The flow of life cycles through death and rebirth. There's a fleeting moment carried on the winds of spring. It dances through lilac dotted jacarandas and kisses jasmines and freesias for their fragrant blessings. Mewling kittens with warm milk breath seek out their mothers in damp earthen beds below the house next door. It creaks under the pacing weight of the lonely widower not yet used to the vacant howling of silence his wife of their adult children's lifetime left behind.
Children ride beat up bikes from second hand stores on this block. The brisk air, laden with moisture holds back it's release. The low pressure assaults knees and ankles in arthritic stiffness and the resigned sigh of discomfort is retribution for Mother Earth. She's dissatisfied that generations have neglected her natural offerings for the respite inside a home with conditioned air. We seek pictures and videos and memes that tell us without saying, exactly what we feel. Thoughts are numbed and bodies atrophy in active disuse.
In all of life there is change. I forgot what it was to be present in the moment. I forgot how to control my reaction.
For more than a year, I raced home to find comfort in what I settled into when I settled for a life outside of loneliness. I forgot that you can be lonely when you are not alone and I settled for the rush and race to be the void filler for someone else, forgetting that I was creating a gaping maw within myself.
My sister asked me to pen a letter . . . to help lay the blow of sophistication that sounds like righteous anger and not that of an angry black woman. It's a thing we know we can yield because it's our birthright. But she asks me because I'm more in touch with the Asian mother that is kind, but fierce and driven. It's the gift of distance I was given from her situation. I write her letter and give her my lessons. We let them know we're angry. We document our justifications. We don't throw the loose free advice from lawyers soliciting business online. We keep that to ourselves because if it comes to that, we don't threaten. We act. I won't tell you what he told me. We'll let his demand letter do that for us, and tax them for his fees at the end. We don't bluster and threaten. We don't lose our cool. We calculate, collect and destroy. This is what us Asian Mothers must do for our children.
But there is an angry black woman inside of me, brewing and spewing pent up hate. The injustices of life and the demands I can't control are festering with rage. I feel light headed, high blood pressured, throbbing temples and lack of sleep. Months ago I went to the hospital complaining that I get really bad headaches with orgasms. My flamboyant nurse leans in with a smile.
"Oh honey, keep him. We want those orgasms."
A rare moment of laughter.
"Boyfriends don't give orgasms. I found those on my own. I like men my age but I'm too old for them. I can't pass as a mid-life crisis."
But the rage. . . it simmers and settles in my bones. I feel it creak with the groan of my joints as I stretch and pull tight limbs into unnatural poses to find relief.
I breathe deep and think of release but it's not finding a way out of me.
And then I let it slip. One moment of rage directed out instead of in and that moment is a balm on my soul. I release the many things I can't control and find a way to micromanage the little bit I can control. And I fire my vitriol out, instead of in. My snark goddess bathes in the blood of my enemies. I let it out. There is no ghettoized Nubian Princess. My outward aggression does not need to do the dance that inspires fear. I am the Reigning Queen over all I command. I'll remind you that you're not paid to act like a pussy. I'll remind you that you are a bad-ass in your own right and you don't need to settle for less out of fear of loneliness. I tweet my snark because its the biggest keyboard I can hide behind. Then I remind myself that the words I spoke were words I was in need of hearing.
The anger seeps slowly from my chest. It leaves my shoulders softened and I'm again able to walk like a woman, leading from my hips, instead of my shoulders. I am able to see more than feel my rage.
In this space I am both the Angry Black Woman and the calculating Asian Mom. I am all and I am me. I'm at peace with my rage enough to let it go.