Ode to Billy

This is the journal that my last therapist gave me after I earned my Master’s degree in Education. Alas, it’s from a college that New York State does not care about too much because it’s not accredited and so they won’t give me my certification to teach English to ELL’s (English language learners) as of yet so, oh well (even though I took the necessary workshops and passed their ATAS exam, and I was aiming to be teacher’s assistant anyway, not an ELL teacher)… the point is, is that she was very proud of me that day in 2014 and gave me this beautiful diary as a graduation present. In it she writes an inscription that reads, “Dear Tennille, I congratulate you on your accomplishments and I admire your strength, belief, and perseverance. You are an inspiration and an asset to the field of Education. Keep imagining and nurturing your creativity”

Like with every diary before and after this one, I also use it as laundry/to-do lists and listing things like essential oil types, recipes, and resources (like which workshops are being taught where and when). When I was 17 I had this really nice looking bluish purple diary and after a while, after feeling spent from pouring out my soul I suppose, I used it to copy down pages and pages of Taoist breakdowns of food combinations and regimens as if I were a Nutrition student even though I’m anything but.

I wrote about Billy Joel here a few days ago. My son and I are going to see him in concert next month. He’s a bigger Beatles fan, but he enjoys Billy to a degree. I knew he struggled with alcoholism but  never knew that he once tried to end his life (with furniture polish? according to Pandora radio). One time in the late 80’s or early 90’s, VH1 did an all day Billy Joel tribute which I must have recorded on a VHS because I remember playing it a lot. 

I liked how he described his process when recording “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, how at first he toyed with the idea of doing it like a rap (“Harry Truman/Doris Day/red China/Johnnie Ray”) but then nixed it concluding that he wasn’t a “rap artist”. He didn’t use the word “rapper” (which is not even a bad word), but rap ARTIST. He wasn’t snubbing rap or hip hop, he was giving it a nod of respect like, “I admit, I don’t have the capacity to do that, that’s not my art form”. 

I also liked how he explained that as a writer he indeed can write about Allentown without ever having lived there or Downeaster Alexa without having been a fisherman. Pandora radio also points out that he was one of the few singer-songwriters from the 70’s who actually embraced the 80’s MTV video shift. In a way, I can attest to this, having been fascinated by his videos as a kid and then later on as a young adult, learning the beautiful lyrics of his 70’s songs.

March 4th, 2017 After the concert

“It’s like an airport!” my son and other people in line said as we squeezed into Madison Square Garden last night, walking through metal detectors and friendly guards checking our bags.

“What a LIFE this guy has!” one fan laughed and exclaimed to his friends.

“I should’ve paid attention in music class! Now later we’ll buy a $300 T-shirt that fades after 3 washes!”

I would have bought one for my son if he wanted it (prices were closer to $45-50), but he didn’t so I bought these refrigerator magnets instead.

I’m letting my Titi Janis pick one since she likes him too (except for the Stranger and the 52nd Street one; sorry Titi, those are ours lol). Her wedding song in 2007 was “Just the Way You Are”.

Sometimes he let us vote on which songs he'd play next, calling it the “viewers choice”. My ‘vote’ won every time except for when I wanted “Keepin the Faith”; “The Downeaster 'Alexa'” got the louder cheers. I’m amazed at how good his voice still sounds. The lights were good, flashing in time with the music. Last night was his 39th consecutive show in the Garden. I am 39 this year until my 40th birthday in June.

He wanted to know who was under 40 there and a lot of us cheered back. He sheepishly and adorably said, “Aw I wish you’d seen me when I was younger, I was a lot better back then”. Everyone continued cheering and I was just like, “noooo you’re just fine now!” And he was.  His lyrics, his playing, his voice and all the different video concepts I grew up watching throughout the years. His graciousness and friendliness towards his audience. He wasn't late, he did song after song, an old-school, no nonsense way, kind of like when my sister and I went to see Al Pacino on Broadway. Before the show we spotted him parallel park his car up to the theater to ‘report to work’.

“I've got a great job!” he mused as we all cheered.  

“At least I have a job!” he added as he segwayed into "Allentown", the song about factories closing down.

We left when intermission began, because my son was getting tired and it was too loud for him overall. We took a cab home and found my dad on the couch, on the mend, watching Young Frankenstein. Such a good Friday night!

Songs he did that night

Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway

Pressure

The Entertainer

Vienna

Zanzibar

Movin' out (Anthony's Song)

Guest showed up (the young rascals?) and played Good Lovin'

With a little bit of Rhapsody's Blues on the piano, turning it into New York State of Mind

Don't Ask Me Why

The Downeaster 'Alexa'

Sometimes a Fantasy

A little bit of Gloria in Excelsis Deo turned into My Life

Allentown

She's Always a Woman

What a Wonderful World

The River of Dreams

surprise guest John Mellencamp showed up and sang Authority Song

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Scenes From an Italian Restaurant

Piano Man

(intermission)

Songs I wanted to hear as well which might have been done after intermission

Honesty

Just the Way You Are

A Matter of Trust

I Go To Extremes

This is The Time

Big Shot

Tell Her About It

Keepin the Faith

It's Still Rock n Roll To Me

An Innocent Man

(there might be more)

Blips That Take Forever

I made a quick detour from Mary Wilson’s autobiography so that I could start and finish “Postcards from the Edge”, which took about two days. My sister and I have seen the movie version so many times on TV but we recently went to see it on the big screen. After that, I felt it was finally time to get my hands on Carrie Fisher’s actual novel. Her humor and writing style remind me of Nora Ephron’s  “Heartburn”, another book I had to get after seeing the movie so many times. The book is very different from the film. It has less of the mother and way more of the drug clinic she had to check into and her fellow patients. So as I was reading it, memories of my own time in Holliswood’s adolescent unit started coming back.

Someone recently told me that the idea of marriage and kids seems good on some days but not on others. My response was a strange one. In my attempt to emphasize that married/kids life can in fact be a good one, and to acknowledge that stressful times isn't just reserved for parents, husbands, and wives,  I said something like, “well, even before I became married with kids I didn’t always have it easy.” I knew it was a weird way to put it even as I was sending the text, but I didn't know how else to say it.  Because even though now my life is intensely about bringing and keeping food on the table, responsible for the well-being of others in a more direct way, what I dealt with before was in a way, harder.

When I recall Holliswood there are certain things I remember more than others. I don't remember the psychiatrist much now anymore, except for his all-brown jacket, hair, mustache, and glasses. I remember being given the Inkblot Rorschach test but I no longer remember what the shapes looked like or what I said I thought they looked like. One night in the living room lounge, “The Breakfast Club” was playing, a film about five teenagers that came out when I was a child and now I was seeing it again as a teenager.

“Hey, that’s like us!” we said even though it was the difference of mid 80’s and early 90’s. We joked that their Saturday morning detention was a shorter version of us being confined to Holliswood. Years later I saw the movie “28 days”. I've been wanting to see it again if just to see more films about people having to check into places like that against their will but getting better in the process; kind of like coming of age. I guess “Girl, Interrupted” is another example of this.

I remember in the mornings our group had to state our feelings in one word, and if the word we chose to say was less than positive, we were to explain and justify on why.  I don't think we always told the truth on that though.

I remember the ambulance taking me from St. John’s Hospital to Holliswood, catching a view of raindrops pounding against the rear window, moving along the highway, a day that I would've normally been in school or cutting it, reasoning with myself, “in a way, this is good, at least now my problem is in the light and is going to be dealt with, it’s no longer a secret”.

Tonight I learned my dad held a big ugly secret about what happened to him as a child, and kept it to himself for more than fifty years, not even revealed in his tell-all autobiography. It was something that was dragged out of him over the phone from his sister this weekend. If it weren’t for that call, he still would've kept it inside. And aside from writing, I imagine all the smoking, drinking, and getting high has been the various toxic ways he’s been able to cope.

When I took the Writing Our Lives workshop a couple years ago, the one where I met Jennifer, who encouraged me to start this blog in the first place, I remember assuring Vanessa, head of the workshop, that my flashbacks don’t surprise or pain me much because I’m so used to their attacks. I like to think that that’s mostly true but my time in Holliswood and what led me there is hard to dig into. But so far in this blog, a blog that started out with no particular aim, seems to dance around this central theme; my will to live and move on, times when I wanted to die, and others who feel low enough to want the same. I feel my inner voice tugging at me saying. “Go ahead, write what you want, be as varied as you like, but it’s gonna come back to when you took the most drastic measures to end your life. Until you write more of that, you can’t move on.”

Even though my time in Holliswood was brief (about 28 days actually), what caused me to end up there in the first place is a lot for me to look into. Like with my dad; the actual incident was a blip on the radar, but the effects it had were long-lasting.

I remember wanting out of Holliswood, wanting to feel good, be good and embrace life instead of skirting it.  I see these memories are gonna come back. Well, I'm here to make sense of them and gain all the insight, to have more fuel for my children when they go through their own tumult and pain. Because life gives us those things no matter where we’re from. But there are also ways to heal, and overcome, and thrive. And here I am, making room for all this.

When You're Included

I don’t write fiction but writing too much about my life and the people in it is something I don’t like going overboard on either. Naming names makes me cringe. They didn’t ask to be a part of this, this is my story! But I can’t exactly write my stories without including others.

Recently, I had a bad brush with Junior, one of my cousins (well a cousin of my dad’s, who has about 40 of them, at least). In an agitated huff, I started writing a little about my father’s family, trying to sort things out and become more objective, analytical. A lot of them have this old school Bronx-Brooklyn swagger to them, (since that’s where most of them grew up, so… yeah), armed with wiseguy mouths like my dad’s Uncle Wito, who has been compared to Leo Gorcey characters. During one of our (many) big family gatherings when I was little, he made some “crack” at me, causing me to run away, up the pea soup green, carpeted stairs in embarrassed tears. He tried making up for it by cracking more jokes at his expense which caused others around him to laugh. I can’t remember what it was he said exactly, I only remember the crying and running away part on my part. Feeling put down and defenseless because I absolutely had no worthy comeback. No shield, no weapon, no self-deprecating sense of humor. I mean, I was really young, definitely an age you can count with your hand and maybe the other one as well. So since then, I would emotionally prep myself when getting together with that side of the family. These get togethers were always full of loud, outgoing men and women, sharing a passion for recreating entertaining stories for everyone and spewing trivia (usually about movies and singers. And certain sports). Nuyorican Spanglish terms got thrown around here and there as opposed to my mom’s family, whose full fledged Dominican Spanish often went over my head as a child. Eventually with the help of school, friends, boyfriends, and songs, I started grabbing those words from “above” and pulling them down so that I too, could understand, and contribute.

Back to my dad’s side; the wisecracking, lively storytelling Nuyoricans. Junior was always kind, funny, and charming towards me. Once I noticed that my great-grandmother Tita, our matriarch, was talking about how she stored her leftovers. It was all in Spanish and she spoke about it for a long time. I gave Junior a "wow!" look about it, and he understood. He smiled, shrugged, and said "we're Puerto Rican, we always talk about food!" He took part in Tita's food conversation as well as poking fun at it. Whenever a salsa number came on in a family wedding, he'd always ask me for one dance; he who used to see Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri and Fania All Stars type performers live, back in the day, dancing with me before I really, truly learned the basic steps to salsa.

“I don’t know what I’m doing!” I’d joke on the dance floor, moving in time with the music best I could.

“You’re doing just fine” he’d reassure.

Afterwards he would kiss my hand like a gentleman as his thank you, as if he were taught that that is how you treat a lady, any lady. That was one thing I was able to count on in a wedding until he felt too old and weak to dance anymore.

One of our uncles, my great uncle Raymond, has lung cancer and it’s spreading.  So my Titi Janis reached out to a lot of us on facebook to schedule a big conference call in order to plan out our care-giving strategy. Thanks to my faulty cell phone keypad, I misdialed the conference call code by one number. Distracted by my daughter at the time, I realized the mistake about 20 minutes later. I called again, this time paying attention to my screen, ensuring that the correct numbers would appear. I entered the call late, announced my name as the automated voice instructed me to do, but I don’t think I was heard because Junior was talking, informing everyone of what was required and finding out who would be able to help out with what. When the floor was open for questions or feedback, I asked for a recap. Junior asked me who I was and snapped at me for joining in so late. When I tried to explain myself, he didn’t want to hear it and completely talked over me. He then started to act condescending by telling me something we all already knew, “OK you wanna recap? Here’s the thing. Uncle Raymond has lung cancer”, emphasizing the term so that even a late, inconsiderate dimwit like myself could understand. Void of his sweet humor I’ve always counted on, I was besides myself helpless, wounded. I defended myself to no avail. Then I sucked it in, aware not to make this all about me when we were trying to help Uncle Raymond. One of Uncle Wito’s daughters, cousin Alli, stepped in, answering my initial question for my sake, probably taking pity on me and shedding some mercy my way. I called Titi Janis later that night crying. She listened and empathized. She let me know that he was actually late for the call too and explained that he was under a lot of stress having Uncle Raymond move in with them. She said that he indeed has this side to him that’s off putting and has even put her in tears once too, recently. I wanted to know what it was he said but I didn’t want to be a bochinche nor take the focus away from my hurt. I didn’t want to turn this phone call into a “Let’s trash Junior tonight” session either. So after the phone call I wrote Junior a cordial facebook message and gave him my contact info so that I can be included in the care-giving schedule. A few minutes later he called and apologized and we had a brief heart to heart.

In a weird way I'm glad he lashed out and exhibited this side directly to me. Not that I like abuse nor am I a glutton for punishment but it was a wake-up call or reality check that if anything, emphasized that I am family and not a stranger to only be polite to. He unveiled a mask with me and bared his stressed out, rude side. And then I got to understand and forgive. What I take away from this is that inclusion familial, real love inclusion, is so vital in our day to day. And well-being.

With Quick Tears Like That

October 18, 2016

I’ve seen Sam from time to time in my train station, sitting on the ground. Next to him is a sign that describes his battle with depression. I decided to talk to him today coming home from work. He was smiling, deep in his bliss when I said hi to him.

I didn’t watch the show “Charmed” but there was one episode I did tune into where one of the characters (Piper? Prue?) had the power to feel everyone’s pain around her, empath‐style. Eventually the power increased; she was able to feel more people’s pain and it was too much for one head, heart, and soul to take on. Sam takes meds for his depression, but he’ll still take on all this pain. He doesn’t even know me or my mom but it moved him to tears when I told him that she died and how long it’s been. I felt as though I were inflicting pain upon him when all I really wanted to do was share and confide. His tears flow with the freedom that more confined and conformed folks don’t allow themselves to do.

I invited him to my church but people already invited him there, as he has the little invite cards at his side, along with other keepsakes. And he has a home. His dog Gigi recently passed away and so he has contempt for money grubbing veterinarians. I think of my Titi Janis who always seems to have a cat recovering from surgery. Sam is clean and coherent, and pretty friendly. I wanted to tell him that I know the pain of depression. But I didn’t bring up that memory of me carving the words “I will hurt myself” under that weird table next to my bed, a table I made out of an old wooden closet door. With a permanent black marker I would draw recurring art patterns (a fugue?) underneath and then that phrase which was directed to no one. Or maybe it was to myself, to a god, to my state of mind. It could have been a cry for help or warning to myself (or to someone or something), saying that if I keep this up, whatever this is, that I will eventually try to kill myself again. I didn’t go into any of that with Sam in the breezy train station with the after 5:00pm crowd passing us. I just said to him that he’s not alone. And he knew it. He said many people are very nice to him and Gigi always helped him ward off the police. He just hangs out there from time to time to keep from going insane. I would too as a teenager, mostly cutting school.

I went home that night thinking “Nah man, with quick tears like that? You need a tougher core if you’re going to survive!” Earlier that day the receptionist at my job was telling me about all the rude callers who phone and give her a hard time and I was saying that it happens with me too and that we just gotta be above it and distance ourselves from that. When Sam told me his name, he joked that it was like “Sam the Man” and I made him laugh by saying, “or like Uncle Sam!” Isn’t it funny how silly little jokes, if you even want to call it that, more like silly dialogue, can make even the most melancholy, pain‐ridden individual smile and laugh good‐naturedly?

He called out a thank you as I left and told me to get home safe.

“I WANT LIFE!” The Comfort of the Black Sex Pistols Shirt

I was recently thinking about writing back here‐ in the gym one night, ear buds tuned to Tom Wilson podcasts and Pandora radio stations. 'I got to write something on my blog again', I said to myself and had little ideas drop here and there. But here is something I wrote last year that I now feel ready to share. It was mainly for myself and one of my cousins. I feel like posting it today because this morning I went for oral surgery‐ Got my #31 tooth taken out. Joe expressed his pure disdain for stuff like that, to have the human body mangled, distorted, or any body part removed in any way. I shrugged it off more and said that  I was glad to get rid of something that was unfortunately, infected and decaying in my mouth. This essay quotes and tips its (or my?) hat to John Lydon and his life‐affirming sentiments; and oddly enough, briefly mentions my annoying tooth problem in a line towards the end.

“I WANT LIFE!” The Comfort of the Black Sex Pistols Shirt

"I don’t care if both legs fall off and there’s only one eyeball left and I’m on a stomach pump and a colostomy bag, I want life!" -John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols

I am not punk. I like its back to basic approach, its energy, the DIY of it, but it is not me in style. I’ve never been true punk, mall punk, goth punk, NY punk, skater punk, steampunk... I am none of these punks. My hair was never spiked, mohawked, nor colored in anything more outrageous than auburn highlights, though one time the auburn unintentionally turned a bright yellow. I was born the year “Never Mind the Bollocks…” album debuted and I am not a Sex Pistols fan per se.

But I saw “The Filth and the Fury” fifteen years ago at the Film Forum, by myself, as I sometimes do. Lydon struck me as highly intelligent and individualistic. And a goofball. Any of his interviews I came across online rubbed off on me in a good way. I saw what he was saying in this documentary where he really got to speak his truth and not walk out on interviews he felt were shoite or bollocks, as I've seen him do on YouTube.  

In the spring of '93, I got to go to my high school trip to London for one week. The first AbFab episode played in the airplane as well as jokes about “styewpid Americans”. I bought a Sex Pistols shirt there. It was black, long sleeved, and made of comfortable cotton. It had the words “sex” on one sleeve and “pistols” on the other. Splashes of colors throughout with a black and white photo of a shirtless Johnny Rotten in the middle, prominent, dominant, sensitive almost serene eyes. Maybe he was high, maybe not.

This shirt wasn’t a sexy, ripped Tee, there were no curse words, it didn’t glorify Sid and Nancy’s romance. Johnny Rotten's not screaming into the mic or giving anyone the finger. I'm trying to find the shirt on Google Images now, and I’ll know it when I see it. Sex Pistol onesies and bibs are up for sale, and it matches what Lydon once said about what “punk music” has become- it is not a revolution anymore, it is a label sectioned off in a music bin now. Dozens of other Sex Pistol shirt pictures come up, but not mine. If it did, I would tremble eureka inside. My early adolescence would tumble right back at the sight of it and I would be sure to click, save and file that image for posterity. I didn’t wear this shirt in a scene, or as a statement. It actually ended up as my pajamas. Just like the other shirt I bought in London, a Bob Marley one, another icon's music I didn’t really listen to until years later. It said Trenchtown Rock, and reds,  yellows, and greens were plastered throughout and a black and white picture of Marley with short dreads.

(Found this pic in 2019, years after posting this. I believe this was taken in Greenwich Village)

“Cool shirt! I haven’t seen that one before!” a guy told me one afternoon downtown as we passed each other by.

“It’s from London!” I happily called out.

My trip to London is one I will always cherish. But I possessed a kind of rescue syndrome then because of the church I became involved with for two years. I went there thinking I was going to get one of my fellow schoolmates closer to God, to teen Bible studies, to an early Sunday morning service in the Jacob Javitz Convention Center. I was encouraged by my mentors to make good. Instead, London blew me away, lathered me with loveliness and humbled me. And “tempted me”. None of my church crew around. The Piccadilly Circus, King’s Rd, Stratford-Upon-Avon, the British accents, the London Underground, the other HS group traveling with us from Pennsylvania, the boys who liked us, the boy whom I liked- my secret crush who never told me anything before, slightly buzzed, declaring, “Now those are LEGS!”

Dennis, a pretentious, young method actor, reducing himself to common lust after my pantyhose legs as they sat across from him in the lobby. My church kept me from flirting back. I would have otherwise. It might have been a clumsy flirt on my part but I would’ve tried.  I got to see everyone around me not as people needing to be saved, not in the slightest. I tapped into my agnostic self more, admitting that I really don’t know what is going on up there beyond the clouds or knowing which entity is really in charge… and that being… ok? And then in one week it was over. It was time to fly back to NYC. Back to the folks whom I allowed to shape my thinking and convictions.

Back home I came across a magazine article from “Sassy”. It was a story of a young woman who escaped “a cult”. The cult sounded an awful lot like my church. Its name wasn’t revealed but I saw connections:

“They even walked the same!”

“Anyone else outside the church was going to hell and needed us to save them”.

It all came to a head.

In the bathroom one emotionally desperate night, looking into the mirror before me, weighing it out, talking to myself. My inner conflict was killing me. My high school feelings of alienation were eating me up alive. It truly was enough to want out. A thrilling relief washed over me as I came to the decision to meet God in person myself, on my own terms, in my own time. (Praying advocates getting closer to God and I took that to the premature hilt) In that bathroom, with the living room TV blaring in the background, the conclusion to leave this world for good was being made. This was premeditated but still improvised. Instead of taking the time to pick out the perfect substances, I was anxiously winging it looking for things that were already within my reach, checking the labels for the “Poisonous if Ingested” warning. I came up with our brown hydrogen peroxide bottle and the bottle of Tylenol.

It wasn't until I downed them both and made my way to my bed did I start having second thoughts. Running to my mommy down the hall, rousing her out of bed. Full, fearful confession of what I had just done and to please help. She cried when she had to report my age to the emergency room nurses- a tearful and sobbing, "fifteen!" which pains me to this day. After ridding the poisons out of my body by drinking a kind of volcanic ash, which served as a  kind of stomach pump without the pump, I was admitted into their adolescent unit in Holliswood until they felt I was better. I was there for one month, from April to May, just before my sixteenth birthday in June. Some of the kids were in and out of there for much longer. I often wore my Sex Pistols shirt there. I behaved, made friends, did well in their academic schooling system, and longed to get back out "on the outside", as we called it.

Tall, metalhead Howard tried to make out with me even though none of us were allowed to touch the other gender in any way, shape or form. “No P.C.! (physical contact)” was the rule, served with demerits if violated.

It didn’t stop me from playing with Mike’s hair when it was in its fresh, peach fuzz state. Ok so maybe I didn’t always behave.

I sang R&B with Savitra who was from Jamaica Estates. Mary J. Blige, SWV, Xscape. She swore we should try to get signed once we got on the outside. We became tight, but one day at the gym she was upset about something, throwing her tough girl weight around to everyone, ready to fight me as we got eye to eye and toe to toe. She backed out when she saw that I didn’t flinch.

"Oh my God, I have soooo much respect for you right now!" Erica, a sweet Jewish tie dyed, feather earring, hippie teen from Long Island told me after Savitra stormed out.

We patched things up soon after that, but in her goodbye letter to me she wrote at the end, "I’m gonna miss you, girl. And don't take this the wrong way, but you’re a real bitch sometimes". The thing is, Savitra was way louder and volatile than I ever was. Did she intuitively sense something in me, an IDGAF (I don’t give a f-) kind of ice at my core? Am I really so cold inside? Or was it a twisted compliment?

I played a lot of ping pong with Kerry, a big Ramones fan who also loved acting and old Broadway shows like I did. She signed her goodbye letter to me as “the Cecily to my Gwendolyn” or the other way around. Cecily and Gwendolyn make up the “coo-coo” Pigeon sisters from Neil Simon's play, “The Odd Couple”- a scene I was later assigned to do with Zakiyyah in what was either my sophomore or junior year in high school.

Anorexic, bulimic, cutter Sherry, a devout Karen Carpenter fan, laughed at my religious experiences. I shrugged and laughed along too… sure, I guess it is funny to be so young and choose Jesus on your own, I understood. She was often self destructive so to see her laugh about something even at my expense was fine by me, it was nice to see her smile. She would joke about it in her letters; “Talk to you later Tennille and remember, Jesus loves you but he hates ME- Hahaha!”

Makeda was a severely traumatized girl, practically catatonic, from the South Bronx who bounced around foster homes. Her goodbye letter advised me to “stay strong -n- sweet”. I always try to.

When I was released from the adolescent unit, mom felt it'd be good to send me to the Dominican Republic with my grandparents for the summer like she used to do. They live in Los Jardines, Santiago de los Caballeros or simply, "Santiago".  I wore my Sex Pistols shirt for my new passport picture.

“Wow honey, you almost look black here!” Mom delighted.

I rolled my eyes at this but I saw what she meant.  Under that lighting, with my thick, dark hair pulled back, my make-up, hoop earrings and solemn expression, I did resemble a very light skinned black or biracial teen.

One night in Santiago, I was getting ready for bed wearing my Bob Marley shirt. My great-grandmother Mama Miminga came over to say good night. She noticed what I was wearing.

"Y ese tipo, Tennille. ¿De quién es?" she cheerfully asked.

"Bob Marley", I replied.

"¿Y de dónde es?"

"Jamaica."

This made her laugh.

Being a Sábana Iglesia serrana, Miminga probably looked down on los negros y prietos. I bet she also looked down on his “pelo malo” dreads, even though they were much shorter than how we all usually see him in pictures or videos. I didn’t like her laughing at a man who sang such beautiful, poignant songs throughout his short life. Maybe she was just laughing at my accent and pronunciations (Juh-MAYY-ca vs. the Spanish Ha-mEYE-ca). Either way I went to bed with a confused and resentful taste in my mouth.

When my father’s best friend Raymond Colonese came to visit me in the hospital, he gave me Alan Watts' "The Book- On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are". Reading this was like being mentally jolted by a defibrillator of some kind.

"Clear!"

I poured over it while in the Dominican Republic. I also listened to Ella Fitzgerald’s 1958 rendition of “St. Louis Blues” there, to Buddy Holly’s "Rave On”. I was being given another go at life.

I never tried to do away with myself since. I’m raising my 2 children now, have had my share of interesting jobs, romances, and travels. I’ve gotten my degree in higher education, I’m getting to see my little sister grow and kick ass. I still have my depression and anxieties. Therapy, yoga, and meditation help. So does writing. And art. And movies, And chocolate. I’m open to my children’s inevitable religious, spiritual or secular views. I respect agnosticism and atheism but I still pray. I seek out the things that my children would love to be a part of, and what I would love to be part of. I scan my phone to find this month’s poetry and reading events waiting for something to truly jump out at me. A few things do, but then I hit the jackpot because it seems as though John Lydon will be at the Strand bookstore later this month, plugging his new book.  Will he impart any wisdom or inspiration to me if I attend? Maybe, maybe not.

But like him, I am choosing life, just like he has declared, time and time again. I found another one of his quotes online recently. ”If my leg falls off, I'll get a prosthetic. There'd be no deep sadness about it. I'd just get on with it! It's called life, and I love life. You have to be positive, and you have to crack on no matter what.” Yes.  Hell yes to all of that. Crack on! And so despite my own weak hip, rotting teeth in the back, poor vision, and a kind of borderline PTSD, I’m choosing life. And wanting it. And sure, I'll still have deep sadness every now and then, as well as anger, confusion, frustration and even apathy. But there is always something going on to really love and take part in life- and even in the depths of my despair, I find that to be true.
*********
And here was the event I attended in the Strand bookstore for his book, "Anger Is An Energy". He signed my copy, we shook hands, and I said with a smile, "Thanks so much!" meaning thanks for signing the copy and thanks for being yourself and for loving life. He replied with, "Peace... peace... thanks for being so nice." And we had a moment. Or maybe I just had that moment. Whatever :)

https://youtu.be/0tIbDe612W8

Shortly after the book signing, on my way home, head in the clouds.

Calm That Down- does writing help?

Something I wrote last May... about writing and what it means to me. I don't always have these feelings for writing though. Lately I've been craving stability, thirsty for it, about finding God, in different ways. Sometimes when I wrote I felt like I was writing to him, or just explaining the sources of my anxieties, putting them into perspective... backing up and filling in what I couldn't in 'real time'. But lately I have been wanting to use different outlets for that- talking it out, praying, reading, being more in the moment. I don't think that's running away. Maybe that is stepping aside from the writing form or craft, but I'm not running away from myself or my life. What I wrote last May however, begs to differ with that. It declares that I am merely piling things up inside when I don't write for a long time. So now therein lies the conflict- within myself. And how I agree and disagree with myself. The exhaustion of Gemini-ing!

5-19-15

(in reference to the film Babadook) “...and in a way, that’s like writing. You’re always scared. You face your blank paper, you just tackle the beast and then you’re a beast and then everything’s great. I don’t know if I have too much fear when I write. I have anticipation, I’m glad to try to get it all down, I know coming out the other side is gonna be good. I might be pained a little bit, I might feel hurt as I write about it but I don’t think I feel fear. I don’t know if that means I’m not reaching as far as I can yet, or have I really learned to grapple fear throughout everything else? I think I’m scared when I don’t write for too long, because it’s all piling up inside me, so maybe I know well the consequences of not writing so I am okay in front of a blank screen or the blank page because I’m glad that I am actually in front of the blank page and now I’m going to make it 'not blank' anymore, I know I’m one step away from filling it up. And I know that after I fill it up, it’s gonna make, things are gonna make, more sense. and it’s gonna feel more manageable. I think Vanessa says she writes for power or for her voice? I do that too a little bit, I definitely do it for my voice but I think self-control is the thing that I’m after more. I can put my trauma down on paper or my insecurities, if that makes sense. Then I have control over my story. And my story doesn’t attack me from out of nowhere. I don’t get the random flashbacks that I used to get. And the memory doesn’t over take me like it used to. Writing helps me calm that down. I don’t need to be controlled by flashbacks. And meditating too. I can see a flashback on its way, coming at me, but I can pat it down, I can move it aside for later. I can minimize it just a tad, just for now, just so I can finish whatever it is that i’m doing whether I’m cooking, or at work, brushing my daughter’s teeth just doing, living my life, I can be like yeah oh ok, oh this horrible random flashback memory? ok guess what it’s not gonna cloak me, it’s not gonna envelope me, pull me down in the quicksand or ocean. It’s going to wait. It’s going to wait outside 'the principal’s office' for a little bit until I’m ready to deal with it and reconcile with it and explore it. On my terms. So to me, that is a form of power but it’s not power over anybody or anything, it’s just control of myself. Control/discipline that is the key.