on the balcony

 I shared my trauma story with my daughter yesterday. I shared it with both of her brothers in the past. My oldest son came into my room one time when I was sleeping and his presence triggered a flashback. I screamed at him to get out of my room. I decided shortly after to share with him that my father would molest me at night and that I got freaked out a bit but was truly sorry. He was understanding. my poor baby! I shared my story with my younger son out of anger and frustration. He was angry with his dad about our then upcoming move to Chicago and I had had enough of his jabs at his dad. I confronted him and shared that while what he was going through was tough, that is was not trauma and that his father was trying to make a better life for him. I shared what having an abusive father was really like and said I wished I had a loving dad like his. yeah, I went there. He soon chilled out and he is the most adjusted of my 3 children since we have moved. Our talk will probably will have him in therapy later in life but my buttons were pushed. (note to self: have a 2nd talk with him) My poor baby!!!! But yesterday was the last time that I shared my story with one of my children and it was the one I dreaded the most. Telling my daughter...

After a week long hectic move, it was the 1st day Z and I were hanging out on our new balcony. She was sharing how she and some girls from her school were organizing a protest against the school's sexist dress code. We talked double standards and respectability politics. She mentioned that it is just the older women, particularly black women that say something to her. I told her I had her back but also explained that some black folks are conservative and some may mean no harm and think they are protecting you from men's/boy's advances. I explained that black women's sexuality has historically been exploited and our responses (good and problematic) have been attempts to reclaim our dignity. I explained that even with those histories of racism and sexism, black woman and girls should demand their bodily autonomy. We agreed that what someone is wearing has nothing to do sex or enticement and people should not police a girl's/woman's body. I noted that men and boys should be in control of themselves. We discussed rape and rape culture. We both acknowledged that people rape people and that it is wrong. 

 But I also confessed that even I had to get used to her wearing leggings, short shorts and bikinis once her body started filling out. I told her it was hard and that I too wanted to protect her/cover her up. I then shared how it has been a struggle watching her do her thing as she grows up but I know that I have to let her go. I finally took a deep breathe and said that "it happened to me" and that I wanted to be sure it didn't happen to her. If you could have seen my baby's face when she realized what I was saying and as the tears welled up in her little eyes as my voice quivered. my poor baby!!!!! I kept going before I lost the nerve to get it out and shared that it was my father. She came over and hugged me.  I told her it was a scary time in my life but that I was ok. I told her I was her age. I told her I was proud of her for knowing that her body is hers and that no one should tell her what she can and cannot do with it. She said, with tears streaming down her face that she was sorry that IT happened to me. I thanked her and we comforted each other. 

The moment was both incredibly heavy and somehow also very light. If felt like we saw into each other's souls when we looked at each other with shared love and concern. I asked her if the balcony could be our "spot" for sharing and connecting and she said yes. Then Cabral called us for breakfast! Perfect timing, pancakes sooth the soul! 

p.s. School District 97, you'd better look out because my daughter and her crew are coming for ya!!  

I"ve got that joy, joy, joy down in my heart!

Today's theme song "I got that joy, joy, joy, down in my heart"! Sometimes when my kids are being ungrateful or when they can't see the blessing that is their lives, I say "you are blessed, be blessed!" Taking my own advice today. Feeling blessed and thanking the creator for my joy!  I had this romantic notion that Ced and I would close on our house, get the keys, and go straight to our new home and make love on the floor. I was going to pack a picnic basket for us and I bought a bouquet of flowers to put on the mantel. But when we found out we can't get into the house until 4/5 I felt defeated. We have been working so hard to get this place. So much has gone wrong so we thought if we can just close all will be good. I actually got my period last night after 20 rounds of phone calls and emails to broker, lawyer and agent. It's been like this for weeks. Calls. Emails. Franticness. The last time I got my. period was back in August when a colleague stepped on my spirit. Stress induced periods?!! No ma'am!! So I'm sitting here this morning reflecting. I have come to realize that life is not romantic. It is real. And that it is up to me to decide how I will feel about it. So I choose joy today. Today I become a home owner at a time when that reality has sadly become harder and harder for hard working and deserving Americans. I am recentering myself, recognizing my privilege, rejoicing in my blessings, and reclaiming my joy. 

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New year to you and yours! Wishing you a 2015 filled with joy, healing, peace and justice!

Warning: Incoherent free write/journal entry posing as a blog post

My final post for 2014 is a strained one. I suppose the easiest thing is to reflect on my year using the checklist method. The joys and the pains. marathons. travel. new professional collaborations. family achievements and intimate moments. joys. check. global injustices, inequity and unrest. strained and toxic work relationships. time off from teaching disappeared. my love of carbs and disgust with gyms. no publications. pains. check. 

 I struggle with this format, though. Highlighting the joys, which have been plentiful, feels like I’m minimizing the real struggles that I face day to day. feeling my actions toward righting the world are not transformative/impactful enough. insecurity. self doubt. feelings of incompetence. fear of failure. fear of rejection if I share my real shit. Yet, noting my pains makes me feel trivial, whiny, privileged. Not saying anything leaves a gaping hole of silence. So I sit here unsure of what direction to go in. Maybe listing is the best strategy. But I can feel myself also wanting to make sure the good and bads of 2014  are balanced. But life is messy and uneven. there is no balance. I keep trying to impose structure and order on this mess. I attribute my lack of discipline as failure. I struggle with following tasks  that don’t feel good in the moment. I am not sure if that is an inability to delay gratification or if it has become my survival strategy. If it doesn't feel good, i stop. I usually do what feels good as long as it feels good, when it feels good and for however long it feels good. i steer away from pain and struggle, especially the kinds i have cannot see as part of a longer journey towards joy.

I feel so much pressure as the year ends. Such a sense of failure although I have been successful on many fronts…especially in the eyes of others. Yet, there are other others who I have given power over my fate. This has produced a level of anxiety that seems to be consuming me. sucking the joy out of my life. I fight it daily, ordering myself to not let it/them/the game/the matrix consume me, shape my sense of worth. It works momentarily but it is an active and exhausting practice of holding my head up. I quiver at the thought of them judging me. Also of me having to figure out the what next. To be cast out of a play I don’t really feel a part of anyway.

********* blog post is becoming sidetracked*******other thoughts and emotions are surfacing. am i  journaling?

I need a safe space to speak. to share my darkest secrets. To have long  sustained conversation with. I feel like I am living such an inauthentic life. A life that I have crafted. One that others would be proud of. I feel like a hypocrite. A fake. I don’t belong here. How did I get here? Why do I stay? When will I exhale and get free? Who will be hurt by my actions? Yup, I’m coming undone as 2014 winds down. I have a lot to meditate on. 

I hope that being still will bring me relief though I fear it will just put me back together until the next pity party/break down. I seem to live from break down to break down. I need better self care practices in place. Key Ray read me way back in 1996. I hold it together and melt down at the end of each semester. Like clockwork. 

I need to take my 5 good minutes. I need a once a week phone call with my girls. A monthly massage.  A regular journal session to share these thoughts, feelings, haunts, and dreams. A committed exercise routine. I need to establish a healthy relationship with myself. All of this needs to be on the calendar. A mentor of mine charged me with an important task. She suggested that whenI began developing a semester plan, document what professional supports I need in place given the semester I have ahead of me. I am going to craft a plan of general self care and supports that extend beyond my professional reality. I say loudly and quite frequently that I will not let my career be my center yet it continues to be a key source of my stress and anxiety. Impostor syndrome alive and well. black. woman. working class. first generation. spousal hire. you name it. I also need to acknowledge that its demands are not the only sources of my inner turmoil. The things that make my hands tremble the most are buried deep inside, they are the struggles that I cannot yet document. Until I am ready, I will at least find respite in building time for myself for release and regrouping…for my world is a stage and I am performing to keep the peace.  

Depression and anxiety are real. I’m swimming as fast upstream as possible to not let is consume me right now. Karen, I hope you are resting well. Although I did not know you, I feel your pain and joys. I feel connected to you as a black woman. So many of us struggle even as we make others smile. I get you. I feel you. I will wear red lipstick on NYE in your honor. Praying 2015 helps me to break off another piece of this mask so I can get a little more free. 

Eyes up...Dis/Recovering My Body

 When our bodies are free we can move mountains.

I completed my first marathon on October 12, 2014. I finished the Chicago Marathon in 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds! Not bad!! I was out there with 45,000 other runners, walkers and wheel chair racers---each of us at the start line for different reasons but all with the same tools at hand....our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits ----and the same goal in mind...to get across the finish line. 

As I trained this summer, especially during the longer runs past 13 miles, I became fascinated by what my body was capable of doing. Sometimes I got distracted by what my body was “supposed” to look like but I was truly impressed by what it could DO! Each weekend I would look at the weekly run schedule and think “Damn, that’s far!”. But then I would lace up and sure enough about half way through the run I would realize that I was doing IT.  I also came to enjoy listening to my body. If my heart rate was too fast, I'd slow down. If I became excited because the finish line was near, I'd speed up. If I was struggling, I'd speak up and ask for help. If I felt uncomfortable, I'd tell my run partner the pace doesn’t feel good. If I am slacking, I’d acknowledge it and recommit. If I needed a break, I'd take one. This distance running journey was a testimony and tribute to being in a sustained conversation with my body.  Respecting when my body says No! and responding when it says Yes!!

The conversation continued along the marathon route on Sunday. I checked in with each body part. 

        mile 13: “Toes & toenails, how ya’ll doing?" 

mile 15: "Back, you alright?" 

mile 18: "Lungs, ya’ll getting enough oxygen?"

                                     mile 23: "Bladder, girl, you are doing marvelous!"

mile 24-26.2: "Legs, you betta' work!!!" 

My spirit continually tapped me on my shoulder along the way and reminded me to take it all in. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the energy, the support and the LOVE were all there giving me life and propelling me forward. 

And yes, at times I begged each body part to cooperate and they did, but in their own time and on their own terms. I had set a finish time goal of 5:25 but my body pushed back and said assertively, "I am finishing in 5:49:12!". 

My body, my will, my desire moved mountains that day and another piece of me got free as I crossed the finish line. When I got across I didn’t cry. I just smiled because my body had survived real pain before and this was not pain, this was joy.                                                    





                                           Pure JOY!

This is 11

I wrote a poem in 1993 entitled, "she was only 11". It was a poem about my father sexually molesting me as a young girl and and my mother's failure to protect me. It was poem of violence, trauma and abandonment. It was a poem that tried to make sense of what had happened to me as a girl decades before. 32 years later, 11 visits again.

Today, my 11 year old daughter and I were trying to make it back to Illinois after an action packed weekend of fun at a family wedding. Our return flight had been cancelled yesterday but today we made it to our connecting flight so there was hope. She was anxious because she wanted to return to make it to her friend's birthday party. It was the first one she would be attending in middle school with both girl and boy guests.  She wanted to look special for the occasion so she had on the dress she wore to the wedding but not too special so she edged it up a bit with sneakers. 

Our flight had been delayed twice so I left her side at the airport briefly to grab us some lunch. I got her gut wrenching tearful phone call as I waited for her sub to be prepared. Our flight had been cancelled for a second time and now she was going to miss the party. To make matters worse, we are stuck in a random city for the night. 

She was hysterical on the phone. I could hear an older black woman asking her if she was OK in the background. I told her I was on my way and left her sub at the restaurant. I walked as fast as I could back to our gate as I tried to calm her down. She was inconsolable and at moments accused me of not helping matters. (Side bar: No matter how bad I felt about the situation, I was not having that kind guilt tripping and quickly checked her on that behavior). I'm her mother, not a punching bag! Still, I hung on the line until I reached her and then held her in my arms when I got to her. I was weary. I knew we needed to get to the ticket counter if there was any possibility of us getting to Chicago or a nearby airport today but she was a wreck. She didn't care who was watching or what needed to happen. She needed to fall out for a bit. So we sat, she cried and I held her. When I wasn't enough, she called her dad and cried to him. 

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, I told her we needed to get new tickets. We were pretty much the last ones to get into the ticket reissue line. She wiped tears the whole time we waited. I held my bladder and my emotions. I got our tickets and then she collapsed again as the full reality set in that we were not getting home until tomorrow. 

She kept asking me to fix it and saying she just wanted to go home and to see her dad who had been traveling for the past 10 days. I reminded her that I cannot simply fix things I have no control over. She swallowed that pill bitterly. 

She eventually calmed down and even began to smile and laugh bit. We settled into a hotel and had lunch and played a few rounds of checkers. She had another crying episode and I, at my wit's end, decided that she had shed enough tears on the matter of a "missed birthday party". I reminded her that this is a small bump in grander scheme of her life and there were girls her age that were dealing with real shit. Rape. Abuse. Homelessness. Poverty. War. Dangerous unaccompanied border crossings without their parents. Yes, I went there. Because the girl was working my nerves and seriously, it was just a damned party! 

She finally cried herself out and fell asleep. I am lying in the bed across from her looking at her beautiful perfection and shaking my head at the intensity of her emotional expressivity. Yes, it's going to be a long adolescence but I am happy to be on this journey with her. 

I remind myself that she is ONLY 11 and suddenly I am realizing that our 11th years are significantly different.  My daughter  is dealing with petty disappointments that are age appropriate. Not sexual assault as I did at her age. My daughter asks for her father when she is in pain and he comforts her and supports me.  My father was the primary source of my pain. I am listening to my daughter and assuring her that she is capable of surviving her pain. Although my mother did assist me with aborting my father's baby she did not respond to my terror or assure my protection because she stayed in relationship with him. My daughter is empowered and embraces her budding adolescent sexuality when she decides to wear a dress to the party but I had mine taken from me violently. My daughter is allowed to express her feelings openly and publicly yet I was silenced by fear for decades. At age 11, my daughter  is spending a night in a hotel with me because her flight was cancelled. At age 11, I spent a night in a hotel with my mother the night before a late term abortion that had to be performed out of my home state. As her parents, we are actively trying to keep her (and her brothers) safe. My parents provided for me and my siblings but we were not safe with them. 

This is 11.

As I lie here, listening to her heavy breathing as she sleeps, I also began thinking about the interactions my daughter had with my extended family members this past weekend. Everyone adored her. All weekend she heard "you look just like your mother" and "you spit her out". I think she felt bad for her dad and said to me "I have dad's nose and hair", which she does. But to the Wilkersons, she was "little Monique" and was hugged, kissed and squeezed to death! She was both tickled and overwhelmed by the unconditional love that came at her from every direction. She seldom gets to see our extended family but they loved her like she was my 11 year old clone. I was loved up, too but I truly enjoyed watching them love her up. It deepened my sense of feeling loved by them. They loved her because she was of me but they also loved her because she reminded them of me at her age. It was an out of body experience for me and for a moment, I did live through her. I was retroactively receiving the love that they didn't know I critically needed 32 years ago. 

Bearing witness to them doting over her--grandmothers promising her sweets; uncles giving her all the change out of their pockets and letting her cut in the buffet line to get a 3rd helping of macaroni and cheese; aunts giving her peppermints, telling her she is beautiful and embarrassingly talking about her getting breasts. I too, received that extended family caring and praise as a girl. The early safe space created by my extended family has truly been a latent aspect of my survival that I had not given much weight until now. While I may have been facing hell in my household, they had already affirmed me and built me up.

It is important for me to also note that she is both privileged and blessed. In the midst of her tantrum it was my responsibility to remind her to put her life in perspective--missing a party is disappointing but it is not traumatic nor life altering. She should recognize her privilege is that this momentary upset was her greatest pain. 

But I do also appreciate that she is also a child--and children deserve to be heard, validated and loved. They also deserve the freedom to express their feelings of both joy and pain. She had prepared for joy today but she experienced pain. Yet, she is blessed to have both glowed and crumpled under the warm quilt of her immediate and extended family this weekend. 

This is her 11...

...and my 43 year old heart is swelled by the vast ocean that separates our life experiences. 

Homecoming: On finding a "good man"

Recently, I was exchanging a round of texts with one of my dearest friends. We were debating on the importance of men in our lives--in the realms of romantically/sexually and emotionally/psychologically. She felt that women represented feminine energy in a relationship and that a man complimented that feminine energy with masculine energy. She also felt that a father nurtures a child in a unique way, maybe a more masculine way. I feel that we all embody both masculine and feminine qualities and that we are whole without  another person. I see others as enriching our lives. Intimate connections with others affirm us but that we must gain affirmation of self independent of others. I also see the role/duties of a father as being indistinguishable from that of a mother. I know I will get a lot of push back on this but a nurturing parent is a nurturing parent. period. I have witnessed my son, 29 years younger than me, step between myself and my daughter when I was not parenting effectively. He essentially was the voice of reason and ultimately comforted my daughter and gave her what she needed in that moment. What she needed was nurturance and he provided that for her, regardless of his gender and/or age. There is nothing biological about my mothering. I am learning as I go and there is nothing about my gender identity as a woman, my predominantly feminine expression or my biological femaleness that aids me in this process. Children need caring adults in their lives. Whether those adults have penises, vaginas or some combination of both doesn't matter. Who does that parenting doesn't matter. Your birth parents or those in your community can stand in the gap. Yet, my friend raised a point that I’m still chewing on. Maybe once we have been abandoned or abused by our mothers and/or fathers, we have holes that we feel need to be filled and look to other adults who resemble these identities to heal us. 

I am not sure if I ever looked for a father figure to replace my father. I simply walked away. I did not see him as essential to my life journey. I never felt a deep loss. trauma, yes but I did not feel a deep loss of a father in my life. I DID feel a sense of abandonment from my mother and I spent about a decade of my young adulthood trying to attach myself to older black women. But they ultimately disappointed me. Not because they were bad people but because I had painted this idealized portrait of what I wanted out of my relationship with them. I wanted a “do over” mother but they were my grandmother, my mother in law, my supervisor, my dissertation chair, or my mentor. They were not my mother. I eventually learned that I had placed unrealistic expectations on these women, to heal me, to love me in the ways I felt I had not been loved. I learned to mother/nurture myself. I learned to redistribute the weight I had placed on certain romanticized relationships with older women. Why are parental relationships given more weight that peer relationships? Why were parents defined as the singular sources of our nurturance and not ourselves? These questions have helped me love myself when others did not. could not. should not. 

But is loving ourselves enough?

My father did not love me. He failed at his adult duties to keep me safe and not harm me. He failed. Most of my professors at Morgan State University were men. They were intelligent, progressive, kind and witty Black men. They were not my father nor his replacement but I suppose they did help me to heal. They were all respectful and did not make me squirm in discomfort when I was in the room alone with them.  They gave me an alternate perspective of relationships between adult men and younger women/girls. between those with power and those who were vulnerable under that power. 

I recall being in Dr. Daryll Tally's office in the social work department in my junior year. We were talking about graduate school. I was telling him how I wanted to go to grad school in Baltimore because my boyfriend at the time was from Baltimore. He quickly retorted, "Don't plan your life around a man! Baltimore will be here when you get back. Go to grad school.". Thank you, Dr. Tally.  I listened to him. My boyfriend at the time broke up with me our senior year and I went off to Ohio State University for my masters degree. Dr. Talley's words stay with me today, I try to place myself first in my life plans. I try not center my life around a man—even the one I am in love with. Dr. Tally was not a father figure but he did what wiser adults should do—give sound advice and challenge us to defy our self-made boundaries. You are a good (hu)man, Dr. Tally!

I also recall being in Dr. Elmer P. Martin’s social work practice class. He required  us to write a paper on object loss and object constancy. The purpose of the assignment was to reflect on something that was tough/traumatic/distressing in our lives and what kept us whole during that same time period. I decided to write about my incest survival. I think I still have the paper. It was the first time I had put pen to paper on the issue. It was emotionally draining but I think it was the best paper I had written at Morgan. On the day the assignment was due he asked that we share our topics with the rest of the class. I was horrified. I tried to find the words but erupted into tears and buried my head in my desk for the remainder of the class. Too soon. Still too raw. It took me two weeks to return to class. Dr. Martin shared his own story in my absence. It was about his father molesting his sisters and his mother pressing charges against him. It was about surviving having a father who had been a sexual predator and being a child of an incarcerated parent. I missed Dr. Martin’s story in class but I gained so much from him for discussing his personal life with our class. Thank you, Dr. Martin. You taught me that it was OK to be vulnerable in front of others. I continue to try to live by your example. You were a good (hu)man, Dr. Martin. RIP

Mr. William Carson, Sr. and I crossed paths in 1992. I walked into his office saying I wanted to go to graduate school. Over the next year he would read my admission essay, drive me from Maryland to Ohio for black grad student visitation days at Ohio State, give me a bike to get around campus, attend my graduation from my MSW program and take pictures of the event. A couple of years after that he would drive my friends down to NC for my wedding and take pictures of yet another special day in my life. He never asked me for one red cent. Four years after that, he’d be there for me again for my and my husband’s graduation from our PhD programs. He and his camera captured our big day yet again. Words cannot express how his unassuming but constant presence in my life has meant to me. I’ve come to learn that I was not a special case, Mr. Carson treats everyone he knows kindly. I am so pleased that I was able to thank him publicly at his recent retirement party from Morgan State University. After 30 years he was finally “graduating" and moving on to indulge in his life’s joys—traveling, visiting his family and yes, taking pictures. At the dinner, I thanked his son for “sharing” his dad with us Morganites. Thank you, Mr. Carson for all that you have done for me professionally and personally. You taught me that sometimes we just have to be there for other folks not to seek praise but because it is the right thing to do. I try to channel your professionalism and dedication when I interact with my students although you have very big shoes to fill! You are a good (hu)man, Mr. Carson!!

I am probably a professor because of the positive influences of my undergraduate professors and administrators at Morgan. My fair Morgan...it was a safe haven for me that gave me the space to remember who I was outside of the abuse I had experienced in my family home. 

So where am I going with this? 

I’m not sure. I am thankful that I had other men to interact with who were not predatory. Yet, I never imagined that they were father figures nor held expectations that they were replacing my father when they helped me along the way. At the end of the day, it was not their gender that shined through, it was their humanity. their caring spirits. their sage advice. They were/are good humans. At the same time, I do acknowledge that they were indeed men and having positive experiences with men is something I cherish as well. 

But through it all, I am learning that we heal and flourish from having good people in our lives, starting with ourselves.