My heroes have aways been...human

When I had my daughter, I felt like a kid myself. A kid raising a kid. I had all of the skills one DOESN'T need to take care of an infant. I could run for miles up a mountain, I could open a beer with a lighter, I could make etouffee with my eyes closed. I could translate ancient Confucian texts...drunk.

Changing a diaper was...something my older brother had to demonstrate to me in the hospital. Swaddling a screaming 9-pound human, again, I had no clue. The first six months of that child's life were the most terrifying six months of mine.

I did the only thing that I knew to do. I remembered. I called up the strong memories of my grandmother, who passed away a year before I discovered I was pregnant. I figured, she kept her six kids alive into adulthood, and a couple of grandkids, too, so she'd know. I had long talks with her, wherever she was, about what I should do. I thought back to the times that she held a baby, disciplined a wild toddler, and nudged a reluctant teenager to make the right choice. I had daily 'talks' with this woman, who in life didn't hardly stand five feet tall. (She thought I was a giant at 12.) She was my hero. Her get-it-done attitude, her unashamed pursuit of knowledge, her skills as a gardener, a cook, a master knitter, a patient badass mother, her love of Elvis...she worked nearly every day of her life. One morning she didn't get out of bed to go to work, that's how anyone knew something was wrong.

One of the last times I saw her, she told me that she always knew I'd surprise everybody. That meant everything to me. And then, in a blink she was gone. I named my daughter after her, because it could be no other way.

A hero is not a god. A hero has flaws and makes mistakes and hits low points. A hero is human, and yet they rise above their humanness, and still manage to peek over the ledge of impossibility and
see something greater than themselves.

Imagine that. Having the bravery to see through the thick fog of life as we know it, to the unknown greatness. That's scary shit. 'Cause you really don't know what's going to happen when you step out of that fog, but you're eager to take the leap.

Maya Angelou, another hero of mine, was unashamedly herself. In fact, she reminded me of my grandmother. Grew up in a desperate way, had a baby too young, faced unthinkable abuse and bigotry...yet, she jumped. Every time she put pen to paper, she jumped through the everyday nonsense and straight into the abyss of truth. She even wrote a cook book. And shared an anecdote about a day when her own mother turned to her and said:

"'Baby. I've been thinking and now I'm sure. You are the greatest woman I've ever met.'"
At that moment...I decided the time had come to cut down on dangerous habits like smoking, drinking, and cursing.
   Imagine, I might really become somebody."

Just the audacity of that thought. Of becoming 'somebody' in a life of nobodies. It's brave. Sometimes people don't like it. They don't like the ambition, the 'arrogance' of having honest-to-god dreams, and the sheer tenacity to live those dreams out. Some would even call it lunacy. People think that kind of self-assuredness is dangerous. And it is.

Maya Angelou died just two years ago, and it was the first time I wept, openly, over the death of a 'public figure.' I felt like I knew her. I felt like she knew me somehow. Like we were on that same road together, toughing it out against the haters.

The second time I have wept openly, was just a few days ago. When, in the deep dark night I couldn't sleep because I was so sore from five days of non-stop training and, to be honest, way too much boxing bullshit, I learned (thanks social media) that Muhammad Ali had succumbed to Parkinson's disease. 

"No. No, no, no..."

Who could sleep after that? I sat out on the back steps in the pitch black and was shocked at my sadness. Like a big hole just opened up in the world, at least in my world, and what if I fell in?

Ali had a lot to say. And people didn't like that. They didn't like that what he said had the dagger of truth in it. Of course, his boxing was impeccable. He was easy on the eyes and his work ethic and odd grace made him legendary. But it was his unabashed forward momentum, being only himself, that made him a hero to me, to my daughter, my son...

"I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.”

Of all the great things Ali has said, and all the quotes and talk show reels I've memorized, imagine that. I don't have to be what you want me to be.

Heroes are incapable of being anything but themselves. The compulsion to move forward is too great. A hero doesn't just clock in a 10-hour day and quit. A hero is smart, they have vision beyond what the rest of us can see. When a hero is 'too tired', well that's too fucking bad because there is greatness to be achieved and truth to be told, so tired isn't an excuse for not being the thing that you could become. Despite being...made of flesh and bone.

"You have to be willing to sacrifice what you are for what you will become."

I am all out of heroes now. They live in the clouds. I won't stop reading Maya's books, or stop watching old clips of Muhammad Ali floating his way to victory and railing against the hypocrites of his time. I won't stop 'talking' to my grandmother when I can't hear her on the wind. But it's sad. These ghosts of greatness.

Yet, the other day I was watching my daughter from a distance while she played soccer with her brother in a wide, green field. A few kids came and joined the impromptu game and she teased them and played and did foot tricks with the ball and the other kids laughed, never taking their eyes off of her. Even her brother seemed a little mesmerized.

Maybe it was the sun shining behind her. Or the wild shock of her Afro bouncing on her head, or the gleaming white smile...but it caught me in my chest. And I wondered about this powerful young woman living under my roof...

Making a face

This past Saturday, a group of us mother-writer-warrior types gathered to give a reading as the opening event for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. The prompt was given to us awhile ago and was inspired by Taylor Mali's poem, What Teachers Make. For the group of us, we were asked to consider "what do mothers make?" We make messes, we make babies, we make babies cry, we make muffins and shitty one-dish recipes from Pinterest, we make fun of ourselves, we make coffee...We make essays. In case you weren't there to catch the live reading, here's my thoughts on what this mother makes.

I try not to make a face as the hairdresser runs a flaming hot iron down my daughter’s jet-black hair. What she is doing defies gravity. The afro that my girl came off of the bus with, the one we have all come to love and recognize from afar, is transformed into a smooth airstrip. She is only 11, but the hair makes her look 15. I sip my coffee. The winter sun disappears behind the trees. The afro is gone.

“What do you think?” They both look at me expectantly. My daughter’s eyebrow is raised, the hairdresser is excited. I am trapped.
“You look beautiful,” I say. “You look beautiful.”

And she does. She is a stunning child. Always has been. Now, with the hair, she looks more like me than ever, but brighter. So much brighter. I try not to make a face.

In the car, my coffee is gone. My mind is stuffed with sadness. My girl, the puffy-haired queen who came into the world fighting and screaming for her life, is disappeared and a woman now occupies the passenger seat.

“What do you really think, Ma?” Half of her face is lit by street lamps. The other half is a mystery.

“I really think you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. No matter what your hair looks like.”

I want to stop the car. To sweep her in a never-ending hug. To somehow make her understand the fierceness in me. But I keep driving. I try not to make a face.

My mother was good at not making a face. First, in fourth grade when I finally insisted that my waist-length Pocahontas hair needed to go. She made the appointment, she took me to the hairdresser; She watched as nearly two feet of my childhood was hacked from my little head and slithered down my back to the floor. She said she liked it. I was happy. She was happy. We went home happy.

My father nearly wept. “It’ll be much easier to manage,” my mother said nonchalantly from the kitchen. I watched my father’s face. “I’m still me,” I reassured him. “It’s still me. Besides, you shaved your beard.”

The haircut didn’t have quite the effect I was hoping for. I still had to do dishes. My mother made me wear stupid, Victorian-era outfits that I deliberately tried to sabotage at school. The yellow corduroy mini-dress mysteriously torn at the seam. The calico pinafore with the behemoth collar became filthy during a muddy kickball game.

“What happened to your dress?!” My mother always exclaimed, horrified.

“I told you, we had gym today.” I looked with envy at my brother’s overalls and t-shirt and short hair.

I tried not to make my daughter wear anything, remembering my mother’s attempts at disguising a cactus as a lily. For years, everyone thought my girl was a son. Her soccer jerseys and denim shorts did little to dispute the fact. Her afro was universal. I thought she was beautiful then. Even when people would ask “how old is he” I would correct them.

“SHE is eight,” I would say. I would say it with the same conviction when strangers asked if she was my foster child, or if she was adopted. They did not see the mirror of my face in her face. They did not see that we were of the same cloth. Hers was a bit darker, sure, but the eyes. The high cheekbones, the stubborn set of the mouth.

“SHE is mine” I said, so many times. I wanted them to know that I made this beautiful creature. That I alone and young and without resources raised up a healthy child in a sea of hard times. She was mine and I was hers.

I make her come with me everywhere I go. She tugs at my sleeve. Even now, as a teenager, she tugs at my sleeve while I am deep in conversation with this writer or that official or this teacher.

“Ma, we should go.”

I look right through her, mid-conversation. My eyes are ice and the air sucks out of the room (or the café, or right there on the sidewalk). The moment becomes awkward for everyone but me.

“Don’t interrupt me,” I say quietly. “Not ever.”

I nearly make her cry. She backs up slowly, just far enough to escape the frigid air, but close enough because she knows there is no place to go. And she knows that I will make her squirm in the car once the public pleasantries are finished. Her brother waits. He is patient with his mother who “knows everyone.” He makes me smile. In return, I make him a lot of hot chocolate. I cut him slack.

She makes no bones about my favoritism. If she only knew, if she only remembered what I made for her. The space that I carved out just for her. I made her a pink bedroom and I slept in the living room. I made her soups and cassoulet and soft biscuits, anything that would put a slow smile on her face. I poached eggs, I melted crayons, I took every small step with her; She never trailed behind me.

I made up the difference. I made her as proud as she made me.

Now, we are in the car, I am lecturing her. I make her cry.

“You are not the only person living in this house,” I yell. Her brother pretends to read the registration to the truck. My voice makes him uncomfortable.

“You have no right to treat anyone this way,” I am at full blast now. “Especially the people you live with. The people who are closest to you.”

She makes a face. “I’m not listening to this anymore.”

Then I put the nail in the coffin: “Is this how you show your love?”

We make amends after she gets off the bus. By the end of the day, we are speaking as if no rift occurred. As if the divide of psychological damage had been crossed by one bowl of matzo soup and one joke and one goodnight hug.

I make sure she knows that I love her. Because I do.

Later on in the week, I make a phone call. To the school.
“There is a group of them,” I say. “They’ve been calling her names on the bus. In the lunch line, behind her back. Sometimes to her face.”

“What kind of names,” they ask.

“Names like nigger,” I say. I make them uncomfortable. The word makes me sick. I want to go to each one of their ignorant houses and make them pay. Stuff their words into their foul mouths and make their parents weep with shame at how they have raised their children to speak to my daughter. The light of my days. The queen of my life. I make a sound in my throat. They assure me, they will take care of it.

I ask my girl about it. I ask her ‘how’d it go at school.’ She wasn’t going to tell me about the nasty remarks.
“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” she says between handfuls of popcorn. She is making a mess. I try not to notice. We are, after all, having a serious conversation.

“What do you mean it doesn’t make any difference?” How can she be so blasé when I am ready to go door-to-door ripping people’s throats out with my bare hands? This kind of rage makes me bulletproof.

“They’re not going to make me feel bad about myself, or make me get bad grades or make me lose my confidence if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says. She’s so on to me! My New Age mom attempt at preserving innocence and self-esteem and authenticity. I make a face.

“I can’t change who I am. They choose to be who they are,” she says. I wish she’d close her mouth while she chews. “I feel bad for them. I’m the one making a future for myself. Who gives a shit what a bunch of rednecks think about me?”

She’s made her point. I walk away, dumbfounded at her clear vision. Ruthless, but clear.

I make myself a cup of coffee and listen to her and her brother fight about what to watch for movie night Friday.

“How about Nemo,” I say from the kitchen, gripping my coffee, waiting for a fight.

“Good idea,” she says. I hear the DVD case pop open.

I made the right decision. For once, I made the right decision.