My Princess Girl’s Princess Boy (and an “armadino” too)...

I like to preach equity. Believe in access. Believe in leading my child in a place where difference isn’t so different after all.

I’m not into color-blindness, in fact, I’m incensed by it for two reasons: 1. it just sounds stupid and blind people can hear it, and 2. We are brown, and brown is decently awesome. Why pretend not to see it/us?


I tell folks a lot about my mom, mostly because I’m apple-eyed and she’s my Braeburn, but in part because I learned about my world through her perceptions, her experiences. Perhaps, more one than the other.


Case in point: Gender Identity.


I grew up (at least half time) in Boston’s South End in the 80-90s. Folks who know the area now, know it’s gorg, half gay, a quarter Chinese and very Puerto Rican. I grew up within earshot of the parties at the Villa, close enough to catch pizza at BHOP, near enough to see my father on the stoop at the Huntington Y. It would have been idyllic if we weren’t broke and bartering for time with Mummi’s diagnosis.


I had a sometime babysitter. She was trans, male to female; long legged and had gorgeous hair. I realize now she was in an abusive partnership, could hear Claudio beating the joy (among other things) out of her tiny frame. She was very sweet, albeit very unsafely vulnerable. I never had to ask my mom what my sitter was. I knew. And she was wonderful. Period.


When Mummi would talk about gender ID she had one simple thing she’d say (still says it): We’re all gay, Love. All. She thought of love and who you love as a continuum versus a binary: as in I can love him and her and him and her, or I can love them and them and them (too). I’d have to say I agree. I shruggingly agreeingly agree.

Fast forward to my daughter. A burst of articulateness and non-slick ponies. A small adult some days, others, my baby, my babiest baby. We went to the library and picked out some special books, one about an Armadillo who is different, who is defiantly not a bunny and isn’t totally pink in a homogenously pink and bunnied environment. “I think I would want an armadino, Mummah. We can buy it” she suggests, strongly.


We pick up another book too, about a princess boy. It’s very sweet, if curiously illustrated. The characters have featureless brown faces. The main character is a boy seemingly between gender lines, or not: perhaps not. He wears dresses, loves ballet, thinks himself pretty. He cries when he is taunted. His Mummah cries too. I want to cry a little when I read it to her.

He has lots of triumphs. His parents appreciate him. They let him know he’s cute too. He has the birthday he wants, unabashedly pink and princessed out. They carpool with his older brother on the way to his baseball practice. It’s non-fiction. The author's take on her kids experience, on theirs together. Righteous, right? But I have an obvious bias.


My child, dear child, loves the story. We made a mural of said boy-princess that hangs near our front door. Daddy cheered us both on as we worked. He's a steward of inclusion too. Zora shared her own thoughts:

“I think it's ok if him wears princess outfits. I would not laugh at him.”


When I giggle out of pride and perhaps something else, she scolds me strongly “Don’t laugh Mummah. Princess boys are NOT funny!” I stop. Hide the joy in my eyes at her open mind.


She finishes: “I would have a princess boy for my friend… if him had a face.”


Baby-girl is all about equity, all about friends with fly outfits, could give two hard boiled eggs about if "him a him, him a her" but she ain’t having that anonymous, no face, shit.



Nah, yo.


That’s my girl.

Autobiographical moment; picture this: Christmas

In the summer of my ninth year, I went to a psychiatric ward. I saw my mother’s eyes wide, wider, her fear a physical thing. She whispered something private into my ear; something like “Save me”. I couldn’t. She was kept. I was left to the care of others.

I was driven away in a small brown car. My grandmother and uncle moved me, room to room like one moves a wilting plant. Chasing sunlight? Finding a favorable shadow? Looking for some sense of viability? I went blank. I let the forgetting begin then, that much I recall.

In time, I relearned most of the things I lost. I learned how to cry, with real tears and not will death in my own taut beige skin. I learned to write what I meant, what I felt inside and not what I expected others would look for. I learned to answer, though this was a newfound trait, the many psychotherapist's and family member's inquiries I met as the year went cold: to hug my stuffed animals affectionately to give the impression of adjustment, to cast my eyes downward when I wanted to prove myself chaste and well-intentioned. It seemed to work.

As the Christmas season coursed its way down the snowy streets that arteried Roxbury, I was able to see my parents again. My taller-than-most father with the freckles and hazel eyes. His loud voice and I-will-kick-anyones-ass temperament. My mother with the lilting voice (much like my own in adulthood) and beautiful burnt sienna hands. We rode in a rental, went from discount store to discount store, my father carrying on a family tradition of Christmas. Ensuring, as my Nana always did, everyone who was from or rumored to be a Randolph got a gift. Every one of the 9 siblings, the 26 grandchildren/nieces/nephews, everyone got a gift.

My father was and is the greatest steward of this tradition. Uncle Randy’s claim to fame (positive one at least) is his entrance on Christmas night: one, maybe two garbage bags in had, handing out whatever comes out of the bag, to whomever is closest to him. My cousins and I joke about what the hell may come out. But, truth be told: we all get something.

This year, for the first time since I was nine, I went Christmas shopping with my parents. I went into a Building 19! I scoured the aisles at Job Lot! I found myself eyeing (for purchase) no name body wash! I even smiled at my father smoking a Newport outside of the car I use (almost exclusively) to pick up organic groceries, to ride my suburban commuter train, and/or to attend mommy and me yoga. Ain’t that some shit?!

At the end of the night, I brought my parents (against their remaining will) to my house. They’ve never been. They live in an apartment roughly the size of my kitchen. Smaller than my 375 square foot studio when I lived in Harlem. And a lot rougher around the edges. It’s a hard life. They have a roof over their heads, and a lot of determination. But they live a very complicated life. When they came in, my mothers eyes were wide, this time, with awe, happiness. She sat comfortably on our couch. Mundane for most. My mother hasn’t sat on a couch in someone’s home since 1990.

My father, lord is he my father. Wandered my house taking inventory. Coursed down into the basement. Counseled me on my loud ass toilet, the creaking doors, and how the house should have been built on some kind of thing I’ll never remember the word for. He told me to get the dry cleaning off the damn couch in the bedroom. To not let the cats go into Zora’s room, or get in her bed. Some other stuff too. I know he meant to say he was proud. I know him enough to know that’s what he was saying. He also drank Brian's rum. Nervy stubborn man. Thank God we left before the dishwasher starting rumbling.

On our ride home, everyone was quiet with contentment. I dropped them at the door of the brownstone, sped off and crept back to make sure they didn’t forget anything, and didn’t have to see me cry. It’s been a lot of rough years since 1988 when my mother and I were originally split. A lot of years (23) to be exact since we Christmas shopped as a family, and a lot of time in which, I didn’t want to do any of that shit.

But I got to. This year. And that was the greatest gift.

It really was.

six word story: Phoenix

Cat-shopping, I'll bring money, you name.

So, I cheated, added a dash. The idea was semi-cute.

Nine 9/11 ago-es, my mother and I, pre-Zora, pre-Brian, pre-job and NY, pre-damn near everything, went looking for a cat. Perhaps she wasn't but I was, hoping to find Eve a friend, more so, hoping to find someone to befriend my night-wailing lonely tabby.

Most of my cats have come from the same place, the Animal Rescue League of Boston, and, yes, I said most. I've had as many cats in my life as they have lives; a strong herd of 9, not at the same time of course, though we maxed out at 4 in '08.. but that ain't the point.

I was getting a new cat.

I've been told I approach love in the same way that I cat-shop. I think any likely can do as long as I've chosen them, love them first, hardest, and they'll fit into a small box. Sounds about right. This one didn't fit in small boxes. Wailed like a background singer in the taxi ride home. Hid everywhere one can and can't hide: a box, a well-stuffed study. In a plastic bag. This one was my favored and favorited. I loved her like a child, like my child, in that strange catlady type of love most likely. In the way I think, we deserve to be loved, but most times, can't recognize that we are, that we're not, that we may not ever, or that we will be soon.

There is no way to credential it, to figure it out, unless it drops out of the sky and into your lap and says: "I've got you. Loved. Life-long. Not to worry."

But it doesn't. That time it did. But most don't approach love in that whole cat-buying-by-the-catlady type of way.

My mother loved her too. They had much in common. Passively accepting love from their low-laying-ports.

Perhaps they got it right, righter than I ever likely will.

Memory like a(n)...

Elephant.

A small child with/without limits.

A heart-broken survivor.

A person enamored, savoring each moment. Awaiting,
their night/knight in shining underarmour.

Mermory like a
Sunday morning, repetitive in spite of logic
A repetive type of logic, more if-thans than the
LSAT, PSATs, an chronically obtrusive mother
to an only daughter, because well
"You never know, baby"

Memories that won't fade. That do hope
for change, for much of the same, for
things that do and won't go bump in the night
for lasting love, whatever
the hell that means.

For joy in a bottle... and say: Holy shit,
I remember remembering that. I remember wanting that
I remember that being what I thought I wanted.

Large and looming like an elephant (if they should loom)
in a small room, a bedroom perhaps;
someplace intricate and intimate (if you know what I mean)
is reality: this is what it is. Out of your head and in
my lap.

Perhaps I'll forget it for what I wanted to recall.
But, right now, today

I see it/you.
I'll know.

Who is that white man in the chimney? Fantasy Bias towards the null...

Sigh. So, I won’t start with the trite “it’s that time of year” opening I was planning on getting this party started with. The reality is, the time of year really matters little. Yes, there are lights. My daughter is very intrigued. She gets all stuttery when we drive past the way-way-wayindeer. All can we have some Mummah and whatnot. Glitter and gum-droppy when we see all the Christmas toys on display, seemingly everywhere: on TV, at the malls we rarely go to, in the doorbusters ads of the Sunday papers. She swoons sheepishly when we talk about one particular character: Saint Friggin Nick.

As former (but forever) New Yorker I’m not talking about the cross road to 1-2-5th, But Claus himself. Sinter. Noel. Yeah, him. I’m not nearly as Grinchy as I likely sound. I like fun, bells, holidays (mine is Valentines day, if you need know). I even go hard for the tree, its smell, my cats covered up to their whiskers in fir quills . It's very outside meets inside, which is nearly smutty. What I have a problem with is the fantasy of it all, the fantasy of him. I'm finding problems with the Santa clause.

Now ain’t that some shit? I am all about fantasy. Case in point:
*I have a masters in fantasy (i.e. poetry)
*I think disparate health outcomes (the difference in disease rates in brown people versues everyone else) can be not just reduced but eliminated by 2020.
*I heart Disney World so much I CRY at the end of every Disney movie.
*I have a favorite Disney princess
*I named my child after a folklorist with a pearl handled gun and a inclination to fib about her age...(Ding-ding-ding)

I shan’t go on.

The issue isn’t Christmas. The risen Christ. The cherubs and spiked cocoa. The tinsel, Rudolph, misfit toys or the doorbusters. It’s Santa.


Perhaps it goes back to my up-from-the-bootstraps belief system. You want something, you get it yourself. Earn it. I mean can you earn something by being good, or by going to work? Is it truly your ethic if you’re doing so for the once-a-year reward? Pfft.

Perhaps it has more to do with God. I once mistakenly prayed to both Santa and Jesus for my Cookie Monster clock to run without batteries at age 4. It didn’t work and me and Jesus Claus were at odds until I figured out one of ‘em wasn’t real.

Perhaps it’s my racial and/or ethnic bias meter… I mean, honestly, the idea of a red suited heavy white man essentially breaking into my house to give my child toys of unknown origin “If she good” is a freakish, hellish, and disturbing thought. #Barfwothy even.

And then there is the highly principled part of me: I travel 54 miles rountrip daily to pay for her childcare. Brian works 7 days a week as well to ensure we’re housed, roofed, and can easily order gourmet Chinese. That said, the gifts didn’t come from ole homeboy SC, but from Mummah and Daddy with the grit of the commuter rail, and the sweat of the dining hall on our hands and in our hearts.

So, I did it. I told her Santa was fake. I said something like... Babygirl, you know he's for pretend right. Wide eyed, she said, Huh? Uhhh, yeah. We moved on. I did anyway.

And on Xmas eve when that first gift is in her beautiful brown baby hands, sweet surgar pie dumplin girl will know this:

I bought Barbie. ME.

Merry Xmas,

Diane

I am a native daughter. I know/don't totally know crazy.

I suppose I know a great deal about mental health. There are folks who know more than I do. I say that both with childishly (intonation) and authoritatively (though, that's semi-childish too).

I can't/don't diagnose. I'm too flexible, inflexible for that.
Not that they are cousins, but I think most of us are crazy, as I think most of us are, well, other things too: inter-ethnic, gay, existing on some continuum for which there aren't clear cut distinctions. Sue me.

However, I get lots of folks sharing with me. I get friends who disclose. I sit hollow eyed, feeling willful as I hold my breath. I want to say: Hmmm, you sound a little like you are [insert diagnosis]. I want to ask about meds. I question my chosen field. And sometimes I don't.

I'm no doctor. I don't play one on TV. I'm a painfully terrible actor. I wouldn't be able remember lines. I balk at the DSM V, VI, IV whatever the hell it is now. I call it vee instead of five. That elicits laughter in true doctor circles, even the mental ones'd likely titter.

I am a native daughter. I know crazy. I like to think I ain't, but, I think we all are. I am displaying my own evidence of inconsistency.

I was thinking, recently, about what folks could consider a poignant moment; the day I disclosed my pregnancy to my mother. I was in my 7th month; a quirk of genetics (mostly height) that kept me barely showing. My soon to be daughter was a fit of movement beneath my ribs. It was raining. I was as usual, a ball of nerves: of anticipation, some would say anxiety as I approached their brownstone.

Ring of a doorbell, doors opened, shut. The news was told. Awaited/waited: an episode. A shriek. Anger. Perhaps she'd throw something. I received a warm once-over. A hug. My mother startled, as any grandmother-to-be at what was being revealed to her. A new line; a new place for her to be. A new person I was growing.

I nearly erupted from the brownstone. I carried enough love and acceptance from this once source of unknowingness, an experience the word pain is too trite/too separate to be lent to; I left feeling so accepted and connected, so part of a family, and I hadn't even labored yet.

I cried; filling a long narrow tube within me with individually lain tears; they fell with the a sense of precision, of exactness that tears can't typically pull off. It was unrealistic. I anticipated a logical outcome: this woman with reality issues, my news, how it required a level of organization her diagnosis likely wouldn't/couldn't accept. The reality: my mother hadn't come undone.

I supposed and was supposed to know a great deal about mental health, about my mother, about people with like diagnoses. But, thankfully there are folks who know more than I do.

Thanks Mummi, for being one of them.

Vulnerable (strength).

I had a conversation with a friend today; a good friend, a noble friend. She like me has a family, a small one, a miniature-mirror in her child. They argue, fret. Mostly in unison, definitely in awe of the other. I do that. I understood.

I told her a story about my three year old; spirited in her freshness, vulnerable—she once cried (ok, thrice) when a cockroach was left behind by his master returning to outer-space, in some movie. And again, when she watched me nearly retch over an argument with a loved one. Put those tears away Mummah. The sun is out, my baby girl once said. And I love her for that and/but you know what:

My child makes me nuts. I have a nutty if her Kelsey Kounters are strewn across the floor. If she refuses to pay attention when she’s making the letter Z with too many arms, or if she forgets her name ends in A and not her favorite letter of the week. I am what my positive parenting book boasts as authoritative. I want to throw that damn book in the trash.

My child makes me proud. I’ve grown to not give a complete shit if people don’t want to hear how she speaks with the level intonation of a learned adult, that she recognizes the varying hue ethnic difference can and does lend to people, that she knows Santa is fake and God is as real as she is. I am what my positive parenting book boasts as supportive. I want to throw that damn book in the trash and write my own.

So, conversation with friend had me thinking. And a lot of times we start with us; as in, I can hear what she’s saying, what reality does this spin for me? How can I draw from what I know (about me) to share with her? And I realized, in the advice I attempted to share with her, I needed to press my ears to my own palms; to make sense out of the own song of my faintly thumping heartbeat.

I told her to be kind to herself, to understand that vulnerability is too, it’s own kind of strength, that good intentions most definitely do count. And, to recognize that you get what you get because you’re supposed to and can handle it. And, perhaps somewhat less tritely, that she is good, great and doing right by her kid.

Sometimes, we have to listen to the advice we give others, give it to ourselves. Remind ourselves of how hard and hearty our lives can be, at 7 AM, on the way to the school dance, making sandwiches for a play school lunch, declining ice-cream for breakfast.

And I hope that makes sense, and perhaps more than that, I hope she/we realize how much right we do, when we intend to.

I'm thinking, at least, I have some work to do.

So, if you see me doing said work with my hands pressed to my ears, I'm likely finding my own rhythm in the drumming song between palm and a pulsating inner ear/heatbeat. Though this is a blog about mental health, so, you know, don’t rule anything out.