“[M]ost young people seem almost illiterate. … [T]hey speak English as if it were their sixth language.” (“A Small Place,” Jamaica Kincaid, 43)

This summer, I did a workshop about the importance of the written word with a group of 50 high school students who were part of a movement through media institute. The workshop was going along just fine, as I did a writing exercise with the students and then gave them an opportunity to practice presenting their written words to two city “councilmen” before the officials themselves arrived.

The students began to get a little restless, as we were wrapping up, and one of my peers stood before the group and talked to them about the importance of civic engagement. He said, “This is about survival, y’all.” I (respectfully) disagreed with him and said so in front of the students.

When we see life as something just to be survive, we’ve set our goal lower than it ever ought to be. Even the Declaration of Independence, a document that didn’t have “us” in mind, I said, as I stepped closer to the students to emphasize how sincere I was, when the authors penned it even says our inalienable rights are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Happiness, not survival.

“[A]ll the laws that you know mysteriously favour you. Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, it’s because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital … and the memory of this is so strong, the experience so recent, that we can’t quite bring ourselves to embrace the idea that you think so much of. As for what we were like before we met you, I no longer care.” (36,37)

There’s a common misconception that an education is a fundamental federal “right” granted to every person born here in America. It isn’t true. It behooves students, their parents and their village to demand that their children stand resolutely in their places (a box so big that it’s perimeter is invisible) and begin to define how they will acquire for themselves a life, a landscape that shines more brilliantly than mere endurance for its own name.

I’m part of a book club. We recently read and subsequently discussed Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place.” (Thank you, Ms. Picker!)

This book, with its 81 pages, packs into itself an expression of every emotion that lies below the surface one: anger. There’s disappointment and frustration there, disbelief and regret, woe, betrayal, disappointment and disappointment about the colonization of the author’s homeland, Antigua.

During our discussion, a group member asked of Kincaid’s colonized homeland, why the Antiguans let the English come in at all. The islanders, of course, didn’t let the colonizers in, for colonizers are not known for employing the best etiquette when they see something they want. They take it.

Kincaid writes:

Have you ever wondered to yourself why it is that all people like me seem to have learned from you is how to imprison and murder each other, how to govern badly, and how to make the wealth of our country and place it in Swiss bank accounts? … You will have to accept that this is mostly your fault. Let me show you how you looked to us. You came. You took things that were not yours, and you did not even, for appearance’s sake, ask first. You could have said, “May I have this, please?” and even though it would have been clear to everybody that a yes or no from us would have been of no consequence you might have looked so much better. (34, 35)

I understand the author’s point. I am, however, afraid the deception of asking “for appearance’s sake” would have been a defrauding even more evil than the oppression the Antiguans (even now, currently) suffer. If there’s one thing that’s worse than a lie, it’s a deception. It’s the intentional misrepresentation of a piece of truth for the deceiver’s benefit.

The English hate each other and they hate England, and the reason they are so miserable now is that they have no place else to go and nobody else to feel better than.

The young people I was with this summer and most of the ones I serve believe this country was built to support them, and this couldn’t be farther from the truth. But to tell them this truth steals some of their innocence, just as the crime of colonization does. The nefariousness of colonization has little to do with the land of some place; it’s the mental space it abuses that proves the most damaging. That is the ground, the small place, we must protect as if our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness depended on it.

“Once you cease to be a master, once you throw off your master’s yoke, you are no longer human rubbish, you are a human being, and all the things that adds up to. So, too, with the slaves. Once they are no longer slaves, once they are free, they are no longer noble and exalted; they are just human beings.” (81)

“Where you come from is gone; where you thought you were going was never there; and where you are is no good, unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place … Nothing outside you can give you any place … In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.” —Flannery O’Connor

It resonated with me; I’ve pondered it often since.

Gregory Porter, post-concert Saturday, September 15, in Memphis, Tennessee
(photo courtesy Skipp)

With very few words, if any, between songs, jazz vocalist Gregory Porter for two hours turned my “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” week into a remote, languid memory. I laid back with closed eyes as his divine voice gently pushed me as close to the point where God and lasciviousness might meet without having to be concerned about repentance. This was not a concert; it was prayer and therapy, thanks and hope, an inhale and a slow exhale.

It was like he knew me. Like he’d cyberstalked me before I got there, the way I do him whenever he crosses my mind. I’m convinced he’d have sung his heart out as an offering to the jazz gods if there’d been just me in the audience or, as it happened to be, a couple hundred nobodies who inflitrated our time together because that’s just the kind of man he is. He smiled at me, sang to me, soothed me, and then he was gone. Like an illusion.

I’ll “Be Good,” until we see each other again, Gregory Porter. I’ll “Be Good.”

By the way, I think Short Do-Op enjoyed the concert, too! You’d have to ask her.

Where’s the sweet spot Audre Lord wrote about in “Making Love to Concrete,” between forgiving too easily / and never giving at all? It’s here. Right here. In this moment. Now’s the time.

(there’s no actual video, just the song and lyrics)

All this time I had it wrong,
But now I truly see
The road you’re choosing
See, the writings on the wall
Tells me I’m losing you
And there’s nothing for me to do
Cause our greatest fears came true
I finally got a clearer view 

I don’t wanna be a soldier anymore
Because the war never ends
And no one ever wins
I don’t understand why we should fight for love
Either it ain’t or it is
It either ain’t or it is

I guess that I am not as strong 
As I pretend to be
It’s so confusing
And if I thought you would change tomorrow 
I still would be choosing to 
Run away and just start brand new
The lucky ones they are so few
Then I guess they are unlike me and you
Me and you

No, I cannot believe 
That I won’t ever love again!

somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff

somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff
not my poems or a dance i gave up in the street
 but somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff

like a kleptomaniac workin hard & forgettin while stealin
this is mine/this aint yr stuff/
now why don’t you put me back & let me hang out in my own self

somebody almost walked off wit alla my stuff
& didn’t care enuf to send a note home sayin
i was late for my solo conversation
 or two sizes to small for my own tacky skirts

what can anybody do wit somethin of no value on
a open market/ did you getta dime for my things/
hey man/ where are you goin wid alla my stuff/
to ohh & ahh abt/ daddy/ i gotta mainline number
from my own shit/ now wontcha put me back/ & let
 me play this duet/ wit silver ring in my nose/
honest to god/

somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff/
& i didnt bring anythin but the kick & sway of it
the perfect ass for my man & none of it is theirs
this is mine/ ntozake ‘her own things’/ that’s my name
 now give me my stuff/ i see ya hidin my laugh/ & how i
s it wif my legs open sometimes/ to give me
some sunlight/ & there goes my love my toes my chewed
up finger nails/ niggah/ wif the curls in yr hair/
mr. louisiana hot link/

i want my stuff back/
my rhytums & my voice/ open my mouth/ & let me talk ya
outta/ throwin my shit in the sewar/ this is some delicate
leg & whimsical kiss/ i gotta have to give to my choice/
without you runnin off wit alla my shit/
now you cant have me less i give me away/ & i waz
doin all that/ til ya run off on a good thing/

who is this you left me wit/ some simple bitch
widda bad attitude/ i wants my things/
i want my arm wit the hot iron scar/ & my leg wit the
 flea bite/ i want my calloused feet & quik language back
in my mouth/ fried plantains/ pineapple pear juice/
sun-ra & joseph & jules/ i want my own things/ how i lived them/
& give me my memories/ how i waz when i waz there/
you cant have them or do nothin wit them/

stealin my shit from me/ dont make it yrs/ makes it stolen/
somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff/ & i waz standin
 there/ lookin at myself/ the whole time
& it waznt a spirit took my stuff/ waz a man whose
ego walked round like Rodan’s shadow/ waz a man faster
n my innocence/

waz a lover/ i made too much
room for/ almost run off wit alla my stuff/
& i didnt know i’d give it up so quik/ & the one runnin wit it/
don’t know he got it/ & i’m shoutin this is mine/ & he dont
know he got it/ my stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure
 of the year/

did you know somebody almost got away wit me/
me in a plastic bag under their arm/ me
danglin on a string of personal carelessness/ i’m spattered wit
 mud & city rain/ & no i didnt get a chance to take a douche/
hey man/ this is not your perogative/ i gotta have me in my
 pocket/ to get round like a good woman shd/ & make the poem
in the pot or the chicken in the dance/

what i got to do/
i gotta get my stuff to do it to/
why dont ya find yr own things/ & leave this package
of me for my destiny/ what ya got to get from me/
i’ll give it to ya/ yeh/ i’ll give it to ya/
round 5:00 in the winter/ when the sky is blue-red/
& Dew City is gettin pressed/ if it’s really my stuff/
ya gotta give it to me/ if ya really want it/ i’m
the only one/ can handle it

The love shack that had no windows or doors he and I built, 2X4 by 2X4, was just for us. It was a safe haven where us could both take off our cool and just be. He could dream without ridicule, and I could be weak without fear of being taken advantage of. It was the perfect hideaway for us both.

When us’d sneak away to our wonderland, our home away from home, the real world faded with the sun behind the lake. No one else mattered but us and the penetrating, metaphysical connection that magnetized our “I”s to “us.” His breath was mine. My heartbeat was his. Us invaded one another’s heart spaces and left with pieces of the other’s mind. Only these human bodies with flesh swaddled in light brown skin defrauded us of becoming one.

What us shared was mystical, exclusively just for us. Now it’s over and has been for a while. But instead of arresting at mourning what was on my sojourn backwards, I tripped on an email I sent him one morning and haven’t been able to erase the words from the theater of my mind since. This is the email in its entirety:

I’m on the plane, watching the passengers board after me. Some of them look like they have a lot on their minds. Others look annoyed. Some look lost–dazed and confused. Others look like they’re simply going through the motions. Life is in constant motion. Maybe that’s why. Very few of them look happy. Nobody, in fact, looks peaceful or joyful. They look like some of life’s victims. I wonder if I look like any of these folks. I don’t want to.

I’m ready.

All of me.

I can’t help but wonder if I’ve been looking more and more like life’s victim than the one who makes her (life) come alive. I wonder if I was really ready for what I thought I was, and if I’m any closer to ready now than I was back then. Us is beautiful but one is prime, its own square, cube … it’s the perfect number. But what does that mean?

All of the questions, few of the answers.