What we risk reveals what we value.

A man sitting across from me burst into a laugh he couldn't keep in his chest, startled a few of the subway riders around him. But he didn't notice, giggling silently to himself, so completely immersed in the pages of his short novel with yellowed pages and cracking, apple green binding. I don't remember what stop he got off on, or the name of the book, but I remember that true bursting laugh, it was so familiar to me it was almost as if it came from my own insides. Like a handshake. Or a hug from someone I haven't seen in awhile. And it had nothing to do with me.

A deep, rich rendition of 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone' filled the Delancey/Essex F stop that was so compelling I was singing it behind my face mask. Suddenly another man's voice rang out from across the platform on the opposite side, going in the opposite direction, belting out the painful and true words with the aging black gentleman singing behind me and fingering his worn guitar. I went to board the train as it drowned out the music, interrupting the palpable connection being experienced, when a very large man with dreads and a puffy tear stained face leaned down and explained to me through his thick accent that the music moved him so much - he could barely even speak. I didn't know how to handle such an intimate confession, the connection suddenly choking me, just as I was small against the tears and large figure towering over me. It may have just been a subtle lean in my direction, but I was the only person he addressed, and him being so large and wide I felt wrapped up in him practically, his emotions dripping like sweat down my spine, too raw and real for comfort. Slightly panicked for some reason I thrust myself into the faceless crush of bodies and lost myself inside the guts of the mostly silent impersonal subway car.

Sitting on the Myrtle/Wykoff L stop with my dog in my lap, a heavy set, loud, socially awkward woman started talking to my dog in the hopes for some kind of reaction, like the hobos or creepy dudes who make barking noises to get her attention while she perches calmly on my thighs like a proud little ship, anchored by my heart and nothing else. I trust her to handle herself, so remain solidly planted and dismissive as the woman talks at her, and at me. My self aware, self possessed little girl pointedly looked everywhere but at the woman making a scene till finally giving up and wandering off. Since I had stepped on the platform with Calypso sitting straight spined and tall in my arms, I watched a handsome younger man continuously glancing in my direction. Having a dog in New York City inspires a wide range of interesting and often emotional reactions in people, and I always let her make eyes with certain people across crowded subway cars, and yearn towards spiky little boys pretending not to be just as interested in her as she is in them. I pretend I don't notice, let her have these little romances with other people's hungry eyes and hungry hearts. As I sat down, he finally approached me and gently vomited up bits of his life, currently in transition. Going through a break up, having to find a new home for his dog, starting a new job. Still swimming in the romance of loving and losing, his whole presence seemed tender like a bruise. Open, honest, he was confessing his whole being to the little, warm creature in my lap, and I felt, again, like his face was in my hands, or snuggled in my lap with Calypso, though she hadn't even bothered to glance in his direction. I knew exactly who he was in that short, quiet conversation. Then he stepped off at the Lorimer stop. I may never see him again, and I surely won't recognize him if I do.

I walked past a pizza placed but continued since the two guys behind the counter stared, more interested than I am comfortable with... but doubled back because it was my last chance to grab food due to the lateness of the hour. The pizza section melted into a low lit bar and I sat in a boozy semi darkness stuffing mediocre pepperoni slices into my mouth gracelessly, while the older man of the pair came and leaned back against the alcohol regarding me and the nightly news on the tv near me with thoughtful silence. I watched him subtly as I dripped grease on his bar counter and scattered red pepper and crumbs across the dark wood surface. He was distinguished looking, of some Arabic/Persian descent that I couldn't quite place. The obvious ethnicity made me wonder what the people working around me felt about women and propriety, since I sat in a cutoff sweatshirt that left my tattooed shoulders exposed, the left shoulder bright underneath the pin-light over it. The face of a Siren from Homer's Odyssey stared drowsily at him, and he stared back, focused, contemplative. There was nothing lewd about how openly he stared, I thought, smacking and sniffling as the red pepper lit up my sinuses, as I watched him watching my shoulder. It was interesting to see someone, like in a museum, looking at art on the wall, but they were looking at a piece of my flesh, but it was so earnestly interested, almost reverent, and honest, I made no move to cover myself, or distract him from his thoughts. I waited for his questions to inevitably surface, and I answered them.
'She's beautiful' he said quietly. 'Who is she?' I gave him the name of the Greek story, but didn't see recognition in his face.
'Why that?' He asked. I explained how sometimes when we experience emotional and mental battles, that test our souls and our hearts, I find it is unfair that I don't have literally battle scars to show the world how hard I have fought to be where and what I am.
'What if you change your mind?' he asked finally.
I asked him if he could go back and change things in his life, his childhood, choices he's made before there was grey in his hair. He nodded to let me know that he understood some part of my question. Then I finished my food, cleaned up my mess.
'Get home safe' He told me as I disappeared out into the cold and dark.



I realized in my last relationship that I was being treated with more respect - simple kindness even - on the train, by complete strangers than the person I was rushing home to, and in the last 6 months I have met people who see me clearer and deeper than family members who have known me my whole life. It feels like I've suddenly discovered I don't have to vigilantly protect myself from the people I encounter, that I don't have to live in constant fear that they don't really know who I am, or care what that means. My days are filled with such rich, electric interactions that even I can feel my own realness, I can hear the heaviness of my footfalls as my body connects with the earth, with other people, because I am real. More than just a phantom of other people's perceptions and expectations, family, lovers.






It was the third of September; that day I'll always remember,
'Cause that was the day that my daddy died.
I never got a chance to see him; never heard nothin' but bad things about him.
Mama I'm depending on you to tell me the truth.

Mama just looked at him and said, "Son,
Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Hey, Mama, is it true what the say, that Papa never worked a day in his life?
And Mama, they talk all around town say that
Papa had three outside children and another wife
And that ain't right.
Heard them talkin' about Papa doing some storefront preachin'
Talkin' about saving your souls and all the time weak, dealin' in death
And stealin' in the name of the Lord
Mama just hung her head and said,

Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Hey, Mama, I heard Papa call himself a jack of all trades.
Tell me, is that what sent Papa to an early grave?
Folks say Papa would beg; borrow or steal to pay his bills.
Hey, Mama, folks say Papa was never much on thinkin';
Spend most of his time chasin' women and drinkin'!
Mama, I'm depending on you to tell me the truth.

Mama just hung her head and said, "Son,
Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Papa was a rollin' stone.
Wherever he laid his head was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone."

because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

It feels like I've been waiting my whole life for a sense that my being leaves a wake in the ether, a ripple in the universe. I have always watched certain people who seemed more real then others, who carried a seismic force of character, the virility of their atoms leaving a residue on the world around them and a tremble of tectonic plates beneath their footsteps. The groove of a wrinkle declaring its owner's history, ancient cowboy boots worn smooth by chain motor grease, the unapologetic expression of one's self, they all make my heart stutter a bit, drawing myself as if around a fire to glean warmth, only what I hunger for is the essence of realness, of deep and true knowledge, the ability to mould one's reality... in the hopes it will somehow rub off onto my physical presence. Typically I have associated these elements with men far older than me, adding strange kinks to my romantic and professional history, but recently have found people possessed of this sense of weight in knowledge and fearlessness that are close enough to my age that it has completely redefined my sense of reality and how much easier it is to manipulate then I had ever realized, that I am having to unlearn everything I ever knew to be true. 

From a young age I put myself in the category of survivor, of rising above the negative elements of my childhood, but when I came across an article about child psychology and being raised in different circumstances, how it affects us as we mature, I found that I fit an entire description of lacking major survival skills. In the article I found myself, the difficulty expressing needs, a stunted emotional vocabulary, inherent fear of authority, lack of feeling validated in my judgments, all the things I wrestle with every day in my professional life, that wracked at my adolescent spirit in grade school. This article touched a nerve I never knew was raw. My younger sister had experienced a vehemently painful senior year in high school, but being away at college, I had a hard time resonating with her trauma, and it wasn't until almost 5 years later, meeting her in her adult incarnation that we spoke as peers and I could finally grasp what had happened that awful year for her. She too fit the description of this article, and trailblazer that I suspect she has always been, she had become aware of our reality and its circumstances before she had the emotional vocabulary to explain it. She was choking on the truth.

My mother lied. Like Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, parents lie about what is real. Children believe because they respect authority, and we trust our parents to have our best interests at heart. What if you suddenly woke up and realized your mother was not so different from the mother who sits at the subway threshold with a baby to further elicit your sympathy and guarantee the silver change right of your pocket? Having been raised by con artists, I feel like a child of the court of miracles, having never witnessed capable adults, moral adults, real adults it was a shock to find a bright fierce world, instead of perpetual semi darkness and living at the edge of survival on purpose, because it is easier to elicit pity change. Hearing the infantilizing way in which my mother spoke to my adult sister, and her vague attempts to force me into an emotional stranglehold, I suddenly realized that we had all grown up, so she no longer had purchase on other people's emotions, she couldn't be the single mother raising four children to beg and borrow money for milk and pot, and now desperately attempted to invert our relationship with guilt. No, you did not give everything you had to us. How dare you say that to me. You chose to live a substandard life and are trying to blame your laziness in developing individuality and respect ON us. How dare you call yourself a 'child advocate' and teach child development courses, or talk about the survival skills you gave us when you raised your children to consider it NORMAL to live with a crack addict and convict. Remember how you paid for tickets to Germany for you and my little brother? What do you think that teaches your daughters about how much or how little their bodies are worth? If actions speak louder than words, any values you have ever claimed are null and void the face of your actions, and the supreme selfishness in which you have not only lived your life, but subjected your children to have taught us that you believe in nothing but instant gratification and superficial desires. Like a child of the circus, it's no wonder that I am constantly striving for nuances of what is real, having spent my life in a grand charade, where my young eyes witnessed the adults around me with sagging and cracked faces act out the kind of immature pantomime I was born too old and responsible to ever partake in.

Suddenly I know what my sister saw years ago, and I only regret that she had to swallow the truth, that it writhed inside her, alone and misunderstood for so long.

So I have moved like a ghost through my own life, in a desperate search for gravity. With lovers, friends and work, I have evaporated, cheshire catlike, leaving nothing but an echo of laughter, and no true knowledge of who I am, nothing and no one rooting me to this time and this place. Without a discerning eye, and having developed no clear concept of truth from my childhood, often it has been too easy for people to take what they want from me, without my voice rising convincingly to declare boundaries for itself, so I have been poised for desperate flight for what feels like an eternity. But somewhere in the rush, I have found moments of blinding truth and values that have risen fully formed from the core of my being. The deeper and farther I go in eradicating the blood ties and emotional strangleholds that claw at me, the more I know what I truly believe, what I am derived of, people can SEE me, instead of through me, or project upon me.

I am tired of the pantomime, tired of this mask of sweetness and laughter, even when my insides are aching with anger and bitterness. I want someone to know me. To know the softness under the exoskeleton, the steel under the fear.

Now it begins. For the first time in almost a decade, I unpacked all the boxes. I threw the cardboard away. I claimed the walls, I made a space, and it is mine. Not pieces of other people. I have a family, and while it includes my siblings, it is not one of relatives, but one of my choosing, consisting of people I respect, because to me, love and respect are indivisible. I cannot love what I don't respect. I am finally ready to build an identity, to be something tangible, definable. To be real.

"What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept."

"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”