Sunday, April 21, 2024

rich people are people too

 

                                                      Graphic montage of global economics

                                                                  (c) Ikon Ikon Images        


One weekend, Dee and I met for cocktails at Vesuvio's in North Beach. A historic San Francisco bar built in 1913, Vesuvio's is a funky place with a long wooden bar and walls adorned with photos of famous San Franciscans and a collection of Gold Coast ephemera.

Dee and I were chopping it up, reminiscing about friends and waxing philosophical about relationships. Dee had become disillusioned with dating, one clown after another, she said. She started to weep and I took her hand. Like most women of our generation, she was reacting to to the stress of expectation, rooted in tradition, that we were raised to want and become - wives and mothers.

" It's okay, Dee." I said. "The most important relationship you have is one with yourself."

An older white lady seated with several people nearby overheard us and invited us to join them for a round.

" I'm Barbara." She said, kindly. "This is my husband Richard, Ahmed, and Matthias. Ahmed is from Iran and Matthias just moved here from Germany."

 "Nice to meet you." Dee said. "I'm Dimitria, but everyone calls me Dee. This is Lisa. How did you all end up at Vesuvio's?"

" We're colleagues that work in finance." Barbara said. " Where did we meet Ahmed? New York or London?"

" London!" Ahmed said, raising his glass.

" Mathias left HBC to work for JP Morgan Chase. He just moved to California."

"HBC?" I asked. " That international finance."

" Yes," Mathias chuckled. " Unfortunately, I'm going through a divorce at the moment. I just got a house in Mill Valley for my family."

" How many kids do you have?" Dee asked.

" Five."

"Five?!" Dee and I asked in unison.

" Germans have a lot of children." Barbara said with a wink. "Richard and I met at Bank of America. I was his assistant..oh 30 years ago? He was a VP at the time....and married."

Barbara laughed and took another sip of her drink.

" That's an accurate summary. " Richard said.

" Well, alright." Dee said, with her half surprise, half sarcastic tone. She leaned into me and whispered, " I think I need to get into finance."  

" Matthias, what do you do? " I asked

" Mergers and acquisitions analysis."  ( Translated that means he determined what rich corporations can buy for a steal to get bigger and richer ).

This was the moment where Dee and I realised, without a word between us, that this crew were stinking, six-seven-eight figures - rich.

I had met an HBC executive lesbian in New York in the mid-2ks. All her partner did was play tennis and take fancy cooking classes. HBC wasn't very cool. In trying ( awkwardly ) to relate, she shared that she'd been in a meeting with colleagues who were analyzing income data of African-American women in major US cities, the highest earners in Black communities, and how to tap into that market. That tripped me out - that black women in America are a global target demographic. I also get bored with the wacky shit white women reach for in order to be relatable. Couldn't she just be a regular person? What could she have expected telling me about black women as data points to capitalists? 

The best I could come up with was, " ​That's interesting."​ ( the broad, general, non-engagement response ). 


"Come with us to dinner!" Barbara said. " We have reservations."

We walked a few blocks to Kearny, south of Broadway, to a Chinese restaurant. Ahmed had a few words with a waiter and we were escorted to a private dining room in the back. We sat around a large circular table draped in crisp, white linen.

" The brandino looks interesting." Ahmed said, perusing the menu
" What do you think? It's in season."

"Lisa and Dee whatever you like - enjoy! "

" I like eggplant basil over rice."  I said.

"Let's get the roasted duck and the Szechuan cashew chicken." Barbara said.

A whole duck? This went on for awhile without any mention of the price. Then it was Oolong tea before dinner and California wine with dinner. The food was laid out like a feast and we shared family style, passing each dish around.  

We had a fascinating conversation that night with Barbara and her tribe. Ahmed shared how he fled Iran and the Ayatollah's regime to London where he started his education in finance, going from one firm to another.

Richard was semi-retired and working with big wig clients as a consultant. Barbara was the VP of another bank and dabbling in state politics. Dabbling as in, you know, market research lobbyist or some ish like that. It's a hobby of mine, analysing capitalism and politics, and America's dysfunctional relationship to both. I've lost count of how many big wigs in corporate finance have ended up in cabinet positions, McNamara and Rumsfeld among them. 

Mathias was charming, but he seemed out of sorts adapting to a new job in a new country while going through a divorce. The new house in Mill Valley was likely over 1 million dollars. Barbara and the crew paid for dinner effortlessly with barely a glance at the bill.

After dinner we all parted ways into the night. Dee and I headed back to my car, to a spot I usually park closer to the wharf, down the hill. Parking anywhere near Broadway and Washington Square is either impossible or on steep, nerve-wracking incline side streets. 

" You thought Matthias was attractive." Dee said,

" I like sophisticated men, but no." I said. " He's going through some heavy life stuff. A nice person though."

" Why didn't they ask us to hang out again?"

" I don't know. " I said. " Sometimes we encounter people in the moment - and then it's gone."

Dee rolled her eyes. " Okay, philosopher! I thought it would have been a friendly gesture. Maybe they just want to brag to their friends they treated two working black chicks to a lavish dinner. They're down for the revolution! "

We laughed as we got in the car and drove back to the East Bay along Front street to the Bay Bridge. That area of the city, as you approach the Ferry Building and the port, sure is pretty on a summer night. 

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

the unbearable heaviness of resilience



                                                          Black Beauty art collage, 2024 
                                                                            Pinterest


Man, I went through it when I came back home from Miami. Coming back to CA from anywhere can be hard, even if you're from here. I had to hustle with little resources and help Pops (again) who was in crisis. Once I got a contract position with the county, I settled into a house-pet sit stay in Marin closer to the old man. 

I rented from a boomer hippie lady, Compost Mary ( she was serious about composting ). The deal was, I look after her house and cat while she was traveling to South America. I still had to pay her a reduced rent for the few months stay.

Compost Mary went to Brazil where she had lived and married at one point in her life. Her two grown sons were gone; one living in Mexico, the other a rambler stage tech for festivals and shows. Semi-retired, all Mary had left was her tenant, a tall boomer dude from Huntington Beach who was a volleyball player in his youth. Huntington Beach is a strange place where everyone is either descended from Vikings or Themyscira.

Lurch, as Mary's son referred to him, was not a well person. Something happened to him; a breakdown or loss along the way. He spoke in a lot pseudo science and conspiratorial terminology; Libertarian-adjacent rhetoric. He decorated appliances in his room in tinfoil to deflect toxic microwaves in the atmosphere. 

Any fucking around with tinfoil person tends to be on an irrational frequency, not a good science one, but that's cool. I'm a kind and adaptable person.

Unfortunately, one week into my stay, Lurch began chatting me up about the 90s when he and his ex-wife would go to ecstatic swinger raves. It took me awhile to catch what was going on because I'm not responsive to a dude's retarded come on. I respond to realness, chile - not affectation or posturing. 

After a few of Lurch's anecdotes of white people high in ecstatic sexual revelry, I had to intercede: 

" Dude, let me stop you right there."  I said, hand up. " I'm not cool with listening to this. I just got back home to deal with my dad and started a new job. And please put your shirt on in the house. It's inappropriate." 

" It's hot!" He claimed. I've spent my whole life decoding the treacherous game of man, particularly those who assume corny 90s game is still viable. I think Lurch was still back there, lamenting the bygone days of Moby and The Chemical Brothers. He may have been attractive once, but that was lost like his center. A person who agonizes over how long it takes a Brita pitcher to drip doesn't have much of a center.

Lurch worked as a handyman at an SRO in Oakland, near Uptown; a notorious place of beat down humanity. To listen to him talk about the SRO, he felt superior to the residents there, not a part of them. He was the hero who fixed busted hotplates, unclogged toilets, and replaced lightbulbs. 

While she was in Brazil, Compost Mary and I would check in through WhatsApp. When I told her about the interaction with Lurch, her first response was, " Well, he hasn't ever been inappropriate towards me." 

She later said to me, jokingly " Maybe if I hadn't rented to the hot mulatta, it wouldn't have been a problem." 

This is the kind of shit we have to endure and hear, to be resilient in the face of, including from the mouths of so-called progressives. There's nothing about me that panders to that stereotype. That was her condescending racist perception. We experience a reverb in our heads - What the fuck did you just say?

I endure such word garbage because I am perceived as attractive, low-income ( the genteel way of saying poor ) and therefore, I have something to negotiate my way out of powerlessness, which in turn garners resentment from the women, including straight feminists. It's a distorted social pathology that is rooted in racism, like most things in America. 

Compost Mary cut her travel short due to the pandemic and returned home. There I was, stuck with the two of them and their odd symbiotic relationship. She asked that I be more civil towards Lurch since we were living in the same house.

" No.' I said. "I don't have to be civil to anyone who's been inappropriate towards me. Period." 

That was me expressing my resilience. I can draw a hard line in the sand with my word sword. 

I heard there was a black lady living in Compost Mary's community, married to a white dude. I never saw her come out of her house or on my walks out to the marsh. Not once. My sense was she kept to herself and husband, hiding out from the women. 

That sense came from the scrutiny I was subjected to. I left the house regularly to go to work because I had to in order to cope. I was a layered outsider: no pre-existing condition, low-risk age group, non-hippie, and brown. They were all about open hand this and open heart that, as long as I followed their kumbaya rules, didn't take up space, or wasn't perceived as a threat ( or someone who could bring the threat closer ). 

At the end of my entrapment, I got into a fight with Compost Mary. She abrasively put the squeeze on me after Lurch, like other souls struggling through the pandemic, was laid off. 

" I let you stay here out of the kindness of my heart!" She yelled." I want $ 250.00 for another week in my account today!" 

" Excuse me? " I said. "You white people are crazy! I paid you rent, watched your house, and cared for your cat with that creep in my face! Not another cent to you, lady! I'm fuckin out!" ( Channelling Big Mama Thornton over here ). 

I'm not playing The Secret Life of Bees or The Help to anyone. 

I had secured a spot back in Berkeley and moved in a few days early. I slept on the floor a few nights before I bought a foam mattress and frame from a graduating Cal student. It wasn't ideal, but my landlady was good people. At least I was back in the East Bay, away from Compost Mary's Stepford boomer community of pre-fab mobile homes and dream catchers. 

I saw Compost Mary a few years ago, coming out of the North Berkeley Bart station as I stopped at an intersection. I knew it was her - her stature similar to Nancy Reagan - big head and a small frame, descendant of midwest pioneers. She saw me, but I turned and drove on. She had shown me her true nature, her disdain, and for that she was dangerous to me. I wasn't a person, but an image of something that reflected her values - as long as I was asexual and complaint towards her. 

Without consideration, she added me to the 2020 census when it came to her house. I reported her to the Census Bureau that this was done without my consent. Compost Mary never took responsibility for her racist antics. A week after leaving scary ass Marin, I got a passive-aggressive text. 

" It's unfortunate things ended the way they did. I hope we can communicate again in the future." 

This is me being resilient into the future: Delete. Blockity block block! 

I did what I had to do to keep it together during that time, dealing with Pops' hardheadedness, working 10 hour days with a cohort of people committed to democracy, and content writing on the side. That was my life at the time - keeping myself calm, solitary, mapping a strategic plan to find a store that had toilet paper in stock. 

Marin was a bad trip. I ventured out to Petaluma, which was also a bad trip. People were in such a panic. I gathered a lot of intel on the American who has no control over what is happening and can't buy their way out of hard times. We already know that score through history. 

"Ma'am, stay back!" 

" I heard they're going to declare martial law." 

" Did that dude just take all the bottled water? Motherfucker!

All of that chaos, paranoia, and derision came down to one man - The Goon - the fascistic, incompetent president at the time. Those days were rough, but I believe in my own resolve. I go through whatever the experience is because it's inevitable that it will end or become something else. 

I've never been particularly fond of that word, resilient. I often hear it in relation to black women, as though we have it on lock, tethered to our being. We've been resilient for generations. It implies to me that we're doomed to go through the unbearable and yet somehow, bounce back. What if we don't? The resilient in our loneliness and despair. 

The word resilience derives from the present participle of the Latin verb resilire, meaning "to jump back" or "to recoil." The base of resilire is salire, a verb meaning "to leap" that also pops up in the etymologies of such sprightly words as sally and somersault.

- Miriam-Webster

I was curious what other sisters thought, what they posted, or wrote me in reply. I transcribed what they shared: 


A compliment with a smirk

Preface: when I say ‘they’, ‘we’, ‘them’, I’m referring to the dominate, white, conservative, patriarchal, MALE society we live in now.

Resilience is a phrase used by a lot of people which means “wow, despite all the bullshit the world (we) throw at you, you keep overcoming the obstacles. What should have destroyed you or kept you quiet, but did not. Wow”! 

 Instead of saying “what else can we do to shut you up and keep you in line”? They’re so perplexed because we’re not suppose to be bright or resilient. Definitely not more strategic than them. So….they call it resilience. A compliment with a smirk.

It’s the same as calling Black women STRONG. It's truly exhausting. Unfortunately, the only option we have as Black women is to keep fighting, getting back up, being strong snd fucken resilient. If we’re not strong and resilient whose going to save/help, assist us? No one. Black women can’t depend on white women…the only women in our society that have any systemic power, even if that little power they hold is a sliver. A tiny sliver.    
- Dimitria

Think for ourselves

In its most simple form, the ability to "bounce back". I see resiliency like a spring. Suppression only creates more power to come out later.

I've never thought about the over use of the word....but it is applied to us because we are constantly suppressed and constantly bouncing back. Think for ourselves, based on our own research, our own scholars, and teach our own children.   
- Darnisha


Trying to be love

Trying to heal, while trying to grieve, while trying to live, while trying to dream, while trying to smile, while trying to give love, while trying to be love. - Chantal

Rest. Ask for help

Resilience is the ability to rise again and try again. We're always resilient because of the strong black woman trope. We need to rest, ask for help, say no, try to be prepared so we can reduce the amount of resilience we need to have.  - Tiffany 

Protect yourself

I don't really trust white people, I never have. They want what they want and they'll throw us under the bus to get it. Just pay attention and protect yourself.  - Miss Anita.   


Miss Anita's statement wasn't a condemnation of all white people, but of whiteness itself. She told me that after I shared my wacky Marinian story. Since then, having my own domain is a form of refuge and self-protection. Miss Anita reminded me of the importance of that. 

Miss Anita is an old school G, unafraid when intervention is called for. Pop is notorious for attracting trash people. I've rescued him a few times from junkie squatters to a shady IHSS aide grafting his SSDI money. I came home to smite one shady grafter, Diego. The most recent one was Terry.

Terry was a boomer white lady who reminded me of the 1970s CA bourgeoise; the women Charlie was marketed to, who adored Big Sur, Burt Reynolds, and Tom Selleck. Terry worked with me at elections during the 2020 primary. I knew something was off with her immediately. She had a learned affectation, trying to cloak her background. After a series of outbursts towards colleagues and voters, she was escorted out. She and Pop were residents at Hamilton, an independent senior living complex in Novato, which had been remolded from old army barracks. Two years after the election, Terry conned her way onto Pops case as an IHSS aide. IHSS doesn't really vet people as long as one has an ID and a social security number.

By 2022, Pop was on another paranoia loop with Hamilton and moved to a complex in San Rafael. He's always been on the move, even into old age, running from himself. Miss Anita was Pops primary caregiver and split a few days with Terry. By the summer of 2020, I was working in operations for a Berkeley institution - a 24/7 proposition. Miss Anita kept tabs on things and said Terry wasn't doing much. She would arrive and laundry would be piled up, dishes unwashed, his bathroom in bad shape. 

' Things keep comin' up missing. " Miss Anita said. "Something's not right with her."  

Terry also concocted the set-up seed in Pops head that he should transition to VA housing in Fresno, where he would be isolated and far from any immediate family. That was a clue right there - Terry's people were likely in Fresno. The grafter, the con, generally operates on the assumption that they're smarter than their target, but also those near to the target. 

I contacted Pop's caseworker and asked for Terry's contact information. The caseworker relayed back to me that she refused. Refused? Clearly she had lost her damn mind. 

I got up early in a King Kong Ain't Got Shit on Me! state of mind. I don't play with the morally corrupt that would exploit a poor, elderly black man who is family to me, even if we have a complex, busted relationship. 

" Miss Anita, I'm rolling out to Hamilton to shut Terry down." 

" I heard that. Can I come with you? " 

"You want to come? Sure." I said. "Regulators! Saddle up!" 

Always have a black woman on your side. I can access a decidedly hood-adjacent blackness that will scare the shit out of the nefarious. It's tempered, but serious, much like my grandmother. That's probably where I get it from. It comes from embedded pain,  defiance, and survival. Only zombies who intend to harm encounter that bitch. 

A part of the game I play with the old man is manipulation in order to protect him. Given his age and mental state, he lacks coherent objectivity. If a person is nice or listens to his nonsense, he believes that person to be a friend  who is "on his side." 

" Pop, I need you to call IHSS and get Terry off your case." I said. 
" She's bad news. If you don't, Miss Anita and I will walk right out the door and you're on your own. Do you understand what I'm telling you?" 

" Okay....and another thing, she had my debit card and $ 20.00 for some goodies." 

I'm used to it by now - the shit he gets himself into with shit people. In his reality this is actual living. I've tried to translate reality many times over the years. All I get is, "I said no! I'm not doing it! Stop giving me a hard time!" I should make a t-shirt with that poetic statement and wear it to his funeral. His message to God. 

I bowed my head, " Damn...alright, alright. Listen, call Terry and tell her we're on our way to get your card and money." 

We drove over to Hamilton, just off 101. Miss Anita told me to stay in the car, that she would deal with Terry. She had a good sense at the time, knowing that I would not be pleasant. After about 15 minutes, Miss Anita returned to the car. 

" Terry's scared. " She said. " She left Mr. H's things at the front desk. They wouldn't let me go up to her place." 

"Hmmm mmm." I nodded. " Because she knows I figured her shit out. Shady ass hag. Thank you for helping me with this mess." 

" Any time, darlin'." She said. " Poor Mr. H. You can count on me." 

I started the car. " What day is it, Miss Anita? " I asked, looking toward her. " It's The Negruhs are Comin Day!

Miss Anita howled with laughter, clapping her hands. Maybe there can be moments of joy found in resilience, heavy as it is. 


Monday, February 5, 2024

The Great Migration

Diaspora Destinations


Dedicated with love and gratitude to my grandmother, Mary Catherine Grayson, who made her migration from Alabama with my two year old father, Howard Earl, to Ypsilanti, Michigan, 1939.


© The Great Migration Series -  Jacob Lawrence, African-American  (1917 - 2000) 


Exodus 


We all have family stories that point to periods in African-American history. Consider if you’re from the Western US, you likely had ancestors who migrated west from Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, or Texas during the Great Depression or Great Migration.  The former occurred in two waves from the early to mid-20th century.  Historians debate the time frame for each since this was not formally recorded, although statistical data can be found to corroborate the increase of black populations in various Northern and Western cities between 1910 - 1970.  Stories were also shared through oral history and family artifacts.  


The First Great Migration began between 1910 - 1930 and the Second Migration at the onset of World War II, 1940 - 1970.  Until 1910 about 90 percent of the African-American population lived in the South.  The First Great Migration had 1.6 million people migrate to mostly industrial cities in the North.  


The Second Great Migration saw a surge up to 5 million people, which by then expanded west to California, Oregon, and other Western states. 


The Economy of Jim Crow 


There were several factors which precipitated the migration from the South; beginning with economics and extreme poverty.  Many black folks at the time worked under a sharecropping system where they in effect paid rent to landowners for the crops they cultivated and harvested.  This practice often kept farmers in continuous debt.  If they needed a mule, livestock, or equipment to cultivate, the landowner would purchase it and the sharecropper would go further in debt against what crops he/she could yield.  It was a cycle of exploitation and black folks had no rights under the law and severely restricted access to loans making the purchase of land for themselves nearly impossible. 


Positions in factories and industrial sectors of the cities also meant very low pay, far below that of white workers, and conditions were often dangerous.  Black women during this period worked primarily as domestics and cooks in white homes. 


Another factor which spurred migration was living under the Jim Crow Laws of the South at the time. These state and local laws enforced racial segregation, which were established by white Democratic-dominated ( Dixiecrat ) state legislatures in the 19th century after the Reconstruction period. These laws permeated all facets of public and private life - hospitals, schools, civic institutions, transportation,  and businesses were segregated throughout the South.  African-Americans had no rights or protections under Jim Crow.  Under this oppressive system, people lived under constant stress from the threat of violence, lynching, abuse, and exploitation. They had to become self-sufficient and created their own markets, trades, and local businesses. Even then, a black business could be burned out or dismantled ‘ legally’  if considered a threat to its white business owners. The irony of this is that black customers were often banned from supporting their own people so that white businesses could flourish, even if their product or service was substandard.  Although Northern cities were also segregated, there were still better opportunities and wages to be found in addition to more adequate housing.  At the beginning of the 20th century, the South largely remained an agriculture-based economy.  The North experienced an industrial boom and found a labor shortage. Businesses and manufacturers looked to the labor class of the South. 


 ‘ By 1920 post-war economic growth and a large migration of Southerners to the industrialized North had nearly doubled the city’s population to 993,678, an overall increase of 113% from 1910. Most startling, at least for white Detroiters, was the growth of the city’s black population to 40,838, with most of that growth occurring between 1915 and 1920. By the end of World War I over 8,000 black workers were employed in the city’s auto industry, with 1,675 working at Ford Motor Company. - The HenryFord.org, Collections and Research




© The Shoemaker (1945)  - Romare Bearden 




I pick up my life

And take it with me

And I put it down in

Chicago, Detroit,

Buffalo, Scranton…

I pick up my life

And take it on the train

To Los Angeles, Bakersfield

Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake,

Any place that is

North and West ---
                                                              
                                                             And not South.

                                        One-Way Ticket by Langston Hughes


The African Face of the North 


The First and Second Great Migrations had a profound impact on the culture and demographics of northern American cities. Until this point, these was primarily European settlements and immigration which had characterized cities such as Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Southern black migrants established communities in Detroit, the Roxbury section of Boston, Harlem in New York, the South sides of Chicago and Philadelphia, and West Oakland in the Bay Area. Southern cuisine and church life became interwoven into these communities, following the Baptist and Methodist traditions brought from the South. West Oakland had its largest black population during the Second Great Migration when the shipyards of the Bay Area had an employment boom during World War II. Black folks settled into what became a thriving area of the city with jazz clubs, restaurants, and local businesses. Although limited to those banks who would serve black applicants, folks were able to apply for home loans and purchase property. Although most US cities implemented a red-lining system, where blacks were restricted to certain neighborhoods, the San Francisco Bay Area was no exception. Red-lining kept black communities contained to protect white property value and affluence.

Still despite civic and financial restrictions of where black folks could live, they still had the opportunity to chart their own path, however difficult the endeavor. For many of their generation, a new life in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, or Seattle still represented freedom from the horrendous oppression they had escaped from. As a result of the Great Migration, Detroit became a major African-American city with a population of 82.7% as of the 2010 census.

The Harlem Renaissance became the cultural and artistic center of black life in New York City between 1918 to the mid-1930s. It was here that painters, writers, musicians, and scholars found community; many coming from the First Great Migration. The largest population of Southern blacks settled in this section of Upper Manhattan.

What is extraordinary about the Great Migration is that it is the story of us and our American experience. Each one of us can chart an ancestor from a point in Africa to the New World, to a slave, to a Southern migrant, and ending in the place where you come from. We are the living embodiment of our shared history; from family photos, stories of struggle and adaptation, long treks by car, bus or rail, in the pursuit of freedom within our own country. The context of our narrative always remains the same - we move through and on, we reinvent ourselves, and in the process we became a people. 




        

 © The Great Migration Series - Jacob Lawrence, African-American (1917 - 2000)


Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly 

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise. 


© Blackbird 

Lennon /McCartney 


Sunday, January 21, 2024

without you i am something

  

   Carl Getting Plaited in Ghost Town, Belize City, 2004.



I think about death, the process and finality of it. I gave it deeper consideration when it came and Ma passed away. I was undone for a long time. I am still, going forward without her in the world. You change, reality changes when your mother is gone. 

One memory I have of her, she told me a story where a lady called her a racist. She responded to the lady, with a sense of pride, "My kids are black." That was so cool to me, like a declaration. I loved her more for that. 

The one time we got into it about race, she referred to black folks as 
' the blacks'. 

" Ma, you really gotta drop the definite article with that. I hear Jim Crow. Just say black people." 

' Well, excuse me!" She said. 

 It was heartbreaking when we cleared out her place in Denver. I made a playlist of songs she loved, going back in time with each trinket, photo, and letter, including those from my grandfather, handwritten in Italian in the 1960s, on faded parchment. She had saved those letters for nearly 50 years. It's been 8 years since she died and I still have yet to read them. 

After returning home from the desert, I received news of death that made me despair at the misfortunes we suffer. How tragic and unjust death can be, before a person has barely started. 

The sad piece of news was that of my ex-husband's son, Christian. He was a sweet boy who looked like a lot like his father. 

Last Christmas Eve, Christian was shot in the head, his body stuffed in a barrel that was cast along a waterway near Belize City. Keisha, his mother, was devastated. The tragedy was all over the news in Belize. Christian left the house, came home briefly, went out again, last seen getting into a van, and never returned.

It makes no sense to me that a young boy would suffer like that while a fascist goon gets to live - conning his way to a return to power that will bring more chaos and derision to the States. American wrongs from the past, corrected have been undone, forcing me to retreat as a person, more out of caution than fear, to protect myself.

America became a harder, more dangerous place for colored folks after it elected an authoritarian goon. One sister friend fled to Mexico, vowing never to return. Another is on a mission to expatriate to Ghana. I had to make some changes internally and externally toward the American world I inhabit, although I exist in the wider world beyond it. The world is where I found the Garifuna.

Carl and I met in Belize around 2003 and got married in 2004 in his hometown of Dangriga, on the south central coast. Dangriga is a Garifuna settlement town that goes back to 1832.

The Garifuna are Afro-Arawak people of Central America that migrated into Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. The story of how they came to Central America goes back to the slave trade when a ship carrying Nigerians crashed near the St. Vincent and Grenadine islands. Those who survived mixed with the indigenous Arawak and another people, the Garifuna, came into existence. They have their own language, rituals, and customs. My favorite is the jukunu, danced by men in masks with bands of cowrie shells at their ankles. There is no slave story for the Garifuna. They are likely the only people of African descent in the Americas who were never enslaved. 

Dangriga hosts a big festival, Garifuna Settlement Day, each year in November. It's something else to see - the drums, costumes, and dancers. When you enter the town, there's a large sculpture of two barrel drums facing the direction of Africa. 

Even though Carl fell into street hustling as a teenager, he maintained his language and identity. His auntie told us she saw two brown birds flying close together and knew that Carl was returning home to Dangriga with someone close who looked like him. I remember that conversation with her, sitting on her porch. 

Carl and I split up years ago, but have remained cool and keep in touch from time to time. He's an older man now, about 45. I'm 11 years older than Carl. He had Christian with Keisha before we met, when he was 24. He had another child, Trinity, with an American girl from Massachusetts. 

Emily and I didn't get off to a good start because I was an obstacle to the mystical trinity she believed they were, which Trinity was named for. My experience has been that we tend to be an obstacle to the object of a white girl's desire, even if he is, more or less, a buster. 

" Why are you doing his bidding, Emily? " I wrote. "If he wants a divorce, he should handle it himself. We got married in his country." 

( Don't even get me started on the hassle I had to go through with the IRS after making that bold move. I am now, legally anyway, an unmarried person and so I shall remain ). 

Well, Emily did teach him about the healing power of crystals. To hear him explain this to me was charming and amusing. There's a distinction between the hippie and the African. Africans don't trip on rocks and stones. Africans get down in the dirt, to the root of things, by hand. That's where the blues, jazz, and our cooking comes from. 

I got several accusatory emails from Emily that read like a little girl to me. It took her awhile to simmer down. She had nothing to worry about. By 2009, I had given up. My love was toast. Emily was a good person, devoted to him, who eventually suffered the same fate - the discovery of unrepentant trifling, when she cracked his code. 

" Lisa, do you know who this girl is from Idaho? And another girl from Guerneville in California?" 

My eyeballs rolled. Idaho? Guerneville? Jesus Christ. Since the eternal we had ended, they were Carl's chosen followers, the traveler earth girls, because they were easy marks. Had I known better when we met, I would have helped the brother out and pointed him in the direction of the golden jackpot. They're easy to spot. Sunburned, their hair braided with beads to look like Caribbean women. It's the visual equivalent of a three dollar bill with white dreads - it makes no sense, defies logic and reason. Had I done so, I could have saved myself considerable disappointment and gone to Peru. Such was the folly of my dick-stracted, bonkers in love young womanhood. I made a lot of unwise decisions on a regular basis then.

I encouraged Emily to pack it up and go home. I likely saved her from bringing Carl to the States and her life down to ruins. Busters always have women running around in circles, if we allow it.

Belize City can be a rough place, one of the roughest I've ever traveled to. Yankees, any white person in Belize, do not hang out there, but mostly pass through en route to somewhere else. Cruise ships shuttle people in to a tourist market, shielded from the shanties and unpaved streets, and back out to sea. 

The first person I met in Belize City was Edmond, a charming midget dude. I went to a dimly lit bar across from my basic hotel, for a rum and coke. Edmond approached me and started chatting in kreyol. 

" Oh, I'm American, brother." I said with a wave of my hand. 

Edmond was cool. I was getting hungry and he suggested a Chinese fried chicken shop a short walk away. The food there was cheap and delicious. He walked me back to my hotel, to a shortcut through a dark alley. I stopped, thinking I could get jumped by some shady midget conspiracy. 

" Oh no!" I shouted. " I'm not going through there. I don't play!" 

Edmond laughed. "No worry, sis. Shortcut! Your hotel is right pass, to the left." 

After Carl and I got married in 2004, we stayed with friends. I went out looking for him one night in a ghetto district called Yahbrah. He was struck that I went out to Yahbrah alone, a dimly lit enclave of Belize City where young men hang out on corners in the darkness drinking and smoking, listening to punta rock and reggae. I think young brothers hanging out on the corner tends to be universal. 

' I can believe you come after me here! ' He said. ' It dangerous.'

" Have you ever been to New York City?" I asked. " No. This ain't' shit to me! You should be home, not in the streets! You're a husband now." I crossed my arms over my chest and sucked my teeth. 

Carl chuckled as we walked back to the house. "Daaam." He said.  "Wifey burn hot like fiah." 

I was young and had a strong resolve then; being as hyped as I was for life and adventure outside of the states. Travel to me is the expression of my own liberation, not just physically, but psychologically. 

During my first trip in 2003, I went to Tikal to explore the Mayan ruins of the Acropolis and climbed the Temple of the Jaguar - 47 meters straight up - to the summit. That was one of the most beautiful vistas of mother earth I have ever seen. The second was Lake Atitlan at sunrise, which saved my life. 

Tikal was also a peaceful night's sleep, listening to the jaguars and howler monkeys echo through the jungle. 

In 2009 I was invited to Antigua to paint a mural for a community center. I painted for two weeks straight over 8 meters of wall using a primer made of salt and glue paste. During that trip, I came to the realization while watching the sunrise over Atitlan to give up on Carl or it would destroy me. 

That realization was precipitated by a fight (there were many) at an after hours bar in San Pedro that Carl had been banned from. I yelled at him from the balcony, wanting him to care. He was more disappointed he couldn't get access to the poppin social scene. Eventually he left and I returned to my group of friends: Karin, a volunteer from Sweden, Moreno, a local mixed brother, and Richard, a tall, young traveller from Scotland. 

I sat there dejected, listening to Karin be a supportive friend while we shared pints of Gallo beer. 

"You're too good for him, hormiga!" She said. We loved that word hormiga which means ant in Spanish. Every woman in our Antigua crew was una hormiga. 

Suddenly, a drunk Guatemalan teenager approached our table, snatched Richard by the cuff of his shirt and started cussing him out.

" Don't move!" Moreno and I yelled instinctively, our arms extended across the table as if we could intercept potential violence.

Richard froze. Within a few minutes, the kid's friends intervened and calmly took the boy back to their table. 

" Jesus Christ! " Richard said as he settled back in his seat. "What was that all about?" 

" History, my friend." Moreno said. 

We went back to drinking and chopping it up with one another. 

" So....that guy outside was your husband?" Richard asked. " I've seen him around, hustling people and being rude. What is a beautiful woman like you doing with a wank like that?"

" Oh, thank you. Well...that's a good question." I said. " I loved him."

Then a fight broke out at the back of the bar and we ran, bottles and bodies flying around us - like the punk shows of my youth. Afterhours, beautiful lakeside San Pedro can have its Wild West moments. 


In 2003, from Tikal I traveled south, through a hole in time, having visions of ancient Mayans and jaguars in my dreams. The most compelling part of my journey then was losing time. 

I met a super cool Swiss-Italian designer named Valeria, like the plant. We joined forces into Tikal since women traveling together is generally the safest bet. Valeria didn't have a reservation and was able to share my cabin in the jungle. We spent a few days there, exploring the ruins and learning about Mayan astronomy. 

We booked an early morning bus to Rio Dulce in the south. We spent the night in Flores, a town built over a lake with ancient ruins underneath, scattered across the lake bed.  I had a fitful sleep that night in Flores. It felt as though hands were caressing me and I heard whispers in the darkness. I got up to go look at the view of the town, which was still and beautiful under a sky laced with stars. I'm quite the stargazer.

I went back to the room and saw a dark figure in the bathroom, near the toilet. I screamed and jumped on the bed. It was Valeria.

" You are freaking me out!" Valeria said. "What are you doing?!"

" I....uh...I thought you were some Mayan spirit. They're trying to reach me. It's stressing me out! "

" Carina, you need to go to sleep. Pronto!"

The next morning we packed our gear and headed to the bus station. We were about 30 minutes into the ride when we were told our ticket time was wrong; we were an hour ahead of ourselves. Valeria debated with the conductor that this was not possible. We had set our watches to 5:00am, before dawn. 

We still got kicked off the bus in the middle of nowhere, with only a small rural village nearby. I was having the time of my life. Valeria not so much. She wasn't used to such unplanned disorder. Switzerland is nothing but order. 

' It's the Mayans." I said. "They can manipulate time. Remember we talked about that with our guide - how they studied and measured it?  The sundials and structures built to the coordinates of the sun and the moon." 

"You didn't really believe that did you?" She asked. " That's all just mythology." 

We eventually got on the right bus when it passed through. We later learned from two divers on the same trek, making their way to Honduras, that somehow they were an hour ahead of themselves that morning.

The look on Valeria's face was priceless. 

"What did I say?!" I said, excitedly. "That is so cool!" 

In Rio Dulce, we met Clair, a young woman from the UK. We traveled with her to Livingston, a remote Garifuna village, between Lake Isabel and the Caribbean. I felt like I was at the end of the world in Livingston, it is such a remote place. We stayed in an old colonial hotel where we had a dinner of fresh-caught shrimp seasoned over rice with plantains.

During dinner we heard gunshots outside in rapid succession. 

"It's just fireworks." Valeria said.

" No, I think that was a gun, love." Clair said. 

More gun shots through the darkness, this time closer to the hotel. People starting scattering, a woman grabbed a child playing outside on the veranda, and we dove under the table. 

" Get down!" 

Later that night, I went for a walk around the grounds. It started to rain, which was peaceful to me, so I chilled in a hammock on the veranda for awhile. When I went back to our room, the double-doors had swollen shut from the humidity. By then, the girls were fast asleep. I knocked, but they were out. I knocked again. I thought, I could sleep in the hammock, but the mosquitoes will tear my ass up. I had no choice. I had to kick the doors in.

The girls screamed so loud, it startled me for a moment. Their underlying anxiety and vulnerability, in such an end-of-the-world place, was unleashed. 

" It's me!" I said. "It's okay! The doors were stuck!"

" Oh my god..." Valeria gasped, her hand to her chest. " I can't take this place anymore. I'm leaving tomorrow! " 

The next morning Valeria left for the highlands and Antigua, Clair and I went on to Puerto Barrios - a Wild West port town where we met a staggering Mayan. While he tried in vain to woo Clair, he helped us negotiate our passage to Punta Gorda, in southern Belize. 

That boat ride was hardcore, the current rough and choppy. We sat on wooden slats with rope tied at our waists to keep us stable during the ride. We were draped with tarp to keep us and our gear dry. 
Smash, smash, smash for several hours as the boat crested one wave after another and came barrelling down. A roller coaster at sea. 

By the time Clair and I reached Punta Gorda we looked like battered, savage women. It was awesome! Salt-faced and beat, we stopped for drinks at a local bar. It was another 8 hours of unpaved roads to Placencia, an isthmus on the southern coast.

I had an idea.

'Fuck it!' I said. "Let's take a plane to Placencia. We'll save some time. My treat." 

We chartered a Cessna at a rural airstrip, commonly used by drug runners. I'm not a fan of small planes because there's not much structure to protect you if it goes down. 

" Hey." Clair leaned towards me. "The pilot is American." 

Interesting. I wondered what was up with that story. 

Once in Placencia, I was invited to a house party hosted by Miss Radiance, who owned a bar and internet cafe in town. I tried a panty rippa for the first time, a seriously strong Belizean drink of pineapple, rum, and (probably, likely) crack. I was told that a panty rippa will make you or someone else rip your panties off. 

I was fucked up after two or three of those panty crack rippas. I staggered back to our cabana before sunrise, barfed, and prayed for death.  

" Are you going to make it, Chuck?" Clair asked, sleepily. Chuck is a nickname we used with one another. Clair picked that up when she was studying in Lancashire, England. It's the northern Brit version of homie.

" Yesssss...." I groaned in abject misery from the toilet. 

Later that morning, Clair took a picture of me out on the road waiting for the bus to Belmopan. I'm visibly ruined and blurry-eyed in the same clothes I wore when I disappeared into the Placencia night with Miss Radiance and her people.

" You've gone native on me!" Clair chided.

Well, she wasn't wrong. I'm a fortunate woman to be a part of the native human collective. The savages always find me. 

On the bus to Belmopan, I put my pack on my lap and slept for a few hours. A nice brother woke me up when we reached the station. From Belmopan on to another bus full of people, sacks of rice, bundles of plantains, and live chickens. From Belize City we took a water taxi out to the cayes, an archipelago of islands off the coast. 

The more down-to-earth of the cayes is Caye Caulker. The rich and those escaping Interpol or the feds go to San Pedro ( aka Ambergris Caye ). Madonna brought more attention to San Pedro with La Isla Bonita, her 1980s honeymoon anthem that sucks. 

A trippy story about San Pedro involved John McAfee. He created the McAfee security software if you remember the 90s. He was stone cold nuts and became very rich when McAfee was licensed to every PC on earth. He was living in a compound on San Pedro and shot his neighbor in a paranoid trip out that the man had poisoned his dogs, as the story goes.

McAfee fled to Guatemala seeking political asylum ( that's quite a stretch ) to avoid extradition back to Belize. He faked a few heart attacks while in detention and likely paid a few bribes before being deported back to the States. McAfee was later sued by the dead man's family and had to pay $ 25 million to his estate. After that he was arrested on his yacht in the Bahamas for smuggling guns, married a sex worker from Houston, and tried running for president in 2020 as a Libertarian. 

How better off could we have been having a murderous, weapons dealing Larry Flynt psycho for president? Perhaps a better deal in retrospect. 

Caye Caulker is where I met Carl, barefoot with his wild natural hair and handsome face. He was persistent and followed me into a cafe. I was friendly, but thought he was too young and thuggish.

" No, thank you." I said over coffee and went on my happy-go-lucky way.

I later met Harry and O.B., a sister master braider, who tightened up my dreads beautifully. Like a queen! Harry and O.B. were cool and invited me to a local club at the back of the island. Clair took off with a group of young Americans, which didn't interest me much. I knew America. I didn't know Belize. At the club I ran into Carl who was a bit more presentable. He didn't say much, just sat in the shadows quietly. I made the first move and asked him to dance with me.

I was having a good time until I remembered I had the key to our cabana, leaving Clair locked out. Shit. It didn't occur to me to give her the key when our groups had separated. I told Harry I had to go and he walked me back to the cabana, named The Peach on the Beach for it's tropical peach color. We found Clair fumbling with the padlock on the front door.  

" Chuck, where the fuck have you been?!" She wailed. " That American diver and local boys have been fuck all! It's dark and I'm knacked! I looked everywhere for you!" 

I let her vent while Harry was visibly uncomfortable. That was a sketchy situation for him to be in, a white girl having a fit. Trying to diffuse the situation, I apologised for leaving Clair to fend for herself without me or the cabana key. Clair was a down homie to travel with then - just cool. She's married now with two young daughters living a contented life in Perth, Australia. 

The next day, I crossed paths with Carl and had a change of heart. If a moment presents itself - live, baby live! Don't worry about the future! What is the future anyway, but an abstract construct? Tempt the Fates!

" Would you like to spend time with me?" I asked.

The next several years, things gradually fell apart. It came in stages and with experience. 

In 2004 Carl and I traveled by bus to Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua is a beautiful city from the colonial period with cobblestone streets, ornate churches, and historical ruins. I went to a Dia de los Muertos party in one ruin exposed and open at the back, with a beautiful view of Volcan Fuego under a full moon.

Carl and I ventured out one evening to a club set in the back of a colonial building with an open courtyard. Such clubs usually happened after hours and were sometimes raided by military armed with AKs. This was an intimidation tactic used to bribe owners and patrons. Armed police, private security, and military patrols are not uncommon in Guatemala; some good, some bad. 

Carl and I were dancing when a crew of gangsters walked in. I sat down for a break and a drunk lady asked Carl to dance. I thought nothing of it initially. I'm not the jealous or competitive type. I'm a square who trusts myself and the person I'm with. 

Then things got out of hand. The lady was getting more and more provocative and expositional. Blouse up, then off, bra, thong straps and ass exposed to the people. The gangsters and other men formed a circle around them, cell phones illuminating their bodies. 

I signaled for Carl to stop the show. I signaled again. He kept at it.

Someone seated near me saw the look on my face. "Well, in Guatemala we think the black man with the white woman is funny and sexy. " 

Say what now? That was enough for me. I abruptly walked out. Carl and the lady followed me out onto the street. 

5....4...3...2...1

" What the fuck with you?! Are you crazy?! Have some dignity and self respect and shut it down when you or anyone else is being exploited. Those men are dangerous! They were treating you like a monkey and her like a whore. You didn't give a shit! You liked the attention! " 

"She wouldn't stop! " Carl said. " I tried! " 

" So...you blame the lady? You're a man! You should have done the right thing and you didn't! Fuckin idiot! " 

The lady cried, understanding how upset I was.

" Lo siento, lo siento."  I'm sorry. 

 I asked her if she had someone to take her home, which she did. I was so over Carl in that moment. One big 'This nigga right here is gonna get us killed!'  227 cuss-his-ass-trip out, but more like Mary than Sandra. We made up later that night, although I had the sense I was being conned - the way a kid feins remorse to his mother when he's busted. 

Carl was still a vulgar boy, not a dignified man, or a very functional person. Relationships to him were like interchangeable resources; pathways to distraction and amusement. He could be reckless without consideration to the consequences to his actions. Back home, I once visited an orisha in Oakland who gave me the straight scoop. I believe in African magic and insight. 

" You're a maternal figure to him." She said as she puffed on her cigar stub, twirling cowrie shells in her hand. " He was beat and abandoned as a child. He had no guidance, carina. He doesn't know what you know. The streets are in him too much."

Hmmm. That was true. Carl's mother, an abusive woman, left Belize when it became independent of England, leaving him and his two brothers behind. They shuffled between one poor relative to another, neglected and uneducated.  As a teen, Carl left Dangriga for Belize City where he entered the non-violent hustler life; selling seedy weed to tourists and cell phones on the black market. I must have gone to court with him 3 times over petty offences. One court visit, the bailiff asked me straight up for a bribe and he would drop the whole matter - over a petty dime bag of weed. 

I said no. 

I saw other boys shackled at their ankles and wrists like slaves at the courthouse, for nothing other than being poor and unable to bribe their way out of injustice. Carl and I took another road trip to the SuperMax to visit a friend of his who was doing time. Incarceration can be brutal in any society, but the conditions at the SuperMax were barbaric to me, a jungle jailhouse. 

Inmates were given a bucket to piss in, scraps of food, slept on the floors of their cells, and there was no way out. If anyone tried to escape, the SuperMax was surrounded by dense jungle that one needed a machete to cut through. I met a sister in the waiting area with her two kids who was there to see her Rastaman husband who had been sentenced to 5 years for marijuana possession. I never forgot the heartbroken, defeated expression on her face. That's what incarceration can do to poor people. 

Over the years, Carl calmed the fuck down through Rastafari philosophy, but he's never held a square job. He makes a modest living making maracas, repairing drums, and teaching others how to play. I joke that he looks like Capleton now, his dreads wrapped up into a turban. He goes on like an old man about da yoot dem and Jah provides. I'm down with Rastafari liberation, but Carl and I apply it differently. Jah doesn't pay the bills, I do. 

I don't hold on to bitterness. That relationship was not one of my best, but it was life. We shared a connection and experience through time. I watched in awe as he wrestled a huge barracuda on his fishing line. One time, the strap on my flipper broke and I lost my equilibrium trying to stroke with one arm.  Carl helped me as the current was pulling me out past the reef, scaring the shit out of me. Man, he was a fast and strong swimmer. The sea was effortless to him, being naturally from it. 

We swan at Blue Hole near Belmopan, where dozens of leaves cascaded down from the canopy into the hole. 

" Oh, wow. It's like Lord of the Rings!" I said, looking up. The defacto black American nerd girl. 

I watched Carl zig and zag along the jungle walls and into the trees barefoot. I washed clothes by hand ( ineffectively ) with a washboard and learned to grind cassava with a big mortar and pestle, in the Garifuna way. We shared adventure, sweetness, and the fry jacks he made one morning with his grandmother. 

By 2009, as I sat with the sunrise over Atitlan, I had snapped out of it. I was real tired of chasing after hope. 

Carl messaged me a few years ago that his best friend, Alvin, had passed away, likely from covid. They were close when they were boys, running the streets together. Alvin eventually got it together when he married Alnoy, a super cool sister. She had an office job in city government and helped Alvin set-up a small business handwashing cars at their house. 

Alnoy, to me, was proof that a good woman can change a man's life. 
I still believe that to be true. 

I told Carl to go to Alvin's funeral, that he was his brother and he loved him. He shared pictures which were touching and brought back memories. Alnoy had asked how I was doing. In 20 years, she hadn't really aged much. 

Then, this past Christmas, Christian was killed. He was only 18 years old and it was shockingly sad. I know Carl wanted to do more for him growing up, but he didn't know how and had little resources. We had a nice chat and I gave him my condolences. I was glad his daughter Trinity was there. She's a beautiful mixed girl who lives in Cape Cod with her mother, Emily, and three half-siblings.

The Garifuna have a funerary tradition called dugu, which is to honor the dead as they meet the ancestors. Christian was buried in Seine Bight, closer to his father and his people.