With You Into The Next

I’d never done this before, and now was the time to start.

Aborting work to a coffeeshop nearby my mother’s house, I placed the next thing-to-do in the back pocket of my mind. Studying a film schedule and list of scenes for this weekend’s music video shoot put me in half the state I needed to be in. I wasn’t fully there. The mocha was ok, and beckoned of sugar I had abandoned in the last month. Why the hell did I buy a mocha? Possibly because the caffeine rush hits me softer than straight coffee- maybe because I wanted something that felt like a reward for making it this far in the day- making it this close to a gesture I’d never given any living thing before.

My mom calls, “I’m here. You wanna just pull up and get her with me?” I comply because it’s what I drove down here to do, and backing out now would… well, it’d sever a few well-worked-on ties my mother and I have sewn over the past month, and it would put me in a hole I’ve had one foot in for some time. The past months have winded through my chest with the fervor of a whirling dervish and hasn’t stopped. I’ve been riding the proverbial lighting, and if I back out of this now, then surely I will have bucked myself off.

I will not be bucked off.

I arrive to my mother’s house, silent and still in my mind, I walk in. Henry, the family Golden Retriever, hustles head first into my knee cap. I stave him off and take him to the front door where he’ll utilize the front lawn as his personal public restroom. I walk to the basement door, open it, and- “Raaaaahhhhhhh”, she cries. Stashi, our family cat of 17 years looks distantly into the basement stares, withered and outside of herself. “Hey baby” I speak softly to her. I pet her lightly as her back arches and tail coils like petting is the last thing she’d ever wanted on this day.

When I put Jack in the box to go to the vet, he yelped and meowed so deeply & loudly, it damn near wrought me to tears. His passing was untimely after being stricken by a car and then having to be euthanized when the surgery didn’t help. However, with Stash… she knew. Somehow she just knew.

I placed Stashi in the traveling cat box, and there she sat silently. She’d brush her nose up against the sides of the box for some form of pressure, but that was it. The brushing of her face was unconditional- she brushed it against the doorframe, my sleeping face, tree trunks… Henry’s sleeping face. She was fearless like that.

I pick up the box and bring it to my mother’s car. What feels like an hour of traffic later, I land to the vet a few minutes after my mother. The woman at the front desk points me in the direction to the room my mother and Stashi are sitting. By this time, I’d almost put it out of my mind that this was happening, that we’d scheduled the visit, that it’d be the last moment with our own lil’ squirrel terrorist and rabbit chaser. And then the walls of any hospital, whether it be for humans or animals, are inescapably singing a harmony of your mortality. Things become just things as you give into the song of the hospital walls, and meaning for fruitless thoughts dissolve into oblivion. The walls keep you true, and this final moment with Stashi will bring my mother and I closer together, as it will bring me closer to an inescapably authentic  reflection of the man I am.

The room is small, box-like almost. One couldn’t fathom this room serving any other function than what we are there for. What matters most, is that we are there. Throughout my lifetime, my mother, bless her soul, has made this voyage 5 times. And 5 times she has placed a last kiss, spoke final words, and given an ultimately ending caress to our families pets. For me, it was easy to say goodbye to our past dog and cats. I’d walk in the house, say goodbye, and then leave them. My final interaction was seeing them alive in the family house, or playing with something. The reality and responsibility would have to be confronted, and today was no better day than the last to do that.

A knock at the door came. Stashi delicately tipped to the door as it opened. Her left eye half shut, back left hind leg limping, and her back as skinny as a malnourished street cat, Stashi meowed at the doc. Placing her on the table, you could see the energy and light missing from her eyes. Somehow she just knew.

In the final days, or damn near past year since Jack passed, there was something removed from Stashi. I don’t know if it was because she missed her homie Jack, or because the last Summer was just a pain in the ass to move around at the age of 17, but she had slowed considerably. Now, she’d only meow for food, and incessantly meow more even after her feeding. I took as her trying to tell us that she wanted to go, that she wanted to move on to the next. Perhaps Jack had spoken to her in a lucid cat dream of the paradise that lay on the other side, and Stashi knowing no other was to communicate that by way of meow was somehow telling us that she longed to not only be there, but to be there with him. Yeah, that’s definitely it.

Before she was euthanized, we chose to have her sedated. Finding a vein in a cat ain’t easy, and it sure as hell isn’t a pleasure for the cat. The doc lay a tray of delicious food in front of her. I have to see this, I have to be here. As Stashi feasts, the doc injects something of a tranquilizing nature in a pinch of her back skin. I must see this, I must be here. Stashi continues to feast until her hind legs give out. Still licking the tray, her front joints dullen to the ability to carry her weight. Still licking the tray, the doc removes the tray, as she looks out at us, now licking the air. I will be here, I will see this. And that’s all she wanted… food… and peace.

I kissed her on the head with tears falling from my face, and stepped out of the building. My mother and I hugged at the car for a little longer than a usual hug. She passed on the experience to me. 5 times she has been here to do this with our family pets, and now for when I raise my family, I know I will be the one to do the same. There is an amazing honor in being with a living creature as it passes, a humbling solar-plexus shaking power you submit to.

And so today, Stashi passed on to that paradise in the sky with Jack.

And that’s all I ever wanted for her… food… peace… and to be with Jack.

Goodbye Stashi.

All my love forever and then some,

Toussaint

The Prytania Registry, Part 2

Amidst the melee of sleep deprivation and getting to New Orleans, it almost completely evaded me that my aunt from Detroit, my aunt from California, and my cousin from Detroit are visiting as well- All to celebrate my father’s 70^th birthday with the added event of Father’s Day. My cousin implored- eh, that’s not the right word- my cousin directed me to host my aunts as they arrived the same day as I. I somewhat understood what he was telling me, but I don’t believe I’d ever done this “hosting” thing before with family. Usually my mother put on Thanksgiving, my Uncle Chuck set up our schedule when we got to California, or my father navigated us through Detroit when we arrived. This- I had little understanding of exactly what I was supposed to do.

Two voicemails and several texts buzzed the moment I landed. A piece of my brain awoke, “Sweet Jesuits, Toussaint. Get the rest of your ass into gear. You’re the one who suggested the father’s side of your family be out here. Act accordingly, my man!” And so, I acquiesced accordingly.

The messages were to meet with my Aunt BB at baggage claim. This was what my cousin was referring to. Host, direct, entertain, something.

Rushing from the terminal to a baggage claim stretching a football field in length, I called Aunt BB. “I’m here” she said. I wanted to shout “WHERE?”, but as one does not simply enter Mordor, one does not simply knee-jerk question Aunt BB’s statement. “Ok” I replied. Power walking the length of baggage claim thrice, I couldn’t find her. Nice, my first duty of hosting and I’m producing an fng  F minus.

Finally, entering a hall unbeknownst to my initial entry, I fly thru it to find Aunt BB on the phone. The moments where I have the good fortune of encountering my Aunt BB are all-together too infrequent. Every family has a rock- a pillar- a monolith to bridge the gap of communication, potential emotional collapse, and little reassurance families move without. Aunt BB is nothing short of that. Like my grandmother, you can learn a thing or two about a thing or two simply by observing Aunt BB in discussion. Her social pacing is timed to that of a veteran social worker- she sees the matrix.

Greeting her soon as her conversation wrapped, we hug and get straight to it- how are we getting Aunt BB to her hotel?

Shit, I just landed here, and not only am I aloof on what I’m doing in regards of entertaining family, I’m seemingly of no help.

I sweat it for a second and then jump to asking the information desk the easiest way to get to the hotel. A clerk directs us to a strip of concrete where the hotel bus will pick us up for free and take us to the hotel. Easy.

Exiting the baggage claim, the New Orleans humidity muffs me so surprisingly hard in the face, that I think I winced or murmured some guttural “Ehhhhh” under my breath. Sweet mother of mercy, I haven’t felt high temps like this in a damn long time. Aunt BB cuts through it like the heat shouldn’t have stepped to her in the first place. Not wanting to look like I couldn’t keep up with her, I muster forward to the concrete strip. Alas, we are picked up and dropped off to the hotel. We bid adieu until dinner later that night, and I exit the hotel to New Orleans… by myself. And here the adventure begins, in the suburban swelter of Kenner, LA… just me, my bags, and bus fare for the ride to the Crescent City. 

The Prytania Registry, Part 1

I had slept 20 minutes and awoken from some strange lucid dream, as one does when only having rest for 20 minutes. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, so I assumed it was near time for my departure. I rested for what dreamt like hours. When I had awoken again, I’d felt the static shake in my muscles from believing they were experiencing something. My body was trying to trick itself into sleeping, but my brain knew better and kept waking me back to consciousness. It set my body into a rattle of shitty unrest and thick distrust of my brain now that it had completely lied to the rest of my body several times in the past hour of unrest.

Arriving to the airport, I make my first stop at McDonald’s. I don’t eat McDonald’s, I don’t pursue soda, and I for damn sure do not order my Chipotle burritos with sour cream- However, when at the airport, I always make a point of it to reward myself with McDonald’s breakfast (#2 meal) for making it to the airport without fail. The meal is delicious- more than I anticipated. More than the last time I was at the airport. I am alone.

The last time I was here, I was with a significant other, and a different significant other the time before that. Perhaps the discourse between my brain and body kept it from surfacing, but I’ve just realized I’m alone on my first trip to New Orleans to meet my father. For a moment, my legs find rest, my right shoulder isn’t nagging, and my backpack looks like a bag of adventurous holding instead of a ball & chain. 

Dear lord, this is happening. The greatest city on the planet, and just me: Up as late, out as far, writing as much, and defaulting to impulse as quickly as I want to.

It might have taken me several years too many to get to this point, but the “getting here” was all worth it. So, now, slightly hungover, fueled by Mickey D’s breakfast and operating on 30 minutes of sleep, I will enter the arms of my mother land once again. As flawed, damaged and beatin’ up my soul may be, she’s always taken me in without question.

Now, off I go to a connecting flight in Dallas.

By now, I would have speculated my unrest-ridden limbs to be- well, resting. They’re not. I close my eyes to sleep through the deafening thought of disintegrating by some means of tragic plane crash. "I'll close my eyes, and we'll just shut'er down for the 120 minutes it takes to get to Texas." I reason with myself. To no chagrin, my nerves buzzed back, "No, ol' boy. There will be no sleep ‘til Nola."

The Fight That Never Was

I can thoroughly say that New Year’s Eve ringing in 2016 was one of the best I’ve had in some time. There are two routes you can go for the Amateur of all Amateur Hours. #1: Play it chill, go to the VFW, stay at home with your boo thang, or work and make duckets. Either of these options plays into no part of devil that is New Year’s Eve. However, for me, New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite holidays- and I opt for #2: To betroth the devil for at least a few hours. Now, whether you’re mindful of exactly what you’re getting into, is another story entirely.

The night started out at a jogger’s pace with a stop at the best friend’s house, then to an art gallery turned makeshift bar with balloons tacked to a ceiling for the midnight drop. We promptly left, and hitched a ride to the house of bad decisions and impulse. Having fully committed a week ago, I dressed to the nines and readied the crew for a VIP/Balcony soiree. The risk was it all turning into Bronanza Douchefest 2016 starring us. Alas, it did not. Half past midnight, I could feel the liquor burning through the common sense of the ballroom we stood in. Drinks spilled, potential fights brewed, and I stood to have a better chance of finding our server on the back of a milk carton or TMZ video. We needed to get the hell out of there, and fast. I called our ride, blitzkrieg’d the server to pay our tab, and we vacated the imploding ballroom.

Off to a northeast bar where nearly everyone knows our names (Cheers ref: check), we leaned against the bar, 12 sheets to the wind, and wished “Happy New Year!!!” when the impulse struck us. Unbeknownst, a bar stool away, two men held a conversation at the bar.

The gentlemen furthest from me, sat draped in a black leather jacket, his wispy black hair barely touching his shoulders. His frame sat fragile as a glass menagerie. In my drunken stupor, I recall his shoulders as meatless knobs only badass’ng it by proxy of the leather jacket. The gentlemen closest to me, holding dialogue with the other gentlemen, sat at least 6 inches higher than the other. I couldn’t tell if his back was actual muscle or just proportion to the whole of his giant body. His shoulders, as far as I could tell, were bulging almost too big for his own frame… and sweater.

Our lives are made up of flickering moments- simple flickering moments that somehow line up and make sense because one precedes the other.

I turned to my friend, James, for a moment to talk about something I’ll never remember due to drunkiness and the split seconds that proceeded it. With my back turned to the two gentlemen, I hear “What the fuck did you just say to me?!?!?” Turning to the two, the shout evidently came from the gentlemen closest me… the large gentlemen… the gentlemen now planting his fist repeatedly into the smaller gentlemen’s face.

Sidenote: I’ve been attacked by dogs in my life. When it happens, you have little to no time to react. The flash of fangs are for sheer ceremony before a quick twitch of violence lunges toward you. I have seen this same quick twitch in a few PRIDE FC fights, and one fight in particular at a party, but never in my adult life up-close.

The large gentlemen arose with the urgency of a hurricane, and began to punch the other man’s face faster than a cocaine-addled E. Honda. In my drunken state, it appeared this man had gotten off two dozen straight jabs in less than 10 seconds. Before he could set off another barrage of hits, my mind said, “Toussaint, we should help this poor smaller man, now being publicly executed by this larger gentlemen. Right?” I agreed with my mind, so I drunkenly- yes, I’ve used this word many times in this story, because I don’t want you to forget how drunk I was- stepped toward the punching assassin. On my last step, I crossed my left foot over my right leg to squeak through the crowded barstools and tables, and reached out my hands to effort breaking up the ass-whoopin’. Just as I reach out with off-balance footing, the larger gentlemen reaches his left arm back to deliver another blow. His elbow, at the peak of pulling back to then move forward and propel his fist into this poor man’s skull, grazes my hands reaching out to break up the fight. So off-balance, and so incapacitated with alcohol, my momentum was sharply shifted backward… and now, I’m falling the opposite direction of the fight.

Just the faint touch of the larger gentlemen’s pendulum blows, sent me flying into a gaggle of barstools, a waitress (my good friend, we call “Sharon Stone”) and my best friend James.

Seconds later, the bar staff removed the larger gentlemen off the would-be corpse of the thinner man. I lay on the ground… still. James offered to help me up. I turned away his offer. I just wanted to take in the moment. Although I was proud of myself for stepping up for another human getting assaulted like a newly colonized strip of land, it was all overcast by a knee-jerk reaction to laugh aloud to myself.

I’d like to rewind and tell you that this fall was a perfect fall. I mean, I effing hit those barstools, waitress, and other dude with the precision of a well-timed tackle. It was like one of those falls, where you hit the ground and shit just keeps falling around you. I physically impacted a 10 ft. radius with that folly.

Finally, accepting a hand to rise to my feet again, we laughed, drank more and uber’d back to the crib. To answer your question, “No, I don’t speak in 3^rd person… I write in 3^rd person. And welcome to 2016, Toussaint Morrison. You’re a brilliant idiot with a heart too big for both sleeves”.

Post Script: Sharon Stone, the waitress working that night, reported to me that the thinner man entered the bar the next day with his girlfriend, who demanded an explanation as to what happened to her man. Apparently, he was so black-out drunk that even upon exit and waking to his wounds... he had forgotten how he got them. The bartender relayed last night's events, and as they exited, a patron turned to Sharon and shared the sentiment that if anyone deserved that ass-whoopin' from last night... it was that thin guy. "He had it comin'" she said.

Lesson: The universe speaks. Don't be blackout when it does.

An Old Fashioned For Carol

Preface

I have an affinity for elderly white women solely based on the universal fact that my grandmother was an elderly white woman.

Carol, my grandmother, baptized me in a kitchen sink in New Orleans. I don’t believe there’s any other way to define my entrance into this world, than the kid how was spiritually ordained by faucet water and an Irish Catholic woman in the Big Easy.

St. Paul, MN 2008

Eyedea sat in the distant corner of the Glockenspiel, talking on the phone. It sounded to be a conversation between him and an old friend or someone that might’ve needed convincing on the other end of the phone. I always imagined it was a scorned lover who was easily rattled with jealousy, and Micheal was the only guy in 100 square miles that could give her the right words. Hell knows, he was the guy within 1000 square miles that had the right words, why not over the phone with a scorned lover. Alas, I retreated my wandering imagination back to the bar I was tending to.

The Glockenspiel was a German restaurant and bar resting on a gorgeous stretch of urbanity we call West 7^th St. That year of bartending 8 hour shifts and making little over a hundred bucks per shift, I’d give up for nothing. The characters that walked through the door each day & night were enough to fill several comic books, horror films and hallmark movies… or just enough to fill a Vulcan’s Fire Truck.

While serving the mostly empty bar, I’d frequently call my grandmother for advice on how to make drinks. I distinctly remember being inundated with orders and someone yelled out, “I’ll take an old-fashioned!” The look on my face was that of absolute horror- relative to Clark Griswold finding out he’d receive no holiday bonus check this year, or the eternal look on Bender’s face, from Futurama. I swiftly ran to the kitchen, sat in the staircase and called Carol. She not only filled me in on how to make an Old Fashioned, we ran down the specs for a Cosmo, Gimlet, and Hot Toddy over the course of the 60 second phone call.

Once the night crowd had died down, I called her back to thank her. We chatted for a minute or so. She would go on to tell me a story of a night her and friends went out to paint the town red, and took down one too many Old Fashions while my grandfather played the trombone at a jazz gig. The sight of my grandfather performing on stage while my grandmother swayed back & forth to the tempo- well, that would be something.

Thanksgiving 2015

Pick-a-biscuits lay strewn about a pan, disconnected from one another like shrapnel after an explosion. My mother truly put her time, energy and soul into replicating the feat of our family’s signature dessert. However, the recipe evaded her skill of kitchen in the most defiant manner. Whereas I’d usually take several pick-a-biscuits before dinner began… this time, I stole only one.

My family is made up of a hodge podge of personality and attitude. It’s taken us decades of not only understanding one another, but coming to know who we are in the same space (or dinner table) with one another. There have been holidays, or even years, I’ve distanced myself from them, and only to find myself in their arms again. Only a fool speaks for himself in the future- However, I foresee no circumstance that could drive me away from them permanently.

We sit to a long make-shift table in my sister’s living room. Her 8 month-old son, Benjamin, and my cousin’s newborn son, Cedar, take shifts crying loudly into the air. The infants’ wails bounce to and fro the walls, accompanied by clangs of dishes being passed clockwise around the table. We talk over the natural soundscape. Conversation fades to the inevitable feasting on an abundance of wild rice, squash, beets, broccoli soufle, and pick-a-biscuits… we are together, and we are filling ourselves with each other’s presence as much as the food.

By this point, there had been no mention of her. The babies mere presence might’ve stricken that subject out of discussion, but I don’t have a child, so I can’t say for sure.

She’s gone. I can’t hear her voice. She’s not at this dinner table right now telling me to get car insurance, move out of my mother’s house, asking me about the next dance (acting) job, or checking in on my relationship with my mother. Even the absence of the nagging upsets me.

…

This wild rice is bomb. I owe it to whoever made it, to finish it before I go to the basement and cry in the bathroom.

So, I do.

I eat the last portion of the wild rice, knowing there will definitely be a sequel between the meal and I. Don’t think I’m done with you, wild rice. We will have our time again, in a very short while. For now, I wrap my napkin, push myself up a little bit to stand away from the table- I take a few steps toward my nephew Benjamin, kiss him on the head, and walk toward the basement door.

No one notices. And that’s exactly how I wanted it.

Down the stairs, my sister and brother-in-law, have a bathroom tucked away from the television space next to the washer & dryer. It has the feel of a room from an episode of Doomsday Preppers.

I enter, close the toilet lid, sit on it, and place my head in my hands.

This is how you do this- how you handle your first Thanksgiving without your grandmother.

I blow my nose, promptly trot up the stairs and am back to the dinner table. Feeling as though a weight has been lifted, I delve back into the wild rice sequel. Again, no one notices. I prefer it that way.

December 2015

The walls stretch further and further away between myself and the bodies corralling themselves into the bar. Politicians, lawyers, news anchors, business owners, 6-figures, 7-figures, 8-figures belly up to the marble bar top and kindly ask me to fill their cup. I gladly serve them.

My new-old vocation of serving alcohol couldn’t have come at a better time with the holidays around the corner and an old friend entrusting her reputation to me as I fill in a bartending role for what might’ve gone to someone else less familiar. The bar has the makings of a well kempt, but antiquated, speakeasy. My great grandfather would’ve easily frequented this place after his dance (music) gigs. I would serve him a whisky, call him a cab, and attend his next show with bells on.

It’s undetectable at this point, but what is about to strike me is going to possibly put my employment at risk and send me into an inconvenient emotional moment of catharsis.

I am of the ilk that we are not at the mercy of our minds or hearts, but that we are at the mercy of our very own authenticity. We know when we’re kidding ourselves, out-kicking our coverage, or flat out not engaging with reality. Working with Pre-K students suffering from mental illness, the first thing we establish is “we are not our illness, expectation, or even our own body”. We are who we believe we authentically are. Engage with that, and you will never let yourself down… inversely, never let anyone down as well.

The bar begins to clear. A few stragglers, regulars and couples remain at the bar. We can breathe easy for the moment and log in tips while the storm rests… and in walks my authentic moment. Someone enters the bar at sometime while I was dealing something, which is all arbitrary up until the point Louis Armstrong began singing “What A Wonderful World” over the venue’s speakers. I pause at the register, take note it’s the song played at my grandmother’s funeral and take a deep breath. Serendipity is relative. The damn song could have nearly the opposite meaning to the next man.

“What would you like?” I wrap up the someone and I’s conversation after greeting them and chatting about this balmy December weather we’re having (enter MN Nice smile here). “Y’know, I’ll have an old fashioned.” They declare.

I smile to myself. It’s what she would’ve ordered.

I gladly make the beverage, I gladly serve the beverage, and because every now and then I discover my levy isn’t perfectly capable of holding all of the feels at bay… I excuse myself to the employee bathroom downstairs.

It’s nothing like floodgates. It’s more a moment of acknowledgment. Carol would have absolutely loved this place, have been proud of the man I am right now, and easily would’ve sang along to Louis as she sipped her drink.

So, I lean against the bathroom wall with my forearm, and cry it out. Nothing loud or blubbering- just sniveling and nose-blowing.

The only downside to having a good cry is the fact that without super-charged vizine, it’s damn near impossible to cover the red in your eyes. People can see it once you get back to public. Thankfully, the lights are low, the attention is sporadic, and the laughter is loud. No one notices, and I prefer it that way.

Whether they be smiles, tears or words, I let the moments flow through me. It’s how she would’ve wanted me to process her death, and so it will be how I journey through a world without Carol. 

Six Minutes And Back

It was 5 years ago, the last time I stepped foot into a downtown St. Paul hospital. I was there to see my grandmother after they had placed several stints in her heart. Trooper she was, her cadence and wit remained just as sharp after she went under the knife than before. Although Carol’s socialite skills always impressed, it was her unflappable confidence to take stake in her loved ones that awe struck me most throughout her time on earth. Sprawled out on a table after heart surgery, she still was able to reprimand me for being at odds with my mother and not having a place of my own yet. One can care, but to express that feeling under duress falls into the realms of unconditional.

I remember sitting in the waiting room, watching Good Morning America, half asleep. The other half of me couldn’t shake the idea that this might be it- this could be the end of the road for Carol and a long life of family, Irish Catholicism and compassion. In that moment, I wanted to curse the wallpaper for being such a drab color, blame the rug for not holding a more hypnotic pattern to trap my attention- everything in the room spoke to me… and all it would whisper was “Deal with this”.

In a hospital, there is no room for escapism. Only reminders of why you’re here, how you handle grief, and our undeniable mortality. Waiting to see Carol, I flash grinned at a passing thought of hospitals reminding us we’re human.

Now, entering the atrium, Carol is almost a year passed away- there is never a day that goes by that I don’t think about her- and I am entering, yet again, a hospital in downtown St. Paul. Under quite the contrary of circumstances, a new life in our family has blossomed. To what degree of joy and happiness the new life has brought us all, the moment is also accompanied by a complication and reminder that we are fragile as ever.

Barring details to my reasons for visiting- Entering prenatal care is something I never imagined I’d have to do in my lifetime.

Curvy stars, of different colors and sizes, speckle the path to the next door after I receive my badge to pass thru the first entrance. Something of a yellow brick road, the walls and windows of the hospital entertain the eye as anything & everything in a children’s museum. Unlike the whispers of the waiting room five years ago, this building is cordially smiling and attempting to empathize with its visitors.

Passing the first colorful hallway, entering the 2^nd entrance, the room goes cold and pastel. Chairs line the walls. A woman at a desk asks me a few questions, checks my badge, asks me a few more questions… and then gives me an elevator look. The security in any prenatal care is triplicated beyond any standard hospital, due to the potential circumstance of infants being stolen. I can’t imagine the pathology that runs behind such an act, but apparently it’s a thing. The woman at the desk gives me the go ahead and points me toward a hallway vividly opposite the last I passed thru.

Double doors open and spill me into a world humbling my senses to taking a deep breath just to make it to my new family member’s room. Doors ajar or partially creaked open reveal glass cases containing newborns. Machines, producing high-pitched beeps and low-toned pumps of air, breathe in and out of the cases. I struggle to keep it all in.

Turning a corner, I panic that the room number, the woman at the desk gave me, isn’t here. I’m lost. I stumble by a family, crowded around a room, in thick focus. I could spin a thousand stories from the picture of them. My imagination unravels.

Finally, arriving at my new family member’s room, there he is: A beautiful child and miracle in his own right. It is at this moment, in this place, betwixt the joy of life and woe of potential untimely tragedy that Carol finds my heart to remind me a family does not decrease in size, but grows in compassion.

Cedar, welcome to the family.

May this world offer you every opportunity and joy it has to give.

Classroom Catharsis

Then

The walls littered with academic social justice posters and historic reminders of disparity maintain a sort of welcome mat when I see them. I usually take a deep sigh to notice a teacher who has taken the time to put up a Malcolm X poster. Not Martin Luther King, not Booker T. Washington... just Malcolm. A strange quirk for me: It’s a sign said teacher fully grasps the difference between prejudice and systemic disparity. Her walls exhibit the such, and would have me attend her 6^th grade class for the entire week to lead a slam poetry workshop within the realms of Minnesota history. The history part works, as she’s laced the entire syllabus for the slam poetry workshop with equity, racial disparity, classism, and an all-around breadth of sociology.

Now

Egg white walls stretch as high and far as I care to see. The thing about art and design schools, for me, is the dead silence. Passing by several classes of capacity auditoriums and paint labs, while walking the 2^nd floor, you can hear the welcome desk person typing from the floor below. Dead. Silence.

I had been requested to step into an art and design college to speak about my process as an artist, touching on the themes of community and social responsibility. By now, having traveled the country for over a decade discussing racial prejudice and systemic disparity, I have no problem standing in front of a group of 20+ year old white students and telling them their privilege is one thing, however not communicating it through their art is a failed responsibility on all accounts.

So, here we are: Friday morning, 30 junior/senior students with emphasis from animation to film directing to sculpting, me, two poems, and an hour to kill before we all disperse into the weekend.

Then

For 5 days, 5 classes a day, I circle up with the tykes to discuss where they’re at with their slam poems and level of confidence in what they’ve written so far. Some display an unrivaled passion for academics I can see their parents have encouraged, and have pages upon pages sketched down of what they’ll present the final day of the workshop. Other students, who have taken animosity with school and disdain for authority, express a page or shorter of absolute brilliance. I can quickly see the disparity of house income, ethnicity, and perceived self-image from each student. It’s amazing how quickly their deepest insecurities can surface once given a space designated for expression.

Now

At what first felt like a time-killer, the first slam poem I delivered to the class brought about the elephant in the room: money and art. If your art is a piece of your soul, can it have a price tag? We barrel through that and a litany of other subjects regarding school, working with youth, and soon the dreaded… race and art.

So far, the class has been mild to luke warm on the subject matter we talk about, until I asked, “Do you feel the overwhelming presence of white people and whiteness in Minnesota affects your art?” The auditorium erupts in a collective of agreeing gasps, sighs, and laughs of “no shit”. The ball is rolling, and I’m going to make for damn sure I don’t push it too much, otherwise whatever precious momentum we have could be ruined.

Of the 30 students and faculty in the room, 4 to 6 were non-white. The room equally chips in to the discussion on whiteness, to my surprise, scaling a gamut of defining white art to whiteness in Minneapolis hip-hop. The conversation is jilting to the point several students begin to speak on the subject out of turn, overlapping one another.

Then

The 3^rd to last class, on the final day of the workshop, enters the classroom to present their slam poems. The class is daunting in size as our circle begins to creep into the other half of the room. Students deliver impassioned poetry from historic subjects as foreign to me as the great typhoid outbreak in St. Paul, and the not-so-foreign-to-me lynchings in Duluth. Some of the poetry is personal, some of it not. Uniform to all, their poetry is delivered with conviction.

Rounding the bend to the final portion of the circle, a shy student stood to speak his poem. Brown skin, Spanish accent, and standing no taller than 4-and-a-half feet in height, he began his piece with the softest voice yet. Hard to hear under the acoustics, I lean in from my chair, as does the majority of the class.

For the life of me, I can’t remember verbatim what his poem spoke, but he began with listing…

“I am Mexican. My family is Mexican. My people, are Mexican. We work the jobs you don’t want to. We roof your houses, we clean your dishes…”

Sweet Jesus on a Klondike, I think to myself at this moment. What was presumed to be another innocent declaration of one’s newfound interest in MN History, turned into a personal essay with a resounding emotional boom slowly working its way through everyone’s solar plexus. Tears well up in the young man’s eyes, his voice bubbles through the excess saliva choking him up, I quickly look about to the rest of the class- White students unknowingly spectating with their jaws dropped, while each Spanish speaking student began to tear up in unison with the young poet. He continues…

“How would you feel if… How would you feel if…”

He cracks. A part of him can no longer hold back his heart’s momentum. In his youthful mind, he hasn’t quite connected the dots that it’s perfectly ok to speak with conviction, cry, and be human all at the same time, so he turns his back and begins to release more tears, haulting the poem.

At this point, every brown student in the classroom is tearing up or fully crying. Another student, races from an arc of the circle to hold him. In solidarity, they hug, communicating “Hey, it’s ok. You can make it.” And over all gestures, the embrace says “What you have to say is important.”

With his back still turned, he reads on.

“How would you feel if your parents could be taken away from you at any moment and deported to another country”.

Annnnnnnd we lost it. Now the teacher, the teacher assistants, and myself are caught in a wash of tears, unbridled empathy, and a fervently shaken control to keep it all in.

Now

I wrap with my testimonial on my entrance into college at St. John’s, then to Hamline, then to drop out, and then to the University of Minnesota. Illustrating how I found my footing as an artist, and reconciling with Minnesota that I will forever be heavily viewed as an artist of color before anything else of my being or work is taken into account.

A white student raised his hand to ask, “As a white person, how can I touch on racial disparity in my art. I mean- how do you talk about that”.

I respond, “I don’t know, because I’m not white. I wanna know what you feel like though! When you walk into Spyhouse and see dozens of white people on expensive laptops typing & clicking into the day, meanwhile, an old homeless black guy is passed out in one of the chairs next to all of this- How the hell does that make you feel??? Privilege is invisible, so I want to know at what point is it unavoidable? We’re in Minnesota, where a white rapper can go an entire career without having to see one person of color in her or his audience, go without charitably donating one song to the fact that he’s a white artist participating in an art originated by an entirely different ethnicity and culture, go without having to acknowledge race for a fiber of a second- I wanna know how that makes you feel?”

Time’s up. The hour is away from us. We adjourn.

Students line up to the side of the stage bestowing thanks and questions to me they weren’t able to quite get to during the discussion. A brown woman stands waiting for 5+ minutes while I converse with a student on what exactly the air of the school is like when a student tries to bring race into their assignment or project. Our dialogue goes on longer than I expect. The brown woman stands diligently still. Wrapping up, she took a meager two steps to greet me.

“Hi” I introduced myself basically.

“Hi, I uh…” she stifled. “I- Ok, I was fine, but now it’s happening again.”

Tears surface to the bottom crescent of each her eyes, so thick they’re even noticeable behind her thick black-rimmed glasses.

“What’s up? You alright?”, I tip toed.

“Yeah, I’m fine. When you were talking about race up there. See, I'm from South America- I was born in South America, and I was adopted…”

She goes on to divulge her background of adversity with being presumed too white to be accepted by people of color, and too brown to be accepted by white people. The line is ugly, and I’ve lived it all my life. I can still remember Bridget from the 4^th grade screaming at me during recess, “Nigga I’ll slap the black outta you! (Laughs) If there’s any black in there (More laughter)”. I can tell her experience is filled with moments that have moved her as an artist, human being and potential activist. Continuing her story, “And, it’s when you try to talk about that (race) or present it (race) in your project, other students just harp on it so hard and dismiss it so quickly”

Again, I can’t recall what she said verbatim, but I can recall the way it made me feel. As the tears continue to surface, I ask her a question I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone before. Almost tearing up myself, I ask, “Do you want a hug?”

Not even giving her a chance to answer, I take a half step toward her, stretch out my arms in tandem with her own, we hug it out for a quick few seconds. In that moment, I can recall just how many times I needed a hug like this in my earlier days. The days of cradling my head in my hands trying to figure out just why the f writing, performing and acting felt like skating uphill- felt like I was speaking to an audience that hadn’t a shred of empathy- felt like I was giving my best to Minnesota, and only receiving apathy in return. That hurt, that pain, that struggle is what has made me the artist I am today. Not fully, but definitely a fair part of me.

We chat a little longer, and draw comparisons to her final project and a show I did recently at the Bryant Lake Bowl. The entire lecture, the talks afterward… all of it humbling.

I never expect tears on such occasions, however when you designate a space to speak freely, express truthfully, and value your neighbors thoughts and ideas as much as your own, I can think of no better place to give someone a hug.