POWER/ Autumn

 "Dream a little dream of me

Make me into something sweet
Turn the radio on, dancing to a pop song
Fuck it, I love you
Fuck it, I love you
Fuck it, I love you
I really do" -Lana Del Rey Fuck it, I love you

Our moods, and our love stories, I feel can be captured in the metaphorical seasons: spring hope, summer joy, autumn's reminisce and winter's pragmatism. Romeo and Juliet, Rose and Jack, meet eyes in the spring and live bravely in the summer. But of course, there is fall and winter too, and the test is in how we deal with the fall and winter seasons. 

This thing is about that delicate balance of triumph and failure, humiliation that leads to humility, and courage that leads to miracles. And the very real feelings of anxiety that lives simultaneously alongside joy. Like a Boston day, sometimes all the seasons are one. 

I write this to say that it's always disappointing when hope hurts, because it betrays, at face value, the life/ the light that is supposed to emit from it. And in adulthood, we grapple with the fact that hope hurts a lot because we are all complicated and nuanced and hurt, to some extent. But also, because light and darkness exists together, sometimes we come to find out much later on that hope comes in the form of understanding that, as the rapper Nas said, " a thug changes, and love changes, and best friends become strangers" and that's also ok because it allows us to open a different chapter that is lighter and brighter and we begin that cycle again. 

We always root for us, the Romeo and Juliets, every classic love story, because the journey in itself makes us US and makes us worthy. What's the corny saying, "the journey is the destination."

The rapper Nas is the classic example of it. Without him, I don't know what my adolescence as the token Blasian girl in well-meaning and debilitating Maine would have been. Music, for teenagers, is an escape and he spoke about race, about loss, about trauma, about triumph, better than almost anyone. At school, my identity did not exist, except for being the brown girl who could wear colors the way white people couldn't, who hung out with the Emily's and Brittany's and Rachel's and Ally's to survive, but at home, I knew there were things going on in the world that I needed to talk about, thanks to the rapper Nas. The rapper Nas also drank too much and beat his girlfriend and his wife. The rapper Nas used his leverage as a rich man to oppress women. The rapper NaS, used his charm to silence others. He brought me hope in my teens, but in my 30s, I know he is the winter and I know I must side on the side of empowering women. 

The Emily's and Ally's and Rachel's and Brittany's, too, were survival. Pragmatically, even if my 12 year old mind didn't have the capacity to admit that we were different. They would never understand at the heart level, what it meant to be an immigrant, a minority, an intersectional progressive, at the heart level, but as a kid, they were all I had.

Options about community are for adults or really brave kids. 

I think often about the destination. About the children I hope to bring into this world. About the relationship with a loving partner that my children can be proud of. Sometimes it's hard to sit back and appreciate the anxiety inducing process that will hopefully lead there...

These bumps in the road, these Nas's and Ally's are for a reason: the clarity of self. The seasons keep changing but I become wiser.

"Summertime, and the livin's easy
Bradley's on the microphone with Ras MG
All the people in the dance will agree
That we're well-qualified to represent the L.B.C
Me, me and Louie, we gonna run to the party
And dance to the rhythm, it gets harder" -Lana Del Rey in Doin Time