I speak the language
And mostly look the part
But you have no idea
The color of my heart
Many people have tried to categorize me as Mexican or LatinX until they realize that I can not speak a word of Spanish beyond “Gracias”. A few have decided that I must be Polynesian or Filipino. Whatever, y’all. My birth certificate says Negro, so put that in your pipe and smoke it.
My ethnicity and race don’t really matter because I am more concerned with other things about me. Things that make me annoyingly human, and frustratingly isolated. My blood is red, and my heart pumps it strong, but … it’s a bit singed around the edges from the scourges of guilt and shame and the blistering flames of betrayal. It’s got an uneven frame of dark umber; further in, there’s a splotchy patch of almost neon purple, outlined in a sickly yellow. That unwieldy shape marks the bruising from a never-ending sequence of cannonball shots right to the core of me. It may never fully heal.
The pain of all my ancestors is held there, along with my own, reminding me to keep my guard up and be ever vigilant. Because I have such a great capacity for pain, however, even this is often not enough to save me from trusting when I should not, from thinking every narcissistic charlatan is a friend, from ignoring clear signs of danger. That has nothing to do with melanin, ethnicity, race, or even culture.
Notwithstanding all of this, somehow and against the odds, I’m still here. Easily confused and consistently error-prone, but still here. Sometimes that amazes even me.
I’m watching snow fall outside my window. It’s been falling all day, and has left the landscape enshrouded in a thick, fluffy white blanket. There are still a few drivers on the nearby road that was not plowed today, but mostly the normally bustling main thoroughfare is quiet and nearly peaceful. The sun is predicted to be out tomorrow, and some of the fuzzy blanket will melt, along with the ice from a previous storm that is buried a couple of inches beneath it. This will make for dangerous travel, and many of us will remain cloistered for another day until it’s safer to navigate.
Fortunately, I have not lost power, so I was just watching a short reel somewhere on Substack. I follow the page of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland with tremendous gratitude for her legacy. She’s a white woman and a veteran of the Freedom Rides and other work in the Civil Rights era. She was a very young woman then, born with a soul that called for justice and fairness during a time when justice was the last thing on the minds of many people who looked like her. She was undeterred and saw it all, including the jail cells and the bloodied faces of those who walked beside her. She’s about 80 now, and still a free-spirited hippie without an ounce of pretense or arrogance in her cells.
At any rate, I saw a reel from her page earlier that feature a man walking outside along a snowy road. He told a story about having seen his postal carrier earlier in the week, and they shared a few words. He recounted that he told the other man to be careful, with all the ice on the roads and sidewalks, and they smiled and parted ways. The narrator said that much later, it occurred to him that just saying the words :be careful” wasn’t really enough to make his sentiment real. He needed to take action to make safety possible for the object of his sincere hope for safety. So, the next day, he went back to his mailbox, which was a fair pace from the house and down a significantly long paved pathway. He found the pathway covered in ice, and a bit hazardous to navigate. So, he took a small shovel and chiseled a path through the ice so the mail carrier was able to easily reach the mailbox. He took an extra step to make his wish come true. For someone else.
This story impressed me a great deal, because I often forget about taking the extra step that makes my platitudes carry weight. I learned this from a workshop facilitator a while ago, but forgot it. The facilitator told a story about a fisherman who frequently encountered another angler at the fishing hole. The other fisherman wasn’t having the same luck, so the fisherman shared a few tips of the trade. That was a nice thing, but the facilitator went on to explain that if the fisherman truly wanted to see his peer achieve success, their relationship would not end with generic advice. The more successful fellow told also told the other man about the best fishing spots in the area, and further, that he would meet him every so often to fish with him and lend his expertise if that might be helpful.
Just saying nice words about thoughts and prayers, be safe, and so on may not be enough. If I am truly invested in someone having a successful experience, perhaps there is an extra step. I hate being set up for failure, or feeling that I have done the same to another. I’ll remember to ask myself if there is more I can do for a successful outcome.
The Sound Hole 