5 Question Interview Meme

I, too – am an egomanic and, apparently, a major procrastinator. I’ve been hit up to do this interview meme by my gurl Susan over at ReadingWritingLiving. If you are interested in having me hit you with 5 questions – let me know and I will write 5 questions for you!

1. I have not seen you in the classroom, but I bet you are an awesome teacher. What kinds of things do you like to do with your students; what engages them in your classroom?

I have to say, I freakin love teaching and I’m actually kind of bitter about classes or workshops I take now with horrible teachers. Mostly because I’m convinced my success/ failure in school at all levels (kindergarten through my PhD work) has been incredibly impacted by my instructors. I am convinced that one of the major things that makes a great teacher is the ability to understand yourself as also in a constant state of learning. I am an ‘expert’ to an extent on many issues, but there are many more things to which i have no experience or knowledge. It is my belief that instructors who shut themselves off from learning from their students, actually close doors that can lead to their students making powerful, critical connections.

hell.. I can talk about this forever.

2. I know that you are AKA “Ungrateful Daughter.” But you strike me as being a very joyful person. What are you grateful for in your life?

ha! Another long ass answer. I am grateful for the love and support from my family. When I say “family”, I mean not only my immediate family, but my partner, my best girl friends, my creative family, my writing family, my TRA familia – all them. Because when I say ‘ love and support’, I dont just mean it in that cheesy Hallmark way. I mean these people surround me with this incredible amount of love that I KNOW is what keeps me going when I feel like all i want to do is hide in my room for weeks. I am loved. I can do anything because my family believes in me. I can fly . . . want a ride?

3. If you could listen to only three songs for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Since Im a huge music lover and I support live local music, attend a ridiculous amount of performances – thats a hard ass question. How about 3 albums? (1)Zap Mama’s “Ancestry in Progress”, (2) Etta James “At Last” and (3) Miles Davis – anything. (but damn.. what about Mos Def and Ledesi? this is too hard!!)

4. If your adoptive family could know one thing about you that they do not know, what would it be?

Wow. I think they know alot about me already! Maybe that I love them (they know that tho!) ok.. maybe that even thought race is at the heart of some of our challenges as a family, addressing it head on and acknowledging it does nothing to change the fact that we ARE a family with a common history, shared memories and a deep love for one another.

5. If your birth family could know one thing about you that they do not know, what would it be?

That I dont want anything from them except stories, photographs and a history that I can pass to my own children. I hope they will be willing to open themselves to me as a presence in their lives. It doesnt need to be a constantly visible, constantly ‘there’ presence, but our shared history and blood ties us together. We have to figure out ways to have all of our needs as individuals met when it comes to this complicated situation. In other words, it aint all about you. 

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PTSD III

Today I woke up trying to get some writing done on my show and something hit me in the face and reminded me that

I am a product of rape.

I’ve only once began to softly approach the questions of how I came to exsist – once here. And at this moment, it wasnt even really an approach – it was a telescope view from afar. Here’s a piece from that entry.

“. . .Later last night – im at another gig at a bar in SF – and i want to call my best friend, and she is not home. I want to call my mom, but its too late. How can i explain this to my roommate? I realize i have no one to talk to and i get on my cell phone and text/email these words to myself:

“No one 2 email but me n all alone w a reminder i am born from that which i condem”.

What is it to be a product of rape? A body born out of violence? What is it to be unwanted and given away because of rape and more importantly – unknown? If the story is true. I dont exsist for the father.”

What is it to be a product of rape and how does one even begin to wrap oneself around such a question? I recently read an adoptee’s thoughts on this question and it all centered around the stigma of rape. Shame, violence, pain, trauma.

What is it to be born from that which I condem? I call myself a black feminist. Radical politics. I call myself a protector of women, my friends use my house as a safe haven. I call myself daughter of Oya. I call myself someone who would have gone to bat, bat, bat with those women who are raped and are never believed. Rape in any form is about power and dominance.

But how to explain life that is concieved from such an act?

and how to explain ME?

Im not ashamed. Im not even asking if I should be. Fuck that. Why? I’m smart, I’m beautiful, I’m loving and I am loved. Just like the circumstances of how I was given up – I have no control over my conception. It is one more thing in my life that I have to tunnel through, wrap around me and fight through. I know why I wasnt wanted. I am a reminder of trauma and pain. Shame and silence. How can I move forward, move any way at all if I dont let go of what my entire body represents to my BM? The blackness – the face- the hands.

I’m not saying I’ve let go. Im not saying I dont have days where I stare in the mirror and wonder at the flash of conception at the moment of violation. But I have such beauty in my life, my friends, my family, my writing, my work- MY FRIENDS – how can I explain my thankfulness for being born? and what if I was not here to speak?

and what also of the notion that I dont exist in any way for my birth father? That he doesnt even know I am alive. He doesnt wonder about my face, if I have his hair or his smile. I find this extremely soul-shaking, especially when I identify myself as being black, and not ness. as Filipino (the BM). Whose roots are mine? I dont have any?

I was trying to write a section about how second generation, third generation children of immigrants – when they get to a certain age – they return back to thier country of origin, but for adoptee’s, the travel path home – is complex. I heard someone say about their trip to their country of origin, “its the first time I ever really felt like I was at home”. Is that feeling forever lost to adoptees? and for those of us adopted OUT of not only our countries, but our cultures of origin? will we ever find our way home? and what if our home will never acknowledge us?

I know we create home, and what home means becomes what we do, who our friends and chosen family are – but how to think through that 1st connection, that primary womb-link that has been forever broken. and is that why I feel like I am constantly moving, all ways changing?

Thats all for today. Two more steps forward.

Holidaze

The semester is winding down. Whew! I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday season and let you see this! I head out to visit my family soon – it should be a great trip this time. They just got back from cruise in the Caribbean, I’m tryin to firgue out what my mom wants for Xmas.  What I need to do is buy them a wireless router so I dont have to use their 56K modem to get online… yes I said 56K modem! – livin in the stix and stuff!

Enjoy this photo I found!

Santa pissed me off.

Stone

 

her thighs

sore with memory

shift back and forth as she walks

uphill toward the train

she is all tears and fog

left alone to soon

captured by ten years of

photographs transformed to

what now looks like regret

 

her body has been an earthquake shift

tectonic plates sliding out of place

revealing hidden earth, graves and bodies

 

she walks crooked

asphalt under her cracked now

like the day she is about to encounter

loss stinging her cheeks

like the fog in the air

 

she is demented metal

sidewalk trash fury

on the side of skyscrapers

ill-fitting and torn

 

the train is coming

breeze sucking air from tunnels

she stands spine tall to keep her

chest from caving in

hollow from giving voice

to echoes, ghosts

and orange desire.

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PTSD

So my next performance is at the Brava Theatre in SF for the San Francisco Women Against Rape (SFWAR) on June 30th.

Im at rehearsal, standing up in front of this room full of women who have one way or another been touched by the violence and silence of rape and the sadness mixed with rage begins to wash over me and suddenly I am crying and overwhelmed. I have performed this particular piece "Song for Siren" about 4 or 5 times and have never experienced what i felt last night. The piece is a piece – not about adoption (?)- but about rape and the historical and continued rape of black women by white men. The piece itself was written as my own response to a few things – first, to the Duke Lacrosse case. If you havent heard about this – Duke University on March 13th, A sex worker was hired as an exotic dancer for a party thrown by the Lacrosse players. At some point in the night, the woman alleges she was raped in the bathroom by three of the players by force. For me, whether or not this story is "true" is not what I am interested in. What I am interested in is this incidents relationship to the history of black women raped by white men and the comment one of the men made to the woman –  “hey bitch – thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt”.

Additionally, the Duke incident rung a bell in me from the past – Sherice Iverson. For some reason I cannot let go of this little girl and the total disregard for her life in place of the men who raped and murdered her.

I said its not about adoption.

Later last night – im at another gig at a bar in SF – and i want to call my best friend, and she is not home. I want to call my mom, but its too late. How can i explain this to my roommate? I realize i have no one to talk to and i get on my cell phone and text/email these words to myself:

"No one 2 email but me n all alone w a reminder i am born from that which i condem".

What is it to be a product of rape? A body born out of violence? What is it to be unwanted and given away because of rape and more importantly – unknown? If the story is true. I dont exsist for the father.