Easter Back in the Day

When I was a kid, Easter was the holiday you had to work for.

The hunt for the perfect Easter dress would heat up a few weeks in advance of Easter Sunday. This was a process that would almost always end in tears as mom would make her choice, I or my sister would pout, and so on, until a dress was chosen in exasperation that made none of us happy. (This was later rectified when Mom decided to sew our Easter dresses - which established a whole other interminable, labor-intensive and emotionally draining process.)

The rehearsals for the Easter program would begin in earnest at least 2 months ahead, as every kid in church was handed a part of the Easter Story (from the Triumphant Entry, through the Last Supper, Betrayal, Trial, to the Cross Carrying, Crucifixion and then Resurrection/Ascension + Various Eyewitness Accounts) and expected to memorize ALL of the King James verses and recite them dully into a microphone to beaming parents. I was usually given something about Peter's denial, or the stone being rolled away. My sister managed to always get the short verses.  Typical. 

Oh, lord. The flashback I'm having!

Then there was the hair preparation -- oh, the hair preparation! All day Saturday watching my mom get redder and redder in the face as I tipped back in the kitchen chair, all my hair poured into the kitchen sink, and my mom labored to shampoo, condition and then detangle and roller set my thick curly hair in giant pink rubber tubes. And then watching her do the same thing with my sister.  Spending the rest of the day dyeing dozens of hardboiled eggs with rollers in our heads so tight they pulled our eyes upwards into little slants and we could barely blink.

And then the next day, waking up early on Sunday - new shoes, new dress, new tights, new exhortations not to mess up our hair which hung in long, perfect ringlets, thick like bratwurst. Rushing to church, taking care not to crush our hair, our dresses, our Easter baskets, our eggs for the hunt after church, not to scuff our shoes. Watching my hair grow bigger and bigger with the day's humidity. And really cognizant that my little sister looked cuter than I.

(Poofy on a tiny person looks cute; poofy on a person who's already shaped like a poof looks POOFY.)

Fidgeting through a sonorous Baptist sermon on Christ's rising, sweating in the gold sunlight of the sanctuary. Hair still getting bigger while the ribbons are limper. Watching the clock tick past noon, past one...and now the Easter program. Lining up in the foyer of the church, desperately trying to remember my single piece of scripture (without which Christ isn't truly risen), loudly reciting my part, painfully watching a girl struggle through her piece which she forgot, balefully staring at my sister as she squeaks out her piece and runs back to Mom's lap. Typical.

And then, somehow, oblivious as a group of church men leave the sanctuary to walk across the street, to the janky abandoned lot, to hide Easter eggs. Did we ever clean this lot? I don't think so. It was filled with the detritus of the South Central neighborhood around our church - broken bottles, cigarette butts, beer cans.  Did we care? No. As soon as Christ was risen, ascended into heaven and various eye witness accounts were shared, we were dismissed. We ran across the street, crashing through weeds, old tires and wires, to hunt eggs. It was really a wonder none of us ever needed a tetanus shot afterward or fell over a dead prostitute.

But I also remember how upset we all were when, years later and Easter egg hunts were well in my past, the lot's owner decided to build an ugly stucco apartment building on it. The unjust-ness of it almost made me cry.

After such a long day, my sister and I would change out of our dresses and into our play-clothes; but we kept our fancy hair and we'd lay on our stomachs on the livingroom floor, peeling eggs, eating chocolate and watching Star Trek while the grownups talked after dinner.

There was no better feeling than this - the luxury, excess, indulgence, naughtiness and prettiness all mixed in together. All marked with a smear of chocolate across our lips. Heaven. Thank you, Jesus.

May your Easter festivities be as randomly joyful.

This Whisper of a Wince

First, the links:
Jill Scott says something.
And Ta-Nehisi Coates says this.
Then Racialicious said some other things.
And then Coates had a PS.
And then we wrap up the week with Kevin Powell writing all us black folk a letter.

And now, the stories (which aren't prescriptive, merely illustrative):

When my friend Prof. L- sent me the Coates link I wrote him back. 'When ppl open their mouths and tell me how they 'feel' when they see another person's relationship choice I want to tell them to keep their personal issues to themselves. If they aren't about to say 'I hope they're happy,' then folks need to STFU.'

And Prof. L- replied,'Is there much of a distance from discomfort to disapproval?'
...
Here's another story:
When I was in therapy, my therapist (a WOC) started to dig deeper into my family background when our sessions began to concentrate on intimacy and relationships and why I felt I was such crap at them.  She wanted to know about my relationship to my father; what it was like to grow up in my old Baptist church; how I felt growing up in such a patriarchal and religious environment; what I really needed in a relationship.

My relationship to my father: I love the man, and I'm his 'duffle bag' (don't ask) but he was/is also the only man to make me ramp up to rage in under 10 minutes when the subject is women, men, politics or women in the bible/church.
What it was like growing up in my old Baptist church: it was like being a visitor from the future and you landed in 1898. BC.
How I felt growing up in such an environment: I was angry at all the bloviating old black dudes who were traditional, controlling, bullying, manipulative, insecure, and completely transparent with their greed and ambition. I hated that I had to compete with them for my father's attention.  Because I was better than they were, I had contempt for them.
What I needed most in a relationship:  Safety; recognition; personal integrity; comfort; to be taken care of; trust; mutual, unconditional support.  Acceptance.

Dr. C- would ask, 'And you can't find this in black men?'
I'd say, 'I probably could, but I don't give them the chance to show me. I am so angry, I can't see straight. All I can think of is those men in that church or I'm anticipating how they are going to turn into those types of men.'
Dr. C- would ask, 'Those men in the church. What was your primary method of dealing with them?'
I'd say, 'Competition. I had to beat them. I had to be smarter than they were, than their children were. I had to be a better church person than they were. Understand the bible better than they were. Even if they didn't let me preach, I had to be better at preaching.'
'Why?'
'So my dad would tell me 'good job,' or something. They didn't think a woman could be a leader in anything and I had to show them I was better than they were.'
Dr. C- (who was married to a very nice black man) would say, 'What do you think about trying to date a black man?'
I'd say, 'Well....ok. If you think that will help.'
And she'd say, 'It always helps to challenge our fears.'

And I tried.  But every conversation I'd have with a black man would either remind me of a tired R&B song or fill me with such panic attack anxiety I took a break and fell back into a liaison with B-, which was even more unsatisfying because it was finally clear to me that he was utterly incapble of giving me the things I needed most.

But at least he didn't remind me of that old Baptist church.

Then, when I was at the point of letting my Match.com account expire, I met M-.  A white guy. Who didn't graduate college. Who worked blue collar most of his life. Who wouldn't know Foucault if Michel bit him on his ass. Who, when he drove me home on our first date, said he wanted to make me a mixed CD and cancel his Match account the next day.  And I never spoke to, or saw, B- again.  Because of a white guy.  The Other.

This month marks our 1-year anniversary. It is the most emotionally satisfying relationship I've had since grad school.
...
A third, and final, story (which long-time readers may have already heard):
When it was time for me to go off to grad school, my cracker barrel, deeply southern godfather pulled me aside after evening church services.  I was leaving for Michigan in a couple of days and I was excited. Scared, too, but excited. In my imagination, Ann Arbor looked like Boston. (Yes, I was completely inaccurate but the main point was it was 2000 miles away from my provincial church.)

It was clear my godfather was trying to do the avuncular thing and this was the sterling piece of advice that he gave me:

'Don't jump the fence.'

What kind of backwoods, country folk-ism was this? I was blank-faced for a few seconds until his fierce gaze and the eventual, firing synapses in my brain made me stiffen. Don't jump the fence.  Don't leave your side of the social divide. Don't get involved with a white guy. Don't sleep with a white guy. Don't have sex with a white guy. Don't betray your people.  I wanted to slap his southern face.

'My father 'jumped the fence,' James.'
'Well, now. That's a little different. You just be careful. Don't jump the fence. Stay where you belong.'

I stomped away and seethed for hours. That was the last time I spoke to him.

Just this past year, my father told me that old James had died and it was revealed that he had had an affair with a married woman in the church for years. My old anger at his goatish hypocrisy rushed back at me and all I could do was sputter over the phone about that 'fucking old man.'
...
The 'heart wants what the heart wants' and it's usually because of something pushed so way down deep, you can't even recognize it.  So I get Scott's wince.  I do.  (I'm a student of African American history and literature; I've read the same history books and wondered why everyone gets play but a black girl.)

But I've got a wince of my own and the whisper of it makes me almost ashamed; I almost want to hand in my own Black Card of Racial Solidarity because of it. Almost. This is not to say that my triggers are the fault of others. It's not all black men's fault that I have this whisper of a wince. But I have it.  It has caused me to close one type of door between me and black men.  Other doors (filial, platonic or professional ones) remain open; just not intimate ones. In this regard, the man who has given me what I need is a white man.

Not all white men. Not every white man. A white man.

When we are together, the looks or stares (or whether someone may or may not have a wince) people send us don't register with me.  He is more aware of it than I am. And he is now more aware of the complex ways that our being together works as a kind of social shorthand in different parts of the city.  (He'd never say it that way; he just tells me, 'My Mexican neighbors like me better now because of you.')  But shorthand or not, when he looks at me he tells me that he has been waiting his whole life for me and I know that because of him, my heart is bigger.

So wince away, you Scotts of the world.  You can't help it.  It's not your fault.

this american marriage

If the past month and a half had been a play, my family and I would be together for a holiday gathering. We would live in a rambling old Victorian, a la August: Osage County, and M- would be an owl-eyed guest, utterly clueless to the cracks in our family facade.

At some point during the 2nd course, my sister and her husband’s obvious unhappiness would spill into the gravy, dragging the holiday spirit into the fire and sending ashes over the rest of us. Revelations would be made; hypocrisies exposed. Confessions spat out. Identities and roles would be forever reversed.

And I, the family black sheep, would emerge the well-adjusted one.

Because if I (anti-authoritarian, knee-jerk, shrill, tarty, boozy, feminist and well stocked with pharma) am well-adjusted, then you know some serious shit has hit the fan.
…
‘I had an affair,’ my sister L- said. Her text message had sounded urgent so I was huddled in the guest bathroom of a friend’s house with a glass of wine and my mobile, waiting for her to spill it. ‘The guilt was killing me so I had to tell him.’
‘Jesus Christ. You *told* him?? Why the fuck did you tell him?’ All I could think about were all those Dateline episodes of cheated upon husbands who killed their wives, dumping their bodies in places like the La Brea tar pits or a shrubby ravine somewhere in the canyons.

‘There’s more.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ, L-. If you tell me you got pregnant I will fly to LA and take you to Planned Parenthood myself.’
‘I couldn’t if I tried.’ Sniffle.
‘I don’t get it.’

‘It was a woman. I had an affair with a woman.’

*crickets*
…
My office phone rang yesterday and my father was on the other end. When he told me what he told me, at least he asked permission first.

I groaned. ‘Geez, dad. Every time you tell me something I need a drink after. Why can’t you write it in your journal and I can read it when you die?’

My family has always had secrets. My father’s family secrets read like a black southern gothic: drug use, prostitution, child abuse, mental instability, ‘passing,’ sexual abuse, old-time religion, and denial. Everywhere, denial.

On my mother’s side there’s just a giant question mark. In a reversal of the usual Filipino immigrant narrative, my mother never tried to bring over any of her family. While they wrote often, it was clear my mother’s family was glad to see my mom over here and keep themselves over there. When they wrote my father at the news of her death they said how sorry they were. They also said they were sorry for the hard life my mother had had in the islands and that they were glad she was finally at peace.

The reason for sending her away was never made clear to either my sister or me. If my father knew, he kept my mother’s secret. At least, that secret. Her other secret she was willing to spill on her own.

My sister and I had both been in college when, one afternoon, my sister was home, watching Geraldo with my mother. It was an episode about biological mothers being reunited with the children they had given up for adoption.

Mom nudged my sister. ‘That’s me.’
‘What?’
‘That’s me. Before you and your sister, I had to give up a baby. You have another sister.’
My sister watched the rest of the episode with tears in her eyes. A week later she told me while we were walking down Bruin Walk, on our way to sell back out books at the end of the quarter. We were both laughing and crying while all I could say was ‘What the fuck? What the fuck?!’

Somewhere out there, we have an older Filipino/Hungarian half-sister. With every tv show about reuniting families, I feel a lump of dread. I don’t want to know her. I don’t want her to find us; the family I grew up with is all I need. Or so I thought. Barely three weeks into the new year, it is becoming clear that the family I have may not resemble the family I grew up with.

Back in my office, my father’s voice thickened over the phone.
‘I just don’t want you to hate your mother or me. Don’t hate your daddy.’
‘Dad, I could never. There is shit in everyone’s life. I have shit in my life. I just don’t tell you because, you know –boundaries.’
There was a short bit of silence then he said, ‘Do you remember when your mother stopped sleeping in the bedroom?’
‘When she slept on the couch for two years? I always thought that was menopause.’
‘Menopause? I never thought of that.’ His voice got all viscous again. ‘Your mom and I had stopped being intimate for a long while. She just wasn’t interested in all that anymore. So I had a same sex affair with – ‘

‘Do not tell me.’ I could guess who it was and even if I couldn’t I didn’t want to go back to Los Angeles and bump into my father’s ex-gay lover and actually know it. If it was who I thought it was, my anger toward him had a different source and I wanted to keep that with me. I didn’t want it clouded with empathy or sympathy.

‘Your sister…she’s like your mom but she’s like me.’ He added. ‘Why do you think I’ve always said I’ll never marry another woman after your mom?’

I’ve always known this. Well, I’ve known this since my mother died. I’ve known that my father was curious, was testing the bars of his cage. My friends had always suspected my father was gay and we had laughed about it over wine after every visit. Even now, my friends are sending me joking messages: “OMFG! We knew it! He was too well-dressed for an old guy!”

And so the faded, sepia-tinted mental photos I carried in my head about my family have begun to curl and crisp around the edges. I predict that in about 6 months, they will be all but ash and I will have new, more complicated images of my family and my childhood to carry with me.
…
What is it about marriage? What is it that squeezes the life out of a person? I’m not talking about partnership or love or devotion. I’m not even talking about cohabitation. I’m talking about the whole blinking thing. The Marriage. What about it turns those who believe in it into clichéd versions of 19th century domestic dramas?

I can’t decide if my sister is experiencing The Awakening or Madame Bovary; my father is wobbling in some kind of Maurice of his own and I’m looking at both of them wondering if any of this would be happening to them if they hadn’t been married in the first place. What did marriage force them to postpone?

There is something wrong with the way our culture packages, practices and defines marriage. Maybe it’s the presumption of monogamous heterosexuality. Maybe it’s the irrational investment the rest of us feel when it comes to someone else’s marriage. I found myself resisting the fact that my sister’s marriage was not the perfectly manicured Garden of Marital Bliss. When she told me they had been having trouble for seven years, the voice in my head whined, ‘Nooooo!’ When she paused after I asked her if she still loved her husband, I answered for her. ‘Of course you do! You do!’

Why try and push her to say that everything was fine when everything was SO NOT fine?

I had been proud of the marriage my sister had made. I was proud of the fact that she and her handsome husband had proven all of the statistics wrong. I loved the optics of their marriage. They were professional, brown, young, attractive, educated, smart, popular, wholesome, Catholic, and socially liberal/fiscally conservative; they had bright, gorgeous Black-y-Mex-y-Pino kids. They were the perfect foil against our low-income childhoods in South Central and Santa Monica. I loved that I could compare my wacky life to it and say to myself, ‘Their marriage makes my un-marriage necessary.’

But the pride I’d taken in their marriage makes me complicit in its disintegration. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who took emotional and visual pleasure in their marital status. Both families saw them as a way of correcting the past. We heaped such expectations on them – not to be like our parents, to do things the ‘right’ way. So when my sister cries out that she feels like she is being crushed and her husband says his loneliness is killing him, I feel as if our families’ (and friends’) desire for someone to have that perfect marriage has been yet another weight upon their chests.
…
In my office I had been on the phone with my father for almost an hour, looking at the river, listening to his gay affair confession and his notion that all marriage reaches an inevitable point of impasse. It was depressing as hell to hear and to think that my father could only become the fuller person that he is now after his wife died. Is that what it takes to be happy and authentic? For your spouse to fucking die off?

‘LB (my brother in law) wants to have a three-way with you and me,’ my dad said.
‘What the hell?!’ I said. Had my brother in law snapped? Was he reaching out for any freaky opportunity for retaliation at my sister?
‘He really needs to talk to someone, Del. He’s been calling me for the past three days and I think he’d like to talk with you, too.’
‘Dad, the term is ‘conference call.’ He would like to have a conference call with us. Jesus.’
‘That’s what I meant, girl!’

I let it go.

I’m going to have to let everything go. Just like they are.

[Updated to change the title.]

This American Life: or, Dammit, Why Didn’t She Teach Us Tagalog?

Ding: hey, V-.
JP: hey
Ding: gotta question
how do i research my mom's names?

JP: the answer is "no"
oh
Ding: you suck.

JP: what are your mom's names?
what do you want to know?
Ding: gurindola and monblanco
like, what they mean. i know 'white mountain'

JP: wow
Ding: i misspelled one:
Guirindola
JP: I’ve never heard names like that before
Ding: i KNOW!
i've been on these stoopid Filipino surname sites and i can't find them!

JP: you want to know what they mean and stuff?
Ding: yeah. i want to redo my tattoo and i think i want to do a great big shout out to my moms.
JP: what did Google tell you?
Ding: i found these really neat Filipino tribal tattoos but that's not me
Google gave me shit
and Bing gave me even less
i think my mom had made up names!
crap.
my mom's a mystery.*

JP: see if there's a facebook group for people named 'guirindola'
Ding: ooooh
JP: or monblanco
Ding: good idea
where is your family from?
JP: the one with V- has the Spanish crest and everything
Ding: niice
JP: their hometown is Sto Tomás, La Unión.

Ding: remember when you snapped on your landlady and said your name was the product of 300 years of Spanish colonialism?
that was funny.
JP: they always talk about being Ilocano
actually only one of my grandparents is from La Union
ha-ha
and my roommate said ¨that would do it.¨

Ding: i can't remember if my mom was from Romblon or Leyte
JP: she was Visaya, right?
Ding: i guess so (yes, I’m a bad daughter)
so what does Visaya mean?
is that a region?
and yes, you are my pathway to my Filipino origins

JP: yes,
it´s the main region
Ding: shit. so where do i start?
JP: it’s like saying 'she s from the west'
without saying ‘she’s from so cal’
sorry, Spanish keyboard
Ding: so would Leyte or Romblon be in that region?
Leyte is this teeny island in the middle of nowhere.
it's in the middle of the whole Philippines cluster
JP: that middle cluster is called 'visayas'

Ding: ohhhh
I’m going to have to write my titas.
I kinda wish she came from a neato mountain family.
negritos!
that would be awesome.
JP: they are both in the Visayas region
you are a goofball
Ding: like the song
do you remember singing the song?

JP: did i teach you that song
Ding: my mom would sing it then you sang it and it freaked me out!
JP: oh god.
listen, did you try asking Google for your mom's names plus either one of those islands?
Ding: no. i asked Bing and it was useless
JP: did you hear what my mama said after she taught that song?
Ding: i forgot but i bet it was funny
JP: she said, "sometimes those Filipinos discriminate [against] those negritos, too. why don't they leave them alone?"

Ding: bwah!
i remember!
JP: lunch time
gotta go
Ding: my dad would sing this song!**
bye
thanks

*being the daughter of a closed-mouth immigrant is a pain in the ass - especially now that she's dead and i can't confirm any of these blasted details.
**why this is interesting: if my mom taught him this song, I think my mom had a real bitchy sense of humor.