Suburbia (Warning: the beginning is slightly angry and it gets happier towards the end)

Sometimes suburbia upsets me, like when people who I know to have very limited experiences try to shun others who they deem "inferior" to themselves.
When cliques of far more "superior" people are formed at the expense of those crowned with middle school titles of "uncool." Like-Oh, I'm sorry. Your skinny jeans and oversized glasses give you an excuse to be rude.
-"No, but I smoke cigarettes and only lived in the suburbs 23 of the 25 years I have lived."
Impressive......
(Sarcasm abounds).

Except no one calls anyone uncool in their twenties, they simply give looks and walk around with an air of superiority.
Little do they know that this is precisely what their fathers and mothers did before them, excluding Blacks, Latinos and others who were not deemed as "superior."
" Oh no!" Cries the hipster. "I voted for Obama."
Obama?
Your previously conservative ass voted for Obama?
Well, don't you get a golden star! Oh, wait! You went on a study abroad trip for two semesters and had a cross cultural experience too?
Wow. Good for you!

And then, there are parts of suburbia that are near to me. Like the beaches and the families and the moms who bake you cookies when you meet them. And the hobbies and the outings.

And then there are the experiences I have in this place (that happens to be in a suburb) with people who are genuine. They transcend every category I might have placed them in, just because we are friends. These people are not 'suburban.' They're not 'White' to me. They're not way too privileged for their own good. And they're not people I resent because I gave up what I had in a cosmopolitan hub to live in a place where no one would understand my experiences. These are lovely people. Compassionate people, who I know by name and as individuals-who may or may not fit into the stereotypes I may have for them. You want to make fun of my occasional accent? Go ahead, because we're cool like that. My defenses are down. Fists are lowered. And we are more similar than any theory or category might deem us to be.

Stereotypes are for people we resent. They are reserved for people we misunderstand or who misunderstand us. When someone offends us we call them "suburban" and remind them of how oppressive they were to our people so that it stings. We speak in grand large scales. We remind them of how provincial and narrow their experiences are. We remind them that they, in fact, are not superior. We unleash the ghetto and scare them with our slang. And it works. Two neck rolls and one finger raise and I get you to crawl back behind the white picket fence you grew up in-fenced from the large, diverse world that you got a peek of on your trip to Uganda your junior of college, but will always remain somewhat clueless as long as you live in the hipster world of rebelling against daddy and mommy (and of course, your Palestinian scarf does not mean that you are a hipster. You are, in fact, not a hipster).


But isn't this the root of many conflicts, small or large scale, in the world? You shun me, I let you know who's boss. You make me feel small, I make you feel small. And suddenly, we draw our guns.
And then, in a whole other realm, friendship happens, where we are given the space to breathe; to get to know the idiosyncrasies, the "weirdness" and the "coolness." Where masks are let go of. And suddenly the "suburban" person you were trying to belittle becomes your best friend. The approach here is different. We come to the table as equals, with nothing to defend. We offer our weapons as gifts and leave them at the irrelevant corner they belong in with crayons and beanie babies.

I see you. With clarity. Because all you are is my brother. All you are is my sister. You are not my attacker. You are not my oppressor. You are not the privileged kid who is trying to pretend he or she knows something about my culture and my demographic that I supposedly do not know just because you heard about it on NPR. You are blood, flesh and bones. Just like me.
I am not your judge, smashing my gavel on the pages of history to make you feel ashamed of your skinny jeans, pretension and escapism. I am your housemate who yells when she's offended, who you get to tell to shut the hell up, because I'm only bullshitting because I'm offended. You call my bluff because we are the same and different. And we revel in it all. Together.

A journey through the eyes of my itunes

I got my old Dell laptop back today. This laptop was the one I got in September of my freshman year of college with the scholarship money the City of Cambridge gave me. It was one of the first larger items of mail I had ever received, and it helped usher in a convoluted chapter of ups and downs.
On it, I downloaded tons of 90's R & B that I would sulk to in my dorm room my first semester in 2004. Monica soon welcomed Switchfoot-"I Dare You to Move" in the Spring of 2005. I remember listening to this and all of the contemporary christian music you could think of. In light of the culture I have come to know of indie-hipsters where turning against daddy's religion is key, this might sound a bit absurd. But at the time, these CCM artists (I learned the acronym recently) helped establish a cultural connection to this new culture I had discovered, of oriental scarves, going to the gym at 6am, sitting in the green grass between classes and sipping lattes at the former Claymore at 12:30 am every night.

Then came Common, John Legend and spoken word artists when I went back home to Cambridge that summer to try to make sense of the new culture I had found and it's relationship to my own context.

But then sophomore year rushed in at the end of August of 2005 and Mercedes Sosa was ready to help me deal with cultural identity. Marx was sitting on my desk-and I didn't just read him for class. My Dominican flag was my security blanket that helped me hang onto my roots as it hung from my dorm wall. Listening to the songs from Latin American revolutionaries singing through the Nueva Cancion Movement served as the soundtrack for my Latin American politics class and my participation in May Day 2006, rallying for immigration reform. The Rock en español that I had discovered in Dominican Republic that year took me through the angry moments that spring.

Junior year brought me Radiohead through an old boyfriend. Sufjan Stevens came flying through to speak to my more culturally heterogenous soul when I worked as a barrista at the small closet they called Claymore "If you have a father or if you haven't one, I'll do anything for you." And it all went downhill from there--or uphill.
Listening to the variety of music on my old itunes takes me back to these places. The smells of my apartment senior year in the basement of Ferrin. Flashbacks to getting ready to go to parties in Beverly, where I was more an observer than anything else-not quite sure if I was a full fledged participant quite yet. The colors of the tiles in the bathroom, the smells of cleaning product during times of extreme motivation-Jarabe de Palo bring me back. Laying in bed thinking about how I was going to get through it all during times of extreme difficulty-Lifehouse was the tear jerker.
The songs from different genres going one after another like a really awkward mixed CD take me to the activism, the optimism, the cultural questioning. It gives weight to my experience and reminds me of how profound these were. Even the Spanish Christian songs take me there-to times when I was more sure, but also to times when I was in tune with changing my bad habits or detrimental character traits. "Cancion de Sanidad": "Ven, saname Senor." These take me back to times of profound prayer, of crying out, to the times of absolute desperation and to times of absolute elation.

They remind me of the incredible transformation that has taken place in the last 5 years. And to top it all off, there's a spoken word piece in there that I had written for my friend's communication class at Emerson College in 2008. It was all about my journey from Dominican chain-wearing days to the whole foods shopping and cafe going days.
Crazy. Cathartic.




It makes me think....
When I look back I feel that I have gained so much, that I am empowered in a way I had never been. I feel that I have climbed a really tall tree or something and now can see that when I was so sure that the world consisted of three roads and 1,000 trees, it might have atleast 300 roads and 10,000 trees, if not more. In fact, I'm sure that I have more trees to climb and that there are more roads and trees to see that I do not have access to now.
It makes me think of this idea that salvation lies in tapping into these universal principles that break us free and help us to transcend our previous limitations or at least to understand them more fully. Now, there a whole new set of limitations and I'm excited to keep climbing.

9 things...

There are things I haven't yet figured out how to do. And, in fact, I wonder if I'll ever figure out:

1. How to make myself eat the vegetables in the plastic bags from the super market without being turned off by them a day or two later and getting fresh vegetables during lunch instead. In other words, how to not waste money.

2. How to keep my room consistently organized for more than a week without having to do a massive clean every Sunday.

3. How to keep avoiding dairy, white flower and things that are bad for me in proportionate amounts throughout the year, so that I'm not going from a size 12 to a size 9 back to a size 11 and then on the verge of a 13, and getting queasy and nauseous in between.

4. How to follow up on those things I always say I want to do, but never get around to; like getting better at riding a bike and being able to use it as a viable means of transportation; like getting fit enough to go hiking with my athletic friends without wanting to have a heart attack 3/4's of the way there; like getting good at the guitar and fighting through my fear of theory through to see new horizons of musicality.

5. How to stop being such a people pleaser! I must admit, I am getting better at saying no and articulating my boundaries, but I still find that I build my thoughts around how happy others might be, especially in my professional life.

6. How to fight the temptation of getting over priced coffee at a coffee shop in the morning before work as part of my daily ritual.

7. How to be a better daughter.

8. How to sift through all the clutter in my head filled with thoughts, ideas, wants, to-do lists without having them all smudge together in one big mush, causing me to take drastic measures to figure it all out, by creating color coded charts and storing a zillion and two calendars, organizers and planners.

9. How to want to take out the trash when I get home from work-I can take it out of the poor over-worked trash can and tie it in a nice knot, but to take it downstairs?! C'mon! Huge task!
Ridiculous.
I know. (I'm also not the only contributor in this scenario)

"Purity of heart is to will one thing"

Is this the case for anyone else?

There's always at least one day a week where all I can get myself to do is stare blankly at my computer at work.
Ok. I'm exaggerating. I can get myself to go on facebook, check my newsfeed 8 times, read NYTimes articles, write journal entries. Oh and Ooo! Ooo! I can get myself to read budgeting articles and material for clients. But anything beyond sitting here and reading becomes incredibly difficult.
This week that day is Monday. I've been sitting here, reading the Budgeting Workbook, slowly but surely. And although I feel lethargic because of the great feast at my family's house yesterday, I have a feeling that this has to do with more than my physical health. It's probably indicative of what I'm meant to be doing.
I'm reluctant to say that I'm meant to be in a work environment where I can be writing, reflecting, reading and conceptualizing. But I'm finding that, in this environment, those activities come the most naturally.
So the question becomes, What to do? Another important question to ask might be, What is the nature of these unproductive days? It it just a case of the Mondays? Is it my job or is it me (i.e. should I be looking to change some sort of thinking pattern or habit that will cause me have a case of the Mondays every week no matter what job I find myself in)?
Perhaps, I'll leave here at the end of my assignment having written a novel about my clients, their stories and anecdotal information on best practices. I'll call it: Poverty and Social Service Agencies: From the Eyes of an Observer on the Inside.

Untitled

It's a funny thing, this guy-girl...romance......weird...hookup-But wait! Let's just be friends...
intimacy...weird-But I want the goods still-no don't touch-but touch me when I want it-haze.

It's weird, quite frankly.

You meet this human being. With dignity and God-given value and shit. You explore their idiosyncrasies and circle around their core, getting to know just enough before any real bond is formed. And you realize: You are fleeting and are only filling a concave hole in a heart for the time being.

And you dance around these feelings. Back and forth between inadequacy and ecstasy and shame-Woops, they know my secret and the thing I'm self conscious about without enough Love to support and contextualize it. Woops-I said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but had it been five minutes ago I would have caught you in the right mood and you would have been all for it. Woops- my buzz is gone and I no longer want you like I did yesterday for the 5 meaningless minutes that served no other purpose but to fulfill my fleeting longings.

You cry sometimes because you're mad. And not mad at them because you have no ground to stand on. But at yourself, for the cards you've been dealt and the lack of lemonade you've made with these seemingly pre-destined lemons and the things you've given over all too quickly and rashly.

It's weird. This getting to know a person.
Not because you have some sort of thing in common that you like to share-like David and I who share insights about spirituality, books and existential crises or how undisciplined I am, and how his funny email about customized doorbells makes my morning and helps me get out of bed. Or like Dave and I who share politics, a love for fashion, laughter and Black comedy and/or occasionally revel in the fact that I once woke him up by taking off his covers which resulted in an awkward surprise for me (yes, they both have the same name). These people-for whom I have an unlimited supply of conversation topics, meaningful silences, news articles, quotes, insights, tears, old memories and jokes for-hold weight in the grand scheme of my life. And this one guy, lightweight floating around in Annery's realm of escape- how much value does it (this rendezvous) actually have?

But, we proceed with getting to know each other, jumping over the awkward hurdles of un-compatibility and marked difference for the sake of fulfilling this concave hole in our souls that longs for another-that longs for intimacy.
And it's not you-the particular shape, hair type, eye color, laugh, smile, dance, sense of humor, interests that bring us together. It's not me-my shape, my eyes, my smile, my movement, my interests, my quirks that draws you to me. It's something more individual that has nothing to with me and nothing to do with you. Me, just a variable standing in place of any other random symbol or co-efficient that was available at the time. You, just a factor close by. Available.

Yet, we explored. Lonely souls explored closeness. Fleeting closeness-but closeness nonetheless.
And it may or may not have made a dent in a broken nervous system that was tired of crying without being held. Being held by another being who needed to be held may not have been a total waste... But there's something wrong here, something inconsistent and mirage-like. I choose reality, please, with three doses of laughter with my closest friends.

"Us" and "them"

When I go about my daily tasks, i.e. chores: ironing, picking up the clothes lying around in my room, cooking, etc. I often think about my mom. I get flashbacks to her daily routines. I think about her urging me to pick out my clothes the night before school or about preparing my lunch the day before instead of waiting to do it half an hour before I walked out of the door the next morning. I think about her ironing on Saturday nights while watching Sabado Gigante or mopping the floors on a sunny Saturday morning instead of running away from chores under the excuse that it's a "nice day outside."
Now, don't get me wrong. I haven't always had these flashbacks and I don't always follow in my mother's footsteps in this way. In fact, I am nowhere near as clean and organized and disciplined as she was during my childhood. But, as I strive to be more organized and disciplined post-college, these memories inspire and motive me.
Going back in this way helps normalize what I'm doing and deters me from sitting down in front of facebook, for instance, or from taking a nap when I know I should be getting ready for the next day. I suppose that for most of us this process is more subconscious. However, for some of us, the households we grew up in do not inspire such actions. For some of us, our childhoods consisted of parents who did not work, suffered from some mental or physical illness and were bed ridden most of the time. Some of our parents did not wake us up for school--we woke ourselves up. Some of our parents did not iron or mop or pick up the clothes on the floor consistently, except for some small bouts of inspired moments when this was the case. And I imagine that for those of us whose parents struggled in this way, inspiration to go about completing daily tasks must come from somewhere else.
I think about these things because of my line of work; because everyday my job reminds me of the lines that are drawn between "us" and "them." My job causes me to think about thinking patterns that shape our behavior or our potential to learn and grow. And often, we are products of the upbringings we had--with the possible exceptions of those outlier children--the Rory Gilmores and the Barak Obama's and the genuises who managed to pull themselves up by the genetic bootstraps they were given. But for most of us, we are direct products of our environments. When we experience this kind of lack, where do we get the tools we were "supposed" to get when we were 5 years old and the foundation for our adult lives was being laid?

Platano-Chocolate chip bread

There is platano-chocolate chip bread sitting in my kitchen and it wasn't made by me.
For those of you who don't know, Dominicans do not make bread out of platano--at least not usually. "Platano is for mofongo, mangu, fritos, tostones and sancocho! Maybe sometimes a pastelon or two!" Shout the purists. But the new generation always has something new to say to the purists and new lines to cross.
I suppose this is what happens when you put people of different backgrounds in the same house, in ways reminiscent of the Arabic sounds found in Flamenco or the accordion used in Merengue borrowed from the Germans who brought it to the Caribbean; or the Catholic churches in Central America incorporating rituals rooted in Mayan spirituality. Syncretism.

So I go about my business frying my platanos and someone says,
"Hey, this is kind of like a banana. I'm making platano-chocolate chip bread." And it appears on my kitchen table as a gift. it's delicious.
But don't be deceived, sometimes mixing isn't that delicious. Like hot sauce and ice cream is still not fun, no matter how exotic it may sound (unless you fancy that kind of thing).
We don't mix for it's own sake. This "platano-chocolate chip bread"-style syncretism is organic, natural. It's not coerced. And organic mixing--when it results from a genuine love for the different items before you--is beautiful. Kinda like my love for the folks I met at Gordon. Cambridge-Latina meets white-suburban crunchy folks and by deafult, makes a concoction of platano-chocolate chip bread, among many other syncretisms.