can i get a window seat

In effort to "beat the little hater," I'm going to up the frequency.  Yes, yes I am.  I'm going to deal with my writing joys and insecurities through this medium and pray that I'm being honest with myself through the whole process.


Speaking of being honest with yourself...

They who play it safe are quick to assassinate when they don't understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups. Less guilt to swallow. They are us, this is what we have become.  Afraid to respect the individual.  A single person within a circumstance can move one to change.  To love herself.  To evolve.

And I ask again, how do we create community that is synonymous with our own individual transformation? I think this means being able to understand to feel to hold people as if they were yourself.  And hold yourself as a loved one. Extending love in action, but real action that builds deep I'm-there-for-you-and-we-can-kick-it relationships for a larger community.


You know, I was catcalled on my walk home from work today.  It happens.  Usually not on the days I look good or even feel good, but it happens cuz of my *ahem* exotic brownbody walkin around. Excuse me, are you Indian? And I walk by myself cuz I got places to be. Hey pretty, I see your phones out, my number is...  And I was thinkin, in part thanks to my collective sisters, is it better to be seen or not seen by men.  Because I DO remember hecka times wandering around my pretty-white college campus and thinking damn. I'm not that cute i'm not that fit i'm not attractive i'm not right. And I know it's cuz motherfuckers don't know how to take me--often regardless of gender. Only the brave ones try, and only the real ones succeed. And it's crazy being darkish-skinned-Indian, and having more South Indian Not Aryan features, and ACTUALLY KNOWING my beauty.  Just like I know honesty and love.  Cuz I see, in the spaces where my brownbeauty is read as a privileged network of import professionals and outsourced cousins, as in spaces where i'm privileged by South Asian immigration to the U.S. as a professional labor need, I'm seen as prettybeautiful aesthetics. In spaces I'm read as brown, jus brownakanotwhite, I'm invisiblesilenced and def not that cute. 


Ya. I've learned to walk with people who see me in nuanced ways.  And I've learned to fight for relationships that do.  And fight to expanddeepenyelltalkkeeptalkingandfightfor relationships that don't.  Cuz that's faith in love.  And you know.  Be able to hold the gaze of forgotten folks. Cuz folks' real lives and community networks are being forgotten, definitely us as a country. Thanks to Bruja for postin this vid:

[Oprah and other recognizable black folks] have many cousins who deserve a fair break, a fair deal...

actively walkin

I’m trying to keep a Journal

And hope that these

Thoughts

Experiences

People

Surroundings

Turn into something whole

And help me create

(re)create my

Thoughts

Experiences

People

Surroundings

My feet get cold on the

Sweating tiles

As I wander around

My other other

Original

Home

My souls feel cool against me shorts

And I think with my feet

I trust them

As I find myself part of

The dragon que vive

Y no sabia en cual manera

Voy

Precious people

Dirty feet

I relax in my brown self

Knowing that I am

And here I am more

I relax in my brown self

Walk forward firm footed

And grounded

Waiting for—no-

Searching for—no-

Actively loving

For more and now

Feeling the solid earth under the dirt

And I walk with

And to

Love.

LOVE BROWN FROMnTO BROWN LOVE