The True Tale of Mr. Tuttles

 Toto Tuttles, affectionately known as Mr. Tuttles, is a persnickety, inquisitive, rebellious Russian tortoise. My partner, Dan, and I adopted him earlier this year. He is very particular about the food he eats, like many favors the less healthy sweeter options like romaine lettuce instead of the recommended leafy greens such as kale and spinach. He also will only eat fruits if they are hand fed.

As you can probably surmise, Mr. Tuttles is quite hard to please. One of the few things he enjoys is being released from his terrarium to freely explore and contrary to popular belief, he does so at quite an impressive speed for a turtle.

We usually just let Mr. Tuttles run around inside the apartment, but we recently moved to a place that a long green space between our building and the one next door providing us with the opportunity to let Mr. Tuttles play outside. These playtimes are usually supervised but last week, during the middle of his playtime I stepped out to quickly tend to something on our back porch. Before leaving I placed him somewhere close to the vicinity of the back porch, but when I turned around (2-3mins later) he was nowhere to be found.

There was no way he could have gone very far even at his impressive speed he was still just 5-inch turtle. Dan and I looked everywhere between ever bush, under every rock including under the house. We even printed flyers and asked neighbors. Where could a small tortoise go in the span of 2-3mins?! We came to the only logical conclusion; someone may have taken him. We were devasted by the thought, but it was the only thing that made sense. Evening turned into night and we reluctantly stopped our search. The next morning still unable to come to terms with the reality we would never see Mr. Tuttles again. I felt guilty that my neglectfulness caused us to lose our beloved pet, so I went back, and search again, still there was nothing.

I had to go back inside and begin work. I shared the devastating news with coworkers who offered their sympathies and tried to continue with my day. However, the sadness and shame made it impossible to think of anything else but Mr. Tuttles. I looked at the time in the corner of my computer, 11:11AM. I wish Mr. Tuttles comes back home; I promised I’ll take better care of him. I tried to bargain with the Universe.

Whenever 11:11 come up on a clock. I use it to evoke something I hope for either for myself or someone else. Sometimes I just use the time to talk to whatever or whomever is out there. For me 11:11 isn’t so much superstition as it is an existential reminder to connect with someone or something that’s beyond existence. Anyway, something in me convinced me to go back outside and check again, I am not sure if it was just a need to relieve my guilt, but I listened to it. So, for the second time that morning, I stepped outside and heard some rustling coming from the corner fence of the yard along our neighbors’ property. Hoping it wasn't the usual rats that travel back and forth between the neighbors’ gardens, I went to the spot and started digging through the grass, and..... there was Mr. Tuttles trying to dig a hole!

"And we, we talk about fear, right, you know, we talk about white women clutching their purses at the sight of us, or feeling uncomfortable when we walk in the store, but, I wonder, do you know how, how afraid, we are?"

 Michelle Obama  has once again articulated how I, and I am sure many of us ,have felt. Black people worry about their safety ALL THE TIME, especially in White Space- spaces, White people have been able to own/dominate/create through all the privileges their system has provided them. Spaces, like Ivy League schools, executive board rooms, suburban communities, Congress, Senate...etc.    Some Black people have been able to fight and push through to be included in those spaces, but that does not mean we feel safe. We wake up to stories like that of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor that reminds us that we could be jogging around our neighborhood or just sleeping in our homes and our lives can be taken away. We live in the reality that at any point, we may enter a space in which we might anger/upset someone at the mere sight of our skin, so much so, they start shouting insults and profanities at our face or calling the cops with false accusations or throwing gasoline on us and lighting us on fire, or beating us viciously that we find ourselves at the brink of death or worse.....all this because of the color of our skin.  We live in fear but it is also that same fear that motivates us to keep on fighting. We don’t want to be afraid. We don’t want our children to live in that fear anymore. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER

My body is shaking. I couldn’t sleep last night. I’ve been on social media looking at different outlets trying to stay updated with everything that’s going on with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. I wanted to know what was happening. I wanted to see all footages of protests across the world (yes, world! This isn’t just an American problem.)

My body is vibrating, head to toe.  I don’t even want to eat. I don’t want any anger I feel right now to subside… not yet. I need to feel this anger, so I read the news where articles I come across articles ignoring  hours of peaceful protests in exchange for a more exciting headlines involving violence and mayhem. I need to feel this anger.

My blood boils at the sound of cries from my people throughout centuries that have been silenced. I want to feel the culmination of anger all my ancestors felt.

This anger does not seek blood but justice and equality. It is the fuel we will use to continue the fight against oppression.

adulthood

I realize there isn’t a moment where you “officially” become an adult.  There is no set list of things you must do to qualify into the criteria. Time just passes by, your body changes, and people start expecting things from you. As if you’re required to justify your existence. An existence you had no say in. One day, you just, were.

Truth

I understand people have the right to express their opinions and form their own beliefs. I respect that. I do. But facts, facts are different. Facts are definite truths. Truths that cannot be argued (philosophy aside). Our Founding Fathers agreed to let go of personal philosophy and theology when they declared the separation of Church and State. Science is founded on the principle of truths. It demands proof. Science is not a concept. It is a method. A method that allows us to test theories and beliefs we have of this earth, of this world, and see if they’re facts (an unchangeable undeniable result). It is your right on whether or not you believe in God but it is not up to you for you to decide what is true. Especially when it is all laid out in front of you.

I hear them hate

I hear them say

“you’re better off dead”

And some day I believe them

My skin is too dark it’s scary

My body too fat its overwhelming

My voice too loud

My accent too thick

Some days I am the favorite

Yes, they all want a piece of me

So, they take it

My breasts are groped

My vagina invaded

When I yell, “help”

My plea goes evaded

Is this the price of not being hated?

To All the Nice Guys

 Being nice isn't luxurious or  a unique quality. It is the standard. Just because you're nice, it doesn't entitle you to "get the girl."  The girl who knows her worth expects kindness & respect from everyone not out of entitlement but because she knows she gives what she deserves. It doesn't take much to be kind & respectful so that alone is not impressive. You need passion, ambition, intelligence, resilience. You need to maker laugh when she's so overwhelmed by the world she's forgotten life's delights. You need to encourage her & pick her up when all hope has escaped her. You need to be able to remind her of the type of person she is when she's lost herself in a maze of despair. You need to love her even when she feels she's unworthy of it. Nice guys will always finish last if that's the only thing they have to offer.
Kindness is the standard not the exception.

Aftermath

When you've had to explain reasons for your break-up so much, you got it boiled down to two sentences:
"I need more than he could give."
& "He couldn't handle what I had going on in my life."

It took weeks before I worked up the nerve to delete his number but it didn't matter bc it only took a few seconds to memorize it

Natural Resilience

A letter to my future child

As a daughter, I know what it is to grow up thinking your parents are invincible. You see them as these immortal, flawless individuals the closest personification of god you’ll ever encounter. They surround your life. They are your provider, protector, playmate, and advisor.
Then you grow up some more and venture out on your own. You find that there is more to life than what you were told. You meet people with greater abilities. People, who cook better, are wealthier, stronger, more adventurous, and smarter. You discover the gods you praised were false idols.
As an adult, encounter more choices and options. You’re exposed more. There is no one there to filter out the bad from the good, the pain from the joy. Everything is everywhere and nowhere to hide.
You realize your parents weren’t trying to be gods but guides.
I imagine parenting is not an easy task. To raise a child young and innocent, shielded from the evils and hurt of the world is an impossible task. Instead you teach them how to be equipped to deal with it all. You invest everything you have and are for them. You become everything so that one day they will need nothing.
But knowing when it is enough, when the lesson is over seems unattainable. Especially when the truth of the matter is you’re still learning lessons and falling down.
So I vow to you my unborn child that I will teach you what I know but I will not preach it as gospel.
I will show you my world and if you want to cross borders and swim across seas I won’t limit your entries
My strength or knowledge will be limited and my riches won’t be endless. My love will have no bounds.

Truth is

I am afraid my love will be too much for you
I'm afraid you you'll drown in the depths of my love
I'm afraid that as you lay on my chest and try to listen to my heart
the aroma of my bosom will be too overwhelming
I'm afraid your bones will be too fragile for the strength of my embrace
I'm afraid your ears will bleed because my woo will be too intense to hear
I'm afraid I'll scar your skin with my passion
I'm afraid I'm not being honest because the truth is
I'm afraid my love for you is too much for me to handle
I'm afraid I'll suffocate exhaling my passions and neglecting to inhale yours
The truth is loving you is the most terrifying experience of my life.

Goal

I don’t want to put a bandage on the world.
I want to perform open heart surgery on it
Dig deep into humanity’s aorta and unclog it of its greed, hatred and violence
And at its times of hopelessness and faint heartbeats,
I want to have the skills necessary to resuscitate it
When the world’s lungs are weak that it hurts to speak
I want to be able to breathe life back to it
I don’t want to put a bandage on the world
I want to heal it.

When The Cape Falls Off..

What happens when your hero turns their back on you?
When you’re nothing more than a past memory? A burden?
Perhaps there was no love there,
Perhaps obligation was their only motivation
Perhaps the love you thought you had was all a figment of your imagination
Perhaps unconditional had its conditions
Perhaps your dependency was too much, expectation too large
Perhaps their aspirations went too far
Perhaps they weren’t a hero at all.

What love means to me?

          Love isn't effortless. That is a lie. Love is work. Love is always a choice. A decision we make that says .... That person is worth our time & effort. A declaration of investment in a person because you believe they're worthy of it. It is not biological or chemical. It is conscious. It is faith.

Fear of a Future Mother

Every day I read the news my body cringes

My womb tightens with tension

Protecting the ovaries that would help create my yet unborn children

Every day I read the news my body cringes  

Thinking of all the fathers and mothers praying that it wasn’t their child

Being a cousin, daughter, a sister, a lover

A woman of color

That is more than enough pain, enough anxiety and trauma

Holding my hand to my stomach, I hope that by the time I’m ready the world is more loving to my children  

That they may love their mocha skin as much as I will teach my children to

That they may embrace their wavy, thick, rich hair when I style my children’s hair or let it run wild in a huge afro

That they recognize and marvel at their heritage and their resilient history as my children walk down the street with pride

But for now, I pray for all the fathers and mothers hoping that it wasn’t their child

For all the cousins, daughters, sisters, lovers

For all the men, and women of color

Haruki Murakami’s “Scheherazade”

"Life is strange, isn’t it? You can be totally entranced by something one minute, be willing to sacrifice everything to make it yours, but then a little time passes, or your perspective changes a bit, and all of a sudden you’re shocked at how its glow has faded."

Haruki Murakami’s “Scheherazade”

Dating Games

At first it’s this unspoken game of Hide and Seek but instead of the goal being hiding, it becomes being sought. Actively looking for way to cross paths but hiding your intent to do so. Then soon things evolve to a game of tag. You call him and he calls you. He touches you and you touch him. He kisses you and you kiss him. Before you know it you’re both wrestling each other to the ground. Awaken by the realization that you've just reached a new level you retrieve to your side and he goes to his. Now you’re sitting across a table playing a game of battleships, fishing for answers with vague questions that are filled with hits and miss.

You've officially entered a game of emotional chicken. You start playing charades with one another both of you trying to decipher meaning of the other’s actions without giving anything away. Finally you come to the realization that in other for the guessing to end one of you is going to have to step up and now you’re playing Russian roulette with each declarative word you’re pulling the trigger and their reaction or lack thereof is the trigger. 

Repressor

I'm pretty good at denial. I'm an expert on repression. I've had years of experience. A whole childhood of them. I started so young that now I barely have to try at all. I'm great at convincing myself that I'm okay that nothing is wrong. I'm so good there are days I actually believe it, Months even. I could look at you right in the eye without blinking with the most self-assured smile & neither of us would know I'm a liar

tragic lover

I've loved
I've been loved
but I've never experienced both simultaneously

State Street Station Stranger

My eyes met with a complete stranger & I don't know whether we transcended into each other's mind or the frequency of our brain waves synched but the moment our eyes met smiles were formed in both of our faces. As if we each had the other's key to unlock true happiness.  I swear it was like magic. But then I realize that we were each going in separate directions & the moment was fleeting but right before he left, he whispered, "you're beautiful"  #truestory