Memory Bank

Patrick and I have a memory jar. We started recently recalling memories from our days, writing them on slips of paper and tossing them in our little jar. I love this ritual of ours. Some days they are memories of fun things like winning the Wicked national tour cast basket at their special cabaret for CARES, and some days we store memories of everyday things like the way Fival the cat curls into a little ball and stretches his paw to cover his eyelids.

Last night as we recalled memories from the day, I remembered meeting an amazing woman named Clare in Sacramento this past July. She is delightful! Clare runs the Sacramento Art Complex, which is a cool gallery collective of local artists. Clare told me that she realizes everyone has a memory bank, and often these banks are filled with negative, difficult and sometimes traumatic memories. She says that each day she asks God to help her deposit a good memory in someone's bank.

This is Clare helping a little girl add to a mural on the wall outside of the Art Complex--certainly depositing into that girl's memory bank. On that very day, Clare also deposited into my memory bank by letting me paint a poem on the same wall!

I love it! What if lovers loved with that goal in mind? What if parents parented with that goal in mind? What if kids at school treated each other with that goal in mind instead of bullying? What if strangers met each other with that goal in mind? What if instead of only trying to create a beautiful life for ourselves, we were to think of how to help create beauty in someone else's life each and every day? What a wonderful world it might be . . . And I bet that Clare has an overflowing bank of memories from how she has inspired and delighted others! What a wonderful life she must live!

May you have a beautiful day and take some time to intentionally deposit delight into someone's memory bank. Today and every day.

peace.

Letter to a Broken Heart

Heartbreak
Originally uploaded by emilygrace.

Dear Broken Heart,

Now that I've met you, touched you with my hands . . . Now that you're here, and I feel you, I'm pretty certain we've never really met before.

And now that my mind and soul are forced to share a space with you, I feel impoverished in every way. Except for this pen. And these lined pages. And prayers that have yet to be conceived.

L'Engle says something about words being emptied in prayer. Yes. All I have right now is a Lord, help me. And a belief that this cry alone might honor God in prayer--recognizing God's sovereignty and how much I need my Creator.

Could these tears be prayers? If so, I wet my pillow in prayer for the entire world, a world that feeds you, Broken Heart. Feeds you with lies that lead us and deception that decides for us. Feeds you with violence--violence that seeps into our words and pumps blood into our fists and controls our spending. Lord, have mercy.

I weep for those who cheered the execution of Gardner. I weep for those whose lives he stole. For this repetition of folly that trains our children to believe vengeance belongs to us.

I weep for Amira and other immigrants in a strange land. For their financial woes. For my financial woes. I weep that even in my financial despair, I am still considered wealthier than half the world. Lord, have mercy.

I weep for genocide, for war, for trauma, for HIV, for cowardly suicide bombs, for widows, for orphans, for all who sit on the mourners bench. I weep for pregnant bellies of girls too young. I weep for the rapists whose seeds terrorized these too young bodies.

I weep for my father's decisions and my inability to rewind and re-record. And for sweet family memories that seem too far away and hard family memories that seem to linger.

I weep because it's July. And I had William penciled in on my calendar for the whole month. For poetry we never created, for that hug and hongi that never breathed. For moments that seemed so real but mock me now, trying to convince me they were fantasy.

I weep for Wolf and James and Pedro and Tent City. For addiction, depression and trauma that has made the street a home for so many.

I weep because I know the core of my being lives in my heart. I have met her, and she is laughter & playfulness & courage. And there's a guard that stands in front of her keeping her in a tiny chamber while you, Brokenness, scream loudly right now and resound in the rest of my organs and tissues and bones. For her, I weep.

And for her, I also hope. Because she gently whispers that she is strong & grounded & whole. Created for a purpose. She giggles, reminding me that you are in pieces.

And so I will share this space with you until the Artist, my Creator, figures out what kind of mosaic to make out of you.

Until we get to say goodbye,

Ciona

So thankful, Lord, that you never get tired of collecting our pieces and reassembling them. -Kim Thomas
(letter started June 18, 2010, in my journal)

Breakfast

I made grits, scrambled eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast this morning. It's a common Southern cuisine! And it's certainly not a foreign meal to me; I've been eating this meal since I was a little girl. I make it every few weeks. Today, however, I managed to make it exactly like my grandmother used to make them. I wasn't trying to do this, but I somehow mastered the taste of them and nostalgically journeyed to my grandmother's small kitchen on Calhoun St. in Cameden, SC. She died May 19 last year, so she doesn't live there anymore. Our memories do, though, and it felt good to taste good memories this morning.

I wrote this a few years ago. Today feels like a great time to share it on here:

She called us out of bed, and immediately I smelled it—the fragrance of Grandma’s house. Butter sauntering through a pot of grits. Coffee weighted by sugar and cream. Simmering bacon tossing its scent around the house before resting on a plate, ready for 5 and 6-year-old hands to grab and crumble on top of our morning feast. My sister and I loved mornings with Grandma. Mama protested us drinking coffee at such a young age because, of course, it stunts your growth, she’d say. Grandma apparently believed that the taste of coffee-flavored sugar water far outweighed the need to grow. And we didn’t dare remind Grandma she was breaking Mom’s rule. We giggled, then squeezed Grandma’s soft hands as she asked God to bless our meal.

Grandma doesn’t see like she used to, she can’t walk like she once did. She waits in her bed now for Granddad to bring breakfast to her. And there are days I long for nothing more than to be a little girl again, tasting Grandma’s house in the bacon and sipping lifelong memories with our coffee.

It's a Beautiful Day!

I hugged a stranger today.
I felt warm in 28-degree weather.
The frozen corners of my lips could not help but lean toward the sky.
I cried.

Barack Obama's election night win was terribly anticlimactic for me in the wee hour of 3 am on Nov. 5 in Mali. I was excited, for sure, but we had been traveling from the U.S. to Africa for nearly 24 hours. I expended all of my emotional excitement stepping off of the plane into the dusty Malian night. We slept for a few hours and then got up to hear the results. Since we didn’t find a television, we listened to a BBC broadcast of McCain's full concession speech on a tiny radio only to have the BBC station abruptly interrupted to return to a French broadcast of who knows what because my French abilities barely go beyond bonjour and viva la vie boheme. I heard Obama’s speech for the first time six weeks later. C'est la vie!

So today was my moment.

Lanecia and I walked to Nashville's historic Belcourt Theater to meet our friend Ingrid and watch an amazing day in history with my neighbors in Nashville. We have a new President and First Lady--a moment I've desired for 8 long years! We have our first bi-racial leader of the United States! We have the first First Family of African descent living in the White House--a building constructed, in part, by African slaves in America. And it's all happening on the heels of celebrating Martin Luther King's prophetic dream. Oh my God! It is a new day in the United States, and I am happy to live it.

***

I was six years old and starting my first day at a new elementary school. I met Jungle Gym Guard at recess. She was a six-year-old white girl who told me that I could not play on the jungle gym because of something the last black kid who played on it had done. Like a good first-grader, I ran to the teacher and told on Jungle Gym Guard. The teacher happened to be a member of the church where my father was appointed the new associate pastor. As it turns out, Jungle Gym Guard was a member there, too. The teacher told my classmate, "We don’t keep don’t make rules like that. Be nice to Ciona. She's going to be in your Sunday school class. Remember the new pastor who is coming to our church? This is his daughter."

See, my father was the first black pastor in South Carolina United Methodism to serve in a predominantly white congregation since Reconstruction (and by predominantly white I mean that we were one of two black families in the entire 2500-member church. The other black family had the last name White). Eventually the girl formerly known as Jungle Gym Guard became one of my best friends. I learned more of her story. Her grandparents had stopped coming to the church after my father was appointed there. So many members stayed and loved us and supported us for nearly 6 wonderful years. Others left like her grandparents, though. And some who stayed even requested my father not enter the room when he did regular pastoral hospital visits. This was less than 25 years ago.

Even in my lifetime of integrated schools, inclusive water fountains and school cafeterias where the “sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners” sit at the same table, I’ve still experienced jungle gym guards in various parts of my life in the U.S. I thank God that in this same lifetime I’ve been able to experience today. I especially thank God that my parents, and my 97-year-old great-grandmother got to see today, too.

So I walked to Belcourt in the cold. Smiling. Feeling warm from my excitement. Hugged a stranger after the inauguration. And cried.

It’s a beautiful day!




Images by Lanecia in the Belcourt

Marriage Water

A few years ago I was taking a friend of mine to the airport for her flight back to Burundi. We were on a team together that had just finished a meeting in Myrtle Beach. Before arriving at the airport she asked a question that must have been brewing in her mind for several days (or at least several minutes while sitting next to each other in the car).

"What's the matter with your face," she asked.

Well.

There was Ron in 3rd grade who used to so eloquently say to me, "You look like a burnt piece of toe jam." Then there was Freddie in 5th grade whose favorite little zinger was, "I think I'll watch [insert preferred television show of the moment here] on your big forehead." Back then I sought consolation in the wise grade school proverb: "Boys pick on the girls they like the most."

But this time—some 15 years since I heard the last cruel references to my appearance—I was stunned. I mean, even the disgusting reference to dirt and sock debris between toes was better than someone flat-out asking me why I am an ugly cow!

I gained my composure. This time seeking consolation in knowing that her English, while far superior to my Swahili, still kept her from properly asking the question I thought she must really be pondering (which was, of course, "How do you stay so beautiful and youthful?").

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Your face," she said, now gesturing towards me in a circular motion that outlined my vulnerable visage. "What's wrong with it? Why do you have so many bumps? Do you not drink water?"

I thought: So I have some acne. It's improving! I mean, it's not as bad as it was in high school! But . . . genuine concern for acne is still no excuse for asking someone what's wrong with her face!

"Oh. No. I don't really drink much water. Never been a big fan. I guess I need to, though," I said.

"Ohhhh . . .," she said, "Yes, you need to drink more water, or you're not going to get married."

Now, my closest friends know that getting married is not enough incentive for me to stock my house with bottles of Fiji. But this lovely moment did give birth to the infamous day my girlfriends and I dubbed H2O with a more fabulous name: marriage water. A glass of agua was once a source of hydration but is now a source of nuptial bliss. Who knew?

So I chuckled today when my friend Jennifer sent me a link for bona fide marriage water from a company in the UK.

So all the single ladies, if you drink it then he's sure to put a ring on it!



*And for you curious readers: I did incorporate more water in my diet (for hydration purposes, of course). I'm still not a huge fan. And nobody has asked for my hand in marriage. But no one has ever asked what's wrong with my face ever again, either.*

Super Lady

When I was 4 years old I had super powers. If I was playing a game and losing, I would take a break and say, “Hold on. I need to put on my super powers.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and pulled an imaginary mask over my head. It was over for all of my competitors from that moment forward. I won the game because of my super powers. I was able to free myself from my father’s playful wrestling tackles because of my super powers. I crossed the finish line faster than my sister because of my super powers. I could do all things with my super powers!

Now that I’m 25 and long over the phase of my super powers, I wish I had them again. When I am approaching a deadline, I could use my super powers to help me meet it on time. When I’m in a mode of self-deprecation, I could use my super powers to boost my sense of self again. When I’m terrified to communicate, I could use my super powers to say exactly what I am feeling. Overall, my super powers are needed daily.

Mom and Pops were talking about my super powers today on the way to the airport, and I was reminded of this wonderful gift I had as a child. Could I have them still now? Please! Super powers, where are you?

The Calvin Hicks Middle School Mix

Last night Beth, Rod and I spent the evening doing what all 24-30-year-olds should dedicate special time to doing. We strolled Middle School Music Memory Lane with a CD mix (legally copied, I'm sure) of the best early 90's (and some late 80's) tunes compiled by Rod's friend Erin who relied on the hip music taste of Calvin Hicks, Myrtle Beach, SC, DJ superb of the time. Accompanied by the occasional dance, hand waving in the air and gasps of, "Oh, I love this song," the stroll was exactly the place to go last night. There are no photographs of our journey, but I will take you there all the same.

I Adore Mi Amour*Do Me, Baby*To Be With You*Jump, Jump*Informer*Girl, I'm Gonna Miss You*Shoop*Never Gonna Get It*Every Rose has its Thorn*Warm it up, Kris*Please Don't Go Girl*Parents Just Don't Understand*The Humpty Dance*What a Man!*It Takes Two*Everybody Dance Now*Regulators*I Got a Man*I Wish I was a Little Bit Taller*You Say He's Just a Friend*Can't Touch This*Doin' Da Butt*Poison*Eternal Flame*Iesha*Groove is in the Heart*When I see you Smile*Could've Been*Toy Soldier*Pretty Brown Eyes*Nothing Compares 2 U*Things that Make you Go Hmmmm . . . *Ain't Too Proud to Beg*My Perogative

Those are just a few songs on our tour. Any that you care to add?