Worlds side by side

The leaves are almost all gone from the front of my house. But on the side, in the corridor between two buildings, the golden trees still sway and shimmer. Nobody told them winter is here. I sit in my house, contemplating the gold, in awe.

I’ve been comfort watching Call the Midwife, which often has me in tears. For those who know the show, Sister Monica Joan (pictured on the TV) is one of the most wonderfully drawn characters I’ve ever encountered on the small screen, a poet and a philosopher, who feels so keenly the suffering of the world, and somehow, in spite of her dementia and also because of it, she is able to transmute pain into the purest hope. It really is a beautifully written show. I pause so often, just gobsmacked by a line spoken by one the midwives, wimpled and not, who attend the thresholds of birth and death with such fierce and unstinting courage, feminist warriors for other women, their families, for love. 

Also, I got dressed up last Saturday evening to see the Justice's star turn on Broadway. I put on make up and lipstick and even blended on concealer with a brush the way my glam young friend Gabbie showed me, so we took a picture.

This morning I read a poem about Gaza by Joseph Fasano. It broke me all over again. The children are still dying. The land still burns. What will become of our souls?

 

Our Justice is a Theater Kid

I was in the audience last night to witness Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's dream come true. In her Harvard college essay, she had expressed her goal of becoming "the first Black female Supreme Court Justice to appear on a Broadway stage" (Lovely One, page 103). She attained the first part of that dream when she was appointed to the Supreme Court on June 13, 2022. And last night, in a one-night-only walk on part in the musical "&Juliet," she got to experience the second part of that dream. In a part written expressly for her, she performed to a full house that thundered with applause and cheers when she appeared and delivered her lines, even singing one song with the cast. She was brilliant and clearly enjoying herself. "She's just a Theater Kid like us," one of the lead players said, introducing her. As she shares in her memoir, theater is her road not taken. She appeared in plays and musicals throughout her college career, an engagement with stagecraft that she necessarily paused when she chose the Law. Last night that long hiatus came to an end.

"&Juliet" re-imagines Shakespeare's famous tragedy, exploring what might transpire if on awakening from her sleep potion and finding Romeo dead, Juliet decided not to kill herself, too, and instead went on with her life. It was a funny, inclusive, empowering feminist vision of an alternate ending to the bard's play. My friend Lisa came with me to the show, as my usual Broadway buddy, my daughter, is off exploring Quebec City this weekend with her husband. I was just as starstruck as everyone else when the Justice appeared. And the Theater Kid crushed it.

Watching the performance, I felt a secret thrill that our Justice has these other dimensions to her persona, that she could replenish her spirit from what must be a brutal day job with an interlude of the purest joy. When she shared her goal of one day appearing on a Broadway stage in her book, I was sure someone would read it who could make that dream come true. And last evening at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, she acted her heart out, and she was glorious.

Merry & Bright

Miss Harper is ready for the season!

___________

I've dipped my toe back into the ocean of news, having been convinced by a meme that I should not turn away. I watch and read sparingly still, but slowly, I'm reengaging with the world beyond my ken. There's the meme, quoting the great and wise Audre Lorde, which someone posted on Bluesky. I've deleted Twitter or X of whatever it was calling itself, and joined Bluesky, which is infinitely less toxic, while still on the pulse of the news as it unfolds in real time. I'm going to Jamaica for four days over the holidays, and would you believe I wish I was just staying home? I'm in the mood to sit still, to roll up the sidewalk and just be. I also need to make some real progress on the book, but I will have to pause in writing that and make myself pack, contemplate presenting myself, on a beach no less, and in this moment it all feels like too much. Some people have real problems, right? I feel silly whining about this, and besides, the money is spent, the tickets booked, the ocean view room reserved, and my husband's has set his heart on sun and sea. There is no way around it but to go, and unearth some enjoyment at being able to revisit the beach and the turquoise sea of my childhood. I'm trying not to worry about how powder soft the sand is there, which was heavenly when my body was sound, but now it is wholly at odds with my gimpy left leg, which struggles to keep me upright even on flat hard ground. Oh, no one is crying for me, I know this. I'm just trying to get my own head in gear.

 

More Nikki

 

 

I don't know who took these photos of a young Nikki Giovanni, but I love them. They capture her whole spirit, the gentle humor that rode alongside the fierce unflinching intelligence with which she regarded the world, which also infused her poetry.

 

You Came, Too
by Nikki Giovanni

I came to the crowd seeking friends
I came to the crowd seeking love
I came to the crowd for understanding

I found you

I came to the crowd to weep
I came to the crowd to laugh

You dried my tears
You shared my happiness

I went from the crowd seeking you
I went from the crowd seeking me
I went from the crowd forever

You came, too 

 

Walk good, Poet

Nikki Giovanni is now with the ancestors. Thank you for your life, Nikki, your poetry, your celebration of your Black self, your joy. Thank you for that laugh like the music of the sun breaking over our heads. I adored you when I was a yearning teen, a college kid with her fist in the air, a woman in love, a mother. Please say hello to Toni, Tina, Audre, Shay and all the literary godmothers who I like to imagine came to meet you, and are enfolding you now. It sure is lonely down here without you, but as someone said, your body may be beyond us, but all that love and joy and music in your words, you left them with us. Now, you get to rest. Walk good, beloved Poet. I think you always knew our love for you, and you gathered it in with those dancing eyes, those strong skinny arms, loving us right back.

Winter Poem by Nikki Giovanni

Giving thanks for all that is really okay

Political apathy is new to me. I’m so over watching the Democratic party circle fire on itself, with so much recrimination and blame, and dear God please just give all the self-righteous commentary on Joe Biden pardoning his son Hunter a rest! I would have been mad if he hadn't pardoned him, instead leaving him to the mercy of the scruples-free cadre coming into power in a few weeks, most of them with crimes against others beyond anything Hunter ever did—oh, don't get me started. It's a hell of a thing to be so disenchanted, so apathetic about the whole political charade, yet with the clarity of understanding that I have no where else to go, no political entity I can turn to in the fight for the marginalized and jeopardized. I don't listen to the news any more, because what’s the point? Suffice it to say we're just fucked, so let's get on with living, shall we?

We had the usual Thanksgiving crowd, and we feasted and enjoyed ourselves as if the country was not in the process of burning itself down. Yes, I was a stressy mess on Thanksgiving morning, wrapping my arms tight around myself to hold the turbulence in, but later when everything came together, I remembered why I do this crazy chaotic dance every year. So many magical moments of loving connection. 

I’ll put up some photos from the week, but I won't try to organize them chronologically, lest I dissipate my energy to finish this post. Really, I just want to have the record of these pictures. And I want to remember that my husband, after the turkey came out the oven, tapped his children and said, "Over to you," and came and sat next to me in the living room, where we conversed with guests as our kids and nieces did all the re-warming and plating of dishes and carving of meats, ferrying everything to the table for the feast. I also want to remember that when twenty of us held hands in a huge circle to say grace, which always falls to my husband, he said the most beautiful things: that he has been thinking a lot about where we find ourselves this year, and that what occurs to him is that self care is critical now, a radical act, because if we care for ourselves, we will better be able to care for our families, our neighbors, our community, our world. Everyone was moved by his words, which I have so simplified here, forgive me, he said it so much better than I’ve managed, and his words restored each of us in some small measure. 

Later we mixed up margaritas and the night got even more riotous and entertaining. We laughed till our sides ached, and there were also some tears, such as when my niece lamented that she feared passing on her life traumas to her beautiful baby Harper, and when she realized she was crying my son came and put his arms around her, and the rest of us murmured it's okay, it's going to be okay, you'll do your best, it's all you can do, and she will likely have different traumas than the ones you'll be careful to keep away from her, because this is life, and she is loved, she will know she is loved, and she will be okay.

Here is an album of Thanksgiving week 2024, in New York City. 

My man, giving the peace sign, made most of the food—the turkey, the ham, the stuffing, the broccoli in garlic and oil, the roasted Brussel spouts, the three cheese mac and cheese—and I made the corn and cheese casserole and the sweet potato dish with crushed pineapple mixed in and a seared marshmallow topping.

One niece brought rice and peas, lamb, and green beans, another friend brought plantains, my son in law contributed his favorite collard greens, we opened a can of cranberry jelly and that was the whole feast. And it was yummy. 

Little Harper was everybody's favorite guest. Here she is with Auntie Kai-Kai, who has decided she wants to be called Bestie Kai. After a while, our precious baby girl decided there was just too much noise and revelry, too much attention swirling toward her, and she climbed into her daddy's lap and said, "Dada, Happa go to bed?" then climbed back down, walked through the room with her wrist on a swivel giving her adorable royal wave as she chirped, "Bah bye, bah bye," then ran down to the hall to the room where her cot was and waited at the door for Daddy to catch up. Love it when a child understands she has agency.

Harper's mommy's hair has grown wild and free and for Thanksgiving she made no attempt to tame it, and she was as beautiful as she always is, whether or not she's sporting lipstick and freedom hair.

The nieces and my daughter had decided that they'd prepare charcuterie boards to nosh on while waiting for dinner to be put out, since they know from past experience that they're always starving by the time the food is served.

Continuing our Thanksgiving week rundown in random order: The day before, Wednesday, some of us did a jigsaw puzzle while my son in law made a special floral arrangement for the table. 

This is Harper having a tantrum. She gently lowers herself to the floor where she writhes and whines in protest about whatever is not pleasing her. How I wish my son had had decorous tantrums like this! I could have assured myself that I was a much better mother than I felt at the time. Harper's parents have the right touch, though. They ask her how she is, try to discern what's going on, but they don't get overwrought, as I used to, even to the point and getting down on the floor with my tantrumming son and crying along with him.

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday (since we seem to be going in actual reverse order of events here) my son took his favorite auntie from Trinidad and the Dallas contingent to see his firehouse, after which they all decamped to Brooklyn to my daughter and her husband's new apartment. 

The firehouse visiting crew hung out in Brooklyn till late in the evening, keeping my daughter company as she baked the last of the pie orders she received for the season, including two for me and her dad, and one for her brother and his wife.

My daughter in law and Harper had a lovely moment in the kitchen playing with shopping bags. Another of Harper's aunts made an adorable video, which I will post below.

Over the course of the week, we watched the entire new season of The Great British Baking Show, as we are all unabashed fans of the soothing niceness of the people who are cast for that show.

A few of us, myself included, had to sneak in some actual work time while still following the bakers on TV. We also binge watched Lioness and Call the Midwife at different points in the week, catering to everyone's varied programming interests. On Friday we watched Gladiator in preparation for our Friday night mass movie date, which was Gladiator II at the red-leather reclining seat theater.

Harper has everyone, including her uncle, wrapped around her little finger. I believe she is fully aware of her power over us all.

My daughter snapped this photo at 2AM during the kitchen clean-up process. She later sent it to the family group chat with the caption "Successful Thanksgiving."

And finally, here are two videos, one in our kitchen, the other at my son’s firehouse, that made me smile:

On their way!

 In just a few hours, they'll be here with us in New York!

❤️

 

 

 

The week before the feast

There's the rug I eventually chose. We laid it down this morning. It doesn’t add much to the room, but it’s inoffensive, so I’m okay with it. It a damp, gray day over here. With the brush fires we’ve had in local parks recently we need the rain. My cousin Nicky arrived from Trinidad two days ago. She’s here for Thanksgiving next week. We’re watching the new season of The Great British Baking Show. The Dallas contingent, including sweet little Harper, gets here on Sunday. I'm so looking forward to seeing that little girl. My kids and their loves, and our two nieces, will sleep over with us from Wednesday till Saturday, the better to partake in festive chaos. Over in Brooklyn, my daughter is busy making orders of her salted caramel apple pie. She sold out this year. Pie pick ups will be happening from our house next Wednesday. We’ll have nine people staying over in our apartment and about twenty people for the feast day itself. Here we go!

Being quiet

 

I have been feeling as if I don’t know how to write here anymore. As if I just need to be quiet. If you want to know the truth, all the analyses of the election outcome simply don’t add up to me. I don’t think Anne Seltzer’s Iowa poll got it wrong. Rather, I think in addition to all the voter suppression methods put in place over a period of years, there was something buried in the algorithm of the machines in the districts where the far right over performed, and certainly Leon (as I now call him), with his self driving cars and space rockets could have handled that “little secret”—perhaps it was the “little secret” Orange couldn’t help crowing about at his Nazi rally a week before Election Day. But of course, I sound as crazy as all the election deniers from 2020 saying that. And what even is the point, as nothing will be investigated or corrected. We are heading into the darkest of days and I feel a fair bit of dread. So I’m keeping my head down. Being quiet. Waiting to see what it is that I need to do. I’m not in denial or delusion. But I am in limbo. Suspended. Not knowing just how bad it’s going to get. No more unicorns and rainbows of hope. We’re beyond that I think. We’ll need clear eyes and true hearts now.  

Untitled

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” —Carl Jung

Back to work

The man and I have made a conscious choice to turn off the news. We are uninterested in post mortems about why Kamala lost, though I did read one compelling article that finally broke through to me about the degree to which most of the country is immersed in news coverage of the far right, that the things I hear and believe to be true, simply are not part of their universe of belief. It is as if we exist in two completely different realities. My son, who works with a lot of men who vote red, in firehouses where Fox news blares day and night, has tried to tell me that we are in a silo, that I have no idea of what most of the country is consuming as fact. I finally get it. And in this moment, there is nothing I can do about it but preserve my own peace, protect my own sanctuary. 

One morning a few days after the election, I looked around my house at the light pouring in just so, and I thought, well, the forces out there who would wish to do me harm are not inside this space, not at this moment, and so in these rooms, I will breathe full, free breaths, and I will live my life one day at a time, and meet whatever comes, and take whatever opportunities present themselves to make things just a little bit better in our hurting world. I’m remembering something an enlightened man I once interviewed proposed to me: It's a beautiful paradox, he said. You don't have to change the world. You only have to change yourself. That is how you change the world. So I'm over here, inside my house, trying to become immersed in the work that has been given me to do. The new book. To find the story's momentum. To lose myself there. To let the world happen as it will and as it won't. To be my own clay. For now, anyway. At least for now.

Within the all of it

The light in my house seemed somehow different this morning, as if I had awoken in a world that was not the same as the one I had gone to sleep in two nights before. And yet I was in the same country, only now all the masks, all the hopes and platitudes had been stripped away and the true nature of us was plain as the very day. Out on the streets, New York was dead quiet. People nodded to each other, bleary eyed and shell shocked. The only other time the city felt as hushed as it was today was on 9/11. 

As we all now know, Trump marched red across the electoral map last night, just as he did in 2016. I felt as if I was suffering from PTSD. I went to bed feeling weirdly disconnected from myself and I woke up numb. I was aware of emotions stirring in the depths but they felt papered over. Occasionally one feeling or another broke through. Betrayal. Grief. Disbelief. The bitter realization that so many in this country just did not care about those who their vote put in jeopardy. Anger at the bomb threats in some 40 heavily Democratic voting precincts in Georgia. Ballot drop boxes burned with votes inside in the blue states. Hundreds of thousands of mailed in ballots in battleground states that never showed. Untold numbers of voters turning up to find their names nowhere on the rolls despite their having registered. So many such stories. Were votes suppressed? I have no doubt, but here we are. What happened, happened. 

I sat alone in my house all morning after my husband went to work, the TV off, my thoughts swirling, and finally the salient emotion rose to the fore and it was sadness, deep surpassing oceanic sadness at the state of us, and the world we have bequeathed to our children. 

My niece in Texas texted the family chat that she did not intend to risk another pregnancy so we better love on Harper all we can. And we will. But why did so many not care one whit about the question of Trump's character? One Black podcast host summed up Trump in this way: “He is a masterclass in white privilege. He can't say enough racist things to be a racist. He can't commit enough crimes to be a criminal. He can't fail enough times to be a failure. He can't say enough stupid things to be stupid. The idea of him overshadows any reality. The “Christian savior" who doesn't know the bible, the adulterer who f*cks porn stars and steals from charities. It's the promise of the protection of whiteness he represents.” That's part of it for some people for sure. Another part of his win is outright misogyny. In the end, Kamala Harris is a woman, and a great majority of men, and as it turns out, most women, too, were just never going to vote for a woman. Not Black women, though. Ninety-two percent of us voted for the Harris/Walz ticket. It wasn't enough in the end.

And now—a luta continua.

But I’m tired, y'all. 

I might need a minute.

Little girl in costume

Her second Halloween. That precious little face. Also, a corner of innocence to keep in view while we wait for news of our collective future. 

At the center, love

This beautiful man who holds our hearts had a birthday on Monday just past. For some reason I love this photo I snapped a few weeks ago, when he was updating our children on some news about the impending sale of his childhood home in Antigua, a long and complicated transaction that, somewhat miraculously, will be accomplished this week.

The "kids" all showed up to celebrate his birthday, bearing cupcakes, wine, flowers, snacks, to add to a particular store-bought strawberry shortcake, his fave. He opened gifts and we chatted and told stories as uproariously as we do, and a lovely evening was had by all.

And now we are a mere two days away from election day, and everyone is barely drawing breath, waiting to see what will unfold. The only thing we know for sure is that whatever the outcome of the voting, there are hard days still to come, and may we be equal to them, may we be set on a path to a future in which we can move forward from a place of courageous reclamation, shared humanity, and above all, love. That may sound corny in the world we know, but that doesn't make it any less worth dreaming.

Two more weeks and a birthday

Were he alive, my dad would have turned 101 years old today. When I hold my memories of him up to the light, I see so plainly the ways he tried to make the world better, easier, kinder for those near him or far. He started out as a prosecutor, like the little girl above, before he became a judge and eventually chief justice. Today, honoring his memory with unalloyed hope, I pray we'll be able to say the little girl in the picture, whose own birthday was three days ago, grew up to be not just a prosecutor, a state attorney general, a senator, and a vice president, but also president of the United States. 

Whatever you may think about Kamala Harris's candidacy, she is a far superior option to the felon in orange make-up who is running against her. Vote Harris/Walz, and then vote blue all the way down the ticket, too, because only then will you have a chance to fight like hell for the battles crying out to be fought in the weeks, months, and years ahead. Vote for the other guy—who is really only a feeble and demented propped up Trojan Horse meant to usher in the real Project 2025 implementer Vance—and the centuries old, admittedly imperfect, yet still stubbornly hopeful American democratic project, not to mention Trump's openly threatened "enemies within," will be dead. 

Nicole Wallace said on TV last night that girl dads might be the secret sauce in a Harris/Walz win, that they don't want to see their daughters suffering under the Republicans' outlawing and criminalizing of life-saving reproductive health care that has already caused hundreds of thousands of women and their families untold pain. I hope she's right. I suppose it's too much to extend that hope to the idea that every man or woman who loves a woman or girl will do the right thing at the polls on or before November 5—but whatever, collective thought is a powerful driver, and hope is free.

In celebration of my dad's birthday, here he is in May 1946. He was 23 years old and working as a clerk of the courts in Spanish Town, Jamaica. This photo was taken the year he met a young postmistress who would one day become my mother and three years before they would wed and leave our little island for London, England, so that my dad could study law. Till the day she died in 2015, almost twenty years after my dad left us, my mom kept this photo of him between the tattered pages of her bible.

Four Days in LA

My week in LA that went as well as I could have hoped. My new subject and I forged a warm connection in person and made a good strong start on the book. Little by little the narrative arc is coming into view. I think I have decided on a first chapter, centered on an event that chronologically occurs in the middle of her story, but it brings together all the threads of the book, so perhaps I can start there and hopefully engage the reader, then return to the beginning, working my way back to that climactic moment, then moving beyond it. I do worry about stealing a narrative high point that could help pace the middle section of the story, but there's a lot that happens in my subject's life after this event that will be equally as compelling, if told right. I just have to figure out how to tell it right. I started this post on my phone while at the airport in LA. I'm back home now, listening to tapes to get my subject's voice in my head and reflecting on the work we've begun. I have many more interviews to do, but now my subject and I have identified the people I need to talk to, who can help to widen her story's lens.

The first morning, she was very apologetically running late from an early meeting. While waiting for her on a bench outside her office building, I snapped the selfie above at the same moment that my daughter texted me. 

My subject arrived soon after, and we went inside and set up for our morning session. Later, when we were heading out to have lunch, I laughingly shared what I'd told my daughter and confessed my abject avoidance of stairs. "The irony of you and me together," I said lightly while climbing gracelessly into her car. "What do you mean?" she said, looking at me sincerely. "I'm an athlete. I definitely understand injury." By then, I had already seen that she was as kind and considerate a human as she'd appeared to be back in July when we first met on Zoom. And how lucky am I, because now I am working with yet another subject whose energy I will enjoy channeling in the coming year.

__________

A big part of why I wasn't nervous on the morning I was to meet my new book subject was because the night before, I had been enfolded in the most generous and non-judgmental atmosphere. I'd arrived in LA on Monday afternoon, and faced with a free evening, I texted my friend Elizabeth Aquino, mother of beautiful Sophie and her princely brothers, Henry and Oliver. Elizabeth and I first connected in this virtual community in 2009, when she was blogging at “A Moon, Worn As If It Had Been A Shell.” These days you can find Elizabeth's exquisite writing about life’s vicissitudes here. She and I met in person a few years ago when she was in New York with her youngest Oliver, and the three of us went to breakfast at Sarabeth's on Amsterdam Avenue. Our connection was immediately easy. We bare our souls here in ways we don't often speak, and so when we meet in the non-virtual world, we discover that we already know each other in a deep way. The moment I hugged Elizabeth and Oliver back then, I realized I already loved them.

Still, I wasn't sure Elizabeth would be able to meet up given the last minute nature of my text, and the fact that I didn't know how far away from her my hotel was. She's in LA proper and I was in Valencia, and I had no mental map of the distance between us. But Elizabeth texted me back right away, eager to meet up, which made me eager too. I quickly assessed that getting to her would be akin to getting from Harlem to Brooklyn to see my daughter, so I jumped into an Uber and was on my way to her home. I was thrilled that I would get to meet Sophie, and I would also see Oliver, as we’d made a plan to have dinner at the restaurant where he works. "Oliver was excited to hear you were in town," Elizabeth said, and she can have no idea how much that touched my heart. I also met Carl, Elizabeth's partner, who is just the gentlest and kindest of men. Elizabeth, Carl, and I sat and talked around her green mosaic table that I've seen in pictures on her blog. Elizabeth also gave me a tour of her home, an artistically nurturing space, filled with visual and literary treasures. 

When Sophie got home from her evening stroll around the neighborhood with her lovely caregivers, I was able to hug her gently, moved by her great presence, her dark eyes taking me in, allowing me. Soon after, Elizabeth, Carl and I went to dinner, where the servers treated us as if we were special guests, and Oliver kept checking on us, and the chef and everyone else came by to talk to us and tell us how much they love Oliver. How could anyone not love Oliver! 

Oliver and Elizabeth drove me back to my hotel after he got off shift. I loved hearing him talk about the dreams he holds, and I would bet on that kid every day of the week. All these people are the reason I woke up the next morning feeling as if the world is a munificent place, where the only harsh judgment of me is my own. As an unwitting antidote, Elizabeth and her beloveds gave me a gift heading into my first interview with a new subject. I felt grounded. Filled up with love.