The Cry of the (White) Kids

Yesterday there was a 4th of July party at my parents house. I walked in the door, hugged my mom, and willingly exiled myself to the kids room. The kids table, outside with the kids after dinner, the whole deal.

I am 23 and I have been working with kids for 7 years.

When I was in Chile, who did I miss? Right: kids.

I do not have my own kids and I do not want my own kids.

However, it is clear that I like kids. I want to be around them. I do not like them because they are small and say random things and I can boss them around and sound smart while telling them historic or scientific facts that everyone who has any sort of middle school education knows. No, actually, I like them because I respect them. I feel that by being the only ones here brave enough to be vulnerable and ignorant and small, they earn my respect. When I am in a room with adults my interior screams: WHY DONT WE ALL STOP FAKING IT. When I am with kids, well, it gets quieter.

The most shocking cultural behavior that has impacted me this year during my re-entry has undeniably been the way people in the U.S.A. treat their children. White kids, in particular, get my attention because I have only ever been one, and I know exactly how it feels to be a sensitive creature at the other end of that repremand, that painted smile, that flippant laugh.

Interactions in restaurants, at the gym, in the neighborhood–anywhere!–have exposed me anew to the egoistical disrespect with which children are treated. We have got to stop! If we do not acknowledge our children as humans, and being a human as intrinsically good, how will we love this world back to life?

The lie of badness is daily hammered into children, in all spheres of our culture. Home. School. Play. Good Lord, no wonder we are killing each other! I almost do not blame us. Except for all of the goodness I have seen, and have learned to see. There is so much goodness & we are truly all intrinsically good, accepted, loved, and valued. This darkness cannot last long. Our souls were made to be free, if not as children, then as adults.

I wrote the following piece after witnessing a particularly harrowing parenting episode in a restaurant. Parenting truly must be difficult, but I know it is not impossible to hear the cry of our children. I know it is possible for each adult in the U.S.A. to welcome their the truth of their goodness home into their deepest selves that they may pass it on. That the cry for love may be heard, and may heal the generations to come.

The Cry of the White Kid is a cry for respect & love. May we, as adults, receive the love and respect that is freely poured out on us from the Divine, and may our children absorb it and thrive.

The Cry of the White Kid

Mom, Dad,

Please don‘t look me in the face and tell me that I am bad.

Please don‘t teach me to see the patterns of my shadows–I need you to teach me to see the light that will lead me into and through that darkness.

Please don‘t smile at your friends and tell them how bad I am while I have tears streaming down my face.

Please don‘t laugh at the way I swim or only point out my weaknesses.

Please assume that I am right where I should be, instead of stressing constantly that I am behind the others.

Please don‘t use me to puff up your ego or make your decisions or shield you from your emotions.

Please don‘t always point out my imperfections–I already see them in full color. I need you to show me my perfection. No one else ever will.

Love unconditionally and with all my respect,

Future You in the World

 

Amen,

Lydia Nomad, a white kid 🙂

 

P.S. Here is a Great Parenting Blog Post.

 

Tend-and-befriender

It is odd to tell a story as if it was a thing that happened and it has an end and tra la la. This story is a chapter, it is a leaf only recently flipped over, and I am not sure which parts of its’ green vines to write, and which to leave for later.

Yet today, here, now, all I have is cute little me and my inhospitable life story and path. Here, friends, is a part.

August 2015 I am in a restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama with my best friend Emily. She is chewing red and yellow tortilla chips in the magical way only she can, and I gaze at the shiny bottles of alcohol propped on and around the bar caddy-corner to us.

“I’m just afraid that I will marry him and go to be with him and then hate it and not want to be there,” I say. Emily and I do not talk about everything but we talk about most things and all the deep things, yet somehow there is a unique heaviness to the fear I share in this moment. Emily nods like the sane, level-headed being she is, and validates my concern with restraint.

Sadly, utter heaviness was no stranger to my experience of life then, and still maintains a fairly reliable presence (always forward, always healing, always hopeful). At that point I was back from an emotionally stressful overseas trip, and had returned with a new tend-and-befriender. What is that, you ask? Using language from Teresa B. Pasquale’s book Sacred Wounds, tend-and-befriend is a defense mechanism used by someone in survival mode or trauma response. It is associated with the bonding hormone, oxytocin, that serves humans by helping us feel connected to others. It becomes nefarious, however, when a person is stuck in a trauma response and feels dependent emotionally on (often potentially hurtful) people or communities.

At the age of 21, I had spent the majority of my life (read: every second) moving from a stress response. The emotional and religious trauma of my developmental years left me stuck in frozen distress (things can get reeeeeally hairy there is distress-arctica, let me tell ya), and there I was, about two months after the difficult trip, feeling a deep obligation to return to be with someone in a foreign country who had helped me through a VERY rough 13 days. I felt that I owed him something, and that to return and live the life I assumed he wanted from or with me was the undeniable right thing to do.

I felt it not on a spiritual level, nor on a level of dutifulness, nor on an intellectual level. It was deeper than those parts of me, and now I know that when I feel that deep, guttural obligation it is coming from my very evolution. Those stress responses are a part of me because I am a part of an evolving body of humanity; sounds beautiful, sure, but in that moment, I was very stuck. Living in this kind of stress response is like trying to breath with air that is only 0.09% oxygen. It is having your insides in the fetal position when you need them to open and flourish and say things and be responsive to people. It is a jack-hammer in your mind that leaves you vulnerable to re-experiencing the abuse combined with a sense of badness that stings and prods like horse flies on the beach. It is no sleep and avoidance of every love-light ray that comes near your personal darkness.

The religious trauma compounded with this process has continually led me to my knees, trying to bargain with push-and-pull gods off in the cosmos who made me, so must want me, but also must not want me since here I am in this turmoil again.

Thankfully, the kind man who helped me when I was overseas, lived, yes, overseas. After 5+ months in contact with him, I suddenly cut all conversation–text, calls, video. He offered advice and was kind and looking back I think he must have sensed the turmoil I was in though he did not understand it either, and I said goodbye.

January 2016 I am at my part-time cleaning job the day after cutting off the relationship and the air is back to 20% oxygen. Sweet, sweet clear oxygen filling my shriveled lungs. I lift my Pledge-covered rag over my head and dance; I feel elated, happy, for the first time in months. I am happy because I see that I am mine. As the jack-hammer lifts off my mind, I am thinking over and over: this is my life. I clean this house. This is my heart. I feel these things. The fetus my insides had become is suddenly a seed of new life, rather than a posture of protection. I am mine again, independent, and my muchness is slipping back into the ghost of myself that has been living misguided and drained for the past months.

I still wonder if people without an over-active stress response system feel that elated all the time. I wonder how many times I will have to survive a response like that again until my Holy Trinity (body, mind, soul) can look a stressful situation in the face and know that I am enough, and that it is going to be okay and I am going to make it regardless of what goes down.

I never should have accessed this place of stress and trauma. I certainly never should have gotten stuck in it for so long. But this is my life. MY super unique and immense life, people. I am grateful that I get to live it, know it, figure it out. This life is path and path is where my insides and outsides come together and I experience joy and love and laughter. Here, on path, I take the hands of my loved-ones with my own, even when I feel that my hands are not worthy to be inside of someone else’s.

Last week someone I love very much was angry and I could see the anger that she was trying to protect me from as I stroked her black hair.

I could see. I have lived. It has hurt. I can see.

Live free, live inside of the Big Love.

Namaste, nomads.

 

LN

 

 

 

 

Home That Never Was

How hard it has been to come back home and find that “home” never was, that here it has been horrible as ever,

that there the wounds were someone elses,

and that is why I could breath.

It was not that I changed so much (though I did), it was that the climate I found myself in shifted weight and I, broken daughter that I am, was able to let some off my heart.

My heavy, heavy heart.

I got back & I forgot. I forgot that I write because it gives me a glimpse of myself, not because it gives someone else a glimpse of me. I forgot that I am the only audience that matters, along with the ragged few who clap & dance outside the city, scarred scapegoats of the society that tore them apart. I forgot that you cannot trust your (heavy) heart to someone who does not know their own. I forgot that if you do not break the rules, they will break you. I forgot that to be at the bottom is to face your demons: that a culture that forces you there is Heaven disguised as Hell. I forgot that the elders of this “home” are not elders at all, but rather dragons disguised as guides who want to lure you into the lair where they have lain with their fat bellies resting on piles of gold pieces. Safe. Unhappy. Secure in their rabid insecurity. I forgot that what I got for me, it must absolutely be for me. I forgot that I am my own, that I was not bought with any price, but I have been given a life. I have been counted worthy of living, and the power and agency to create that life is in my hands. I forgot that nobody can give me permission to be who I am; others will lead me in circles, it is mine to cut my own labyrinth.

I forgot that nobody here is happy & that if I do not beware,

I too will fall into the cycle of unending unworthiness, searching frantically for what is already mine, scoffing at the happiness of others, if it seems they have found it.

It is not that I believe the beaches of Chile to be any more radiant than those of Florida, California, Alabama, or Maine. It is that I have found that to find my voice I must exist alongside others of my own kind, and I have seen that the wounds there are someone else’s. I have felt weight shift inside & it has renewed the hope that I have cultivated since I hid alone in the wilderness of my beginning.

This homecoming has brought me to the back lining of my belly, where my body protests the religious practices that leave my knees red & raw, my heart banished to the dungeon where, perhaps, it may learn to behave. There in the deepness of my sacred self I see that wisdom is crafted when culture declares you unfit, shifts awkwardly on its heels because you are breaking the rules.

Well.

Only those who the rules have failed, are free to make their own. The rules have failed me. Could it be that their failure is my freedom?

I learned that in brutal weakness, I am terrifically strong.

I learned that there are no allies, unless someone truly loves you, but even then, you must stand on your own or there will be no room for them to stand next to you.

I learned that intimacy is not something only to be lived through stories of an ancient Jewish teacher,

something that I write myself into & thus calm my heart. It is not something that the courage-less watch me long for from the dank towers of their minds, lofty, isolated from the dungeon of their hearts.

In other worlds, not this “home”,  I am not the only one with a heart, My yearning is not unique, it is universal, and there are other hearts that are interested in meeting me in the garden to play.

I know well how to garden my heart, nurturing my cactus-soul amidst the tumble weeds of “home” for 23 years has been the grueling training. This training brought me here, to myself, with the capacity to live unwatered, with a soft & delicious inside.

Perhaps now it is time to be a flower in the sun. A lizard sun-bathing in this flip-side of “home”, a place where the burden may lift off my heart as I see others with the courage to meet themselves in the garden, the place between their banished mind & their dungeoned heart.

In the powerful rhythm of Hope,

Lydia Nomad

What Spring Has Sprung

Truth is, I have spent some painful moments reflecting on the feeling of unbelonging that has plagued me since I arrived here on this Planet Mother, 23 (and some) years ago, as if it were a bad thing.

Now I see, the nomadic shape of my soul is what gives me my place here, and that the unbelonging is the Guide of my becoming. Yes!

 

Unbelonging Onward

 

Adults didn’t want me

I found children

 

Whites didn’t want me

I found blacks

 

Guys didn’t want me

I found girls

 

Insiders didn’t want me

I found internationals

 

America didn’t want me

I found Jamaica, México, Uganda, Puerto Rico, and Chile

 

Religion didn’t want me

so I found God.

 

 

Arise

Friends!

I find myself back in the United States, far north of Chile, and feeling closer to the North Star, my Jesus, my Guide to freedom. Home but not really home (I am a nomad, you see, a life time wanderer).

Below are three poems and 4 passages of Holy Scripture. Please embrace the figurative language of my pieces. I do not make attacks or write with intention of polarizing, I tell my story.

May you find your story in mine.

Lydia Nomad

 

Jesus: Does no one condemn you?

No, Master.

Jesus: Neither do I. Go on your way. From now on, don‘t sin.

 

My Experience of Being White

 

To be white is to be told you are bad

to believe you are bad

to know you are bad

to protect your badness

to project your badness.

 

To be white is to bleed the same color as the sunset

to die like leaves in autumn

to be crushed and ground into the earth

to provide nourishment for new life.

 

To be white is to live again though you have died.

 

Lord, if you will, make me clean.

Jesus: I will; be clean.

 

Life

My life is short

but I am very good

so it‘s okay.

 

Jesus: Your sins are forgiven you. Rise and walk.

 

Gospel?

“Your sins are forgiven” is enough to be Gospel

when it‘s the closest you‘ve come to “You are good”.

 

Then God looked over all (S)he had made, and (S)he saw that it was very good!

 

 

 

The Tree; Tobacco Eyes

The Tree

Sun & Moon came together and you, child of the constellation family, were placed as a seed into dark earth.

Left there, you gasped for the air that there wasn‘t.

But with beautiful boldness you rose, pushing away crumbling sod,

begging, begging your roots to descend that they might give you what you needed to crack the dry earth‘s crust.

Your seed-head butt the ceiling until it ruptured. The Light was the first you had seen since the community of stars watched you be planted; Sun.

She saw you & you saw her; resplendent Love & Harmony.

She saw you & you saw her, and I, from a distance, saw you there, destined too be the most majestic tree yet to dig roots in this soil.

 

 

Tobacco Eyes

I saw myself
in you, in the yellow chair,
with your legs pressed against one another
on its arm like hopeful ideas tossed over
two decades of rubbish theology.

Melancholy like smoke
wafted from your tobacco eyes;
you would have cried
if not for the hope sounding in your heart:
dachshund nails clicking against the hardwood floor.

I saw your shoulders shaped by the fear last year left. Memories like
bubbles from the alcohol
in secondhand champagne flutes
rose to tickle your lips
as you sighed a tired greeting to the year

that we did not know
would surprise us
with new beginnings born from the bonfire
of several candles
pushed together.

Dry leaves blew out from under the red Christmas lights
on your concrete porch
when I saw you there:
when I saw myself
in you.

Happy Birthday, Em. I love you & cannot say enough thank yous for who you are to me!

 

Lydia Nomad

 

Daughters

Awake. We woke up. You wake.

Do you remember how it feels? Remember last spring when we lifted the lid on limitation & found ourselves at the foot of God?

She was there in front of us, Grandmother Willow, all approving, mysterious, still, affectionate. Connective, there between us, the isolated ones.

Those lies we thought were truth we started to doubt & the doubt burst through: rays of hopeful sunshine on our white skin.

Now we remember again, Daughter. Those lies have been killing you; it wasn’t you like you thought. Look, now we are in a rush again, but it’s not to save our skin. It’s because there is SO MUCH. The end isn’t in sight and now we see that as Good News. We hesitated to think that Love Wins because if Love Wins there has to be an End and whose will it be?

But it won’t be anyone’s because it doesn’t.

Do you see how free we were made to be?

Give it up & receive it back. The sky above us only knows how much good we can hold. Pour it out, push back on the Lies until they burst; they’re not part of you anyway.

Abundance is written in the letters of Her holy tree-bark: I see your name there too.

There can be no wrong thing, no wrong creature, if every bit of it has been declared GOOD.

Until forever.

 

if you wish to survive
you will find the guide inside

(Nahko & Medicine For the People)

Today, I Go Forward

I came here for the victory.

I did not arrive a victim and I ask for nothing.

I came here to fight and to win.

When all I hear from the daily details is a tragic tale

I close my doors to let in the light; I run to pursue the Light.

Today it does not matter if I have once visited a place where it was safe to live with doors open.

It does not matter if there is someone out there who gives me the courage to live with open doors.

Today what matters is the victory I came here to gain.

Today I am alone, and mine is the victory.

As the pain is mine, so is the joy.

As the captivity is mine, so is the liberation.

 

These are the eyes through which I see the prisms in raindrops, the green glow of grass.

This is the body that carries me forward

today

I go forward.

Today I leave the irrelevant aches and envy behind.

 

Today I am alone and I am victorious.

Today is for victory so I sideline the sadness,

jump the starting gate,

and run the race only I can give myself permission

to win.

 

My doors are closed because I already have all that I need;

I will be inside until I find it.

 

There are days when it does not matter who you love

where you have been

what you have done.

All that matters is this path, these words, finding

the strength to travel light

towards the Light.

It does not matter if someone loves you

or if for now you are alone.

Keep going.

The light is yours.

You are the light.

 

A veces no te queda esperanza. 

A veces no hay tiempo ni espacio para un plan.

A veces corres sin mirar hacia atrás.

A veces sigues adelante sin platicar o quejarte.

A veces sobrevives para que un día, prosperes.

La luz es tuya.

Eres la luz.

Lover Song

Draw the silence out like a string from a ball of yarn.

The silence is where I see my dream most clearly:

you being God, filling me, inspiring me, and me loaning the space

I create to beloved sojourners: pilgrims who travel in and out of my environment.

They are attracted like moths to the gentle rays of peace and I am

an oasis; steady joy, hard work, laughter, space, nothing else.

Nothing less than what the world needs.

 

I want to walk without making a mark,

to speak my own Truth without hesitation

in nothing more than a whisper.

 

Just wait…

it all returns to simplicity in time.

I hear You saying, enjoy me.

I know that is all I want from this life and the next.

Nothing is worth the forfeit of this Peace,

so profound,

transcendent,

whole,

beyond words.

 

…I will spend my best days naming this unnameable Being.

This divine touch that is beyond

my language,

bigger than the human intellect,

more gentle

than the purr of a kitten,

or the press of a baby thumb nail.

 

Ser She Ahora

As am I

So are you:

Good.

Como soy,

igual eres:

buena.

She is trying to grow and learn.

She is a deep mystery.

She is imperfect and young.

She is a delight.

Ella intenta a crecer, a aprender.

Ella es un misterio profundo.

Ella no es perfecta, ella es joven.

Ella es una maravilla.

My cup of coffee, the leaves of big trees all around,

the fear between us that we both understand

because we are women

in a world we adore

set to destroy us.

Mi taza de café, las hojas de los árboles en su jardín, el miedo entre nosotras el cual entendemos bien

porque somos mujeres

en el mundo que adoramos

y que nos intenta a destruir.

 

¹² For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God].~1 Corinthians 13:12, Amplified Bible

Nuestros conocimientos son ahora muy limitados, como si estuviéramos viendo una figura en un espejo defectuoso; pero un día veremos las cosas como son, cara a cara. Mis conocimientos son ahora imperfectos, pero en aquel día podré conocer tal y como Ella me conoce a mí~1 Corintios 13:12, NBD