In Hindsight

Well, I thought it over. A theme for a new blog, I mean. Here’s what’s been going on inside my head:

The theme of getting to know my long-lost father contained some interesting off-shoots that could potentially fuel their own blogs. But the wisdom of blogging about some of them is dubious.

I really had to walk on eggshells while blogging about my personal family issues. It is impossible to be completely honest without hurting feelings, egos and reputations. As a result I have stopped short of total honesty and at times indulged in some pretty cheesy flattery. I have not intentionally put forth any lies, but I worry that the omission of certain details may be misleading. I feel guilty about that.

For example, when I called my issues with my dad “average and boring”, what I didn’t mention was that “average” can sometimes include “hideously painful”. No one can hurt you like family. I was not out of town on May 15th as originally planned, and I did not call to wish my dad a happy anniversary. My conflict with him left me throwing up all night in Desiree’s bathroom. 

My blog might be over, but my struggle to form a father-daughter relationship as an adult is not. He and I are in some kind of process we don’t fully understand. The difficulty I keep encountering frequently leads me to the question, Can it even be done? I hesitate to draw any final conclusions. As I read over my words of the past year, I am shamed by how frequently I am wrong.

Then there is the issue of race, a subject about which the more I learn, the less I know. As a child I was only aware enough of racism to know that I should be careful about revealing my black heritage to just anyone. Children will use any weapon at their disposal. But since meeting my father I am only just now beginning to fathom the ferocity of this social disease. What marks would this have left on my psyche if I had known it as a child? 

But what was most shocking to me was not so much my discoveries about racism against blacks but about that which is felt by blacks. It was much like finding out that men have one thing on their mind. I feel naive to have gotten this far along in life without this information, but I am glad I did. One of the books I read this year was Having Our Say about the Delaney sisters, who, like myself, were of mixed heritage, but, unlike myself, were considered “colored”. One of them admitted she struggled not to hate white people her entire life. The fact that this is a feeling many black people share was unintentionally implied in Karna’s question to me after I visited a Jamaican braid shop to have my cornrows tightened, “Were they nice to you?”  

I have never entered an all-black establishment thinking, will they be nice to me? but I might start, feeling that on some subconscious level I am being blamed for slavery, Jim Crow laws and the KKK, which is as absurd as blaming my German husband for the Holocaust. But ”my dad is black”, surely less obnoxious than the “Some of my best friends-” line, somehow transforms me from a Them to an Us and therefore apparently absolves me of guilt.

I write this while feeling unsure of the wisdom of sharing information that I myself find disturbing and even more unsure of my qualifications to comment on such sensitive topics. I shouldn’t be running my mouth about things I don’t fully understand. 

Unfortunately, the subject I do know most about and that is dearest to my heart is the one I have tried carefully to avoid: religion. It comes up, naturally, because it is an integral part of my thinking and my chosen career, but I would be treading on sacred ground if I were to use this as a platform to preach. I cannot think of a more tasteless, more inappropriate, more nauseating product than a God blog. Except for maybe those new bumper stickers that say, “What would Jesus ‘tweet’?”

“In the abundance of words there does not fail to be transgression,” said wise King Solomon. Maybe I should just sign up for Twitter. How much trouble could I get into by answering “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less? Not much, I guess, as long as I have my trusty “WWJT?” bumper sticker.

That’s All, Folks!

My well of material on Newfound-Father Syndrome is drying up, and I don’t know about you, but frankly I am getting bored with the subject. 

Relationships are like shoes. The new ones are exciting and give you blisters but get more comfortable with age. Ever since my Oedipal complex wore off, Dad and I have been practicing getting on eachother’s nerves. We are astonishingly good at it, although it’s hard to stay mad at him when he ends our fights with “I love you”. It’s all very average and boring family angst. If you are waiting for something interesting to happen, believe me, no one wishes for the All-New Adventures of Slug and Spunky more than me! But as peace and quiet settle in, I am celebrating No More Drama.

This blog has served its intended purpose, which was to chronicle and process the whole experience of finding my dad. It has helped me face the series of sad realizations related to the permanence and irreversibility of the past. It kept my loved ones informed on where my head has been, and, if nothing else, provided entertainment for an assortment of strangers (You are welcome, “Miss Cheesecake n Stuff!”), but at this point I don’t have anything gripping or gut-wrenching to report. 

Fortunately for me and my fellow blog-addicts, life is endlessly painful and hilarious. There is plenty more to write about, I just don’t need to do it here.  As soon as I think of something interesting to say, I will be starting a new blog with a new name and a new theme. (I never felt much like a Creolebelle anyway, having grown up white and getting less belle every day that I get closer to forty.) I will be sure to post it whenever I get it up and running. 

I think we all go through life wondering what our story will be, the one that generations after us will tell, I mean. Mine is the crazy tale of finding my father 36 years too late. Will anything more interesting than that happen to me? I don’t know. It will be hard to top. But that’s my story, for now. Thanks for listening!

Happy Anniversary (Almost)

As we approach the one-year mark since I met my dad, an odd thing is happening to me. I expected to celebrate that day as the anniversary of a new beginning, but instead, every time I think about May 15th I am hit by a wave of sadness. The feeling that stands out to me about the past year is grief, not the Charlie Brown kind but the kind when somebody dies. I have been in mourning for my childhood, and one year is not long enough to complete this process. There is nothing magical about 365 days. Grief has its own arbitrary schedule. 

I keep reliving the six-hour drive to meet my father for the first time, sobbing inconsolably the whole way; how it felt to watch his shoulders shake with sobs as he looked through pictures of my childhood that he missed; the overwhelming jealousy and disbelief I felt when I thumbed through pictures of him throughout his life, singing with other people’s children and teaching them how to write songs. I am haunted by his tearful words, “It hurts so much.”

My sense of loss has put me through the seven stages of grief: the initial shock included shaking fits and insomnia. Refusing to face the fact that I can no longer be my father’s child and attempting to play that role anyway was the denial and bargaining stage. I had guilt that made me struggle to try to make things up to him somehow, anger at my mother and then at him, and of course depression. More recently I reached acceptance, which can be summed up in the words of my friend Julie, who said to me, “You were ripped off,” and then added, “But we all were.” And finally I reached hope, that we can still share a friendship as adults. 

I do not want to discount the fact that my childhood was just as much my father’s loss as mine.”My own little daughter,” he said to me one day with a contented smile. “What a nice present!”  A present, sure, but one that came with a tremendous amount of pain over the fact that I am no longer little.  It was simultaneously given and taken away. He entered my life too late to give me away at my wedding and must face that I will always belong to someone else. He is going through the grieving process as well, though he is not as loquacious about it as I am, and even I cannot say at what stage he now might be. 

Now that there is some distance in our relationship, we are grieving separately, and I am further saddened that he is doing that alone. Me, I have the comfort of God’s understanding. No one else can truly say, “I know how you feel.” That, more than anything, along with my music and my blog have helped me work through this; they keep me company, listen to and comfort me. But how is my dad managing?

Unfortunately, I will be out of the country during the month of May. I can’t be with him in person, but I will find a way to wish him a happy anniversary on May 15th. Of course, “happy” may not be the way either of us is feeling that day.

Science Lessons

So here’s the update on me and Dad:

While I was in Oakland he brought his girlfriend, Margaret, and had dinner at a restaurant with me and Cameron. This was huge. He and Cameron both hated to do it, but they were gracious about it. Cameron is used to doing unpleasant things for me, such as dancing. But I must say that I feel amazingly special to be able to get my dad to do something he didn’t want to do. As you may know, Bob Reid doesn’t do anything unless he wants to! 

Fortunately, Margaret kept the conversation lively. I knew she was a librarian, but when she said she had a master’s degree in library science, I almost snorted fettuccine up my nose.  And when she said she had dreamt of being a librarian since she was a little girl, well, Cameron almost kicked me under the table to unfreeze the smile on my face which I kept there while I tried to decide if she was being serious or not. (This same phenomenon happened to me once when I asked my cousin’s father-in-law what he does for a living. “I’m a rocket scientist,” was his answer, and he really is!) Cameron reprimanded me after dinner, claiming that I was mocking her, but that is not true. I was genuinely amused and fascinated, this being yet another world with which I am completely unacquainted. Not with libraries, of course, but with the concept that there is a whole library world out there, that Margaret is a VIP in that world, and that it is actually considered a science!  Does that make her a Library Scientist?

Anyway, that dinner changed everything. I feel free now to spend time with my dad without worrying about making Cameron feel bad. The following Wednesday we had our pictures taken together at the Santa Clara mall. (Apparently they are being used there as a display.) It marked another turning point in our relationship.

Since then we have been talking again, but not like before. I am a nervous wreck when I call him now. I talk too much, too fast, and about dumb things. He interjects with “Hmm” and “Uh-huh” to assure me that he is listening, but he is not talkative like before. We have lost that feeling of complete trust we had. Oh well. I guess we will just have to build trust in our relationship like normal people do, by getting to know eachother. 

One thing I do feel sure of now is of the permanence of our relationship. To assure him that I intend to keep it that way, I wrote this song for him. (If you happen to know this concept is not astronomically correct, please keep that to yourself. Ever heard of ‘poetic license’?)

THE NORTH STAR TO THE MOON

You are the moon

And I’m that one little star

Sometimes so near you, sometimes so far

Some nights you’re full and bright

Other nights I don’t know where you are

Every day is a little different

There are those who know which way the constellations flow

So unlike me, I can’t foresee where you and I will be tomorrow

Whenever you see the night sky

May it prove to be just like a letter from me

Reminding you of all the reasons why

No matter how far I go or where I hide

I won’t stray far from your side

Because you know that I’ll come back to you

Just like the north star to the moon 

Stay tuned for the iTunes release!

Going Home

I am looking forward to going home. During our in-between trips to Orange County, I feel a sense of relief not to be constantly aware of crime. Know who is around you, know your exit route, keep your purse close to your body, lock your car doors, etc, etc. It is exhausting! Just being in the hustle and bustle of a big city is stressful. I can’t wait to get back to my own, nice, safe, suburban neighborhood, a land flowing with milk and free parking spaces. There my ears ring from the quiet.

One day while doing volunteer work in Oakland, my friend and I approached a couple of young men who were practicing our new national pastime since the economic crisis, hanging out in front of someone’s house. When we started a conversation with them, one wandered away, uninterested, but the other stayed to talk.

“I’m just here to see my parole officer,” he insisted, against all the evidence pointing to the contrary. “I am twenty-one, and I am trying to go to school. I want to change my life.”

While my friend explained to him how he could do that and got his information so that she could arrange for someone to visit him, I watched as several times someone would come walking halfway up the block, spot us and then hide behind a tree, apparently waiting for us to leave. Customers, I thought. I hope this kid follows through on the help we offered, or else sooner or later, he is going straight back to jail. 

One of Karna’s students, a young mother, happens to live across the street from there. We went to see her yesterday, and she told us about her cousin, one of the guys who hangs out on that street, whom she had to kick out because he accused her of stealing his money while he was drunk. 

“I didn’t take his money!” she declared. ” I used to have a stealing problem, but I changed. If you pass out in front of those people over there,” she said, pointing across the street, “Of course they are gonna go through your pockets!”

We all laughed, then her phone rang. 

“Who could that be?” she wondered. “My husband is the only one who has this number, and he’s in prison.”

She picked it up, listened for a moment and then hung up.

“Yes, I know people are having trouble paying their mortgages,” she laughed. “But this is Section 8!”

A few days ago a couple of policemen approached me and my friend Brendra to ask if we had seen anything suspicious that day. The liquor store across the street had just been robbed.

“No,” we told them, “We haven’t seen anything.” Which was true.

“Well, be careful,” the police told us. “There are a lot of shootings on this corner.”

I wasn’t entirely comfortable being seen talking to the “po-po” in full view of the neighborhood. I trust that the vast majority of policemen are doing their best to prevent crime and to apprehend criminals, but stories of police brutality have made them unpopular even with honest citizens. Bullet-proof vests or not, the police themselves are in more danger than we are. (For some reason unknown to me, the Oakland police no longer carry the words “To Protect and to Serve” on the side of their cars. Karna and I joked that their new slogan might as well be “Oakland Police- Totally Unpredictable!”) 

As we walked away, Brenda nodded at the group of young men loitering next to the liquor store. 

“Those boys are hungry,” she said.

Her words fell heavy on my ears, heavier on my heart. 

“They can’t get a job,” she continued. “There is no food at home. What else are they going to do besides rob liquor stores and sell dope?”

My perspective suddenly changed. I live in a “good” neighborhood. My experience with the criminal element of society has been limited to what I’ve seen in the media. Whether in a movie or on the news, I have always been glad when the bad guy gets what’s coming to him. But seeing these people up close reminded me that these are human beings, not “bad guys”. They are people who did not necessarily create the situations they are in and can’t see the way out. And when they get ‘what’s coming to them’, they leave behind mothers and siblings and babies whose suffering grows exponentially.

I sat today eating lunch in one of the nice parts of town (they do exist!), listening to the conversation of the well-dressed, white ladies next to me. It was the familiar rhetoric of the middle class: second homes, Montessori schools. But Brendra’s words kept ringing in my ears: Those boys are hungry. 

I am not looking forward to going home.

A Letter to My Sweetheart

Now that she’s back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there’s time to change
Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star,
One without a permanent scar?
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

-from “Drops of Jupiter”" by Train

 

My dear, sweet Cameron,

          I’ve been away on a soul vacation. Finding my dad last May catapulted me into outer space, and I’ve been gone a long time.  I know you were scared that I wouldn’t come back to you at all, but you waited patiently anyway. You held my hand through this whole process, all the while knowing my head was somewhere else completely. I am grateful to you for giving me that freedom and for having the courage to stand up and fight to save me from drifting too far away. You have been fiercely loyal, and I am amazed to know that you love me that much.

          This has been a painful, exhilarating, miserable, fantastic year. It broadsided us, but the growth it provided was a necessary evil. We needed a good shaking. You have back, as you say, “the Old Rosie”, but at the same time, new and improved. I still have a few drops of Jupiter in my hair; I think they become me. Now that I’m back in the atmosphere, I love you more than ever. I am sorry this has been hard for you. And yes, I did miss you!

Eternally yours,

Rosie

My Declaration of Independence

I was filling out some paperwork recently that asked my race. With a smile for Grandma Betty, I happily checked every box, pausing for just a second before “Asian”, and then checked it anyway. American Indians came from Asia. There! I am officially everything.

Because of having darkish coloring with lightish features, I am asked “What are you?” more often, I’m sure,  than the average person. I always assumed that finding my biological father would make that question easier to answer, but in fact the opposite has happened. It turns out that my father too has always had trouble answering that question. 

It would make things a lot simpler if I could sum up my ethnicity in a single word. Sure, “Creole” sounds simple enough, but that doesn’t cover my mom’s side. My mother has blond hair and blue eyes, which she got from her father. My grandfather’s European roots were lost long ago in the complicated tangle of American history, but he managed to retain the information that he is 1/16th Choctaw Indian, which is enough for official membership in the tribe. Then there is my mother’s maternal history which has been traced to the Mahican Indians, but there was reportedly a Scotsman in there somewhere and a lot of Italian middle names no one can account for.

To try to identify some common history in this confusing conglomeration of ancestors,  I bought a book on genetics, Mapping Human History, but I quickly lost interest after a few outrageous assertions such as the following: “In any society, attractive individuals are unlikely to lack for suitors and therefore are more likely to have offspring.” What! Is this guy actually saying that pretty people have more kids? What planet is he on?! How could I possibly take anything else he said seriously after that? 

So then I picked up a book at the library called One Drop of Blood- the American Misadventure in Race. From my new, more believable book I learned that Americans, from the very beginning of U.S. history, divided their subjects into three tidy categories: white, Indian, and black. But then everybody messed up the whole system by interbreeding, which is how I wound up being the daughter of a “white Indian” and a “black Indian”.

That’s the polite version. In reality, the history of race in America is difficult to stomach. I was already familiar with the history of the Indian enslavement and holocaust, the white man’s wholesale slaughter of the land’s aboriginals. Let me tell you, I wasn’t too fond of Paleface after reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. But one of the shocking things I have now discovered is that my ancestors, the Choctaw and the Seminoles, were slaveowners. That’s right, not only were some American Indians enslaving the Europeans in the days before Independence, but when the Africans started arriving, the Indians jumped right on that bandwagon and became the proud owners of thousands of black slaves! This was up to and during the time that the Cherokee marched to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, and after they got established there, black slave labor became so valuable that stealing black people, whether free or slaves and especially children, became rampant in Oklahoma. So much for my pride in the Noble Savage! 

The history of every nation in regards to race is equally disgusting. Not even the black man is innocent, since we all know that Africans sold Africans into slavery. The white man, too, has been a victim of slavery in times past. (The word “slave” comes from “Slav” as in “Slavic”. My maiden name happens to be Czechoslovakian.) In ancient times, Mediterranean people felt both blacks and whites made appropriate slaves because they were either half-baked or overdone while they themselves had been toasted to perfection. And the tales of oppression go on and on and on. Black, brown, yellow, white, and red; they were all victims, all perpetrators. No one is innocent.

I have a newfound sense of being the descendant of a bunch of no-good, racist, murdering thieves and rapists. Seriously, I am now embarrassed to be a human being. How in the world could I take pride in anything having to do with race, knowing that race is a man-made idea invented with the aim of dominating other men? I am disowning the whole institution of race and declaring my independence. I will no longer check any box. I will find some other way of establishing my worth as a human being.

Minority Report

My new hairdo has achieved the desired effect in Oakland. I feel like I “blend in”, which was confirmed yesterday when a black man addressed me as “sister”. I have also been asked the exclusively black question, “Where are your people from?” When I answer “Louisiana and Virginia”, I find less satisfaction in their response “Mine, too” than in the realization that I have people!

The knowledge that I am the descendant of black slaves fills me with a certain pride that I can’t quite put my finger on. It goes against all logic. My forefathers a few generations ago probably did not feel the same way. Then again, they lived before hip-hop, Black History Month and Obama made blackness ultra-cool. For the first time I am beginning to understand the Afro-American thirst for anything pro-black; why there is BET but no WET, “Jet “ magazine but no “Milky”. I have often wondered if those things served only to deepen the racial divide by drawing attention to the color of black people’s skin , but now I can see how things that are pro-black can contribute to healthy self-esteem by showcasing the beauty of ethnicity. White people don’t need that kind of promotion. They  do not know what it is like to live with a racial stigma. I certainly didn’t.

This weekend I am back in Orange County and for the first time here am sporting my new look. (Like a coward, last weekend I hid my hair with a scarf. No one wears corn rows in “the O.C.”) I went out last night to pick up some groceries. As I walked into the store where the very un-funky Herman’s Hermits were playing on the PA system, I became conscious of people looking at me a little longer than necessary, and they were not the lascivious stares of men. I was suddenly and painfully aware of being a minority. A group of white teenage boys walked in, and my mind flashed back to a Halloween night years ago when a mob of boys from the local high school ran amuck in their ritzy gated community, pulled people from their cars and beat them to a pulp just for fun. I shouldn’t be out by myself at night, I thought to myself.

It has often been a subject of hot debate if the fear of racism is simply paranoia. I admit that I have been skeptical when my black friends have claimed they were turned down from a job ‘because they were black’ or excluded from certain circles for that reason. There have been black electricians that work for Cameron’s company that would refuse work in Orange County ‘because of the racism there’. They didn’t even like driving through Orange County because of getting ‘dirty looks’ on the freeway. Whether their suspicions are warranted or not doesn’t matter. It is terrible to live with the knowledge that there are people out there who are racist, and since it is impossible to identify who or where they are, it always in the back of one’s mind.

At lunch with Karna in Berkeley the other day I related a story in which my nephew was laughing about being “white trash”. Karna nervously glanced over her shoulder at a couple of white men sitting near us, as if checking to see if they had heard me use the “W” word. I suddenly had the sensation of being caught between two worlds. I realized that, just as white people ought not use a certain other word, I had better watch my mouth!

I am beginning to understand Grandma Betty’s relief that I have not had to bear the burden of ‘wearing my skin’. I am now choosing to do so and, while having the time of my life, I am also discovering certain awful realities of it. As long as I am in Oakland where whites are outnumbered, I feel safe and comfortable with my color. But wherever else I go, I have this uncomfortable consciousness of the color of people’s skin. I find myself questioning people’s motives unnecessarily. The looks in the grocery store could have been simple curiosity, even admiration, but the knowledge that they could also have been accompanied by feelings of disdain filled me with unfathomable sadness, not for myself, but for my fellow humans of color who have to live with these thoughts day in and day out. In the end I will be able to ‘take off my skin’, pull out my corn rows and go back to blending with my white community. Others do not have that luxury. They live a lifetime with the demon of racism lurking just around the corner.

I write this now with a lump in my throat and the tune in my head, “What the world needs now, is love, sweet love…” I look forward to the day when all humans will learn to see ourselves like different kinds of flowers, all different, but all flowers nonetheless. Really, we could all answer the question “Where are your people from?” with “Same place as yours. Earth.”

What I Do

It’s Week Four of Spunky’s Adventures in Oakland, and I am starting to get the hang of it here. “Be scared, but don’t be terrified” is my new motto, and I’m not talking about the Rottweilers and pitbulls that are indigenous to the area. My friends here are teaching me how to identify and avoid areas where there is a lot of what they pleasantly refer to as “activity” (crime) and “conducting business” (dealing drugs). When I go door to door with the congregation, we keep an eye on eachother. Those who are familiar with the area can often sense if the situation is dangerous and know when to leave.

Our best protection, though, is the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. We give a friendly nod to the gang members as we walk by them on the sidewalk. “How ya doin’, hon?” the older sisters smile and say. “Can I offer you somethin’ to read?” They stop and listen respectfully to what we have to say. Life has not been kind to these people. Because they appreciate being treated with dignity and respect, they look out for us. “You best get outa here,” they warn us when something bad is about to go down. In the entire history of the Oakland congregation, no one has ever been hurt doing this work.

But I am not naive. I am not relying on angels to swoop me out of harm’s way if I should cross it. The dirty hypodermic needles lying in the gutters are a reminder that anything can happen. So, you may ask, ‘Is it really worth risking your life to do what you do?’

Absolutely! To see the hopelessness in so many eyes, to meet so many people “in the middle of a crisis”, to see young men unemployed and without a purpose in life is heartbreaking. It is rewarding to give them hope and purpose.

It’s not so different from where I live. Seriously. There is a ridiculous reality show on TV called “The Real Housewives of Orange County” that happens to be about a community to which my home congregation is assigned. I occasionally watch it, which I refer to as “research”. At first glance it appears the women on the show are alien mutants to whom the average person could never relate. But if you really pay attention, you will begin to see that underneath the bling these women are usually depressed and aimless, their families are a mess, their kids are out of control. I see them firsthand, and believe me, their lives are not glamorous. Behind their fake tans and Botox are stories of drugs, alcohol abuse and sometimes prostitution. It’s tragic, and they need as much help as anyone else, whether they realize it or not.

And that is what I do, along with seven million other volunteers worldwide. I have knocked on doors in many lands; the people and problems are the same. When we find people who respond to the message and change their way of life, we then work side by side with them to help others learn that they can do it too.

Like one of my new Oakland friends, whom I shall call ‘Willie’. He is a big man who looks like he would snap you in two if you crossed him. He talks about his old life selling drugs and doing time and how studying the Bible changed him.

“I am only two years old,” he says, meaning that he ‘died’ to his former way of life and began a new one two years ago. “You Witnesses really know how to work on a person,” he says. “You saved my life!”

He says “you”, but he is now one of us. He volunteers his time in the same neighborhoods where he was once feared.

I was with him when we visited a woman who told us, “Maybe some other time” and closed the door.

“She just took a hit of crack,” Willie told me.

“How can you tell?”

“Did you see the way she was grinding her teeth with her jaw to one side?And if they rock forward on one foot, that’s heroin. I know the signs.”

He also knows that, like himself, people can and do change. But it was a difficult transition, he says.

“I have to stop myself from ‘going wolf’ on ‘em sometimes, ’cause now they think I’m a lamb. One time I found a bag of heroin in my yard someone tried to hide there. I held it up and said, ‘Whose dope is this?’ Nobody wanted to claim it, so I said, “I’m gonna leave this on the sidewalk, go back in my house and shut the blinds. Whosever it is bettah git it off my prop’ty, and if I evah find dope in my yard agin, I’m gonna confiscate it and you’re gonna see me put it in the hands of the poh-leece!’”

He may be the gentlest person you will ever meet, but he has the courage of a lion. He is no weak little lamb!

We finished for the day, and he waved at me as he got in the car to drive away.

“Goodbye, family!” he calls with a smile to melt the heart.

Sure, it’s not the O.C., but the people here are beautiful. I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said, “I Love Oakland”. I wonder where I can get one.

Ghetto-fied

Well, in Karna’s words, I am “officially ghetto”, partly because of my new hairdo, and partly because I have agreed to preserve her masterpiece by wrapping my head in a ‘do-rag’ before going to bed.

It took three full hours to braid 27 corn rows on the front half of my head. It’s a good thing I have a tough head because it is a painful procedure. My eyes teared up a time or two. Karna’s practiced hands were a blur as she worked, and she doesn’t skip a beat when her phone rings.

“Shell!” she answers with the phone tucked between her neck and shoulder. “Shelley-boo! I LOVE you! How ya doin’, girl?”

I purse my lips to hide a smile. She doesn’t know how cute she is, nor how amused I am at her culture. 

Karna does not live in “the hood,” nor is she “ghetto”. Well, OK, maybe a little.  She works out of her apartment which is tastefully decorated in rich colors and gorgeous, original paintings. She loves black art and English literature, and while she worked on my hair we discussed Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.  (I am NOT making this up!) She was the kind of kid who used to ditch school to go to the library and read. ”I love a good story,” she says.

Well, she is in luck, because I have a story! I read her my blog off my PDA while she worked. She had to hear the whole thing.

After I left Karna’s, I raced back to meet Grandma at our hotel for dinner, and I pulled into the parking garage while I showed her where to park.

The maintenance manager came out and scowled at me.

“You can’t park here!” he barked.

I was confused. The hotel staff here is always sweet to me. The place is nearly empty, so they know every guest. It’s like Cheers, where everybody knows your name. 

“This is my grandma,” I told him. “Is it ok if she takes my spot?”

He softened.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said. He waved for me to park in front of the hotel. “You can take my spot.”

It suddenly occurred to me that he hadn’t recognized me with my new ‘do’, and I wondered, Was he rude because he thought I was black? Do black people wonder this a lot?

Grandma didn’t even blink when she saw my hair. She hadn’t read my last blog post, so I felt the need to explain.

“I am experimenting with a new look,” I told her.

She is all for experimentation.  Cool. 

While we ate in the restaurant I kept catching the hotel staff peeking at me around the corner. The waitress didn’t recognize me and was embarrassed when I had to remind her of my room number. 

It is going to take some time for people to get used to this, including Cameron. I wish I had taken a picture of his face when I opened the door.

“When I left you were Shakira, but I came back to Chaka Khan,” he laughed. “I love it!”

It’s a blessing to be married to an open-minded man.

My plan to confuse people with my ambiguous new look appears to be working. The Asian lady who took my ticket at the parking garage today said to me as I pulled away, “Mucho gracias.”  Hmm. That wasn’t the reaction I was looking for, but I am satisfied that she didn’t think I was white.  The most surprising reaction of all, however, has been what not one, not two, but three people have said to me: “You look darker.” I’m not, of course. After all, before I became a light-skinned black person, I was a dark-skinned white person. Apparently my hair is creating an optical illusion.

I went to the mall and got my ears double-pierced with little gold balls. (This is not a new look for me; it is actually the third time I have had this done, but the first two times I let the holes close because I am far too lazy to pick out and install four earrings per day.) The girl who did it said that I look “half black”. I got the same comment the next day. I suppose it is accurate to say that I qualify as such. My daddy is a light-skinned black man, though with him it is also a question of hairstyle.

See for yourself:

What color is this man?

So far, though, this is going better than expected. My friends in Orange County loved the new ‘do’,  my husband loves it, and personally, I love it. I feel like Queen Nefertiti, beautiful and regal and exotic. Maybe that is all in my mind, in which case I am truly blessed to have the gift of an active imagination. I even like the look of the do-rag (although when a white person wears one, there is a fine line between ‘ghetto-fabulous’ and ‘cancer patient’.) I may make this a permanent part of my hairdo repertoire. 

The experiment continues. I will keep you posted on any new developments, but for now, let me conclude by giving a shout out to my boo and to all my homies in the hood! Holla back, y’all!