rumination

Titi Rell,

After our conversation on that v e r y long drive from a very l o n g island, I found myself in deep reflection and ruminated for hours on the idea of what happens to roots unrooted. What indeed happens to unhealed roots? What are the ways in which they manifest and spread while twisted, bruised, bent, bare and beautiful. What are the inevitable growing pains that beckon the journey to . . . healing? I sat there for what felt like hours but quite possibly could have been but twenty minutes. I became immersed, metaphorically, in the water. In it’s reflection, I saw myself. Literally of course but also. . . . I saw myself, and you, and Mama, and Big Momma, G-ma Lula too. I saw our collective memory and our individual walks.

I ruminate on the moments I am the biggest barrier to my own healing, to my own growth and uncover fear at the barrel’s bottom of that thought. I promised you a poem so I reflected in rumination then I did that too. This is a bit of what came up:

Rumination 1

Change => necessary, constant

Thoroughly solitudinal





Rumination 2

Found a crack in the inevitable

to crawl into and

make yet

another

home

temporarily.



Rumination 3

The sting in my eyes,

extinguished by

the flood that followed





Rumination 4

Yaaaassssssss,

to every utterance

that

is

you.

wise non-resistance.





Ruminations 5

how you feeling today?

disappointed

sad

angry

resentful

Titi Rell,

I’mma clean this room,

I’mma clean

this room. tonight.

But, if I can’t?

it’s oooooookay

it’s okay.

Experiencing this COVID that so

vividly diminished me,

No one has ever experienced this before.



It’s traumatic, and

we haven’t left the trauma

so, we don’t get the honour

of having PTSD, yet.

No relief from, this invisible

silent

stressor.

stressor on our immunity

stressor on our thoughts being in unity

Stressor on our entire world community



Your worries,

legit.

there are things going on is this world that we

cannot explain;

it’s happening very quickly,

things changing around you so swiftly.

it’s hard to catch your breath, a break,

let alone sustain long enough to

recalibrate

recalibrate.

can’t seem to shake this funk

this chunk of me, saggin’

givin’ me this sinkin’

feeling I’ve been syncing

with the frequency of delinquency

and singing sad hymns inside.

Depressed state?

I depress wait.

Nothing is wrong with you baby,

Something’s wrong with the song around you.



empathic shoulders bare boulders colder to slow the

impact of mourning.

you absorb . . .

they don’t even know chil’

they don’t even know how, you . . .

deep mourning meets fear

on the brink of collective paralysis, so

you , you absorb this too

like all those toilet paper rolls that left Empty Shelves.

you both absorb too many fears

shaped like knees on your son’s neck

we are dancing the tightrope

between sanity and insanity.

quite frankly, we ain’t good.



You sweet Titi, intuit this stuff

compounded with your own fresh fears

there’s no end in sight,

this is a huge issue:

humans don’t deal well with this level of uncertainty

we go to war over uncertainty like this

all confused, spinnin’ pop bottles

then pointing fingers

psyche exhausted in our nine year old selves.

just can’t seem to figure it out, now

navigate this eldership

master enduring the constraints of our

new normal firms of with 6 foot walls

the sexiness of the Matriarch fades

beneath the weight of the job, and

this IS the job

Nothing is wrong with you

So,

tip

toe

through

the mindfields of your past

to find the missing pieces

of you.

soothe

the ruined bits,

salvage the sweet-scented.

you begin to heal while

I patiently wonder . . .

Now,

rummage

through

every

taste of cope

buried

between bronze

thighs

twisted tenderly

taught

temptation

saves sol