Me, Undone

I’ve come to realize that there are only two important things in life--faith and freedom. When I speak of faith, I dare not speak of the faith of the blind—the weak who cling to vapid traditions and poorly crafted interpretations as excuses for tyranny. This is not the faith of those who cut themselves and others with Bible verses. This faith cannot be coerced. It is not some secret gift for greedy hands to seize while others perish in the dark. This faith, I’ve carried with me since I was a child. It is the first breath of life. The last breath before passing over. It is everything—you and me, standing in all our painful brilliance, in all our glory. It is light. But faith, my friends, cannot materialize in the absence of freedom—for freedom makes thought possible. When I speak of freedom, I speak not of chains. Freedom is never given nor won. It only inhabits those who listen. I’ve seen far too many zombies deaf to its call. You’ve seen them too. They bear the mark of resignation a...

I saw a documentary yesterday about the place you told me of. Your hand in the shower with its glow-- the universe flowering, infinite connectivity. I want to go there, perhaps with you. My left-brain has been threatening to take over my right brain. It has made me a whore to endless lists. I carry fears and anxieties never once materialized. Reservations clip my tongue when I go to speak. Chatter in my frontal lobe wakes me in the middle of the night. I am OCD and schizophrenic 15 minutes past every hour. I must write fast and quick, for the hand is surfacing around the clock again. Hurry.

I tried to quit my job last week. I fired off an email at 12 o’clock in the morning rambling about my needs, my wants, my needs, my wants—oh, how terribly constricted I felt. And then I waited for a response. The next morning my principal came in to the office, sat down in front of me and said, “What do you want?” What do I want? What do you mean, what do I want? I thought. You are my principal—for goodness sake, tell me what I need. Tell me what I can’t have because of blue tape school district bureaucracy. Give me a reason to yell, “ I quit” and storm out of the building in a blaze of glory. This was not the way this was supposed to go. Get it together—quick, think… but I was caught off guard. How was I to articulate an appropriate professional response? Like, oh, I want more professional development or more support as a new teacher. How was I to tell him the truth--that I wanted to leave not because I don’t like teaching—but because I want to check out of life. I had it all...

I had my first existential life crisis at 13. I was in the 9th grade and still wearing my favorite beige training bra. In English class, we read the likes of Dostoevsky and Salinger. I was so cool, I thought—chatting with fellow classmates about the meaning of life over sugar cookies. My full-blown anxiety attack was precipitated by the sudden realization that adulthood is so devastating tragic--absent of flights of fancy and childhood innocence. I read about the “phonies” and adult moral ambivalence. Before me stood the full measure of my life—finish school, get a job, get married, have kids and die—and oh yeah, be phony. I wanted to stop life right there, so deathly afraid of inching closer to the divide. But I was just a child.

Come away with me... come away with me. Happiness is a delusion—a collectively digested opiate designed to distract us from our petty existence. There is only pleasure, you see. I'm ready, yes, I am ready to forsake delayed gratification for hedonistic indulgence. Life is much too short to keep wishing and dreaming. Give me unadulterated joy—naked bodies, red wine, warm massages, late nights dancing, sweet crepes and the freedom the move as I please. I'm preparing from my greatest act yet. Come away with me.

Antioch is a little, white church on a hill. With aches and pains it welcomed us in every Sunday. It was a place for the weary—respite for tired hands and feet. My mother, unwed and with another baby growing in her belly, sat at the back of the church with her head slump down—me, sleeping peacefully in her lap. It was the pastor who finally called her to the front of the church and gave her a reason not to be ashamed. Old womens' arms and prayers held our little family together. During altar call, mommy would kneel on the stiff bench with tears in her eyes—praises flung up to the sky. At Antioch my brother and I grew and flourished. We were the darlings of the church—the fresh dreams and hopes of barren wombs... Years later, I returned to the little, white church on the hill. Antioch was still the same—but life had changed. This time, my brother was locked in a cage, and I was standing at the altar with my mother lying beside me in a wooden box. I stood there, in front of the chu...

I’ve got this funny feeling that something has been nibbling on my…carving away at my… gentle murders silent soul assassinations the kindest of body blows Zora Neale Hurston said that for women, the dream is truth. I believe this —and I wonder whether this heightened awareness, this intense obsession with truth, is a blessing or a curse. This search the authentic self –oh gosh, I sound so new age, has left me fraught with insecurity and restlessness. I wish sometimes, to roll back my senses –to present as stone to the world. It’s so exhausting to experience life as I do—I am so f-ing porous. The body blows are exhausting—one by one, I learn that my ambitions and expectations are overstated. Little by little, my hope in humanity dies. I am fighting against silent soul assassinations. Breathe—continue? Or stop?