Belt in hand: A bittersweet journey

On Monday evening, I received my black belt in taekwondo in a small private ceremony. It was the culmination of nearly 3 years of hard work and skill building. Ms. P removed my red belt and as I held it in my left hand and she tied on the black belt with my name embroidered on it, she spoke to me of the significance of the moment. In many ways it was just like getting any other belt, except for instead of doing it in public out on the dojang's main floor, she took us upstairs to the office, because now we had entered a special community, a community of black belts. She explained that even if we moved away and continued to study taekwondo elsewhere that we would always be connected to JHK because this would always be our first house, our point of entry into the world of martial arts.

This made me really think about what this experience has meant to me. I started taekwondo on a whim. I just walked into the dojang one day out of curiosity, and that's when I met Ms. P. She is a high pressure sales person, so by the time I was walking out, I had already made a commitment to try it. The first private lessons were awkward. I didn't know how to block and I had to unlearn the punches I'd used for boxing. My stances were weak and everything was so new. Slowly I began to figure it out. My kicks became more powerful. My blocks and punches seemed more natural. And then I was getting my first color belts and learning about forms and starting to spar.

There were times when I was sick of it. There were times when I was tired and lethargic and only wanted to go home, but still I had made this commitment and I wanted to see it through. And there were other times when I couldn't wait to train because I had figured out how to do take downs or I had landed a turning side kick during sparring and I wanted to see if I could do it consistently. And then there were times when I got upset, like the time I sparred a person several belts higher than me and he kicked me so hard he literally knocked the wind out of me. Or the time a black belt punched me in the face during light sparring (which should be no contact to the head). But good or bad, I stuck with it.

Then there was the waiting. I moved pretty quickly through my first belts, so it was frustrating when I got higher up and needed to spend more time working on my techniques before testing. And then almost a year ago Ms. P told me I would soon be ready to test for my black belt. I was so excited. I started working even harder, but there was only one other person ready to test, and tests take place in groups, so we had to wait and wait and wait until other people were ready.

So I waited. And after several months, there were finally 5 other people ready to test. We were supposed to form our community, but it didn't really feel that way to me,I guess partly because many of the people I began taekwondo with had either quit, already tested for their black belts or wouldn't be ready to test until the next round. Some people had work out buddies, but mostly I felt like I was on my own.

The test was scheduled right after my 30th birthday, which I spent in Ghana, so I had to practice my forms while I was there. And I spent that last 2 weeks before my test training on my own. The day of the test arrived and I was jet lagged and felt like shit. But I was there and I did the best I could. The test was video taped and sent to Grand Master K in Korea. Then came the real waiting period. No one ever really talks about the waiting. Ms. P had mentioned that there was an extent of time between the test and receiving a belt during which time we would receive feedback and have the opportunity to polish our skills. And this is what I did. I came in at least 4 times a week sometimes more and worked on my wheel kick, full range sparring, and my turning side kick. But not everyone in my group came in and as a result two months came and went and still we had heard nothing about our belts.

I knew I wasn't supposed to ask, but it seemed like such a long time. I finally did ask and my suspicions were confirmed, the belts were waiting on us because not all of us were ready. We had tested as a group and we would pass as a group when we were all ready. Living in Japan for two years has given me some perspective on what it means to be a part of a group, but being an American has given me a lifetime of pre-conditioning to be an individual and to expect that my accomplishments will be based on my individual actions and performance.

There are several tenants are important at my school. Improvement of Mind and Body, Ethical Self Conduct, and Commitment to Community. When you first walk in you will notice there are words hung next to the Korean flag...they say Courtesy, Community, Perseverance, Indomitable Spirit, and Ethical Self Conduct. During the final steps of my journey, I lost sight of community and ethical self conduct. When Ms. P asked me to talk to some of my fellow group members to encourage them to put the work in,. I did, but I didn't say what she expected me to. I didn't tell them I missed working out with them, or that they should maybe come in, I told them they were holding up my belt process and that it wasn't fair to me. Which is true...though, admittedly not the nicest way I could have approached it. As you can imagine, this message was poorly received. And I got called in for another difficult conversation with Ms. P about community and being a part of group. In the end, I chose to apologize, not for what I said (because it was true), but for how I said it, and I returned to my waiting period with a renewed vow to improve my wheel kick and to practice patience.

Not all of my group mates chose to come in, but I realized that I didn't have any control over their actions, only my own and the best thing I could do was to work on the feedback grandmaster K had given me. So I did and I was at the dojang almost everyday. Then last Friday, I was invited to a halloween party with the girl I mentor. I would still be able to get to the dojang in time for full range sparring, but I would miss my forms class (Friday nights I like to do 2 hours). I didn't think anything of it until I got a call from my friend asking me where I was. She seemed upset when I answered and I didn't understand why. That's when she explained that this was the night I was supposed to be awarded my black belt. No one had told me.

Apparently an email had been sent out, but I never got it and even though I was there everyday, no one mentioned it to me. I arrived an hour later for sparring, just like I had planned, and saw three of the people in my group wearing their black belts. I congratulated them of course, because I was happy for them, but I was beyond pissed to have been excluded from my own ceremony. Ironic huh? That my belt would have been delayed for months because of community, and yet "the community" couldn't wait the hour it would have taken me to get to the dojang, in order for us to receive our belts at the same time. I was so disappointed. Ms. P apologized, but it wasn't a real apology. She said it wouldn't have been fair to make the others wait, when they had taken off work or arranged for their families to be there. But from my perspective it wasn't fair to make me wait for months to test and then months more after the test and then not give me the opportunity to be present at my own ceremony. Everything felt tainted.

Then I realized that one of my group members was still wearing a red belt, even though she had clearly been there in time to take part in the ceremony. It turns out, she did not pass her test. It was the first time at our school that someone had tested for black belt and not gotten it...you aren't asked to test unless they think you are ready and I realized that this was what the extra waiting was all about. Ms. P was trying to give her the opportunity to make the improvements necessary to receive her belt with the rest of us... then I felt so selfish. It's not any easy thing to test for a belt. It's nerve wracking, but harder still is the idea of not receiving it. It hadn't even occurred to me that anything like this would happen. If I had known, I would have been willing to wait longer, to spare her some embarrassment, but I didn't know. And it made me think about communication and empathy and all the things it takes to really create a community. It's not just enough to be in the same space with one another, you have to get to know one another. This isn't always something that occurs organically, but community is teachable. I spent a week this summer at a responsive classroom conference designed to teach teachers how to create communities out of their classrooms. And what I've realized is that some things are easier to explain than to live.

All weekend I really had to think hard about my next steps. Would I stay with my dojang even though I had felt supremely disrespected? How would it feel to get my belt when I still wanted to punch Ms. P in the face? Would it even be worth it to even go? I thought about not going to the ceremony intentionally this time, but then I realized, it's not about Ms. P or the dojang community. I worked for that belt. I put in a lot of time and money into it because I love it. I love training and fighting and feeling like as a black woman in an often hostile world, I have an arsenal of skills with which to defend myself. And despite my negative feelings towards Ms. P and her inability to take responsibility for her actions, I still recognize her as a good teacher, not just of taekwondo, but of many others things I've needed to learn in my life. I'm not ready to give up my school yet. And when I got my belt and we were escorted out into the dojang, there was an entire community of people waiting to congratulate and welcome me. It wasn't how I thought it would be, but it was still really amazing.

From the beginning I had thought that the belt would be the ending of something, a goal met, a graduation of sorts, but what I have learned it that this specific belt is a beginning. While we are taught to think of the black belt as a sign of mastery, the true symbolism of this belt is that I have mastered the basics. It is just like the white belt of black belts and now I set my sights on second dan...the yellow belt of black belts. I'm not sure whether or not I will achieve second dan at my current school, but I have decided to do want to continue, that I will pursue this goal.

Too much thinking on a rainy day...

My feet are wet and cold and there are only sad songs on the radio, endlessly whiny guitar ballads with 80s synthesizers. The Zoka's in Tangletown is filled with white people with mac notebooks and everyone is wearing jeans and flannel or fleece and wool hats and I'm second guessing my love of Seattle because for God's sake, could at least one person in here be original!? Not some green, uber trendy, nerd with a gray messenger bag and a membership to REI.

I digress. It's one of those rainy fall days, where the sky is a void of gray and white and all the streets are soggy rivulets decoupaged with dead leaves. And I know I am on the verge of some cosmic quantum leap. I have all the pieces of what I need to know to figure this thing out, but nothing is fitting together, and there is no manual for how to become a better person or how to live in your highest good. But I keep getting distracted by this everyday reality.

And when I look around, I know that every single person here has a soul, and a dream, and a purpose and that we are all at various stages of our journey, but I can't seem to feel a compassion for them. I can't seem to keep from conceptualizing them as "them", and I'm not quite sure if it's because I've grown up learning how to be in opposition, knowing that I would be "othered" and beating "them" to the punk by at least defining my own "othering". I have learned to be proud of my individuality, of the components that help me define or more accurately, describe this person I am in the here and now, but I don't know how to claim myself in unity. If millions of Buddhist or even Muslims or Christians, or anyone set of people who have ever claimed a concept of God, aren't wrong, and there is this all encompassing divinity that fills the universe....and it's true that I am a part of it, a product of it, a being made from the substance of this thing most easily titled Spirit....then why is it so hard to put aside my identity and embrace all people (even the ones I really don't like) as one, as a part of this whole.

And if I wake up one day and am suddenly able to do this monumental thing, then what? Will everything change? Will I? Will my greatest good be achieved? Will yours?

For the family of our dear departed one

History is a story we tell ourselves
after the fact
to give shape and control
to the things that just happened
and what can I tell you
about what happened
but that it was both an ending
and a beginning
a decision
an action
a choice
that broke so many hearts
and in one moment
freed a soul of its tethers
to concrete
and pain
and the push and pull
of this painted illusion
freed a soul to soar
peacefully to whatever comes next
finally and with finality
what could I tell you
about the broken hearts
left in your wake
but that they loved you
and will love you
to the best of their ability
broken or whole
and though not likely to immediately
reglue themselves
in picture perfect arrangements
these hearts will slowly
knit crooked seams
and bloom healed scars
more beautiful for having
known you,
and stronger still
for having learned
to let you fly.

A Bad Week

What do you do when everything turns sour? I'm still trying to figure out what exactly happened, but systematically, in almost every area of my life last week, things went wrong. And of course, not one to be half-assed about anything, things went wrong in a big way. Work didn't go well, my boss and I had some serious disagreements that had to be mediated. I got into a fight with my taekwondo instructor. I had a falling out with a friend. And everything was gray and rainy. I didn't want to get up in the morning and I just felt bad...like really bad, like when your feet get cold and you can't get warm and your body just gets sore and over tired.

So what happens when it all fall apart? When you can't cheer up. When all the things you want to change are completely our of your control and all you can do is try not to step on people in your attempt to stand up. Sometimes I wish I weren't an adult. As a kid I didn't like feeling like I didn't have control, but I accepted it, because that is the nature of being a kid. You don't get to choose. Adults say "because I said so" and that is all there is to it. It's frustrating and annoying, but finite, whereas adulthood is a continuous burden of knowing you are at choice and feeling terrified that you might choose wrong. And then what? It's all your fault. No one to blame. No one to come in a fix everything.

So I spent a great deal of time sulking and sleeping. Coco and I went to Portland for a weekend of Happy Hours with my Dad and then I came back and did what big girls do...I went to work and talked to my bosses. We worked out our issues and they apologized, and I feel a little better, but it is a good reminder for me that I am meant for other things. I went to taekwondo and worked out hard and resolved my issues with my instructor. I told my friend the truth of what I had been feeling, but never known how to articulate, and I'm not sure where we stand, but I feel better for having been honest and done my best to do right by myself and everyone else. This week is better. Nothing is quite fixed or perfect or even over, but I realize like everything, this was an opportunity for me to practice being a better person. It's easy to be a good person when everything goes your way, when everything is light and easy. It's not so easy, when life is real and complicated. But here I am anyway, doing the best I can with what I've got as who I am.

Still Brave: The Evolution of Black Women's Studies

My mom is an academic rock star. I have known this for several years. It was one of our shared mentors...a famous historian...who once tried to explain something to me about my mom's scholarship. She said "your mom doesn't publish tons of work, but that's because when she does publish, the kinds of work she produces pushes and redefines her field." And so it is fitting that when Nellie McKay (brilliant scholar, friend, mentor, and editor of the Norton Anthology on African American literature) passed away, she left behind a request that my mom, and two other amazing women continue the work that she had begun....and produce an updated version of the Black Women's Studies cannon "All the Women are White, All the Men are Black, but Some of us are Brave". The new edition is titled "Still Brave: The Evolution of Black Women's Studies" and it is available for purchase at a bookstore near you. Below is the blurb:

We are not goddesses or matriarchs or edifices of divine forgiveness; we are not fiery fingers of judgment or instruments of flagellation; we are women forced back always upon our woman's power. We have learned to use anger as we have learned to use the dead flesh of animals, and bruised, battered, and changing, we have survived and grown and . . . we are moving on.—Audre Lorde

Cheryl Clarke, Angela Davis, bell hooks, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker—from the pioneers of black women's studies comes Still Brave, the definitive collection of race and gender writings today. Including Alice Walker's groundbreaking elucidation of the term "womanist," discussions of women's rights as human rights, and a piece on the Obama factor, the collection speaks to the ways that feminism has evolved and how black women have confronted racism within it.

Frances Smith Foster is a professor of English and women's studies, the former director of the Emory Institute for Women's Studies, and current chair of the English Department at Emory University.

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is president of the National Women's Studies Association, the founding director of the Women's Research and Resource Center, and a professor of women's studies at Spelman College.

Stanlie James is director of the African and African American Studies Program at Arizona State University, where she holds a joint appointment with the Women's and Gender Studies Program.

This is an amazing accomplishment. Congrats ladies! I know Nellie would be so proud of you and proud of this book. And the reviews are in and it's awesome, but don't just take my word for it. Here is what others are saying:

“Still Brave is a monumental book that reminds us of the centrality of Black Womanist genius and talent grounded in courage and struggle. We can never understand what it means to be modern, new world, or African without this precious volume.”

—Cornel West, university professor, Princeton University the evolution of black women’s studies

“To hold Still Brave in your hands is to hold a courageous, beautiful history of global importance. Black feminism and Black Women’s Studies are monumental achievements. Still Brave shows why.”

—Catharine R. Stimpson, university professor and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University

“ Faculty and students at all levels of higher education; community activists; policymakers; and those just plain curious to read the very best scholarship on race and gender will welcome the publication of this volume. James, Foster, and Guy-Sheftall have put together a political, creative, truly interdisciplinary anthology. They have crafted a narrative of Black Women’s Studies over the past twenty-five years that will sustain the field in the twenty-first century. They are to be congratulated.”

—Claire G. Moses, editorial director of Feminist Studies and professor of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland

“ Radiant with intellectual energy, this sequel to But Some of Us Are Brave will be as indispensable to Women’s Studies scholars of every race, age, ethnicity, and theoretical orientation as its precursor was. The writers whose classic and contemporary essays are collected here address an exhilarating range of multidisciplinary and multicultural issues, from religion to sexuality to the history of Black feminist criticism—including a closing riff on the Obama daughters and Pecola Breedlove—with verve, wit, passion, and sophistication.

—Sandra M. Gilbert, Distinguished Professor of English Emerita, University of California, Davis

“ First Lady Michelle Obama embodies both the dearest hopes and deepest fears of so many African American women. Her fierce advocacy for her children, the power of her embodied self, her broad appeal to Americans of all races and classes suggest the realization of a Black feminist dream. But the essays in Still Brave remind us of the fraught terrain on which First Lady Obama stands. They demonstrate how Black women must remain “nice girls” or risk being swiftly punished by an American public with little familiarity with or respect for the diverse, authentic realities of Black women. The authors of Still Brave allow us to glimpse this stunning diversity of Black women’s lives across differences of age, color, class, sexual orientation, and religious belief. They illuminate the social and political context, meanings, and burdens that frame Black women’s lives. They open space for politically meaningful anger, push back against rigid norms of respectability, and map the contributions of African American women’s unique and varied perspectives. In short the book is courageous, necessary, and exquisitely edited. It is a true testament to the scholar to whom it is dedicated.

—Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of Politics and African American Studies, Princeton University

U2 at Soldier Field

Three awesome things happened the year I turned 17: I graduated from high school, I got accepted to the college I'd been wanting to go to, and on that same day, I got tickets to see U2. Unfortunately, for reasons I won't go into, I never did make it to that show. In fact, I didn't end up getting to see U2 until several years later in the Tacoma Dome. It was the Elevation tour, with PJ Harvey...who I adore...and they were well worth the wait.

I love U2. I'm not a crazy stalker. I would probably never spend the night on the sidewalk to stand in the front row, but their music touches me, and moreover I'm always even more impressed by their philanthropy and how they've chosen to use their celebrity in service of social justice. So when one of best friends called me up and said she was doing it up big for her 30th birthday and had gotten me a ticket to see U2 on opening night for their first concert in the US on the 360 degrees tour, I promptly booked my ticket to Chicago.

I arrived around midnight the day before. Shoshana picked me up from the airport and we headed to our friend Chica's house. There was chocolate cake, candles and singing, lots of girl talk and laughter. It was the first time I had met Chica's husband and seen her new digs. And the whole thing had me feeling older...not in a bad way. Being back in the Midwest is always a marker of time. I can't help, but think; when's the last time I was in Chicago? Who was I then? What was I doing? Who am I now?

The weekend itself was a fun celebration. I got to reconnect with friends I hadn't seen in ages and then there was the concert. We arrived later than we had planned, but it was perfect. We breezed through light traffic, paid half the cost of a ticket to park beneath Soldier field, then walked down to the entrance where we knew the band would be coming in. It wasn't very crowded. There were other fans waiting to get a glimpse, but it wasn't a mob scene. Everyone was friendly. I sat on the grass writing silly messages on the dry erase sign we'd purchased at the Party Store. The Edge and Adam arrived, but they just drove through with a wave. Then after about 20 minutes, Bono showed up. He got out of the car, walked around and greeted everyone. Then we walked into Soldier Field...no lines, breezed through security, grabbed some dinner and found our friend who was holding a spot for us about 6 rows back from the outer walk way of the stage.

The stage itself was kind of like a space ship, round and with two bridges connecting it to a circular runway. The first 3,000 people to arrive, crowded into the ring between the stage and the outer circle...though it didn't seem like there were that many people. Suspended above the stage was this massive cylindrical screen that turned out to be lots of screens that expanded and contracted, sometimes reflecting the show, sometimes showing distorted images, and at one point displaying a message from Desmond Tutu.

And I could tell you more about seeing Snow Patrol,the opening act, or give you a play list of all the songs they played, but really what was interesting to me was being a part of something bigger. I stood in a stadium full of people and felt connected to them because of the music. And there was something important about it that I haven't quite figured out how to articulate.

When they played the song "One" which is so well known, even you don't know U2 by name, if you heard it you would probably intuitively know the words, and we all sang and it was so loud that I couldn't really hear my own voice, but rather just the collective I felt hopeful, optimistic that if we could do this one silly thing...sing a song together at Soldier field...that we might be able to do something important together.

Connecting seems to be the reoccurring theme of this fall for me. Connecting and finding purpose and meaning in everything I do...and also realizing that I can be or do whatever I want. I could wake up tomorrow and decide to start my own band and have millions of people make me into a rock star, or I can wake up and decide to be the best fourth and fifth grade Spanish teacher in the state of Washington....or whatever, the point is, I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I can wake up and choose. I am at choice and I believe that whatever I do, I will be supported. Getting to see U2 was just an added bonus to an already sweet revelation.

Another Poem...rejj ©

Written yesterday on the 43 from Capitol Hill to the U-District, post fabulous massage.

I am collection
of hand me down flaws
dry heels
toes that overlap
asymmetrical eyes and breasts
teeth and hips that are spreading with time
a too loud laugh, a too soft voice
and so much anger,
cycling through me like the seasons
tornados of longing
monsoons of wanting more
quiet snow falls of desperation
that blanket the lava of dreams deferred,
deterred,
and these too are hand me downs
stiched tight into the double helix of my DNA,
a whole world history
quilted on a seedling
scattered on the winds of the diaspora
Do you know my name?
Have you seen my face,
on a milk carton,
in the mirror,
on TV
looking back at you
from the pillow next to yours,
when you wake and when you sleep
And when you dream,
do you know my heart?
Can you piece me back together
so that it all make sense?
unknot the jumbled thread
unwind me and weave together
something beautiful,
something perfect
and simple and right
And if I can’t be perfect,
Can I at least be right
and simple
and beautiful?
If I can’t be perfect
then let each imperfection
be something worth loving
and let me love you
with my entire crooked heart
without comparisons,
without reservations,
without losing a single part of me,
just let me love you as I am
and try to love me for me.