Dancing

I can’t wait! They will be here in 10 days – to fill my life and help direct it. And hug and kiss and love me and the boys. I am excited. I love them so much and I am so grateful for them.

Many times in the last 5 years I have wanted for what I thought was love…I think i was still so attached to the idea that love equates some prince of a man on the proverbial horse who will love and complete me…I guess that happens when one day you wake up to the harsh reality that he never was a prince to begin with and that the freaking goat he was riding was lame and three legged, and that love is so much more than that what this man had made it out to be.
I have come to believe deeply that life deals us cards that put us into a whole new game – you may have thought you were playing Uno, but actually you were playing strip-poker and the losses you were experiencing brought you closer to being more naked in front of yourself than you have ever been…that the game leaves you broken and scarred and traumatized in ways you could never imagine.
But just as when fire razes a forest it kills all the pestilence, all the unnecessary and from the ashes rise a bloom of flowers and trees anew. And the animals return and breed again, returning the once burnt and charred forest to an oasis of renewal.
So too, it is with us humans and especially with our hearts…we realize that there are people who have never left us; that they have been there in the quiet – cheering and praying for us – waiting for us to awake to ourselves – and to be ready to walk with us once again.
Because of the renewal we are brought to the doors of new friends and lovers, ones who celebrate with us our scars and burns; ones who rub ointment into the pain and nourish us with love and cosset our hearts and being with the essence of humanity.
Today I know love…for me and all I am, and that love is true and joyous and loud and brassy and bold. And I love it and I teach it to my sons. They know it as a TRUTH…and this is Love. Rich and Deep and 100% Real.

These boys are the joy of my life…they offer me stability, sanity, insanity, laughter; they offer sorrow and hurt and energy unbound. I get to have the privilege of raising them and in that – they raise me. They offer companionship, they offer love, hugs, smacks and rough-housing; they offer ears to listen and ears to hear. They give sound advice and call me out on my bullshit. They are teenagers and the heartbeat of our home. We teach each other, about right and wrong. We navigate the world of racism and Whiteness we live in. We learn that my boys are Trayvon Martin – that in a way, all people are.
I shudder for them when they step out onto the streets of NYC where we live. I worry for their safety in this “Stop and Frisk” world we negotiate. They help me work with the students and teachers I serve in New York City. It is a tough world out there for students of color and for the teachers who teach them and this is my path…to try to make their way easier…as we all go along the paths we travel…