Dual consciousness

I lost my mojo here for a bit. I found I couldn't bring myself to do more than acknowledge the massacre of elders in Buffalo and children in Uvalde, and the willful refusal of our government officials to take any meaningful action in response. It was all I could do to bear witness, I was so angry, am still angry, but I'm also worn out from so much sorrow and outrage, and my writing words about actions every reasonable person knows must be taken, yet will not be, contributes nothing at all. And so I turned inward to take care of my own sore heart, and mostly stayed silent. We all know what we all know. The right will continue to whip up the forces of hate into a murderous frenzy, the slaughter will continue, and we will all pray that our beloveds never happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, knowing that it is inevitable that someone's beloveds will be. This is America.

Inside the small bubble of my life, I continue to engage my mundane challenges. The main challenge in this moment: The editor of the book I'm writing wants my subject to explore her pain more, to go more deeply into how her particular origin story wounded and broke her. The thing is, this woman isn't broken. I know human brokenness is irresistible on the page; its helps us readers feel less broken ourselves, more able to greet our demons, so believe me, I tried to capture the pain of her story. But what I also found is that, perhaps as a compensatory strategy, my subject learned early on to move fast through life and not linger on the pain. I saw it again and again as she told me her story: She's mastered skating on the surface of whatever threatens to pull her under. In a way, it's her superpower. So I shall have to figure out how to respond to our editor's queries in a way that removes his lingering questions, while staying true to my subject. Fortunately, my subject trusts me at this point, and has given me free rein to infer what might lie beneath, that she herself cannot quite articulate, and when she sees it on the page, we will refine it together so that it still feels like her authentic truth. I will begin this round in earnest as soon as I finish editing a rather amazing chapter by a woman who is writing an art memoir, whose agent hired me to edit her 

A third work challenge right now is that the deputy editor of the magazine for which I top edit stories, recently quit, and so I now have a new boss there, someone who must be convinced anew that my role is necessary. We had our Zoom one-on-one last week. It went okay on the face of it, and I hope this particular gig will continue. Even though it doesn't pay very much, it is regular, and in a world where installment payments for book writing can be six months to more than a year apart, a consistent paycheck is everything. Anyway, I am taking all my current work ripples one day at at time, focusing on doing the next needed thing and not worrying too much about tomorrow. Besides, in this good lucky life of mine, there is also such sweetness. 

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Here are three photo albums from the delightful events that have also been my reality in this land that is so brutal on the one hand, yet still manages to inspire dreamers. Truly, as emotionally drained as I have been feeling, I still count myself among them.

 

ALBUM ONE

My daughter's love graduated with his MBA last week, and along with his mother and sister, my husband and I were included in the festivities. Our daughter and her love planned a whole itinerary, including a meetup of the families of their cohort group at a brewery the first night, then graduation events the next day followed by dinner on hip and happening Newbury Street, then a yummy Southern brunch at Buttermilk and Burbon on Friday, followed by a visit to the Coop campus store on bustling Harvard Square so my man could pick up wine glasses with the HBS logo, as he collects wine glasses and blankets from all our bio kids' and heart kids' alma maters (don't ask). We chilled at tables on the lawn the rest of the afternoon, then come evening we ordered in Indian food and met up with the families of our kids closest friends from the last two years. Dining together in one of the campus lounges, we all had a good time watching playoff basketball and chatting about the state of America and hope for the future. It was beautiful to witness the warm connections our kids have made with friends who may well travel alongside them for life.

 

ALBUM TWO

This past weekend, my brother and nieces traveled to us from Jamaica and Dallas to attend the high school graduation of my brother's youngest daughter, who was born and raised by her mother in New York. My youngest niece is an amazing singer and actress, who I swear could be on Broadway this very moment, she's that talented. (She was cast in a bit part as a young violinist in season two of Mozart in the Jungle.) She will be a theater and voice major in college in the fall, and I have no doubt she will make her stage dreams come true. Meanwhile my second youngest niece will graduate from college with an IT degree next May, and though she grew up in Jamaica, she has decided that she wants to pursue her future in America, as her older sister has done. I was reminded yet again that this country is still, for so many, a beacon of opportunity. I guess our family is continuing the pattern of chain migration begun all the way back in the 1940s by my Aunt Winnie and her two bachelor uncles, the first of us to migrate to America. We joke that we are every white supremacist's nightmare.

After the graduation ceremony, at which my niece was chosen to sing the national anthem, we all went for a celebratory lunch at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian buffet where they keep bringing delicious offerings of meat until you turn your coaster card from the green side to the red side, letting them know you're done. On the table were sides like mashed potatoes and fried polenta and stewed banana, and afterwards they placed a selection of delectable desserts, and I ate way too much, even though I was the first one to turn my coaster to the red side. I'd never been to one of those places before, but I really enjoyed it. It was something to see my brother with all three of his daughters together, but I won't go into the story of that here. Only his son was missing, as he was still in the midst of exam season back in Jamaica. My husband and I hadn't seen my brother and older nieces since January of 2019, and being together in person again felt like being nourished and watered after a long drought. They all left to return home yesterday, but we can look forward to gathering once more in September, when my son gets married.

 

ALBUM THREE

As the man and I celebrated with my brother, our nieces, and our youngest niece's extended family on her mother's side, our own children were off having their own weekend adventures—my son found his way to an alumni reunion of his camp friends in the woods of Connecticut, while my daughter and her love and their closest friends of the past two years decamped to Martha's Vineyard for the weekend. I swiped evidence of their joy from social media and am posting it here, because I love catching my babies in the act of being happy. There's my boy, usually clean shaven for work but now sporting a full scruffy beard while on medical leave, kicking up his metal-braced leg with his friends. The one sitting next to him in the third photo will be his best man in September, and many of the others will be among his groomsmen. He hadn't seen his best man in three years, as he lives in Amsterdam and the pandemic has kept them apart. Not that they haven't been in touch, as these boyhood friends talk by phone several times each week. But now, we are all beginning to gather again, even as we antigen test ourselves for covid before and after, and roll the dice, because there is no other way but to move forward, and keep living our lives.

Alongside the tragedies and soulless rhetoric of our current socio-political landscape, occasions of celebration, loving connection, achievement, and joy are also unfolding in America. It helps my sanity to keep that in sight, too.