You Are Not Your Experiences....

There is no such thing as a perfect life, but I've come to understand that there are perfect moments of joy. Yet, we can miss the perfect moments stuck in the un-perfect parts of our life.

On a deeper level, we miss the perfect moments when the un-perfect moments becomes our life. We miss the goodness of life for the pain in life. It's like this, Saturday I went to the Crossfit North Regional games to cheer on the team from RiverNorth Crossfit where I workout.

When I woke up it was great day by my estimation. My bronchitis seemed to be getting better, the cough had tapered to where I didn't think my chest and head was going to explode. Overall, my health is getting back to a good place. The Neuropathy has taped off,  as well as the night sweats. I am actually getting some sleep. There was nothing  that could interfere with me attending the games.

The Crossfit competition was amazing and I was having a great time. I had watched the women's competition and was in the middle of mens competition when I felt that surge from my tummy to my behind. Without hesitation I made my way to the bathroom. I could feel the poop starting to come, as I made way to the end of the very long line. 

Without any shame, I made my way up the line, "Excuse me," I said,  "I'm about to use the bathroom on myself." The women looked up at me without any response. As the poop starting to come more rapidly, I thought it best to throw decorum out the women. "Ummm excuse me, but I'm  pooping on myself can I butt?" I didn't really wait for a response, I just my way to the front of the long line into a stall. There was a big sigh of relief as I sat on the toilet, I had made it with only a minor accident. 

I sat there long after I was finished to make sure that whatever this was had passed. As I sat there I couldn't quite figure what brought this on. It's been well over eight months since I've had any gastrointestinal drama. I shrugged it off happy that I hadn't had a bigger accident. When I was sure that  my tummy was good, I washed my panties in the toilet, wrap them in a paper towel and headed for the front door. 

I didn't know what was going on with my body and I knew that Navy Pier was not place figure it out. I had made it to the first level and was asking security for directions to the door when I started to feel that surge again. "Wheres the bathroom. I'm about to go on myself?" I asked.

As I made my way to the second toilet the poop started to surge out my behind and down my leg. "This is not going to be good," I mumbled, as the pooped surged like fire hydrant on a hot day in the inner city. When I made it to the toilet I knew this was a disaster. I rolled down my pants and sat on the toilet. Poop was dropping out of my pants onto the bathroom floor. "Oh lawd," I cried,  "how am I going to get out of this?'

When I was sure that I had finished, I took my pants off to start the cleaning process. I was not prepared for the mess that I saw. From top to bottom, my entire back of my pants were  wet and saturated in a brown substance.

"Well, at least the front was in tack," was all I could think. I started  my regular process, of trying to clean my pants with damp toilet paper, but the poop was embedded into the legs of the pants. I knew that I had to dip them carefully in the toilet to clean them. Carefully, because I couldn't get the front wet. I still needed to get home by way of taxi.  But dipping the pants in toilet was not doing the trick. This poop was grainy and not moving. So I dipped some more and all that did was make them wet and more wet and the poop was still barley moving.

Eventually I decided that I need to move on. It was clear to me that I was not going be able to clean the pants. The stench was so bad that women where entering the bathroom saying, "OMG what's that smell?" Now that bothered me, it shamed me in some way. I couldn't put my finger on it but it made me feel a certain kind of way.  Then I thought how sad, we really do want a perfect world don't we? We even want to be able to go into the bathroom that is designed to consume human waste and not be able to smell the waste. 

I cleaned the floor, balled my slacks up and took the shrug that I was wearing and wrapped it around my waist. "Thank God for this shrug," I mumbled.  When I made my way out of the stall, I apologized to the women for the smell.  I'm sorry, "I pooped on myself."

I washed my hands and started the process of trying to figure out how I was going to get home with as little of my body showing as I could. The problem was, shrugs are short in the front. I couldn't tie it, or you would have seen my vagina. 

I didn't have time to be overwhelmed I was just on a mission. I set on the floor holding the shrug closed. As women came into the bathroom I asked them for a safety pin, explaining my desperate situation. 

I was happy when the cleaning lady came, because I could  get a bag for my pants that was smelling up the bathroom as I explained my situation, so she could also sanitize my stall.

I asked everyone who came into the bathroom to no avail. Then one girl, a Crossfitter with a big backpack came into the bathroom. I just knew she had one in that big bag, but she didn't.  However,  she started brainstorming with me on how to secure the shrug. After we went around a few times with ideas,  it finally hit me, I could take one of the headbands that I had purchased in the exhibit and pull it over the top of the shrug. It wasn't the best solution but it would get me out of the bathroom and on my way home.

After I had fixed myself up, I sat back on the floor, making sure that the tummy drama had passed. A few minutes had slipped by when the Crossfitter came back with some shorts. "Will these help?" she asked handing them to me. Tears rolled down my face. I was overwhelmed and grateful for that act of kindness. I love Crossfitters because we have a spirit that says, I want you to succeed. "Are you sure I asked?" through tears. She said to me "Don't cry, just take these."

I put the shorts on, sat on the floor and called Tiara. As we were talking I started to cry again.  Tiara's sweet compassionate voice, came through, "Don't cry auntie, don't cry." In that moment it hit me that I was clinging onto the pain of my tummy drama and that opened the door for the pain of living with AIDS, which is all consuming. I then became at the moment all the pain of this disease. The pain took center stage, it became me.

In my conversation with Tiara I started watching me, I became aware of myself. I noticed that my cry wasn't one of the  joy that I had felt when the Crossfitter gave me the shorts, instead it was a cry of pain, the one that I felt when it was clear that I couldn't wash my pants in that toilet. The one that I felt years ago when my T-Cell Count was 8 and I had PCP. I almost missed the perfect moment of joy consumed by the dark moment of pain. 

Add caption

I  stopped the tears in a instant and watched  the pain passed through me. Once I did that, I was able to get off that floor and leave the bathroom.  I am coming to a place of understanding that I am not the darkness of AIDS. I am the person who is watching the darkness of AIDS in me for the last 31 years.

Michael Singer argus that your sense of self is determined by where you are focusing your consciousness. The force of consciousness ends up holding the object stable simply by concentrating on it. .... 

I wonder how many of us become the pain of our journey just by simply holding onto it rather than letting it pass through us?  How many of us give the pain energy by holding it stable through our consciousness? 

Instead of holding onto the the tummy drama,  I looked it straight in the eye and saw it to be yet another experience that has helped me to grow. For sure it helped me to see the practical side of my spiritual journey. I know that while I have lots of work to do on this journey,  I am on the right path. This experience was confirmation.  I've been reading and reading, but this was the first time where the words in those books became alive in me. 

I am not the darkness of AIDS, I am the person who is watching the darkness of AIDS and by understanding that simple point I am able to watch dark moments pass through me, rather than become me. 

RLT Reads: The Invention of Wings Book Review!

I have read over half of the Oprah Book Club abolitionist in the early 1800's long before the end of slavery.  It focuses on Sarah and Ann Grimke and their family, wealthy slave owners from Charleston, South Carolina. It begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday when she is given a ten year-old slave girl Handful as a birthday gift.

While Sarah Grimke and her family are real characters in American history, the book is historical fiction, weaving the life of Sarah's family with historical facts and great creativity.

This is not your ordinary slave book. Sue Monk Kidd, gives incredible voice to Handful and her mother. And let me tell you, Handful and her mother are a handful. Sue Monk Kidd paints the slave culture with brilliance. She gives voice to feminist, as well as a glimpse into the lives of women who are living with purpose in and era when their only purpose should have been family.

Equally important she gives an historical place for two very important woman in American history. Sarah and Ann Grimke, who were abolitionist speaking to mixed audiences of male and female which was unheard of at the time. Coming from the planation class, they were received as legitimate abolitionist, who understood the horrors of slavery first hand. They were the first American feminist thinkers. Sarah was the first woman in the United States to write a comprehensive feminist manifesto and Ann was the first woman to speak before a legislative body.

The book tells a story of slave/ slave owner relationship. She gives voice to the issues surrounding slavery from a slaves perspective. She traces the complicated relationship between Handful and Sarah. There are tons of interesting twist in the book, like Denmark Vesey and his slave insurrection. She gives voice to women in and era when they had no voice.

This book is a must read, especially for history buffs. It was an awesome read that left me wanting more.

On a side bar, I am currently reading Sue Monk Kidd's, When The Heart Waits. I have been on this Seekers journey and when I watched her interview on Super Soul Sunday with Oprah  I was moved to pick it up. The book is her spiritual memoir unpacking the most important elements on her own seekers journey. I have had a lot of Aha moments. I'm almost done, and what impresses me the most about this book is how she weaves her Christian foundation and Biblical principals to inform her journey.

Separation of Opportunity: Reflection On Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Today marks two years since my membership in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. as an honorary member was rescinded. I'm not going to rehash any of those gory details you can read all about it here and here and here. The pain that I felt  three years ago seemed insurmountable. Even last year I was still hurting far more than I would have wanted to admit.

I look back over being kicked out of Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority and think it a blessing that I can now fully embrace. For sure, I'm wiser, stronger but most importantly it sent me on a journey of self understanding that had been waiting in the wings to happen.

Two years ago this was a crisis that consumed my life, every part of my being, my body, heart and soul. Yet reflecting today, it also presented me with an opportunity. Sue Monk Kidd in her book When the Heart Waits would have seen this crisis as a "separation of opportunity." The greek word crisis derives from the Greek word Krisis and Krino which means "a separating."

This separation made me reexaime myself. The woman I had become and the woman that I'm seeking. 

At the end of this road, through all the hurtful tweets, facebook discussions, comments on my Youtube and my blog, from women who once called me sister and praised my advocacy in HIV/AIDS, and stood in my honor at official meetings when I enter the room, I learned, in spite of what was said about me, I like me! And I like me so much I don't feel the need to defend who I am.

I mean, I really, really like me. That would translate into loving yourself. When you can say you like who you are, what you do, how you do it, what you wear or don't wear, how you live your life, without limitations on what others think of you, you have reached that place of self-love.

Delta helped me to be even more  unapologetic about who I am. My authentic self has grown by leaps and bounds. It recently gave me the strength to walk away from my leadership positions at church without defending my right to do and live as I please, in spite of what people may deem "proper" for an ordained minister. It has made me live out loud without regard to the issues of "respectability" that I highlight in my book, The Politics of Respectability. My life is uniquely mine and to live your life for the validation of others would be to deny who God created you to be., that uniqueness.

Delta, even created space for me to move through this profound spiritual journey that I just began with confidence that my "seeking" does not conflict with my Christian beliefs but enhances them. Sue Monk Kidd would say "In order to follow the inner journey, we need to leave behind those things that are deadening the loyalties that no longer have life for us," When I read that I said yesssss, my separation from Delta released me of loyalties that hindered my authentic self.

When I look back over the sacrifices and loyalties I kept to "belong" all the money I spent on red St. John Knits to "fit in" with the upper crust of leadership. All the times I spoke for Delta events for a potion of my speakers fee, so that I could be the "liked" honorary member and show that MY sorority was doing something on HIV/AIDS. Even coming to one convention {because I was told repeatedly that honorary members "never show up"} instead of staying with my mother who was in the last weeks of her life, I know that I am released from loyalties that hindered my authentic self.

This has been a long two year journey, but I can look back and say, that Delta did for me what I was unable to do for myself. In Delta I was still the "little Rae" seeking approval half/in and half/out of my authentic self. 

Those tweets that day was my authentic self, but the rejection that I felt over being my authentic self was "little Rae."

As I reflect, I had to examine what was it in me to cause me to be so wounded by Delta's rejection? But the larger question and most importantly, why would I want to below to any organization that could not validate and support my authentic self.  Why would I want to belong to  women who one day called me sister and the next called me demon?  I had to take a long look at myself, not at Delta Sigma Theta for those answers. 

This separation from Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, was a Separation of Opportunity for it sent me on a journey of reexamination. It helped to heal the "little Rae" always seeking approval, always half/in and  half/out of my authentic self. 

Today, What I know for sure, I'm the authentic version of me, living out loud in the spirit that God create me to be.