Hi Reader,
TL;DR: I low-key hate it here right now and other musings
I'm writing to you in a bit of a somber mood after experiencing a series of triggering events over the last 10 days or so. Not because I feel hopeless, but because the day I'm writing this is the day of my Bonus Grandma's funeral.
Triggering event No. 1: My bonus Grandma died last Tuesday.
Some of you may not know this about me, but I'm fortunate enough to have 6 grandparent figures in my life. My mom's biological parents aren't together and they each remarried, which gave me a Bonus Grandpa (to be fair, he was the only grandpa I knew for most of my life) and a Bonus Grandma, who I didn't meet until I was in my mid-20s.
As of today, 3 of my 6 grandparents are still alive. One grandpa, who has dementia, and two grandmas who keep on keepin' on.
But my Bonus Grandma, Elka, whose funeral is today, lost her husband, my Pop Pop, a little over a year ago to a very long and slow decline due to dementia. Elka possessed this quiet strength. She didn't say much, but you always felt her presence. She was sturdy and she was kind.
I always sensed that she wanted to be careful about taking up too much space. It felt important to her to be humble, be grateful, and avoid inconveniencing others. So much so that she asked my Aunt to keep her death quiet and her funeral private, which is why I'm writing this to you now and not in Denver with my Aunt and Uncle for her funeral today.
But I wanted to make space to grieve her all the same and to honor her legacy of kindness. You see, my mom had no relationship with her biological father, my Pop Pop, from age 4 to about 54. Our cousin found my mom at my Pop Pop's request about 12 or 13 years ago and my mom decided to give him a chance and go visit him. When she went, she met her little brother and sister for the first time and she met Elka.
Elka didn't say much, but she welcomed my mom. When my mom was processing and expressing her anger at her father, Elka didn't jump to his defense. She just stayed out of it. She was never rude or passive-aggressive. She was kind to my mom and she was kind to me.
She let us develop relationships with her husband and with her kids as we all tried to figure out what it looked like to make up for lost time.
And for that, I will always be grateful to her. So today, I just want to honor Elka, tell her that she was loved and appreciated, and marvel at a person who managed to have so much impact simply by being present.
The second triggering event happened later in the week after we learned Elka had died.
I went looking for my mom to ask her something and found her up in her room shuffling through paperwork. I sat down next to her to take a look and picked up my dad's birth certificate.
I'm an astrology junkie so the real reason I picked it up was to see if there was a birth time on it so I could finally pull this man's natal chart, but alas there wasn't one. Instead, there was a section to mark my dad's race and when I looked to see what he was identified as, I saw the word "Colored" next to a checked box.
"It says Dad is colored on his birth certificate," I said, somewhat shocked, to my mom.
"Yaaaaa." My mom dragged out the word and looked at me with raised eyebrows that seemed to say "What did you expect it to say?"
And in that moment, I realized that I too had forgotten. Even if just briefly. I had forgotten that none of this was all that long ago. I had forgotten that my family has this deep, dark, and violent past.
I had forgotten, just for a moment, all that we went through and all that we somehow survived.
But the memory lives on. And when I forget, my dad's birth certificate is there to remind me that there are reminders of oppression everywhere. On birth certificates, on our skin, in our minds, in our bodies, in our laws, in our jobs, in our schools, in our communities...everywhere.
And then I thought about how oppressed communities everywhere have these kinds of reminders. Those indigenous to this land have them, black people everywhere have them, Palestinians have them, and Jewish and other folks whose families survived the Holocaust have them.
These little reminders. These soul wounds. Some big, some small, but all that leave scars on the very fabric of our being.
They're these hurts that we carry with us everywhere. And sometimes, we manage to free ourselves from the anguish of those lingering moments of violence. Sometimes, it's for longer periods, and other times, like right now as we continue to watch a live genocide, for much shorter periods.
But no matter how long we manage to free ourselves from the anguish, it always seems to come back. It always seems to be there waiting for us. And each time, it hurts all over again.
The third triggering event happened when I was lurking on Threads and came across a post by a white woman about racism.
Specifically, she was expressing grief over losing friends who felt like family after they were driving together in Buckhead, Atlanta. When they passed Usher's new house, this lady's former friend said "It's getting dark in here."
She admitted that initially she had no idea what her friend was talking about and only later did she figure out that her friend meant that too many black people were buying in the neighborhood. They stopped being friends almost immediately. From what I could tell, she never confronted this person about her racism; she just separated and they both said their friendship ended for "political" reasons (cue my very dramatic eye roll).
That was shocking enough because while I'm aware redlining is a thing, I'm not in the market for a home so I'm not exactly on the up and up about how it's still practiced.
Well, the other white people responding to her were quick to fill me in.
One said, "Oh ya, we went to look at a home in a neighborhood and the realtor cautioned us that the neighborhood was getting dark."
Another said she had friends who when she asked why they were leaving such a great neighborhood, they told her it was because the neighborhood was getting "too dark."
Yet another shared a story about how they begged a realtor to show them a home in a neighborhood they loved, but the realtor refused because the neighborhood was "too dark" for them.
And what I need you to know is that I only read about 10 out of the 60 and counting responses to her post because after 10 I couldn't read anymore.
It's one thing to know things exist in theory; it's another to read people's real-life descriptions of them in practice.
I had to stop reading because that same sense of anguish returned to me and I had rage-filled questions that I absolutely did not need to type on Bisan's internet (so let me type it here, lol).
Like had any of these folks stopped to confront this racism? Did they have a conversation or say something like "Hey that's not cool" or perhaps maybe even "Hey that's wildly racist"? Or did they just silently distance and decline to hold their fellow white folks accountable? Or is white supremacy so automatic for white people that they forget it's literally the thing that's everywhere? And of course my favorite rage question: "Jesus Franklin Christ! What the hell are we doing on this fucking planet right now?"
I felt that familiar anguish begin to rise in me and it has stayed near the surface ever since waiting to be formed into some sort of expression. So here I am again, expressing with no agenda other than to ease a bit of the ache.
To be fair, my week wasn't all bad.
I got to see my brother on Monday.
I met with the person who I'm extremely excited to help build a community for black founders focused on social impact innovation in Baltimore on Tuesday. And we have a kickoff meeting with everyone next Thursday! (I'm still receiving donations to The Solidarity Fund to support me financially while we build this project from the ground up by the way!)
On Wednesday, I reconnected with my virtual assistant and her adorable tiny assistant (her toddler) and we are rolling on some new projects.
On Thursday, I took the day off and read all day. It was fucking awesome.
Today (Friday), I'm taking myself to this El Salvadoran restaurant I've been eyeing for a week to get a traditional fried fish lunch with a side of pupusas.
And, this morning at 6:30 am, I found this really cool Palestine recordkeeping project that I am excited to explore and learn from.
Okay, that's all from me. I hope you make space for the good stuff this week and happy Gemini season!
May you choose love over fear and safety over comfort,
Brionna
Mutual Aid for Palestinians: Operation Olive Branch has a list of GoFundMe's for families trying to evacuate Rafah before they are massacred. Check out the spreadsheet and donate whatever you can.
Offers from Friends:
Bianca still needs to complete more sessions to obtain her official EFT clinical certification. Because of that, she is offering 20% off all of her sessions when you enter the code TWENTYPERCENT at checkout. You can book via her website. Seriously, run, don't walk to book a session with Bianca.
Malia's 3-month container Harnessing Lunar Wisdom is still enrolling students. It's a monthly in-person offering hosted by The Awarehouse in Brooklyn for folks with wombs. Too often, capitalism seeks to sever our relationship and connection to the natural world. Malia's work supports us in repairing this connection. If you're in New York, you should check it out. It's $222.
