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.

Yes. Him Again.The Stories our Bodies Share/With-hold.

I wrote once about my father; my dad. About the things he made, namely me. About the things, besides life, he's given me.

We've been all over the place with gifts, emptiness, stories, more.
I love him. I can admit that now.

A week ago, my daughter turned three. We go hard for birthdays, extremely hard. We see parties as gifts we give to everyone, in celebration for how wild in love we are with our child. This year, it was an African Drumming Party.

Jam on a D'jembe... Don't laugh (or do).

We danced, accepted gifts, sweated out our respective perms and/or roller-sets, fogged up our glasses. We laughed; old laughter, young. Fortunately no one wet anything needed to stay dry.

All kinds of people came; black, brown, pink, beige (me). Some folks didn't.

Zora barely noticed the non-comers. Her cousins were there. In her 3-year-old world, that fact was both the joint and the jam. Her favoritist part. Her love her cousins.

Day ends. Two days stealthily passed. I wondered where he was. How come he kept being a no-show to these events? We'd spoke the night prior to the party. Auntie So-and-So was going to bring him from the city (his) to the burbs (ours). He even semi-joked he'd convince Mummi to come. I was even semi-ok with telling him it'd be ok if she just couldn't make it. We both knew and know: she never ever will.

Just this weekend, I learned he'd had surgery before the party. No details needed. None I'd like to share. But he'd had a surgery, an incision, perhaps blood, pain. And he hadn't told me. And he had walked, by himself, to the appointment. And he... had extreme moments along the way. My mother even confirmed his tears, the pain he experienced in the short days of recovery he'd had. He didn't ask for help. Didn't beg a glass of cool water. And I... I didn't even know.

And this has affected me deeply. Selfish, I know. Unselfish, I know.I had planned a party, held one, debriefed, and my father, my dad, was hurting.

We went to visit him this weekend. His daughter, his grandaughter. We peeked at him sideways, straight on.

I counted freckles. Hugged him more closely. And I don't hug. He doesn't either. He was his usual self more or less; gruff, sweet, sarcastic, humble. Half-way crazy yes. Side-eyeing me back.

Leaving, he long-leggedly approached my short-bodied car, leaned into the passenger-side window, crimping all 6'4 inches of himself into a very low frame, Boston, the Vineyard, and years of public transportation all up in his accent, and said :

"Kid. You're a nervous wreck. You're going to get sick. Come on."

Prideful DNA.
The stories our bodies both share and withhold.

Some Kind of Perpetual State.

I'm in a worrying phase.

I don't know if fear is the right word anymore. It's very passive, blase. The definition just doesn't accurately summarize the empty ache I've been carrying in my right hand. The ever-present flutter of my outermost lash. That shit is bugging me. Fear seems so... fearful. Inactive. Lazily present.

And perhaps that ain't what I'm feeling. Worry seems lame too. Anxiety is too much of a diagnosis. I'm not there yet. No.

I been thinking about those closest to me. My mother, my lover, my child, few others. My legit-short list.

Some thoughts get more of my attention than does my work, my play, court-tv.
Some get more of my anxiety than others. It's the difference between lost sleep over love, and lost footing over a misplaced doll. It's a new kind of math, perhaps. Some things simply can be more easily over-come.
Out-run. Over-thought. #shit.

But... I won't be long-winded this go round and I need progress.
I think it's safe accurate to say: I'm feeling a certain kind of way.

My mom is too skinny. My job is a job. My man is uncertain. My child is observant. My ... other stuff too. Some ain't bad. This ain't (that) bad.

But I'm feeling some kind of way.

Right now. Today.