semblance of a summer

Summer is a luxury I was afforded as a kid.  We got to go "up north" (as we say in Michigan) every summer, to stay with my grandparents in their home.  They are Finnish and now I remember the details of their home with precision, because it is no longer there.  Cedar log-cabin feel on the inside with a huge loft where we all slept together.  Dad snoring but getting up early, mom dreaming but getting up later, me rambling late down the carpeted stairs to the kitchen table in the morning, glancing out toward the lake to gauge the weather.  "How's the water today?" we would ask grandma, who we know had gotten up at 6 to go down to the dock to take the temperature.  "Cold.  72." she'd say, and banter about what she was going to make for dinner, in between bites of toast and coffee in ceramic dishes.

Everything about the house was so Finnish, quaint, and wonderful.   The wooden ducks that looked out the bay window on the south side, the huge picture windows overlooking the lake.  Their overstuffed furniture and doilies on end tables.  How long I sat on the couch and stared vacantly out those windows my whole childhood.  How the presence of the lake was calming, even if storms rained down on the waters.   The obvious sauna in the guest bathroom, and my obsession with the stove when I was younger, and with watching the temperature rise as we poured water on the coals.   The Kalevala out and open on the end table, portraits of dad, Jude and Dave everywhere in their hockey and band uniforms, 70's hairstyles poppin'.  Pasties in the oven, grandpa reminding us not to only drink half a can of pop and leave it out there unfinished. Promising to be careful and save the petoskey stones we found.  Then, getting our suits on and being in the water all day, swimming, lounging, rock-collecting, finding crayfish and minnows, playing catch, napping in the sun, making up games in the water, calling up Kim and Leijona and seeing what mild trouble we could concoct, reading at the picnic table in the sun.

We went to see the house when my family went up north this summer, and the family who bought it from my grandparents promised they weren't tearing the house down, but did exactly that, and rebuilt it to fit their family's summer memories.  The garage was the same:  country blue and yellow, where we'd stumble out to get more pop from the fridge, and grandpa would be puttering with a lawnmower or filling a birdfeeder, fixing a bike or listening to talk radio.  Grandma's garden was long gone, but I remember picking snap peas and weeding with her, this memory visible in the grass as we stopped the car in disbelief.

I am blessed to have these memories.  I want the same for generations of kids, I want the same for all kids.  For summer to mean time, sun, water, recreation and imagination, with the occasional meal urged in by moms, with the occasional layer of sunscreen applied.

But summer in many parts of America has long meant violence.  To my students, it is time for fights, for parties that end in gunfire, arrests, police surveillance, intoxication, rape and death.  The kind of summer that I had each summer is not a reality for so many children.  Going to camp is not a reality. Summer sports on organized teams is not a reality.  My summers are white privilege, crystalized and idyllic in their blissful ignorance of hot, city summers.  There is lots of idle time spent on stoops, sports played at the park, swimming pools, local beaches if your parents can afford to take you somewhere, lots of TV, social media, lots of repetitive days in the park with the same neighborhood kids.  There is also a lot happening, cookouts, block parties, stoop parties, dominoes on the corner with the viejos, bodega parties, tons of free events in the city if you have the subway fare.  I love New York City in the summer, but it is hot and sticky, and the heat can be oppressive, and maddening, and when combined with alcohol, violence-inducing.

I don't want to romanticize this violence, and my intent is not to bring pity upon my students, who love their summer freedom of riding bikes and splashing in opened fire hydrants just as much as I loved playing in the lake all day.  It is to recognize that certain things I love and remember are the products of privilege in this country, when they should be accessible to all people, in an allegedly free country.   While I do have to fear my husband being pulled over with a busted tail light and the encounter that could ensue with a police officer in Michigan or New Jersey, I certainly didn't grow up with the knowledge or fear that police violence spikes in the summer.   I am constantly aware of these things now, and also remember being in the streets of New York with a wallet in the air after Amadou Diallo was killed.   As a white person, I have made a choice to open my eyes and bear witness to America as segregated still, because I have witnessed the duality of existence in this country.  From something as simple as childhood summers, the glaring differences in race and class are crystal clear.

DiaryLand circa 1998

(4-16-17)
Trips home to Michigan are always filled with rushes of memory, and different selves inside of me crash like waves on a beach I'll never see until my kids are grown.  Sometimes I'm bitter that I haven't been able to have a proper vacation since before getting married and having kids in that magical all-for-one year of 2012.  AFTER happily ever after often isn't very happy, at least while toddlers reign supreme.

Trips home cause me to meditate on home and what it means.  My family is important to me, but there is a fracture in my family fibula, and I now have two families - the Diops and the Fardigs. What happens when the wants and needs of one directly compete with the wants and needs of the other? Where do  my loyalties lie?  I've said since I was 18 that I'm lucky to feel like I have home in 2 places but what happens when my tribes are warring and I am throwing up white flags with every breath?

I am severely depressed.  This has not been diagnosed by anyone but how I feel in my life.  I am functional, able to go to work, able to care for myself and my children, but I constantly feel overwhelmed, anxious and have to break most social plans because I just can't make myself leave the house.   I don't talk about this, and I'm uninterested in medicating myself.  What I'm interested in is advocating for myself and what I need, even if I'm seen as selfish.  What I'm interested in is teaching young ladies at school that they CAN have a career, a family and a marriage AND not lose themselves in the process, but I'm struggling to model that.


(5-27-17)
Self-care is so elusive, is ludicrous and non-existent for moms.  I try to creep in small moments of gentle, failed care. Painting my nails when one of them naps, and always smudging them because someone asks for a snack while they are still wet.  A trip upstate to see a dear friend from college and her daughter, which results in tears, snot and our kids spitting and screaming at each other.  Relaxing to be there, until the tantrums start.  So many walls scrawled in crayons that I've removed a full layer of paint from scrubbing.  Comet cleaner sprinkled all over my bathroom, again.  I am chasing a clean home with two toddlers, fuck a manicure.  I am chasing an afternoon without shrill screams. I am told to treasure every moment and I regularly lock myself in the bathroom to breathe.

Depression is not seeing your closest friends in almost a year.  Depression is trying to take care of yourself and your home, and failing better every single week.  Depression is remembering to shower on the weekend.  Depression is fooling everyone at work.  Depression is my husband asking me to get up and make the kids something to eat, for once.  Depression is what I cover. Depression is being forever grateful for what I have, and still being sad.  Depression is distance from my family. Depression is listening to the same song over and over again.  Depression is "what's wrong, mommy?"  Depression is yelling because you just want to be alone, and can't.

I will be fine.  It is almost summer and I can find time to reflect and reckon and regain what I need. But I need to mark this moment.  Dear diary with no audience, life is exhausting.

breaking dishes

we break all of the good china
in this house, because our "good plates"
are the ones we dine on every night.
tomorrow is not promised.

i get mad at you when you break them.
but you are a master at mixing flavors,
not mindful of the cost of dinner plates
that are more expensive than they should be.

we pull the covers off of autographed copies
of books I've held dear for decades,
we write on the walls with crayon, marker and pen.
we do not live life lightly.

there are days that I cry about the loss
of material things, because I was taught
to take care of the nice china.
but my parents kept it in a cabinet, gathering dust.

we choose to serve food on it everyday,
relishing in the garlic, turmeric and red pepper flakes
that season your latest creation.
and that is the difference
between our generations.

we know the future doesn't hold promise,
and live as if tomorrow will not come,
even though we're preparing our children
to be the brightest future we've ever had.

you were optimistic about the future
enough that you could afford a second set
of plates that were for looking
and not touching.

How far backward to "greatness"?

It's been 8 days since NMPOTUS (Not MY President of the US) took office and he's already banned refugees and LEGAL resident aliens from 7 countries who are predominantly Muslim.  He's written executive orders to push the DAPL and Keystone XL pipelines into construction, and there is evidence that he has shares and will directly profit from these orders.  Betsy DeVos's hearing about her nomination for Secretary of Education is on Tuesday the 31st, after she's decimated Detroit Public Schools with her voucher "school of choice" approach to charter, private and parochial schools.   We all know that school of choice equals legalized segregation of schools.   He's pulled out of TPP, put gag orders on National Parks, the EPA and FDA, tried to defund NGOs who even mention abortion abroad and Planned Parenthood at home, as well as announced his plans to begin construction on "the wall" between the US and Mexico.

I have to ask, have we teleported back to the 1930s?  How far back do we have to reach to remind ourselves that America was never great?  We have almost always been on the wrong side of history, unless we ourselves are writing the historic account.  We are victors because we are tyrants, like every imperialistic empire.  We learn too late and decimate human beings and ways of life different from our white, Christian, capitalist, patriarchial societal norms.  Many of my friends are protesting the most recent stripping of human rights at JFK airport right now, as Border Patrol illegally detains refugees who have gone through the vetting and proper channels to be here in the U.S. today.

Today, it may be refugees and nationals from 7 countries in the middle East and Eastern Africa, but next month it could be Western Africa.  We could go visit our family in Senegal and my husband, despite having his green card, could be told that he cannot enter the U.S. again.  This can't happen to "anyone", because there is a specific, racialized "immigrant" who is brown, who is Muslim, who is female or not gender conforming, who is queer, who is educated.  This is what fascism feels like.  Being all of those identities at once magnifies one's experience of why America isn't great at all, but a place of perceived freedom.

My greatest fear is being paralyzed in the face of danger, of making a wrong choice that puts people I love in danger.  I was so upset about not getting to go to the Womens' March last week, but I struggle with bringing my kids into protest situations, which may not always be safe, depending on police response.  So, while people are headed to JFK to protest, I am doing the everyday things with greater intention.  Self-care is revolutionary, too.  I cook food for my family, give Sali a steam bath to help clear her sinuses.  I also realize that in raising these defiant, fierce spirits, we are also teaching the next generation of fighters against injustice.

I have to raise my children to fight.  They must lead themselves to safety, possibly in a literal sense.  We may need to go off the grid sooner than we thought, because we're on track to end human civilization in my lifetime.

Greed over human life will be what ends us.  From cures to cancer to organized extermination through the drug war, fast food and factory farming, mass incarceration, guns in the hoods, gang violence.  If we kill each other, they win.  We buy their products, worship them for being rich.  We stay poor, they build their wealth off of us and live in fear of our power if we were ever to unite.

Our speak UP last week was wonderful and inspiring, but one week later, I am already weary.  I have withdrawn on weekends to heal, and to rest for the long fight we have ahead of us.  See you in the streets, and on the playgrounds.

Meditating On Our Movement

I have been re-posting, writing about and including this quote everywhere lately: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King is someone whose writing I return to over and over again, because it is lyrically powerful in addition to its uplifting message of strength and unity. He was targeted because his message was ultimately too powerful, and was begin to assist in the integration of minds, hearts and spirits of white and black people in America. While Malcolm X's message was one feared by many white Americans because it emphasized the strength and unity of black people, King's audience was broadened with his calculated approach of non-violence. His message was sanitized after his death, and every year when we pause to celebrate his glorious impact, I also want to remember "Letter from A Birmingham Jail" and his later writing, which sought to understand the very root of violence as a response to being treated inhumanely, for hundreds of years.

As we work in United Playaz, we often talk about how some of the problems we see in our society, police brutality, sexism, racism, domestic violence, rape -- that these are too large for us to tackle in a small Bronx classroom. I sense your cynicism and you call me cheesy because I still believe in the change we can each activate within our own lives. I am not naive enough to believe that personal change is enough, though. Systemic racism must end. Mass incarceration and criminalization of young, black and brown people must end. Materialism and greed for more than we need. Dropping bombs on people who look different from us, because we fear their way of life. All of these things must be left behind when WE take over.

So, after the election, I asked you to write about where you were. You complained, told me that this was the worst part of this class. I asked you to vision, to think about the kind of future you'd like to see. I asked you to write what you wanted for our future. You told me that no one was listening anyway, that things wouldn't change in the hood, no matter who was president. But we have to speak anyway, have to act anyway. Your community is listening, and wants to hear what you have to say. We might not close Rikers Island (yet), but we can make moves toward building a world in which we are valued, our ideas are heard, and we can impact how our community looks and feels.

So I ask you, as we celebrate the progress that Dr. King helped to make in this country, but as we look around and see that racism is still alive, well and gaining more steam than it's had since the 1950's, how do we move? Let's speak UP on Friday, and take the words we share as a first step in our movement.



In solidarity,
Lauren

ny state of (new jersey) mind

inside the parentheses is where home lives.  squeezed between a larger purpose, being a parent was not what i thought was my destiny, and i am still learning how to do it.  i have uncovered a well of anger, and the tantrums that come with toddlers also occur in parents.  i don't want to adult, some days.  i don't want to take care of others.  i want to sulk, brood, read buffy the vampire slayer comic books and drink coffee, watch criminal minds, write things, read more things, listen to wu tang, relax.

but new york is my heart, specifically. <3 a="" again.="" all="" always="" am="" and="" are="" arms="" balancing="" be="" between="" bronx.="" buy="" capitalize="" children="" community="" commute="" for="" have="" here.="" here="" hold.="" home="" hope="" i="" imagine="" in="" interstate="" is="" life="" love="" my="" nbsp="" of="" p="" raise="" scale="" someday="" that="" the="" this="" to="" traveling="" two="" within="">how do i balance hectic, frenetic and deeply emotional work with two-tantruming toddlers?  plus my own need to exorcise bad energy?  i'm not even doing any of them well.  so, i've had to withdraw, in many ways.  moving so far from my community has meant an implosion of my ability to always be there, but becoming a mom hasn't impeded me, it's transportation.

new jersey has a hold on me.  more space to roam with rambunctious curls, the possibility of yards and parks where we can wear these spirits out.  i do need to exercise more this year, but i am so, so tired.  i am exhausted with the sadness lifted from someone else's shoulders, sagging under its own weight.  i am spiritually exhausted, and done with this commute.  though i am a lover of public transit, i am meditating on the need for a car.  nam myoho renge kyo.

i enter this year in a positive, hopeful place (despite the impending doom of the world), but i recognize the need to withdraw and meditate. be quiet, listen, rest and recharge.  isn't this what winter is for?  you'll find me balancing between the waves, neither yin nor yang, but building a plan and a path for spring.  i withdraw now to reconnect soon.   love u.

at the window, looking out and in

Nov 24, 2016

At the top of the darkened auditorium yesterday, I knelt during the national anthem at the assembly.  Eye-level with my son, I saw the world from his perspective for a minute. He doesn’t know the irony of that song yet, and was trying to sing along.  I am trying to see this year as anything other than the beginning of the end.  It’s certainly not the beginning:  the state has been profiting from genocide for centuries, but it feels like death wins in 2016.  Our elders are leaving us. 

I was neither shocked nor surprised at the election results.  It’s taken me weeks to write about it, precisely because I knew all along that the worst case scenario was possible, and is in fact becoming our reality in January.   They’ve been coming up with new ways to win for as long as race was invented, for as long as there’ve been elections.  It hasn’t been this transparent in my lifetime, because billions of dollars has been invested in colorblinding our laws, but the racial and class divide is clearer than ever in America.  

Teaching has not become my occupation by accident.  As an activist, teaching becomes my way to consistently engage with youth, continue the 2^nd hour of a 2 hour conversation, to quote Suz Dion.  I believe in our youth and what you are teaching us.  We teach you to resist, to know your history, to advocate, connect and celebrate.  Use your voice.  But you teach me so much about hope, resilience, growing despite all circumstances, connections across difference, and a pedagogy rooted in love. 

My job right now is to know my privilege, use it to bring the race conversation, the DAPL conversation to light.  Talk fracking and climate change, gardening and sustainable life skills for students, whenever, wherever, even if people aren’t listening to me. Listen instead of centering myself.  I am not at home in Michigan, so this is my dinner table conversation.  

I have been quiet about the election results because I knew the depths of racial hatred in the U.S., but didn’t expect it to prevail.  I thought maybe we had learned history’s lesson.  Listened to the Holocaust, watched Palestine, listened to Rwanda, watched Sarajevo.  Listened to Wounded Knee, watched Standing Rock.

But when they come for the Muslims, we will resist.

When they come for the queer, we will resist.

When they come for the Latinx, we will build a wall

of gratitude over theirs, ivy of blessings.

It is me, I am the enemy.

Where are we?

I am thoroughly depressed at the stagnation of humanity, but trying to wake up everyday and take one step.   I am struggling with being a parent right now.  I am wondering about the day people realize they’ve been had, again.  Meanwhile, this hatred is creating ISIS breeding grounds, this unabashed disgust of difference hurts my sensitive soul and genuine desire to see the good in people.  Hundreds of hate crimes, hijabs as red targets, police brutality increasing, tension running terribly high because we don’t want to know the enemy.  We are the enemy.  We create the fear, the violence, the terror and self-inflict our rage.

I am grateful to know that the shapeshifting enemy is more like you and me than they want us to realize.  Tower of babel, separating us by language and nation, color and creed, sexuality and gender.  Why do we let them divide us again?  Where is the together place? 

I ask not to forget the past, but to look into it, into the pain, and be there.  This is what we must reckon with, white America.  See the brutality of what we did and continue to do.   See how our disconnect as white folks lets the brunt of the labor still be borne by the backs who made us rich.  Become true allies to our sisters and brothers who do not reap the privileges we do, by listening to them, protecting them, centering their stories, ideas, actions and providing monetary and moral support wherever we can. 

To my students: What do we do?  This is your time to take the stage and shake your fist at all the mess we have left you.  I am here to guide and support you in getting the resources you need.   We cannot move forward without you, and need your ideas, your spirit, your determination and heart to guide us. 

I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted.  I have withdrawn in many ways, am reading, writing, listening.  Trying to share the eloquent words of dream hampton, adrienne maree brown, grace lee boggs, shaun king, morrison, baldwin, freire, thinkers and activists I admire, when I have no words to offer. Organizing a speak out, letting my youth take the reins, so that we may move together toward the other world of hope, that is still, always, possible, but feels farther and farther away.