and strange, and even though she wasn’t famous yet, I knew who she was. I can’t remember who all was there, even if my wife accompanied me, but I had a home and was safe. Sister Chisholm would show me all I needed to know to get around the place and fight some demons. She talked assertively and with some sass. I remembered in the dream (from my real life) who would manage Sister Chisholm’s actual campaign and serve her memory to the day that he died (good ol’ Bill Howard). I remembered him and felt soft and connected to this man who was an elder, almost like a grandfather to me. I felt connected to greatness because this black man built a legacy for a black woman. And this woman helped lost little me in my dreams. She showed me her power and I harnessed it.

That is all. Some dreams about not belonging and then being held in dignity and love. I’ll keep thinking about what this means or just how it felt to finally know my place because I had one.

We don’t always have to delete people from our lives. Leave them where they are. We can just practice adding more of ourselves to the equation. Add us to us. We are the process and the answer.

Maybe stop promising forever.

End your desire for it.

Your chase of it.

Release its illusion.

Be in this moment and celebrate what arises in it.

Honor you in it, wherever, however you are.

Now is all we ever have.

There are those who love all the pieces of you. So why not love yourself this way?

I must say, I miss the stars. At almost 9,000 feet above sea level they felt and appeared touchable shortly after the sun would leave us. They held timelessness. They held me, captivated me. I was transfixed. And the canyons, rushing streams, hummingbirds, endless chipmunks, deers both outside my window and along hilly, winding trails (Bambi and nem, y’all!), massive sweet-smelling ponderosas that predate this country’s awful genocide, woodpeckers, and even the flutter of odd birds whose names I didn’t know (because I’m just a city kid who likes anything that ain’t a pigeon) simply astonished me. There was so much green, copious amounts of trees and even some blue grass that I had never seen before that swayed with the breeze and held wildflowers and beautiful bees. It was wonderfully wild and lush in the mountains of New Mexico where I lived for a week with mostly dope people of color to meditate among the land and ancestors. I am so grateful.

It’s hilarious how when you’ve been on a silent retreat people expect you to talk all about it. Some only wanted to disprove its greatness, others just want to live vicariously through my experience and doubt its possibility for themselves. Thankfully some genuinely cared. I shared with a few and was overstimulated almost immediately, so shut that shit down and have been kinda hiding out minus having to return to work where at least I mostly just need to listen. Talk about relieved and paced! Y’all know I command many words on the regular and usually unnecessarily given how I like to process out loud, but I’ve wanted to say to everyone, “just go see for yourself or come with me next time” or something like that. And so I’ve avoided certain folks’ energy or said “no” with ease, being very deliberate about where my time and spirit abide.

Some gems have emerged during my time in the mountains and I have received them with gentleness. For starters, my long lost nomadic sister who struggles cognitively called me a few days ago, completely safe, lucid and cheerful. She’s been MIA for over a decade that even my wife and partner of 11 years hasn’t met her. Can you imagine the expansion of my heart and mind when I heard her voice and cracked jokes with her?! God is good! I also reunited last night with a beautiful childhood friend who went off the grid about 15 years ago and unexpectedly resurfaced at a mutual friend’s shindig. These are not coincidences y’all. Timing matters as does the readiness to receive. Despite having some recent career ambiguity, jitters and curiosities, I am mostly steady in my spirit and hella optimistic about waiting for what’s mine. And at the same time I’m not expectant. After poorly suppressing anxiety for years and playing it small, I’m calmer, bolder and more present. I’m confident and actually joyful. My smile isn’t masking fear for once. I’ve also cried as needed and said what’s true for me without punishing those who are closest and loyal. The abundance I feel from being freer with my heart brings a smile to my face even now. I found myself sending metta (loving kindness) to those that have repeatedly conspired against me and/or harmed me and those that I love. When someone recently disrespected me and a group of sistas in an unprovoked egoic, accusatory rant, instead of reacting I took deep breaths and pauses before responding and spoke very little when I did. I also saw my worst, scared self in her foolish tirade and extended agape, disallowing the shame she wore as armor to attach to me. Do you understand how I, a notorious conditioned fighter didn’t whip this person’s ass?! Listen kid, I’ve been in a few situations since returning where defensiveness could’ve been my default retort and instead I redirected the flow and gave grace. I’m grateful for the teachable moments. And I’ve forgiven myself for the times I didn’t heed others like it. Again, thank you Goddess and all the ancestors!

It brings me peace to share some of these blessings because I said “yes” to myself, remained faithful to the process and allowed the land and universe to bring me back to consciousness. These miracles are not lost on me as I find myself recharging in the stillness. Although life can be filled with awful suffering, it can also be quite sweet if we just let it be. I’m happy to remember my crown y’all and it’s not so heavy after all.