Glorious day here in the Crescent City and you had to get out, out, out and enjoy it. So we rented a surrey for five in City Park and went on an outdoor adventure. With Tin at the helm with the map, we were happy to follow him anywhere. Let’s surrey to a stone soul picnic ….
The house that backs up to my yard and basically is the border of my yard, the one that the crooked contractor bought for $30k, then set fire to, and then went to prison for cheating all the post-2005 Federal Flood people, the one who transferred the house to his mother so they wouldn’t take it while he was in prison, but his mother died while he was in, and then he died when he got out. That house, which I offered his lady friend who inherited it but it was stuck in succession $20k for the burned-out shell just to raze it and get the eye sore out of my yard, but she sold it for $35k to a guy who lives in my neighborhood who is turning it into two apartments.
Well, that house is like a canvas in my mind and every day I try to imagine what I will do with that house, with the back of it now that someone else has bought it, because I own the back of it, I own it in the mere fact that it invades my yard, my landscape, my vista, and it causes me to think of ways to camouflage it. This solid mass of house that has no yard because it’s in, ahem, my yard.
Murals, trees, artifacts all vie in my imagination as screens between me and this hulking mass. And today, I think I have decided what will go on this wall. I intend to paint a giant, colorful, beautiful and exotic mermaid in a vast ocean landscape and underneath it will read:
Does the mermaid long for land?
Yang: Tin has a girlfriend at school and she loves My Little Pony and turned him onto it. He had to come to grips with the fact that other boys at school said this was the hallmark of girldom. He had to reconcile his love for the androgynous Rainbow Dash and effervescent Twilight Sparkle. And truth to tell, he has done a good job except for occasionally wanting me to keep the fact that he watches the ponies as a secret between us.
Yin: Tin loves a villain. Mostly any villain will do, but right now his favorite is Two Face from the Batman series. He can look like Two Face at the drop of a dime having memorized his every gesture. He can ask the coin and flip it on command. He was Two Face for Mardi Gras. He was Two Face for Purim. He wanted a Two Face cake for his birthday.
He doesn’t even realize that Two Face’s duality is his own.
So what do you give a boy turning six who embodies both Yin and Yang? A pony party with a Batman cake is what. And how do you know if the party was successful? It all ends in tears. Tonight, Tin wept and sobbed and howled for Black Pony, the pony who nudged and licked him in the stable. The one he wants to go live with. The one he is sure misses him so much right now she can’t sleep and she’s lonely and he needs to be with her. Oh, how come he didn’t know about Black Pony before and can he please, please have his 7th birthday party with her so they can spend more time together.
This after arriving at the farm and deciding to act out his worst behavior, including at first snubbing his girlfriend and the unbelievable drawing of him as Two Face that his friend’s father drew for him.
A friend sent me a text this morning after a difficult conversation with someone she had given her heart over to. Her heart was not being handled the way she had hoped and so she grew more restless, defensive, and hurt during the relationship. Is this love? she has asked too many times.
A friend gave me the Five Love Languages for Children where I read that Tin’s love language is in physical touch. It’s how I learned to hold him even while he kicks and screams that he doesn’t want me to, because to feel his body yield to my touch after the dramatic protests is a love victory for both of us.
Last night, another friend called out of the blue to say that she had read what I had written to Sty and she wanted to tell me that she thought it was right on and straight from the heart. It gave me great satisfaction to know that I’m learning to speak my heart’s language, something that I have battled with in the years, relationships and marriages. I battled not because I had an opponent, but because I didn’t truly know what my heart wanted to say.
Do I really want a life of learning and travel and be with a person who doesn’t? Do I really want a child if it means in having one I lose my partner? Am I entitled to demand truth when the very essence of honesty often times eludes me? Is it wrong to ask for monogamy and honesty when I have lied and cheated in the past?
Again I say, we are all traveling around this spiral of life, some of us are trying to get to the next rung and it can be difficult and challenging. I read an article that Ta’Nehisi Coates wrote about learning to speak French and feeling high when he reached a new level in his study even while he realized that he would never master it. It is the same with the language of love, all of the elements are in flux and yet we want certainty.
Only the open heart stays constant. To coax out the language of love takes practice. There are stumbling blocks, and there are triumphant Rocky running up the stairs moments.
At 1:45 PM on March 5, 2009, Tin was born. He weighed 6 lbs and 7.3 oz and was 20” long. His mother lovingly held him in her arms. His father was not present.
The next nine months were challenging.
I met him on December 7, 2009, in 14 degree weather, when he was handed to me wearing nothing but a diaper. I dressed him in my friend’s daughter’s clothes, including pink socks. They say three times is a charm, I tried once, twice, and then bingo.
There is a creation story where the child as a spirit looks down to earth and chooses his parents. In my son’s case, he chose four people, two to create him and give him his DNA, and two to parent him.
We drove through a snow storm to get to Indianapolis to await our adoption hearing and on December 16 I became Tin’s mother.
Six years – 2009 – 2010 – 2011 – 2012 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015 – and every one of these years has widened my world.
SIX YEARS OLD. You came into my life on an angel’s wings and oh, what a difference to me.
Happy Birthday, son.
Yesterday, I challenged others to keep their hearts open and by the afternoon, I was put to the test. As a Teacher of Love, I first have to be a student and so when the phone rang, with that old familiar ring tone, my heart leapt at first, but I did not answer. Sty was calling, [ringtone: Anthony Hamilton’s Cool] saying he has struggled without me, saying he is sorry for whatever it was I think (read: know) he did, and he loves me still and could I please, please call and just talk it out, give him a chance to explain.
I felt torn, because my heart is tender towards him, and perhaps he was just behaving in a way that has worked for him in the past, even though it simply does not work for me. I thought about in how parenting Tin I’ve learned to be firm and fair. Loving even when I don’t like. And so here was my test, could I take this man who brought me such love and joy and ignore him. Ignore his message that said he was missing me, loving me, and suffering? That felt heartless, not loving.
But, I wanted to protect me too. One side of me said, “He did me wrong” while the other loving side of me said, “He did me good many times.” I had to remember who this man was for me – where he came from in my cosmic story – what the intersection of him and me was about – and I had to admit that I too, missed him.
Never you mind, I do miss him, but I am getting over him because he stepped out on me, which I cannot abide, but also because our investment into each other’s future looked very different from what we invested in the now. So I sent him a text after all, a loving but firm message from my open heart.
This was my text to him:
Sty – thanks for calling – I do miss you and feel your heart and body are imprinted on my heart and body. I do not want to rehash that weird night and I’m sorry that you feel you were not given a chance to explain. The truth is you awakened my heart but I want something different – I want a man who only wants me – I’m a jealous woman and that won’t change. I don’t want to talk right now – I’m just healing my heart and I’d rather more time before we speak again. I hope you understand and know that I am grateful for the love we shared and want nothing but the best for you.
Sent from my iPhone
In the end, I had to go back to being a student of love. How do you balance love of self with love of others? What is love? Does it have a time limit? If you only love for three months, does love go away after that? If a person loves to his or her capacity, is that not love?
Remember my axiom: Meet people were they are at, even if where they are at, is not where it’s at. [copyright: me]
Sty did not respond. But he knows my heart is true – to him and most importantly, to me.
The other day a friend told me that I’m a teacher of love and I need to understand it as my purpose. So I sent her a snapshot of the sign I had made by Dr. Bob and hung over my threshold:
Another friend had come to see me recently, his wife, my dear friend, had passed last May and he was struggling to find his footing even while his children were adjusting better than he. I counseled him to open his heart and that in loving and letting love in and out freely, he’d find his way clear. It’s what his wife would want for him and for her children.
He called me last night and told me the very next day after he was here, he’d met someone and he owed it to me and my encouragement to open his heart wide. I was overjoyed – for him. He’s a catch – a rocket scientist, a woodworker extraordinaire, a smart and funny man who more than deserves love.
Cupid sought him out immediately as a catch.
I don’t know how these things work. I don’t know what is determined in the timing of love. I don’t know the mechanics of love. Why do you love one in lieu of another. I don’t understand the fickleness or determination of the heart. I don’t understand how your heart works itself into a marriage with every other part of your body – eyes, lips, touch, smell, taste.
I don’t know love at all.
But I do know this as a teacher of love, you must keep your heart open and it is a daily challenge. There are many people who will make you want to harden your heart. There is a monkey circling your head who tells you: you don’t deserve it, you’ve been hurt before and might be hurt again, there is a nag that says it will all end in bourbon and regret. You need to cage the monkey. You need to scrape the callouses off your organ. You need to pump love in and out and exercise your heart so that it is ready when Cupid appears.
Cupid is looking for an open heart. Is your heart ready today?
My friend came by Friday night and I invented a drink for him. It was so delicious, let me tell you about it.
It’s called – of course – The Marlowe:
I rock glass filled with ice
1 shot of vodka (preferably Ketel One)
1 half shot of St. Elder (or St. Germaine)
1 half shot of Bissap (http://bissapbreeze.com)
Fill glass with La Croix (orange flavor)
Squeeze a bit of lemon
WALA!
Yesterday into this morning was a lesson in how to cram five lives into one. Tin and I began the day at a playground design workshop at the new school where parents and children got to brainstorm about what they wanted in our new playground. Afterwards everyone had to select committees and I picked to be the DJ spinning records for six hours on the build day. #stopmebeforeIvolunteeragain
Then I dashed over to the Healing Center to Cafe Istanbul to participate in Womanifest (pronounced WHOA MANIFEST), a gathering of Black women and the men who support them where I attended a workshop in vision planning and how to raise Black boys in this city as a single mother. People of all ages crowded into the space trading clothes, drinking our own local Bissap, attending workshops and watching performances. I ran into tons of friends, learned about visioning my own life, manifesting my own love, and helping to enhance my son’s qualities. A couple of friends arrived and I was able to take a minute and sit with them while they ate lunch at my friend, Fatma’s restaurant. While they ate I sipped a cay (Turkish tea – which fueled me for the rest of the day).
My friends had come bearing micro greens for me and I was over the top because these greens are like crack. When I got home later that afternoon, I made a quick salad and when I looked at the finished bowl I found a green heart smiling up at me. My friends said, “Your time is coming soon!”
Before I left Womanifest, another friend dragged me over to her house nearby and made me a perfect Dark and Stormy as we caught up – our lives have been so incredibly busy lately that a face to face has been impossible. Then it was another dash to get home and do a James Brown turnaround having to dress for Ashé’s Power House debut party. I was one of five gals trying to have dinner before hand, and we went to five restaurants with no luck of getting in before a two hour wait before landing at The Butcher, which conveniently buys my friend’s micro greens so the Chef made space for us. He sent out beautiful plates of charcuterie and such and there I was at this haven for bread and mostly pork, wondering what I would eat and I ended up having a fabulous meal – pickled brussel sprouts and a bread-less pastrami sandwich over the most delectable house made cole slaw. Oh my, YUM.
Then we scurried out into the chilly night to hit the Power House, Ashé’s new building that was celebrating its grand opening with Tank and the Bangers playing and lots of chocolate to go around. My friend and I posed with Tank after the concert because the talk of the town is she is going places and so these intimate moments with her are soon to be history.
And then it was home to bed, curled up with my heating pad and then up way too early to costume Tin and take him to the Purim festival at the synagogue this morning where my friends band, The Panorama Jazz Band, was helping us celebrate Purim.
My cup is not half full, it’s full to the brim and runneth over.
She said to me, “I’ve met many students of love but never a teacher of love and that is what you are.”
Last night, I finished reading Tiny Little Things by Cheryl Strand and picked up again Stalking Elijah by Rodger Kamenetz. I’m almost finished with the book but it took a different turn in that the expert on Judaism was poo pooing the notion of a benevolent God who is looking out for us. Instead, he believes in the eastern version of the god within us. My head was swimming having just come from Little Gem where I went to hear Niyi Osundare, the Nigerian poet who came to the U.S. so that his deaf daughter could attend school and got to experience firsthand the 2005 Federal Flood. He and his wife escaped through the attic of their house. My head was full of this and that as I was contemplating sleep and suddenly my bedroom was crowded with Strand’s not so easy advice, Kamenetz’s frustrating search for Jewish sense, and now Osundare’s lyrical beat drumming in my head.
Am I that teacher of love? I’m starting with self-love again – oft forgotten or kicked to the curb – and now having to rekindle this love affair with my own self. The best part is knowing that you can always begin again.
Okay, I’ll take this title and I will wear it like a coat of arms. After all, I’ve been writing about love for a long time now.
