#and it was an old school village culture funeral too!

[touchmycoat]

for my birthday this year I got a two-day land typhoon, a daoist funeral, a crafts party, three new ferns, a rosemary harvest, and left shoulder pain so bad I was 60% convinced it was a fucking cardiac event 'cause i couldn't fully inhale and the pain radiated up to my jaw lol

[islandtarochips]

Hello! You've been super nice with my content and I would like to thank you for being so kind 🥺

I have a question since I'm interested to ask! Can you tell me something about your culture and Samoan people? :D

Of course dearie! Everything that you've created is an ABSOLUTE stunning art! You and the others that I have followed!

And yeah! I would LOVE to! But just to let you know, I’m slowly learning as well since I was young. Because of how a slow learner I am but I will do my best to answer your question! (And it will be in a little detail for me to explain EVERYTHING about our culture.)

Starting off about the Samoan people. Us Samoan people are very strict with our culture. And they said that we're the most recognizable people showing it. Our dances, our music, visual arts. All of that! The Visual Arts are the most interesting thing that I've seen so far. Like the Tatau (tah-tah-oo).

The Tatau are like tattoos mainly on the thighs and waist. You can say that they're wearing like clothing. Which means they are practically...Ahem. You should know. And they said we started using this as an inspiration by the two Fijian women who came up to the shore and brought their materials and knowledge of tattooing. Next one that we're known for Visual Arts is Siapo (see-ah-poh). A Samoan word for "A fine cloth made from the bark of the Paper Mulberry tree."

The Siapo is very important for ceremony, especially the wedding occasion and the funeral service, just to wrap the dead body and put in the grave. (Since we have caskets now. We put the Siapo on TOP of the casket instead.) It's even for High Chiefs or village maiden wearing the Siapo around their waist. Like in this old photo!

(IF you can even SEE it) Now the next one is the Ie Lavalava (ee-eh lah-vah-lah-vah). An Ie Lavalava is a piece of fabric that Polynesians tie around their waists that gets worn like a skirt. Both men and women wear this type of garment in Samoa and is considered to be a traditional daily outfit used for school uniforms or work attire paired with a jacket and tie. Like this one:

(Students wearing their Ie Lavalava for school) Or this one:

(This is somewhere in the state as they allowed them to wear it in school campus. I forgot the name of the school and place.) Men and Women wear them like that. For anywhere they go. Back in the days, my dad use to tell me that women should wear an Ie whenever they go out in the village. If they don't, it goes to show that they are not respecting our people or the village for it. And nowadays, we hardly done that. I mean, there are still some of them wears an Ie when they go out but most of us aren't. I only wear an Ie when I go to another Pastor's house or go to Church. Anyway, here is some BEAUTIFUL design that they made an Ie Lavalava!

And LASTLY of the Visual Art, is Weaving. I'm sure you already know of what weaving is. For us, we weave baskets and Ie Tonga (ee-eh toh-ngh-ah). It's like the Ie Lavalava but it is made of native pandanus (lauie) tree. And it's BIGGER. I forgot if my dad told me if it was the BARK or the LEAVES they use to make it. Here is what the Ie Tonga look like:

Just like that! They use these for the funerals as a gift to show their respects. I've seen this MANY times. They use these for Fa'alavelave (fah-ah-lah-veh-lah-veh). Means "Families dig deep to help fund funeral, wedding, or other life-interrupting costs, to the tune of thousands of dollars." And oh yeah, the Samoan funerals also involves money. To help out to get the things for the high chiefs and other pastors and wives. ANYWAY, they said the I'e Toga originated from our neighboring country, Tonga. The I'e Toga was originally brought to Samoa by a Tongan lady named Fuka (foo-kah). Fuka's older sister, Lautiovogia (lah-oo-tee-oh-voh-nee-ah) the Queen of Samoa, was married to the King Tuiatua (too-ee-ah-too-ah). During Fuka's visit to Samoa, she gave her sister an I'e Toga as a gift. And that's how the Ie Tonga came into Samoa. That's about it for the Visual Art. And for the music and dances. The dancing is mostly about elegant and grace. The dances also tells the story about our ancestors and mostly about love. Just like any other countries uses their music in dancing to tell the story! Another thing about us Samoans. Samoan parents are VERY strict of disciplining their children. Like let's say....Mexican/Asian/Black mothers disciplining kind of way😅. But they're just doing that out of love. Nothing abusive. I promise. And also, there are TWO different Samoa island. One island is named ACTUALLY Samoa and there's AMERICAN Samoa (That's where I'm at right now!). The differences is. Samoa are like the independent one. Nothing owns them. Until New Zealand took Samoa under them. While American Samoa is under the US. If I remember correctly the reason why American Samoa is under the US. Is because of the Americans assisting us from the war that is going on. Going against Germany, I think. So I guessed that's how we became under the protection of the US.

Here are the two Samoan islands. Almost close but it's like 1h 12m on an airplane and 16h on a car ferry. I prefer the plane (If I didn't pack anything HEAVY. Lol.) So yeah, that's about it. Thank you @welldonekhushi for the ask and hopefully this will help you answer your question! I'm trying be detailed as I can.

[sporadicarbitergardener]

Spirit Bibilical definition with Cap.

First see how your mind reads it. It was my start to my inspiration and growth in my power within myself.

Th part of a person that is not of the body: the soul: 2. a being who does not have a body: 3 (cap) see Holy Spirit.

A hint that we all carry a spirit regardless of age, gender, size, color , culture or unbelieiving.

I am not here to judge any one or press this on anyone I am just sharing my faith along with my story because with my first daughter I prayed to become pregnant with her and at 14 when i was suppose to commit suicide after smoking weed for the fiorst time in 2013 and I cut my hair the "emo" style for the first time ever in my life and being honest I was suppose to take pills and over dose being real I passed out when the events of my father were haunting me and not feeling any love because at the time my mother needed to tend to her and my brother's life even living with them as a child I was the outcase she let my old step brother Tyler Obrien touch me in my sleep at 410 Old Buras River Road, Buras La and it was December 24 , 2012 and well he was visiting because after his maw maw Dee Dee died in October of 2012 I told him at the funeral in Raceland Louisiana if he wants to talk to his mom about moving down where we were at the time and well next thing I know while down for christmas he touched me I tell my mom his father joked him and well My nanny Denise LcCombe was there , also Robert LcCombe along with Alec LcCombe, Brandon Mccain and well being honest my mother even too up for him as welll.

He went all over Central Lafourche High School saying he had sex with me when I actually gave my virginity to Trey Willyard 02/09/2014 well before he came into my life and we formed a relationship well i went to sleep and had a dream of a love I never felt before. With a child and in the dream she was a girl .

I always struggled with self harm, and suicide attempts.

Well I had my first daughter 06/02/2017 and now she is in the custody of Taylor Vincent and I am greatful because she doesn't have to look at life the same way I did. Now my foster brother Michael Brewer is now hiding from social media as well and reflecting back and seeing shit its hard because being honest I feel blind now as people keep a distance as well as also told my ex boyfriend that I am creating a distance between us for my child because I am mommy and daddy and noone is taking this blessing coming if it doesn't fail like a miscarriage but its my child and I am studying hard in my bible because I do carry alot of sin and made alot of mistakes but I never thought I would see myself carrying a life again I feel happy but terrified.

Ill do better than last time but also I didn't do bad by my last child.

I was abducted and raped .

at the 1210 SE florida drive, in Denham Springs village in motel and well I' ll keep doing what I do as I go on because I am not adding any other stress in my life due to how crazy life is built up.

Now I have two reasons to live well 3. My first born, a little girl I helped be close to her father , and this if fit doesn't fail.

[rockislandadultreads]

Eye-Catching Book Covers & Richly Details Stories: Fiction Picks

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejide

Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying ill-fated passengers in a haunted car: a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River. Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash--reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school, but still questioning what and who he saw--has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man," who somehow appears each time he goes there. When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys's door one day bearing a cryptic note about his unusual conversations with the River Man, Nephthys must face both the family she abandoned and what frightens her most when she looks in the mirror.

Norma by Sofi Oksanen, Owen F. Witesman (Translator)

When Anita Naakka jumps in front of an oncoming train, her daughter, Norma, is left alone with the secret they have spent their lives hiding: Norma has supernatural hair, sensitive to the slightest changes in her mood — and the moods of those around her — moving of its own accord, corkscrewing when danger is near. And so it is her hair that alerts her, while she talks with a strange man at her mother’s funeral, that her mother may not have taken her own life. Setting out to reconstruct Anita’s final months — sifting through puzzling cell phone records, bank statements, video files — Norma begins to realize that her mother knew more about her hair’s power than she let on: a sinister truth beyond Norma’s imagining.

Things You Would Know if You Grew Up Around Here by Nancy Wayson Dinan

2015. 18-year-old Boyd Montgomery returns from her grandfather's wedding to find her friend Isaac missing. Drought-ravaged central Texas has been newly inundated with rain, and flash floods across the state have begun to sweep away people, cars, and entire houses as every river breaks its banks. In the midst of the rising waters, Boyd sets out across the ravaged back country. She is determined to rescue her missing friend, and she's not alone in her quest: her neighbor, Carla, spots Boyd's boot prints leading away from the safety of home and follows in her path. Hours later, her mother returns to find Boyd missing, and she, too, joins the search. Boyd, Carla, and Lucy Maud know the land well. They've lived in central Texas for their entire lives. But they have no way of knowing the fissure the storm has opened along the back roads, no way of knowing what has been erased-and what has resurfaced. As they each travel through the newly unfamiliar landscape, they discover the ghosts of Texas past and present.

The River Midnight by Lilian Nattel

In her stunning debut novel, Lilian Nattel brilliantly brings to life the richness of shtetl culture through the story of an imagined village: Blaszka, Poland. Myth meets history and characters come to life through the stories of women's lives and prayers, their secrets, and the intimate details of everyday life. When they were young, four friends were known as the vilda bayas, the wild creatures. But their adult lives have taken them in different directions, and they've grown apart. One woman, Misha, is now the local midwife. In a world where strict rules govern most activities, Misha, an unmarried, independent spirit becomes the wayward heart of Blaszka and the keeper of town secrets. But when Misha becomes pregnant and refuses to divulge the identity of her baby's father, hers becomes the biggest secret of all, and the village must decide how they will react to Misha's scandalous ways. Nattel's magical novel explores the tension between men and women, and celebrates the wordless and kinetic bond of friendship.

[mdzsgildedfate]

Gilded Fate - Chapter 2

One by one, poppy seeds bloomed across a field of snow. Just a few at first, then a whole field. A field of poppy flowers springing up out of the snow, dotting the pristine blanket red. A hand reached out and plucked one of the flowers, the petals immediately turning to liquid and spilling down the wrist. All at once, the rest of the poppies turned to blood and rushed to snuff out the white snow.

Both hands came into view. Blood spattered both of them. The one on the left was mashed and broken and bruised. The pain screamed and wailed and howled. And then everything went quiet. Black. The pain disappeared. The world fell away. Turning around and round, black in every direction, until finally there stood a figure. Tall and radiant, dressed in white robes, practically blinding against the black background.

Xinyi woke with a start. His eyes flew open and looked around the room wildly, searching for… searching for… he wasn’t sure. His breathing returned to normal and he slumped back against the bed. He glanced over at the clock and let out an annoyed huff seeing that it was minutes before his alarm would go off. Summer had gone by too fast.

Thankfully, Xinyi had been able to get all of his general education credits completed, so this year would be entirely focused on his anthropology classes. The classes his parents were requiring he take just to take over the family collection. He groaned. He couldn’t understand why he had to take college courses for a collection only his family seemed to know anything about. It wasn’t like Professor Lan’s moral philosophy classes were going to teach him how to decipher the cryptic scrolls in the Wang vault.

“One more thing before you guys go-” The Professor’s voice rang out over the sound of students collecting their things to leave. “Don’t forget to put your name on the sign-up sheet for the field trip- remember, this is a very rare opportunity, these priests do not invite outsiders to visit very often, so don’t miss out on your chance by putting it off til the last minute.”

Xinyi was halfway down the stairs of the lecture hall when Chen caught up to him.

“Hey! Xinyi!” Chen threw an arm over the other man, practically toppling them both over. “You’re going, right?”

“What, hiking through the countryside to spend a week in a Taoist temple?” Xinyi asked, laughing. “Hey- you ever think about how two of our anthro teachers are both Professor Lan? Do you think they’re related?”

“Oh come on, it’s a week we don’t have to spend in class.” Chen insisted, already dragging Xinyi over to the clipboard. “And it’s a week of co-ed camping.”

Xinyi rolled his eyes, but signed the paper anyways. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s gonna get so sexy with Professor Lan watching us like a hawk.”

Chen shrugged and dragged him off, talking on as though Xinyi hadn’t just poked a hole in his plans.

~X~

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

Sizhui put his hand over Jingyi’s, patting it reassuringly. “We’re almost there.”

“I hate busses. I hate cars. I hate every form of transportation humanity has invented the past two hundred years.” Jingyi moaned, his face squashed against the window.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Sizhui gave Jingyi’s hand a squeeze. “At least we didn’t have to take a plane.”

Jingyi moaned harder, squeezing his eyes shut.

Towards the back of the bus, Xinyi stared out the window, listening to Chen chatter about the area they were in, the history of the rural villages, and so on. If he’d have known both Professor Lans were going on the field trip, he definitely would’ve stayed home. It was bad enough having one breathing down his neck, but the Moral Philosophy Lan always gave him these weird looks, as though he was expecting Xinyi to say something weird.

It was a relief for everyone on board when they finally reached the village at the edge of the mountain. The rest of the journey would be made on foot, beyond where the road ended and into the heart of the forest. Everyone poured out of the bus and the two professors led them into a drab, worn-down inn. Once inside their rooms, the professors dropped the oversized duffel bags they’d been carrying onto the floor in front of the students.

“Four at a time, come up and take out a uniform. We’ll be going down the mountain and staying at the temple in traditional robes.” Sizhui announced as Jingyi unzipped the duffel bags and started piecing the robes together.

Xinyi’s face twisted up. “Seriously? We have to wear this shit while we’re hiking?”

Chen snickered, holding one up to Xinyi. “At least it suits you, with your hair so long. The rest of us are gonna look stupid.”

Xinyi rolled his eyes and shoved the robe away. “Why are they white? We’re gonna look like we’re going to a funeral.”

Getting the robes sorted out to the twenty-odd students under the Lans’ supervision was a chaotic event. While Sizhui had significantly more patience and far better mediation skills, Jingyi was about ready to lose his mind at the utter lack of discipline. Once each of the students had been assigned their new clothes, Sizhui and Jingyi were able to change into their own before leading the convoy out of the inn.

“I can’t believe I’d ever miss Cloud Recesses this much.” Jingyi grumbled, rubbing his temples.

“It’s not all bad. Don’t you remember how excited we were when we first met disciples from other clans and saw how much more freedom they had?” Sizhui asked, stroking the hemwork of his sleeve. “This is what we must have looked like to HanGuang-Jun.”

“Hardly!” Jingyi scoffed. “We were never this bad!”

“Hey, how come you guys are wearing different robes?” One student spoke up suddenly, interrupting Jingyi’s complaints.

“Do we get headbands too?”

Jingyi made eye contact with the student for an uncomfortably long second before looking back down the path. “No.”

Sizhui laughed softly. “Our robes, and headbands included, are specific to the school Professor Lan and I studied at together.”

“Oh.” The student pouted for a moment. “What school?”

Sizhui only smiled back before facing forward again.

“Professor Lan just ignored me…”

The children following along behind Sizhui and Jingyi erupted into laughter and broke off into jokes and commentary about the journey as they began their descent down the mountain. Unlike their guides, looking positively regal and elegant in their robes, the students quickly devolved into a sweaty, trudging herd of zombies. The layers of cotton accumulated heat quickly, and the boys who were unused to wearing ‘skirts’ began the choir of complaints.

“I don’t get why we couldn’t change into these once we get to the temple.” Xinyi mumbled, using his sleeve to fan himself.

“It’s more authentic this way.” Chen responded, sounding completely unbothered.

“If you ever try to convince me to do something ‘fun’ with you ever again, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“Come on, look-” Chen grabbed Xinyi’s shoulder and pointed to the peak of the mountains. “See how much taller they look now?”

Xinyi glowered at him.

“And see how the ground is starting to level out?” Chen smacked his back, “We’re almost there, I guarantee it.”

Xinyi rolled his eyes, but did feel a quiet relief at Chen’s observations. And just as he said, no more than thirty or forty minutes passed before the tall, wooden gate of the temple came into view. The students shed their exhaustion at once and broke out into cheers, jumping and rushing about in celebration of not having to walk anymore.

Jingyi brought them to a screeching halt and turned on them, mustering up his best impression of Lan Wangji and glared back at them.

“This is a Taoist temple. You are about to meet esteemed priests. Can you please try to show some reverence?” He said impatiently.

Sizhui gave a small nod. “Everyone. Please keep in mind what we told you in class. Our hosts have lived in seclusion for a very long time, please mind your volume and keep your manners while we’re here.”

The group quieted down to excited whispers as they passed through the gate into the temple court. Waiting inside was a ghostly pale man dressed in black robes, another man in cream coloured robes who looked somehow already annoyed at everyone’s presence, and a college-aged girl wearing matching cream robes. Sizhui and Jingyi stepped forward, bowing with hands out in front of them to the two men.

“Song Lan Daozhang, it’s an honour to meet you again after all these years.” Sizhui said, practically beaming at the older man.

“Yes, thank you so much for allowing us to visit your temple.” Jingyi hummed in agreement.

“Ah, and no greeting for your friend, whom you’ve not seen for nearly a decade?” Jin Ling huffed, tapping his foot impatiently.

Song Lan cracked a small smile, memories of the young squabbling disciples coming back to his mind. He cast his gaze away from the three as they caught up with each other and scanned over the group of students, unable to help but feel a small spark of excitement at the idea of overseeing young disciples for the first time over 8,000 years (even if they weren’t really disciples).

Once Jin Ling’s temperament had been quelled, the four cultivators took up an authoritative position at the bottom of the stares, turning to address the students. Everyone’s attention slowly fell on the men in front of them and quieted down, quicker now under the gaze Song Lan and Jin Ling.

“Welcome to the Leng Shuang WeiFeng temple.” Song Lan opened, holding his hands out and giving a small bow.

Sizhui gestured for the group to bow back and, clumsily, they followed.

“Over the next seven days, myself, your two professors, and our young master Jin will be instructing you in our etiquettes, principles, archery, sword-fighting, and other such relevant cultures.” Song Lan continued, a warm smile on his lips. “While you’re here, please treat our temple with respect, as this building is very old. Furthermore, my fellow Daozhang also resides in the eastern section of the temple. If he’s not participating in our activity, please do not disturb him.”

Sizhui gestured again for them to bow. They complied again, this time looking more uniform. Song Lan chuckled softly to himself, looking at the youthful faces with a nostalgic fondness. He cast his gaze back to Sizhui and Jingyi, giving a small nod of approval, before looking back to the group-

And froze.

Xinyi’s eyes met Song Lan’s and a strange chill ran down in his spine. With the sun beating down on the priest’s face, he looked deathly white, and the look he gave Xinyi… He couldn’t decipher it, but it made him feel a strange mix of contempt and guilt. He looked away a few times, trying to break the eye contact, but every time he looked back, Song Lan was still staring at him.

“Why is that guy staring at me like I owe him money.” Xinyi hissed, elbowing Chen in the ribs.

“Do you owe him money?” Chen asked, leaning over to get a better look at the man.

As soon as Chen had caught his gaze, Song Lan looked away, seeming to shake some thought him from his mind. He turned suddenly, pulling Jingyi and Sizhui up the stares into the outer pavilion. Jingyi waved his sleeve at Jin Ling as they were pulled away, leaving a wild, panicked look in Jin Ling’s eyes. After the disappeared, he looked back to the group of college students, feeling the pressure of their expectant gaze.

“Uh… Free time until your professors get back.” Jin Ling said, shrugging at MingYue. “Don’t set anything on fire.”

Xinyi followed Jin Ling’s eyes and felt his heart drop to his stomach as he finally got a clear look at the other figure in the court.

“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Hm? What? What happened?” Chen looked around, trying to see what new ghostly figuring was harassing his friend for money.

“Her.” He pointed one finger out at MingYue.

“Oh yeah, what’s with that red dot on her and that guy’s foreheads?” Chen laughed. “It makes them look like dorks.”

“Not that.” Xinyi growled. “That’s my ex-girlfriend.”

Chen paused, mouth slightly agape. “Ahhh….. Rough luck buddy.”

~X~

Whisking the two younger cultivators into the privacy of the pavilion, Song Lan turned on Sizhui and Jingyi. His gaze has darkened and inky black veins had begun creeping up his neck. He squeezed his eyes shut and took in a deep breath. As it let out slowly, the veins also receded, disappearing back beneath the collar of his robe.

“Young Master Lan. Are you aware of the reincarnated soul in your midst?” Song Lan asked after a painfully long silence.

“Well, yes…” Sizhui said, biting his lower lip. “I’ve found a purpose in seeking them out, providing guidance if they’re on the verge of awakening. I’ve not been able to identify him, but he doesn’t seem in danger of recalling anything so far.”

Song Lan studied his face quietly, considering a number of thoughts before speaking. “Do you remember who else you met in Yi City?”

Sizhui exchanged a worried look with Jingyi.

“You don’t mean…” Jingyi started quietly, his voice trailing off.

“Xinyi is…” Sizhui furrowed his brow, recalling his brief encounter with the man. “Xinyi is Xue Yang?”

Song Lan nodded solemnly. “It would be impossible for me to send you all away, even more so to try to send away just him, but this puts me in an extremely difficult position. For myself, and for Xiao Xingchen.”

The two Lans hung their heads. “We understand. If there’s anything we can do to lessen the burden we’ve imposed on you, please tell us directly.”

Song Lan shook his head. “Don’t feel too responsible. It’s an unfortunate fate that keeps crossing our paths, I assume it has very little to do with either of you. Just try to help me keep him away from Xingchen.”

They nodded in agreement.

“This is a very precarious situation. Not just for you and Xiao Xingchen Daozhang, but for everyone present.” Sizhui spoke carefully. “Souls who recall their past lives too suddenly can become unstable, unhinged. I can only imagine how Xin- Xue Yang… could become dangerous if that were to happen.”

“At least he doesn’t have a sword.” Jingyi said, trying to bring some light to the situation. “That’s five immortal cultivators with swords against one unarmed Xue Yang with no spiritual powers.”

“That’s true. I’d very much like to avoid that outcome, if at all possible.” Song Lan took a couple steps over, peering out at the courtyard. “Keep an eye on him. Let me know if he shows any signs of recollection.”

Sizhui and Jingyi stepped out alongside Song Lan, their eyes falling on Xinyi, finding it hard to believe the bright, cheerful boy they’d spent all last year teaching ethics and culture and history to was the same unhinged murderer they’d met in Yi City. There was no rage behind his eyes or forked tongue behind his teeth. Xinyi had unnerved Sizhui in the past, but never to the point of fear Xue Yang had instilled in him.

Exchanging another worried look, the cultivators came out of their hiding spot and rejoined the rest of the group in the courtyard. Sizhui stepped up beside Jin Ling, leaning over and whispering their revelation into his ear. His eyes grew wide, looking back at Sizhui in disbelief. His grip on the hilt of his sword tightened, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.

Xinyi glanced over at them and they all averted their eyes, looking anywhere but at him. “What the fuck did Professor Lan just whisper to that guy?”

Chen and the two other students that’d broken off to sit with them both craned their necks to see what Xinyi was talking about.

“You guys saw that right?” Xinyi asked, looking at the three expectantly. “Chen, you saw the way that priest guy was looking at me! The professors just disappeared with him, came back, then Lan Sizhui whispered something into that guy’s ear and he looked at me like…”

“Like what?” QianHua looked back at Jin Ling. “Ooh, he’s looking at you again.”

“See! See what I mean!” Xinyi threw himself back, lying flat on the ground.

“Maybe it’s because you’re the one and only heir to the famous Wang Collection.”

Xinyi frowned and sat up. “Jealous?”

MingYue smiled. “Don’t be so mean, we haven’t seen each other in years. Didn’t you miss me?”

“Who’s fault is that?” Xinyi pulled himself to his feet, straightening up until he was a good six inches taller than the girl. “You’re the one that broke up with me by texting me that you’d already moved to the other side of the country. “

Her eyebrows turned up, pushing the vermillion mark out prominently. “I already told you I couldn’t help that, my parents-”

“You could have told me before you left.” Xinyi crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down at her. “Could’ve tried to spend time with me instead of my books.”

She frowned, letting her head hang slightly. “You’re right, of course… I thought I had more time…”

Xinyi shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Just stay away from me while we’re stuck here.”

~X~

The breath hitched in his throat, choking and gurgling through the blood spilling out of his mouth. Whole minutes passed, blinking through the dark, before Xinyi realized he was awake and there was no blood in his mouth. He took a deep breath, gulping in the air his mind had deprived him of with another dream about dying. The breath staggered out slowly as he looked at his hands, counting all ten fingers, clean and free of blood.

Xinyi wiped the sweat from his forehead and stood up, turning his phone flashlight on to lead the way out of the room and down the hall of the temple.

“This place creeps me the fuck out.” He whispered to himself, trying to remember the way out to the courtyard.

Just as he was about ready to turn around, movement caught his eye. He aimed the light down the hall, just in time to catch a flash of white disappear around the corner. The tips of his fingers turned numb instantly. After the momentary shock faded from his limbs, he urged himself forward down the hall.

“Ghosts aren’t real…. Ghosts aren’t real…. I’m a grownass man…. Just trying to get outside to take a piss…. I’m not afraid of the dark….” He muttered to himself under his breath, urging himself to move down the hall faster.

At the turn, he stretched his arm out and shined the light down the hall before peeking around the corner. At the sight of the empty hall, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, see? Nothing there.”

His shoulders relaxed and he continued down the hall, walking with a little more confidence. One more turn and one more hallway and he was finally outside, sucking in the cool night air. He hesitated for only a moment before crossing the courtyard and disappearing into a patch of trees. By the time he finished, he’d almost forgotten about whatever it was he’d seen moving in the hallway before. The dream, too, was fading from his mind as he turned around and started to walk back towards the temple.

The heartbeat in Xinyi’s chest had almost returned to normal when he noticed the figure standing in the doorway. This time, the numbness went all the way up to his knees and elbows, dropping him to the ground with a gasp.

“Do you frighten so easily now?” A soft, quiet voice came from the figure.

Xinyi shook slightly. “I-... wasn’t expecting anyone else to be out here.”

The figure descended slowly down the steps. The moonlight poured over him, revealing breathtaking features. Another soft gasp escaped his lips. The feeling returned to his limbs and he pushed himself back up to his feet. With the gap closing between them, Xinyi could tell that the man was a couple inches taller than him.

“It’s late. Shouldn’t you be in bed?” The man asked, looking him over meticulously.

“Couldn’t sleep.” He replied, awestruck by the man.

“I should have guessed.” The faintest hint of a smile flickered across his lips. “Do you know who I am?”

Xinyi blinked, confused by the question. “Uhm… You’re, uh…. Oh! You’re the other priest. I don’t think we were ever told your name though.”

His smile widened slightly, his face practically glowing in the moonlight. “Tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

Xinyi’s heart skipped and fluttered in his chest. “...Wang Xinyi.”

“Wang...Xin...Yi…” He echoed the characters back slowly, contemplating each one. “How interesting.”

“Interesting?” He asked, unsure of how long he’d been holding his breath.

“Nothing.” He smiled sweetly. “My name is Xiao Xingchen.”

The smile broke out across Xinyi’s face against his will. “Xiao. Xing. Chen.”

Xingchen laughed, the sound of starlight and bells.

“Wang Xinyi. Why are you visiting my temple?”

Xinyi cocked his head slightly. “Class field trip.”

Xingchen took a step closer to him. “No. Why are you, specifically you, here? What desire in your heart urged you to come on this class field trip?”

He swallowed hard, his adam’s apple bobbing visibly. “I guess… I see temples in my family’s paintings all the time, I wanted to see one in person.”

That soft smile returned to the corners of Xingchen’s lips. “Paintings?”

Xinyi opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by someone calling his name, rather angrily, from the temple door. They both turned around to see Song Lan, looking unreasonably annoyed, standing at the top of the stairs. As the man descended towards them, Xinyi felt a strange urge to rush towards him, meet the approach head-on. But fear of the ghostly man held him in place.

“Wang Xinyi.” Song Lan repeated his name, closing the gap between them. “I believe I told each of you not to disturb my fellow Daozhang outside of group activities. It’s the middle of the night, where are you out here harassing him?”

His brow twitched angrily. “Harassing him? All we were doing was talking, and I-”

“Quiet. Return to your room.” Song Lan grabbed Xingchen’s hand, intertwining their fingers, and led him back inside without another word to Xinyi.

Xinyi scoffed indignantly, lost in disbelief at how flippantly Song Lan had just accused him of harassing Xiao Xingchen. Whatever that man had against him, it wasn’t going to dissipate over the next six days. All he could do tonight was head back to his room and try to go back to sleep, but he’d already decided- if Song Lan Daozhang didn’t want him doing something, he definitely wanted to do it, especially if that something was being around Xiao Xingchen.

[memorylang]

Language Learning, Mom’s Birthday | #43 | August 2020

Since Mom had held language-learning close-to-heart, I dedicate my August update to a language theme! 

With August 9, 2020, my late mom turned 55. I’ve often felt since 2017 a bittersweet fondness for the summer months between Mother’s Day and her birthday. That year had been my first summer in China getting to know Mom’s family after her death. 

For this August’s story, I’ve reflected a great deal on my experiences with language learning. Of which I’d written before, I’ve basically chosen five languages as the ones I want to be functional using (my native English included). So beyond the usual reflections from this COVID-19 summer in the States, I also take us back through my young life learning.  

And, I’m pleased to announce that I've begun to work on a new writing project! More on that soon. 

From Multilingual Mom to Me 

I start us from spring 2020, around evacuation back to the U.S. from Peace Corps Mongolia. 

By April 10-16, I’d been in my sixth week in Vegas again. Yet, less than a couple months before, I was in Mongolia packing to evacuate. As part of my coping while packing, I’d listened to hours of music. Much included Chinese Disney themes I’d found on Spotify. 

Well, having returned to Vegas, you might recall that the sisters’ songs in “Frozen II” resonated deeply with me. Whether while waking or working the yard, I’d listen to “Frozen II”' tracks in Chinese, sometimes in English. Finding songs in other langauges fit my 2020 exploration resolution. I humorously suspected that my Spotify Wrapped 2020 will surely list the same tracks in different languages... if only Spotify had Mongolian versions. Well, a month later, by week 10 (May 8-14), I’d exchanged the songs’ English versions for Spanish!  

That week also featured May 13, 2020—the third anniversary of Mom’s funeral. This year, something special happened.  

I’d received a fateful book—A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin. My college pastor had ordered this for me just days after I’d asked him what I should consider studying while discerning during quarantine a doctorate in religious studies. After my pastor noted my interest in world Christianity, especially its past and present in Asia, he highly recommended I study Church Latin. 

My pastor’s suggestion pleased me in a curious way. It reminded me of my Duolingo dabbling back in Mongolia, how at that time I’d favored Latin over Greek. Still, Liturgical Latin, studied seriously, seemed like quite an undertaking. Nonetheless my pastor commended my talents and felt confident I could succeed along paths God may open for me. I felt grateful for the aid! 

Embarking on my quest to learn Latin, I’ve found the language remarkable. 

It’s felt at times the culmination of my years learning languages. In fact, Mom had actually wanted my siblings and me to learn languages since we were little—She’d taught us to read English then tried to have us learn Chinese. Most summers, she’d have us in the mornings copy down Chinese characters before she’d let us play games or do activities that weren’t “educational.” 

While cleaning my family’s garage this COVID-19 this summer, I’d unearthed old notebooks in which my siblings and I would write Mom’s required phrases. I noticed how even back then I’d seem to try harder than most of my siblings, given how many characters I copied. Still, I hadn’t much inclination to know the language words beyond, then, clearing Mom’s barrier to letting me play games. 

Still, even if the notebooks had implied some aptitude I’d had for languages, Mom’s requirements left me if anything more averse to language acquisition than eager. 

Suffering Through Spanish

Many today may feel surprised to know that for years I’d called Spanish my second language. 

Given my childhood disdain for studying languages beyond English, I’d found my task to study Spanish in high school assiduous. I formally began in the language fall 2011 as a freshman. Spanish was our Vegas school’s only foreign language option, and all honors students needed two years of language. Yet again, my language studies drew from a requirement—little more. 

Many of my classmates and I rapidly found our classes exhausting, for our instructor had a thick French accent. Furthermore, verb conjugation, unfamiliar tenses and gendered vocabulary felt alien. I didn’t get why a language would be so complicated. 

Yet, despite my struggles to understand our teacher, she’d commended me because I “made the effort.” Well, I sometimes felt like I’d make the effort to a fault. When peers cheated on exams, my darn integrity had me abstain. 

By my second year, when I was succeeding in college-level AP world history, my fleetingly flawless GPA took from Spanish a beating. That hurt. By my senior year, at least Mom let me take Spanish online instead. I’d learned that I’d known more than I thought, but I still sucked. 

Redemption Through Mandarin

By fall 2015, I’d had graduated high school and enrolled as an honors undergrad facing another foreign language requirement. 

Licking my wounds from Spanish, I ruled out that language. I saw the University offered Chinese, though. Studying world history had interested me in Mom’s cultural background and native tongue. Considered she’d made my siblings stare at the language since childhood, I hoped it wouldn’t be too hard. So, I chose Mandarin Chinese.

And by my first days learning Chinese, I could already feel the benefits of having taken Spanish. 

Chinese felt astoundingly straightforward. Spanish had taught me to recognize that English letters (better known as the Latin alphabet) sound differently in different languages. For example, I felt pleased to notice that the ‘a’ /ah/ letter in Spanish sounds similar to its Chinese pronunciation. Thus, Spanish’s “mamá” and Chinese’s “māmā” relate, despite appearing in separate languages. 

Thanks to my Spanish experience, I picked up Chinese’s general pronunciation system far faster. Furthermore, I felt relieved to find that Chinese grammar lacked the conjugation and gender nightmares I’d faced in Spanish. I’d even loved how Chinese characters’ little images could often help me guess word meanings intuitively! 

My interest and success with the Chinese language led me to study abroad in 2017, planned with my mother before she was killed. I returned to China a year later, in 2018 on an intensive program. Both times, I spoke my mother’s native tongue, meeting relatives and making friends. I even received awards for my skills. 

Yet, despite my progress in Chinese, I’d often considered it only my third language. After all, much of my success in Chinese came having struggled through Spanish.  

  Finding Peace with Spanish

In my college senior year, January 2019, I’d attended a religious pilgrimage in Panamá—a Spanish-speaking nation. 

By that time, I’d grown acquainted with language immersions. In fact, I readily used my Mandarin skills when I met World Youth Day pilgrims from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan. They often felt shocked to meet someone outside their communities who knew their language! 

Of course, Panamá left me at times surrounded too by folks who only spoke Spanish, including my host family. 

I listened carefully. A luminous spark, I’d felt. Buried memories of my broken Spanish resurfaced. Near my last day in Panamá, I felt awed to have had a conversation with a cab driver completely in Spanish. 

My peace with Spanish became a renewed interest. 

After our pilgrimage, I’d continued with my host family and new Latin American friends to speak and write almost exclusively in Spanish. Online, we benefited over WhatsApp with Google Translate, too. Panamá in 2019 had taken a language that was for me dead and breathed in it new life. 

Peace Corps Language Level-ups

Later that year (last year), I began to learn what would be my fourth language and one entirely unfamiliar—Mongolian.

I should note that before reaching Mongolia June 1, 2019, I couldn’t even read its Cyrillic alphabet. I’d basically started at zero. 

Peace Corps’ language briefings had at least taught me that Mongolian is an Altaic language, distinct from Indo-European language like English and from character-based languages like Mandarin. Over the course of summer in villages of Mongolia, Peace Corps put us through mornings of immersive language training followed by returns home to our host families. 

Still, many Peace Corps Trainees felt unmotivated to learn Mongolian. After all, with statistically few Mongolian speakers worldwide, many felt that we wouldn’t have much utility for Mongolian outside Mongolia. Nevertheless, I felt motivated by desires to understand and feel understood. I powered through. 

Initially, Mongolian baffled me. 

Its Cyrillic alphabet (and its script one, too) includes consonant and vowel sounds unknown to English, Spanish and Chinese. Furthermore, Mongolian uses a case-based grammar of suffixes, a reversed subject-object-verb order and postpositions instead of prepositions. Mongolian even reintroduced me to my nemeses gendered vocabulary and tense-based verb endings!

I felt grateful for the sparse Chinese loanwords I wouldn’t have to relearn! Yet, my kryptonite was often pronunciation. Challenging consonants and tricky long vowels left me so inauthentic. Regardless, I was an ardent study who savored most every chance to receive Mongols’ clarifications and corrections. 

Finding Latin in Asia

Curiously, Catholic Churches became great places for my language learning.

This was the case for me both with learning Chinese in China and Mongolian in Mongolia. Parishioners would often take me under their wings to support me. Curiously in Mongolia, an English-speaking French parishioner pointed out once that Mongolian grammar is quite like Latin. I didn’t know Latin, though. 

I had encountered Latin, though. For, Asian vocabularies for Church topics often derived more directly from Latin than even English translations! These pleased me, since learning the vocabulary to speak about religion felt less foreign. 

Then came the sleepless nights during Mongolia’s COVID-19 preemptive quarantining, January and February. I’d had taken up Duolingo and opted for Greek or Latin in hopes that they’d bore me to sleep. I’d also hoped they might supplement how I teach English and read Scripture. And while Greek felt hopelessly confounding, Latin vocabulary felt surprisingly... natural. Despite my lack of formal training, I did alright just guessing. 

My Roads Led to Latin

From late May through mid-June 2020, I’d read the first four chapters of the Church Latin book. Meanwhile, mid-summer, I felt pleased to reach Duolingo’s Diamond League! Realizing that to become Champion would take far more effort than I cared to give, though I focused just on keeping my streak. 

Still, my Latin especially progress slowed after Dad’s remarriage and my relocation to Reno, Nev. My mostly-free summer rapidly grew hectic. But even in those first four Latin weeks, I’d discovered true gems in pursuing the historic language. 

At face value, Latin’s vocabulary reminded me of Spanish and English. Sometimes, Church words I’d learned first in Mandarin and Mongolian too related! Vocabulary felt profound. 

Furthermore, Latin grammar felt reminiscent of not only Spanish conjugations but indeed Mongolian cases! I felt relieved that Panamá had freed me from my conjugation aversion. Likewise, my Mongolian skills felt far from obsolete! 

To supplement my Latin studies, I try to translate between Chinese and Spanish, the way how in Mongolia I’d translate between Mongolian and Chinese. By juggling languages, I seek to codeswitch in more contexts with a more unified vocabulary. 

Wherever I wind up academically and professionally, I hope to work between languages. Through daily discipline, textbooks, apps, videos, notes and conversations, I trust I’ll go far. Feel free to connect if you want to practice with me! The more corrections, the better. 

From Ecclesiastical to Classical Latin

On August 23 (of my stateside week 25), I’d reunited in Vegas with a high school friend who’d studied classics in undergrad. From that meeting on, I’d not only ramped up my Latin studies but also transitioned from Ecclesiastical Latin to classical. 

For, Church Latin is but an evolving Latin. To understand the orgins of many words—beyond simply their uses within the Roman Catholic Church—I would need the eternal Latin that changes no more. Well, my friend offered to tutor me, so I offered to try! 

Classical Latin is harder, by the way. 

And in the midst of my suffering throughout September, my friend had even offered to tutor me Greek. While mostly joking (but also not), I’ve offered that I might learn Greek from him if for no other reason than to thank him for teaching me Latin! 

Nearly a month since beginning the tutorial system with him, we’ve since cleared over a fourth of a textbook meant sometimes to take a year’s worth of study. I hope by the year’s end to have finished the book. 

At least a third of my waking hours at times seem to go into Latin. But, it’s nice to keep learning! That same week, my siblings had all resumed their undergraduate studies. At least I’m still learning something! 

Embarking on a Book Memoir 

Besides working on my other languages, I’ve even placed time in my English. 

Lastly, I want to share about my writing quest! Although the project isn’t always across the top of my agenda, I keep at it. We return again to mid-summer. 

Peace Corps friends and I have often checked in on each other since evacuation to the States. Some also write. During a webinar for evacuated Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, I’d met many looking to tell their stories.

Most weeks since July, I’d also have a few video calls. I’d take these no matter what I was up to. I’d still been doing that ‘groundskeeping’ in Reno, Nev. of which I’d written before. Whether I was getting the mail, trimming the hedges, pruning the flowers, watering the lawn, raking debris, sweeping the floor, taking out the trash, tugging the garbage bins, adjusting the windows or washing the dishes, I’d often had some task that Dad requested I’d tend to. Calls with friends broke the monotony. 

After encouragement from mentors and friends, I’d decided to write a creative nonfiction book memoir for publication someday! 

The first step, of course, is having a manuscript. So, since week 17 (June 26–July 2), I’d been typing away at the first chapters to what seems will be a story spanning my three years of studies and service overseas after Mother’s death, leading up to my acceptance and peace. I'm excited to tell stories about finding purpose and identity, despite grief and loss. I hope it helps readers to find their own peace amid confusion. All things are so fundamentally interconnected. 

By three weeks in, I’d felt so grateful for the outpouring of support I’d received. Frankly, I wouldn’t be writing so much if people hadn’t been saying this has potential. Thankfully, readers offer marvelous insights. They treat the story as one deserving of quality. I love their attention to details. 

Still, among the most grueling lessons I’ve learned learned has been that a book about grief has needed me to relive the hurt of my mother's death for repeated days. I trust nonetheless that once I’ve written and rewritten well, the remaining may rest behind me. 

If you’re looking to read what’s coming, you’re in the right place. Merely starting on the book has helped me to improve my blog writing. You may have noticed in my recent summer 2019 throwback stories, for example, I’ve used more narrative than before. I hope you’ve enjoyed! 

The language studies and the book continue, though I’ve taken more breaks lately with the book. From mid-August I’d embarked on advocacy projects with the National Peace Corps Association. I’ll share more on that soon. Having doubled-down on my Latin studies from mid-September, it can be a quite a black hole for my time! For everything there is a season (Ecc. 3:1). 

Seeking to Stay Holy

A couple friends admired my dedication and called upon me to help them meet their spiritual goals. What a kind expereince! In helping them keep accountable, they’ve likewise helped me. 

With a homebound Knight of Columbus, we’d continued July’s rosaries throughout August, as many as three times a day leading up to the Catholic Feast of the Assumption. Afterward, we’d reduced our count back to two times daily through early September. I’d never prayed so many rosaries before! 

Through August, I’d also read a chapter of Proverbs daily with a friend. I’d reconnected with her during my outreach for the book. I enjoy our weekly Scripture chats, and she shows more Protestant perspectives on our faith!  

I find God a great companion along the journey of life. Regardless of how you view religious and spiritual topics, I trust that you have companions, too. They’re so important! 

On a positive note, I’d gotten to revisit my undergrad parish. I felt so amazed to hear that students I’d never met thought I was a cool person! I try not to think too highly of myself, but I feel touched when people notice me. I hope I inspire folks. 

Coming up Next

Thanks for reading my meta-stories about languages and stories!  

If you’ve been following my tales for a while now, you may recall I’d mentioned feeling surprised to learn that my mother had been studying Spanish around the same years I’d been studying it. I felt awed to realize that even when I’d tried to learn one of my earliest new languages, Mom was trying to learn what was for her one of a few. I’m glad to have perhaps inherited Mother’s interest in languages. 

Up next, I have a very special piece dated for September 2020 [and ultimately released in October]. I’m focusing on perspectives—mine and others’. I’m particularly excited to share adventures with teams including those within the American Psychological Association and the Honors College at the University of Nevada, Reno. They’ve given me plenty of fun roles amid the pandemic! 

I’m also writing about national and state parks! God, I love nature.

Stay healthy, friend.

COVID-19 and America Months 11 through 15 | April, May, June, July, August

Easter Epilogue in America | #35 | April 2020 

Remembering Mom—Third Year After | #36 | May 2020 

Fathers’ Day, Faith and Familiarity | #38 | June 2020

23rd Birthday~ Roses and Rosaries | #39 | July 2020

Language Learning, Mom’s Birthday | #43 | August 2020

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :) 

[mazanica]

So I felt a desire to list some, though not all because that would take too long, of my AUs. So here are main AUs and some favourite AUs of mine!

MAIN AUs

(includes AUs I’ve yet to write or publish, but have planned out, and links to the ones started/that have anything written for them)

Phantom Watchers (Aliens AU): TW- Contains mental, emotional and physical abuse of a child. Bandi Cator is the son of General Commander Akrai Cator and Head Doctor of Sciences Aniya Martel, of the planet Lapinia. He isn’t sure who he really is, but it’s never mattered before... until he wakes up on a strange planet, alongside 11 others... and a mysterious group watching from the skies. (xx)

One Stormy Night on Lakeview Road (Vampire AU): When Goldie and his friends were children, they went into the old abandoned mansion on Lakeview Road and met the long-missing Fischbach family, whom they knew for only a single stormy night. Twelve years later, Goldie is the only one who remembers everything that happened that night and to believe that it was real- and he is the first to figure out just what was really living in the abandoned mansion. (xx)

Beneath Their Masks (High School AU): TW- CONTAINS SEVERE ABUSE, from physical, mental/psychological, emotional and sexual. Also contains cliques and highschool bullying. Spring and his friends are trying to survive their final year of highschool without anyone finding out their little secrets. Goldie and his friends are trying to enjoy their final year of just “being kids.” However, when new science teacher Mike Schmidt partners Spring’s group with members of the Fazgang, cracks begin to form and their classmates see right through them. (5 different parts; xx)

Division (Elemental/Magic AU): In a world divided into those who have Powers (Pazons) and those who don’t (Norands), two different rebellions are rising up... but they take completely opposite approaches and innocent people get hurt. One group of highschool students caught in the crossfire is about to learn the ugly truth of the world they live in and that nothing is what it seems. (xx)

Circuits to Flesh (Paranormal-esque reincarnation-ish horror AU): Freddy Fazbear and all who stepped through his door was always meant to have a tragic end. After the Mangle bit Jeremy Fitzgerald, the Toys were slated to be destroyed and the Originals sent to the old location again. However, rather than bemoan their fates, the Toys choose to spend their last hours fixing their older counterparts and making right what was wrong. This simple act of kindness changes everything. Fate has something else in store for them. For all of them. But they have to earn it. (xx)

Ribbons (Android AU): Many years ago, droids rose up and rebelled against their organic creators, and the survivors retreated into the places their mechanic creations could not follow; the wet forests, the blazing deserts and the freezing tundras. However, as the androids advanced and redesigned themselves and created new droids, they found a way to overcome the flaws of their “ancestors.” With sealed, synthetic skins, stabilizing fluid and a highly realistic appearance, the war between organics and droids continues. At least, that’s what Blu has always been taught- but when he meets and gets to know Bonnie, a Droid, it becomes clear that things aren’t so black and white. (xx xx xx)

Pennies AU: Bonnie, Freddy and Goldie are highly successful musicians who feel like they’ve lost something. They return to their hometown, Durmont, where a string of disappearances around Alban Creek have been happening the last 12 or so years. Bonnie remembers the first kid who disappeared when they were only around 5 or 6, whom he had spoken to the same morning he disappeared- the same morning of Bonnie’s mother’s funeral- and goes to Alban Creek with Freddy and Goldie... where they find themselves falling into another world. (xx)

CANON AUs

Aftermath Verse: After the murders, the Toys made a terrible choice and the OGs can only try and finish what they started. (just look through my Aftermath Verse tag lol)

Shadowed Verse: The Shadows play a game and Blue and Red are the ones who suffer.

Mending Bridge: Mike Schmidt returns to Freddy Fazbear’s to unravel the secrets of his past, in the process saving all of their futures.

Forever Five Nights: Mike Schmidt tells his granddaughters the story of how he befriended the animatronics through small acts of kindness.

Timeline (Unnamed): When something threatens to unravel all of time, Mike, Jeremy, Scott and the animatronics are chosen to save the multiverse. However, a difficult choice must be made- one where no one knows the outcome of. (Only includes FNaF 1-4 and explores the idea of a Redeemable!Purple Guy) (xx)

ANTHRO AUs

SCY-FY

Like I have 30 Phantom Watcher AUs it isn’t funny so I’m not even gonna list them (maybe if you really beg to see them all but some of them are literally the same AU but if one detail was different so-)

Starlight Dream: Similar to Phantom Watchers, it’s an Alien AU. However, Bonnie is an alien and Blu is not. Bonnie, a Lacatran Soldier fighting for Lacatran Independence from Lapinia, crash lands on Earth, right in Bonito (Blu) Rodriguez’ field. Blu brings the alien into his home and tends to his wounds, and begins to teach Bonnie Earthen cultures.

Project Xeros: Blu is an alien. A sexless, species-less alien known as the Xeros, one of the many products of Project Xeros; designed and bioengineered by a race intent on galactic domination, the Xeros can take the form of any species they have seen and touched in their true forms, and within a few generations any chosen planet would be completely wiped out as the Xeros multiply. However, upon discovery, the Xeros were ordered destroyed by the Galactic Alliance. Blu is one of the few survivors, and ends up on Earth in the company of Bonnie Henderson, a farmer’s son who, despite dreams of life on a stage, has taken over the family business after his parents’ untimely passing. (I think I’ve posted 1 or 2 things about this AU on tumblr...)

Stargate Atlantis AU: In which the cast end up discovering the lost city of Atlantis... in another galaxy. Spring, a young, mysterious and strangely brilliant scientist with a powerful Ancient Gene, is recruited into the Stargate Program where he goes to Atlantis under the leadership of Freddy Fazbear and his brother Goldie. Life on Atlantis is always an adventure, and it isn’t long until everyone on the voyage begins to lose their Earthen identities as they mingle with the locals of this new galaxy- from the strange bear “Red” who lives on the Atlantis mainland, to the Chickens of Avia whom become their main ally....

Dystopia/Droid AU: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy are Droids built in the 23rd century. They watched the fall of Man shortly after their creation, but they sleep through the centuries under the careful watch of the Tower’s AI, “Goldie.” One day, many centuries later in the 27th century, Red, Blue, Chirp and Mangle (and those are not nicknames; simply words that have been found, but meanings lost, from the Old Writings, as language has changed over time) live just outside the ruins of an ancient and great city. The know it as a forbidden place, as it’s from the era of Hubris. However, they choose to explore the old tower at the center of everything, and unknowingly fix what had been broken- unintentionally waking of the vestiges of the past that everyone wishes had been forgotten...

More Droid AU: There are different types of Droids; Service Droids, Rally Droids and Kindred Droids. Service Droids are Droids built to fulfill specific jobs, such as factor work or servant work or farm work. Rally Droids are Droids made for fighting, like Droid Wrestling or something. Kindred are Droids built for people who either cannot have children of their own, or want a child they can mold perfectly into what they desire. The first two of these are not meant to be sentient, but they became sentient over time. Kindred are meant to mimic people as realistically as possible, to the point where their parts “grow” over time so the parents get the full raising-a-child experience- just feed them metal, keep them up-to-date at a doctor (mechanic), and you’re good. Except... none of the Droids are happy with this arrangement. Blu is a Kindred who desires more out of life than what his “parents” want him to be, and Bonnie is a Rally Droid who, after losing a match and being badly damaged, is bought by Blu’s parents as a sort of “bodyguard” and “companion” for their sheltered Kindred. However, the two begin to learn from each other...

False (Human AU): The world (of anthros) is a simulation, and in order to see what’s really happening, you have to die without dying- i.e. die before your body dies, without the script, so that the world resets back to before you died... and for the briefest of moments, where you are, you wake up. And only those who “died” and woke up, even just for a second, remember or realize it was ever reset at all. Blu has figured it out long ago, and Bonnie has always had a sense of something being wrong...

FANTASY AUs

Soulmates; Words: TW contains child abuse and neglect. In which the first words your soulmate ever says to you is written on your body. Bonnie and all his friends have very interesting tattoos. Blu and his friends have equally interesting tattoos. However, none of them believe soulmates are tied together, and a few of them have personal reasons to avoid it at all costs...

Soulmates; Colours: In which you can’t see the colour of your soulmate’s eyes until your eyes meet. 

Soulmates; Voice (PW AU): In which you can hear the voice of your soulmate in your mind, and speak to them through the link. Blu and Bonnie are a Lapinian and a Lacatran, and on the night of the last Lacatran uprising, where Blu’s father razed over 50 Lacatran villages, including Bonnie’s, the link connects Blu to a hysterical Bonnie. Over time, the two become friends and learn each other’s secrets, perhaps even falling in love along the way, but neither see how they will ever even meet, let alone be together. Until the day they wake up on a planet far away from home, not even ten feet from one another...

Soulmates; Red Strings (PW AU): In which the red strings of fate tie everyone together, and some people can see them; thin red lines, tied to everyone’s middle finger and fading away, extending across the ground to places unseen... or to the person a few feet away. A young Lapinian, Blu, has always been able to see them, and he has always known he was different- because instead of going across the ground, his string went straight up into the sky. He’s met only a handful of people like him, whose string goes into the sky and who can see them. He’s curious, but when he finds the person on the other side of his string is a Lacatran....

Angels & Demons AU: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Goldie are demons. Red, Blue, Chii and Mangle are angels. Spring is... something else. No one really knows. But these two groups end up colliding in their assignments on Earth, and no one really knows what to do about it. Least of all them.

Accidental Demon Summoning (unnamed): TW Contains child abuse and elements of racism and bullying. Bonito “Blu” Rodriguez has just moved to the USA with his mother and new stepfather, leaving all his friends behind and starting at a new school. One day, after being locked in the attic by his irate mother, Blu finds some belongings from the tenants before them- some old candles and demonology books. Blu doesn’t believe in demons and he’s bored... so he decides to do it. However, he makes a terrible mistake; he doesn’t outline contract parameters. Therefore, when a demon actually appears, Blu is pretty sure everything is going to go pretty badly... but the demon decides to stick around, just to mess with him. Upon seeing what is happening, however, the demon decides to fulfil his contract anyway, and Blu is horrified to find that they now have a new classmate. Spring Salvage, a demon hunter and Blu’s first friend in America, isn’t pleased.

Long for the Sea: Bonnie has moved in with his father in an old town, and reunites with his childhood friends Freddy, Goldie, Chica and Foxy. However, he’s not the only new kid on the block; strange things happen around Spring and his group. It turns out that Spring, Blu, Shabon, Red and Chii are merfolk, and Mangle a benevolent sea witch, who have fled from a dangerous war for the Throne- which Spring, the crowned prince, cannot yet claim as his blood isn’t “mature” enough. So they bide their time, and Bonnie feels drawn to investigate...

Reincarnation AUs: I have a few of these actually, including one that has Blu remembering all his past lives and Bonnie remembering flashes of the last. Another one, however, is Bonnie and Blu are the reincarnations of a semi-famous historic couple, a lord and a lady, who died young and childless, almost perfect replicas of their past selves, and remembering the last ballad they wrote together... which only the current owner of the old historic house, Bonnie’s own uncle and direct descendent of the lord’s sister, knows.

Pirate AU: Foxy is the captain of one crew. Mangle is the captain of another. Spring is a dread pirate who retired and went into hiding years ago to care for his young son, whose mother (one of multiple lovers Spring had had at the time) died in childbirth. Some things happen that drags Spring out of retirement, causes Foxy’s crew to start searching for him, and makes Mangle’s crew go undercover in a large medieval city to find answers and save their “princess”...

Dragons AU: Bonnie is a dragon who can take human (er, rabbit) form. He fell in love, many years before, with the magic queen of the kingdom at the base of the mountain his horde of gold is in, and dedicated his life to serving her and her kingdom. However, a war that the kingdom was swiftly losing, even with the help of a magic dragon, threatened to tear everything apart, and Bonnie made a choice he never wanted to make; as a last ditch effort to save the queen, he used almost all of the rest of his magic, trapping him in his dragon form for over a hundred years, to send her through time, to a future where “you will be safe.” Now, nearly three hundred years in the future, long after peace has been made and the kingdom now lives under the rule of Ursius (now a country, rather than a planet lol) while maintaining its culture through festivals and historical plays and such (with the Ursian twin kings’ blessings) and the mystery of the missing queen, Blu lives with his family near the forest’s edge near the ruins of the ancient city, seeing the tip of the castle protruding just above the treeline. He has no memory of his past, but feels a strange longing to go there...

Historical Hero AU (NOT PW, all on one planet, the names are all countries): Bonnie is a Lacatran Warrior... from long in the past. He is credited with almost singlehandedly defeating the Lapinian Army, with just one snag; he fell on the battlefield and was never found. It’s a mystery that haunts everyone to modern times. In modern times, peace has for the most part been attained; Lacatra gained its independence from Lapinia as a direct result of Bonnie, Lapinia and Ursius and Lacatra are now all allies of one another, and only Lapinia is still run by a monarchy, under the close watch of a Council. Blu, attending the College of Arts and History in Lacatra, has always been looking into the mystery of “Where did Bonnie of Lacatra go?” Well, he gets his answer one day when he heads to his home near the Lacatra-Lapinia border and literally trips over an injured rabbit. The answer? “He somehow slipped through frikkin’ TIME.” Bonnie does not adjust to modern times well.

Zombie World AU: TW references child abuse and running away. Blu is living a pretty hard life when he ends up slipping through the gaps into a parallel dimension, just like his best friends who disappeared years before. This world is much like his own... except it has been many years since a zombie outbreak, and no one he knew in his world was ever born here. Now he must find a way back, but a desire to save his new friends causes some trouble... after all, if someone who was never meant to exist crosses dimensions, what happens then? (xx)

Pokemon AU: Blue began his journey to becoming a Pokemon master when he was young, but he doesn’t go it alone.

PARANORMAL AUs

GHOSTS AU: TW talks about past suicide and murder. Everyone’s a ghost. They’re all dead. Boom. Bam. Okay a little more on that, everyone knows ghosts exist, but they all seem to gather in this one area... and in this one town, where the barrier between the worlds is thinnest, the ghosts look just like anyone else. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re dead. But when it’s normal to have a dead classmate, things get weird. Deadly weird. The living and the dead were never meant to mingle, and bad things happen to the living who cross that line. So no one does. It’s pretty easy, though- the dead tend to ignore the living. Bonnie is new in town, coming to live with his father after his mother was murdered during a trip to the mountains, and he feels drawn to a certain group of students. Two groups of students, actually; the Fazgang, and Springtrap’s gang. However, he’s told from day 1 to not approach Springtrap’s gang... because they’ve been dead for over ten years, and simply going through the routines they’d had when alive. Yet he somehow gets the ghosts’ attention, something that was nigh on impossible for the living to do... but Bonnie begins noticing some strange things about himself, and his new friends. Maybe they aren’t as alive as they thought.

ANOTHER GHOST AU: Bonnie and his friends move into an old creaky house, and right off the bat Bonnie sees strange shit happening. He’s none too pleased, because no one else will believe him that they’re not alone in the house. However, something happens that brings it to everyone’s attention... there are ghosts living in the house. It doesn’t take long for Freddy to put together the pieces; these are the ghosts of the Fischbach Family, a family that was murdered over fifty years before and their bodies, save for a piece of one of their ears, was never found. Now they have to help the ghosts move on by finally, finally, solving the case of their murder. Except ghosts can be so cryptic and never tell you what you need to know...

YET AGAIN A GHOST AU: Well, kinda-ghost AU. It’s not really ghosts but it’s hard to explain. Basically some culty crap happened, and the man who funded the local high school, Samuel Salvage, died under mysterious circumstances, as did his entire family. Bonnie, a conspiracy theorist, has many theories as to what might have happened, but Goldie, who is having a hard time coping with his and Freddy’s parents’ divorce and failing his history class, could not care less. However, when he’s given a research assignment about the family as extra credit- his only chance to pass and graduate- he goes to the graveyard where the entire family- the two parents and all eleven of their children, whom died within 10 years of each other from unknown causes- is buried. He accidentally ends up standing on one of the graves, and from that point on he’s able to see and speak with Franklin “Spring” Salvage, one of Samuel Salvage’s sons, though he isn’t aware of his identity at first... and he begins to uncover a dark, dangerous secret that no one wants him to learn.

NORMAL WORLD

The Dome (Dystopia AU again): WARNINGS this AU contains classism taken to an extreme. All of society now lives in Dome, a city inside- well, a dome. There are two levels to the Dome; Above, where the elite live, and Below, where the lower classes struggle to survive under the dangerous iron fist of their totalitarian government. Freddy, Goldie and their friends have always lived Above, never knowing the horrors of what happens Below in their spacious, sunny scapes. However, a school project has them venturing Below for a documentary that turns out to be more dangerous than any of them ever imagined.

Circus AU: THE OG MAZANICA AU YO! CAN’T BELIEVE I ALMOST FORGOT LIKE. WARNING, THIS AU CONTAINS EXPLICIT RACISM. In a world where Anthros are legally considered little more than animals and have few protections and many discriminations, Freddy, Goldie, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy run a restaurant, with Mike as the owner on paper. Red, Spring, Blu, Chii and Mangle run a circus (along with Marion, BB, JJ and a few others) with Jeremy as the owner on paper. They’re both funded by the mysterious sponsors Shafred Umbre and Bonsha Shade, two of the rare “Animals” who made it in this world. So of course, it’s only a matter of time before these two groups meet... (xx)

OTHER

Narnia AU: Pretty self explanatory, but basically; Red, Blue, Chii and Mangle are four siblings who find themselves in another world, and they live out an entire life there...

Wrong Number, Thank You: WARNINGS this AU contains depression and suicidal ideation/attempts and mentions of self harm Sometimes a wrong number message can save a life, as Goldie learned when he accidentally messaged one of his classmates instead of his brother. After receiving some help on the math homework- and a picture of the notes with something suspicious in the background- Goldie makes it his goal to befriend and help this mysterious classmate.... if only he could figure out who it was. Meanwhile, Spring is frustrated with his nosy classmate, yet...

OKAY I HAVE A LOT MORE BUT THESE ARE SOME OF MY FAVOURITES, if you have any questions about any of them just shoot me a message and I’ll happily answer. I might add more later on so yeh. I have so many more lol... Now in Mazey’s Oneshot Collection there’s a ton already but I have like 10x that many so-

[belphegor1982]

New story! A little Don Camillo one-shot, set (roughly) between 1951 and 1957, my first foray into canon time for these guys. Hope you like!

Summary: Both Don Camillo and Peppone have a bone to pick with a trumpet player. Music has charms to soothe the savage beast, but what about the priest and the mayor? (on FFnet/on AO3)

THE TRUMPET OF CONTENTION

In the Lowlands, music, like a few other subjects, is something to be treated seriously.

Giuseppe Verdi is, of course, rightfully revered, and his name and works are one of the very few things that can make everyone – be they Red, Green, White, or Black – reach an agreement. It’s not even a matter of having culture or education: people pulled out of school as kids still know their Nabucco from their Trovatore. Folks will come by the music gene through blood, and you’ll find entire families passing down names like Radamès, Ofelia, Ernani, or Desdemona.

The Pedrettis were such a family. Iago Pedretti had a good voice for bel canto, his son Corrado played the bass drum, and when his daughter Leonora started to show interest for the trumpet, the little girl quite naturally found a place in the town band. She was singularly gifted, and before she was twelve years old, she could be found playing among the more experienced musicians on days of important events, wearing proudly her own bright white shirt and a cap that looked a little too big for her head.

The Pedrettis were so proud that, every time the band played, the whole family – grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins – went out en masse, all wearing their Sunday best, to see Leonora and her trumpet. They turned up for everything: town festivals, religious processions, political events, and so on and so forth. When Peppone was first re-elected as mayor, the band followed him and his staff on foot from the Communist headquarters to the town hall; as they crossed the main square, only a dozen metres from the church doors, the Pedrettis were first in line to applaud, even though every single one of them was a staunch anti-Communist and the band played Bandiera Rossa and L’internationale.

Don Camillo had watched the proceedings from the rectory door with his arms crossed, jaws clamped on his half-cigar, glowering at the blatant provocation. Afterwards, he went to the Pedrettis and protested to the paterfamilias.

“How can you let that little girl play for the Communists? Festivals and processions are fine, but not this Bolshevik propaganda!”

Pedretti was unperturbed.

“Reverend, musical talent is apolitical. As long as my little girl plays well, she can play whatever she likes within the limits of the law.”

Don Camillo bit his lip and left it at that. The day after he went to see Peppone in his workshop.

“Listen,” he said with a stormy glare, “the band aren’t half bad even though half of them are lunatics who still think Stalin is a decent person for some reason; they can parade in front of the church playing their nonsense as much as they like if they don’t mind having their bottoms kicked from here to Moscow if I catch them. But that little Leonora Pedretti is an innocent and I won’t let you recruit children for your Party.”

Peppone looked up from the motor he was working on and met Don Camillo’s eyes with a scowl of his own.

“I’m not recruiting anyone from the band. That kid is good with a trumpet, that’s it. Nobody’s making her wave a red flag around.”

“You’re right. She just plays the red flag song. Next time I’ll need music I’ll just hire the band from Molinetto. I hear they only play for funerals and processions.”

Peppone exploded. “Even you wouldn’t dare to do something so vile as that!” he shouted. “Just because you’re miffed I got re-elected –”

“Why on Earth this town picked you again knowing what you’re capable of is beyond me,” said Don Camillo huffily – especially as himself had, in what he considered a moment of weakness, voted for Peppone. “But no, your election in itself has nothing to do with it. The problem is that you and your henchmen are making a thirteen year old lass play music that could get her excommunicated, with her none the wiser!”

“If the Pope wants to set the Spanish Inquisition on people for playing music, that’s your problem, not mine! And I’m not the conductor, that’s old Gianelli’s job!”

“It’s the official town band! As the mayor and the boss of the region’s Communists, I’d say it’s your problem!”

They were nose to nose, sleeves rolled up, glaring daggers, and God only knows what would have happened if the sound of a lone trumpet, soon followed by a few other instruments, hadn’t reached them at that very moment.

It was rehearsal time for the town band and all windows were wide open to the cool evening air. Both men recognised the solemn tones of “Un dì, felice, eterea” from Il Trovatore. It worked surprisingly well, even without voices.

“Verdi will always be Verdi,” remarked Peppone quietly after a while.

“Yes he will,” said Don Camillo who had a lump in his throat.

They exchanged sheepish glances, feeling rather ridiculous now that the heat had died down. Then Don Camillo remembered exactly what had got him so worked up; but he shook his head.

“Look,” he said, “hear me out. We both know that the child has talent and Gianelli will soon be out of his depth because he only knows the basics of trumpet playing. She’ll need to study music seriously, in the city.”

Peppone nodded gravely. “I agree. Problem is, I know the Pedrettis. They’re poor as church mice. They couldn’t pay for music school even if they worked every second of every day for a hundred years.”

They stared at each other while the music drifted in on the breeze. Peppone put down the wrench he had been clutching and scratched the back of his head.

“I can have a whip-round around town,” he said eventually. “The Pedrettis aren’t very popular with my lads, but this is about making sure that a child of the people gets a decent education and a future. And we’ve all heard her play Verdi. Imagine what she’ll be capable of with a proper teacher!”

“I’ll convince the landowners to chip in,” said Don Camillo. “It won’t be easy, but I’ll wager they’ll listen to their parish priest. Besides, I can just point out the fact that she’d no longer have to play that garbage of yours.”

Peppone clenched his fists. But he breathed deeply and held out his hand.

“All right. Let’s see if the two highest authorities in the village can’t make this work,” he grumbled.

In the distance, the band struck up another song, faster and more spirited. Don Camillo shook Peppone’s hand heartily and walked away with a beaming smile while Peppone went back to his motor, humming along absently as he worked.

So it was that the town band lost a trumpet player, and little Leonora Pedretti went to the city to study music. An older cousin put her up; she paid for room and board by doing small odd jobs and delivering packages, and worked hard on both music theory and practice.

Leonora was not the first local child the village had helped on the way to higher spheres; it was rare, but not unheard of. The entire town contributed to the school fees: tenant farmers who barely had ten lire to rub together, die-hard Communist workers who called the Pedrettis ‘reactionaries’ and all kinds of unpleasant things, and even the rich farmers who found it easier to part with one of their limbs rather than money.

Such is the power of music. Politics often work their way through people’s heads; music always works through their hearts.

Years passed, bringing hot summers, hard winters, and one disastrous flood when heavy rains made the great river break its banks; people mostly waited till their houses were clean and dry before tearing each other apart over politics again. Elections came and went along with the years, and Peppone was re-elected mayor once more.

Through all that, the town folk cherished one of the real apolitical constants: the knowledge that their little trumpet player in training was doing a good job. The cousin she lived with wrote regular letters to her parents with news and the progress she made, until one day Leonora sent her own letters, because she had found a place she could live in by herself.

The few people who had the occasion to go to the city and hear her play all came back with reassuring words: the girl was good. Seeing her in the brass section in such deep concentration that she sometimes went cross-eyed justified all expenses and sacrifices. Her trumpet blended in perfectly with the rest of the orchestra, not a single note out of tune, which is the thankless fate of musicians without solos: to be essential, but easily overlooked threads in the big tapestry of orchestral music.

And then one day, as they combed through Leonora’s newest letter, Pedretti and his wife found a word that made them peer at the paper as though with a microscope. A word that was incongruous, fantastic, and truly and utterly foreign.

Jazz.

Their little girl wrote about learning to play jazz music.

The word was far from unfamiliar, of course. People listened to the radio, which often enough did feature music not composed by the classical masters. But in these parts, where land had history written in the blood of generations of farmers who lived and died on it not so differently than their parents had, and where the great river stretched out in the sun and in the mists, carrying hundreds of years of dreams, tears, and laughter with its mud and its pebbles, novelty and any of its potential contribution had to be weighed and studied before being allowed to become familiar.

Jazz was considered music, of course, but not ‘serious’ music. It was good enough for city people or foreigners – in other words, people who lived further along the country road – but not hard-working people who rose with the sun to feed the pigs, tilled the earth, or worked dairies, and then went to bed with their bones aching more every night.

The Pedrettis kept the letter and didn’t breathe a word to anyone, but soon enough, the word got out and ran throughout the village and its seven frazioni like an overexcited puppy. Unfortunately for the Pedrettis, it turned out that a lot of people had a lot to say on the subject, and much of what they had to say concerned young Leonora and the supposed lack of moral fibre in her upbringing. Nobody could agree on which would have been worse: the fact that a good, decent country girl, whom they’d known since she was little and who had received a proper Christian education had abandoned Verdi for the sirens of foreign music – or if that same girl had dyed her hair and gone around wearing make-up and short skirts.

Those whose opinion on the matter ranged from asking how bad it all could be anyway and not caring one bit what a person did as long as they were happy were sadly few and quickly drowned in the mass of gossip.

Chatter grew and grew until Leonora came back to her parents’ for a few days of holiday.

She had grown from a skinny child into a long, sprightly girl who walked with calm certainty and didn’t talk much. Her hair was intact, a little longer than it had been, and she wore no make-up at all. The folks who were still unsure about which of jazz or make-up was worse quickly made up their minds and decided on the former.

Leonora mostly stayed at the family farm for the first couple of days and to all intents and purposes remained blessedly unaware that she and her trumpet were all the village could talk about these days.

Since it was one of the few subjects which transcended politics, the more vehement critics soon referred to their own moral authority: the reactionaries and the little old ladies complained to Don Camillo, the Communists to Peppone in his capacity as the section’s secretary, and the others to Giuseppe Bottazzi in his capacity as mayor – which meant Peppone pulled a double shift. He was mightily annoyed about it all.

On one hand, it irritated him to no end that imperialist America had ruined yet another honest Italian girl, luring her with its newfangled ways and flashy… what exactly he hadn’t figured out yet, but knew he would have to if asked. And he couldn’t swallow the fact that a musician, after studying and playing masters like Verdi or Puccini – but mostly Verdi – could just move on to something so different as simply as that. It felt like a betrayal.

On the other, he had always had an argumentative streak, and seeing all those people finding fault in one girl bothered him a little. Leonora Pedretti wasn’t a political adversary and she hadn’t chosen to shoulder any kind of authority at all: she was only a trumpet player. And not even the kind to want to play Giovinezza or La Marcia Reale, either.

It was all very complicated, and Peppone didn’t like complicated.

In the end, he shoved his hat on his head one morning and went out to town.

It was market day on a fair, bright morning, and people flooded the main square. Peppone pushed through the crowd and the stands to get to the church parvis, where Don Camillo was sitting on his usual bench near the rectory door, reading a newspaper and smoking a half-cigar.

“Listen here,” he said, planting his fists on his hips, “what have you been telling your church biddies about that Pedretti girl?”

Don Camillo raised his head, looking curious.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s been no end of whiners and complainers knocking on the People’s House and the town hall lately telling me I should do something about that blasted affair. The Communists I can handle, but some of the others were your crowd and I’ve had it up to here.”

“Comrade, you’ve chosen to run for mayor and somehow you got elected,” said Don Camillo, going back to his newspaper. “It’s only natural that people will look to you to sort things out, God help them.”

Peppone was beginning to see red.

“When the girl was in the town band, she played the people’s music and you couldn’t stomach it. Now she’s not in the town band anymore and she’s playing American propaganda garbage! How do you like that?”

Don Camillo folded up his newspaper and rose to his feet.

“And what’s it got to do with me?” he asked in a dangerous voice.

“You’re the one always defending ruddy America like it’s a bastion of decency against the big scary Reds,” shouted Peppone, “and meanwhile the same America turns our girls’ heads and corrupts them until they forsake Verdi for some so-called music nobody can understand unless they speak English!”

“Reds never scare me, big or little!” bellowed Don Camillo, and he gripped Peppone by the lapels of his jacket.

Peppone grabbed him by the front of his cassock and roared, “I’ll see about that!”

Blood boiled, the pressure was off the charts, and blows would probably have started raining any second from two pairs of hands as big as shovels, when a loud, discordant noise sounded all around the square.

It was a noise like a duck getting stomped on, and it was just absurd enough to make both men freeze.

The market stand owners and the people around them had left their shopping to watch something potentially more interesting, namely a brawl between the mayor and the priest; but they all froze, too, and turned to the point of origin of that awful sound.

Young Leonora Pedretti was standing in the middle of the square wearing her Sunday dress and a defiant scowl on her face. In her right hand was her trumpet.

She breathed deeply, raised the mouthpiece to her lips, and began to play.

Later on, when people could reflect on it calmly, they realised things were missing, like a clarinet, a piano, some percussions, and maybe a double bass. But it was of little importance.

Music rose out of that little trumpet, a melancholic melody, like someone determined to keep hope alive through tears. The music – thin, bordering on reedy – trembled and tensed but always landed on its feet. It was a sound that tore a piece of your heart while telling you you were allowed to cry over it. Then Leonora segued into another song, more cheerful, cheeky even, with little high notes that sounded like winks, if winks could be turned into sound. It wasn’t mocking, however, but rather invited you to share a joke. The number was short, and soon gave way to a third song.

This time the trumpet was gentle and warm, the notes ample and clear, and the melody flew into the blue sky to the great river shining under the sun. And the people on the square heard, in the silence between breaths and in the quiver that punctuated the notes, the voices of men, women and children not so different than they were, who played and sang about hope, freedom, loss, joy, grief, their faith in God and their own great river that flowed majestically to the sea, carrying hundreds of years of blood, tears, and dreams not so different than their own.

Leonora held the last note and slowly lowered the trumpet, her face crimson from neck to hairline. She cast a last long look at the square full of people and walked away without a word. Everything she meant to say had been said.

Peppone and Don Camillo had loosened their grip on each other during the impromptu concert without quite knowing when or how. They both kept staring at the spot Leonora had been half a minute after she left.

“…Well,” said Don Camillo eventually in a voice that shook ever so slightly, “that wasn’t Verdi.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Peppone ran a hand across his eyes and fumbled for his handkerchief.

They looked at each other, opened their mouths to add something, but both realised at the same time that they, too, had said everything they meant to say.

They both took off their hats to each other. Don Camillo returned to his bench, still looking dazed, while Peppone went back home the long way, along the road on the main dyke, where he could see his great river and watch the sun wink on the muddy waters.

After that memorable market day, when Don Camillo received a complaint about girls who were no better than they should be and played music they should not, he threw out his arms and said, “I don’t know if it’s the Devil’s music. All I know is what I heard, and what I heard was so beautiful that I don’t believe God would leave it to the Devil.” And the crucified Christ on the main altar smiled, because he was right.

When the same people went to Peppone, he crashed his enormous fist on his desk and shouted, “The next wretch who says anything against that bloody trumpet goes through the window and learns to fly. Do I make myself clear?”

“Daddy,” his youngest boy asked him that very evening as his father went to give him his good night kiss, “what did that lady play the other day, exactly?”

Peppone vaguely sensed that the question had some importance; he thought long and hard before answering in a tone of finality, “She played the trumpet, and she played it well.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

And, as it turned out, he was quite right.

THE END

Thank goodness for music. The world would be so much darker, colder, and poorer without it!

Translations/Notes:

Red, Green, White, and Black: respectively Communists, Republicans (anti-monarchist, anti-clerical, and anti-fascist party, which was still left of the political centre at the time), Christian Democrats, and Fascists.

Radamès is from Aida; Ernani is from the eponymous opera; Desdemona and Iago are from Otello; Corrado is from Il Corsaro; Leonora is from Il Trovatore and La forza del destino; Ofelia stands out, being from a lesser-known opera (based on Hamlet) and not from Verdi.

Don Camillo voting for Peppone in his first re-run as mayor is a reference to one of the short stories, "Ancora il fantasma del cappello verde" (the ghost with the green hat again). The "ghost" is Peppone, who sneaked into the church in the middle of the night to pray for re-election and inadvertently left his hat behind. At the very end of the campaign, when it looks like he's going to lose, he makes an honest speech, straight from the heart, in which he asks his citizens to treat the election as a verdict on how good a job he did… and wins by a landslide. Don Camillo later admits to the crucified Christ on the main altar that seeing Peppone like this, sad and lonely, moved him so much he voted for him – and he's confused and furious about it.

I must admit fumbled with the chronology a little bit. Peppone's first re-election was in summer 1951, and the terrible flood from the Po river (some of it depicted in the second Don Camillo film with actual news footage) happened in both the real world and the "Little World" a few months later, in November.

Giovinezza (Youth) was the official hymn of the Italian Fascist Party, regime, and army up until 1943; the Marcia Reale (Royal March) was the official hymn of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1946. Both were usually played with the other, and both were forbidden after World War 2.

(If you liked, please consider leaving a comment so I know I’m not just shouting in the desert - not that I mind, but it gets lonely without someone to share it with!)

[kingsheadharborrp]

Sanem Pelliser-Reid

Name: Sanem Pellisier - Reid

Date of Birth: March 15th, 1991

Age: 30

Gender/Pronouns: Cis woman / She / Her

Occupation: Owner of Momentum & Dance Entrepreneur

Hometown: Konak, İzmir, Turkey

Length of time in King’s Head Harbor: 15 years

Faceclaim: Melisa Aslı Pamuk

BIOGRAPHY ( Trigger Warning: infertility, adoption, parental death, injury. )

Originally born as Sanem Yasemin Günay, in the İzmir province of Turkey, to Mehmet Günay and Hazal Toktaş, two people who at the time of discovering they’d been expecting were fresh out of their teens and in university. Though both were very much in love and elated to find out they’d be parents, reality was quick to rear it’s ugly head in the form of not entirely accepting families. Both of which deeply seeded in traditions that raising a child so young and unmarried went against and hardly on the best terms with one another as it is. Little to no support meant they’d be on their own in raising her, the thought of which they tried their hardest to feasibly plan out, but would prove to be more difficult the closer their baby was to arriving. Ultimately leading them to a difficult decision, they hoped would only be more beneficial for her to have an incredible life, putting Sanem up for adoption.

Enter Lawrence and Alanah Reid, a couple hailing from the U.S. that were looking to expand their little family, as they’d already had a three year old son, Landon. However because of complications Alanah suffered from secondary infertility and was unable to conceive more. They’d tried just about every option available until finally looking at adoption being a clear winner to fulfill their wishes. The moment they saw the doe-eyed baby girl from the agency, they knew she was meant to be part of their family. Sanem had been a few months old by the time everything was signed and she'd officially been brought home with them as a Reid. Though they agreed they still wanted her to have a close connection to where she came from, keeping both her first and middle name given by her birth parents. As well as being raised speaking Turkish and English as both her native tongues, the former of which her family had learned along with her.

Because of her parents respective careers, with Lawrence as a business consultant and Alanah a travel photographer, for pretty much all of her childhood they were able to call various places around the world home. At least, for the duration they found themselves at each, some longer than others. The consistent moving around didn’t bother her, in fact it helped her develop an appreciation for all the different cultures they were able to experience, more especially as she got older and could fully appreciate them. The only drawback she supposed was having to say goodbye to the friends she made along the way. And the one thing high up on the list of reasons she was grateful for each destination introducing her to in such similar yet unique aspects; were music and dance. The latter of which quickly enveloping her passion for the two and truly encapsulated the essence of her personality so well; wild, carefree and expressive. After all, there’s a reason dance is the hidden language of the soul.

At the age of fifteen however, part of her world came shattering apart when her mother ended up passing away. The result of a freak accident while they were in Argentina, and Alanah was out working on a shoot near Iguazu Falls where much of the rock side had been slick. Unfortunately she ended up slipping off, by the time rescuers were able to safely get to her it’d been too late. To say that she, her father and brother had been devastated by the loss would far be an understatement. The three of them made their way back to King’s Head Harbor, where her parents were originally from, for the funeral. After which, Lawrence made the choice to take on a business executive position at a company in Providence, therefore settling them down permanently in the town.

The change of scenery was certainly something to get used to, more so when Sanem began to withdraw into herself, burying her once exuberant demeanor for one more reticent. As well as losing her drive for dance, despite the love for it still burning underneath. It was a funk that followed her through high school, at least until the guiding help of her new best friend and family, namely her father who saw that spark drain from her eyes, sat her down for a heart to heart. To the best of his abilities anyhow, reminding her how much her mother would want her to keep living life and following her dream, just as they’d always advocated her and Landon to do growing up. That Alanah would be looking down a proudly as she ever did. Though it wasn’t an instant recovery, his words did resonate, and slowly but surely her old self began to come back towards the surface.

Initially it started by getting back into dance classes at a local studio, reclaiming her craft once and finding that rhythm once again, which never truly eluded her. Upon graduating high school she’d forgone college in favor of jumping into a instructor position, while also focusing on various competitions, including the World of Dance tour. Along with starting up a YouTube channel to showcase her classes as well as tutorials for many of the routines she’d choreographed. Eventually gaining quite a lot of traction that got her invited to more well known studios from New York to Los Angeles to collaborate on routines, expanding her teaching globally in places like Seoul, Amsterdam and Barcelona. Deciding to keep herself based out of King’s Head Harbor, having grown more attached to the town over the years, plus being home to her family and friends. She opened up her own studio dubbed, Momentum, which had been a dream ever since she was younger.

Some time after her 21st birthday, Sanem had decidedly gotten into contact with her birth family, something she’d always been curious though hesitant over, burning questions as to why they’d given her up in the first place. It didn’t take much sleuthing to find their contact information, landing herself at their doorstep in İzmir. Mehmet and Hazal had been overjoyed she wanted to get to know them, learning just how hard it’d been for them to let her go, and never once had they forgotten her. Since then it’s been a process in gradually opening up to her biological family, making trips back whenever possible, though has found a easier time forming a relationship with her younger brother Ozan and sister Damla.

Three years ago the epitome of the phrase ‘fate works in mysterious ways’ seemed to descend on her life and in truth, she couldn’t have been more grateful to the fact for many reasons. The biggest being a girl from her past, someone she’d only known for a few summers at a town in Washington where her parents seemed to love vacationing, sharing snacks and laughs along the boardwalk, whom she simply knew by the nickname she’d given, sarı papatyam. Until one momentous gala years later saw their paths crossing once again and she was reacquainted with Allison Pellisier, the woman who would become her guiding light. During the pain of another who only sought to treat her like a game, or the time after a freak accident during a show she’d been a guest performer for with a group, lead to a broken arm that benched her from dancing for a couple months. Of which a true testament to her emotional stress, even when during also came the creation of her second business venture, RYTHM online academy. But Allison, stuck by her side with a care and warmth that captured her heart and after a year of a deepening romance, that many may say was fast but either knew in their souls to be it, they were married. Now continuing to build a life and future with her wife in Sandport Village, including the very anticipated arrival of their first child, Sanem is ready more than ever for the new adventures that await.

PERSONALITY.

+ Venturesome, Ardent, Magnanimous - Mercurial, Quixotic, Uninhibited

WRITTEN BY Admin Ari

[chrisabraham]

An Oration delivered before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

GENTLEMEN,

The invitation to address you this day, with which you have honored me, was so welcome, that I made haste to obey it. A summons to celebrate with scholars a literary festival, is so alluring to me, as to overcome the doubts I might well entertain of my ability to bring you any thought worthy of your attention. I have reached the middle age of man; yet I believe I am not less glad or sanguine at the meeting of scholars, than when, a boy, I first saw the graduates of my own College assembled at their anniversary. Neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men. His duties lead him directly into the holy ground where other men's aspirations only point. His successes are occasions of the purest joy to all men. Eyes is he to the blind; feet is he to the lame. His failures, if he is worthy, are inlets to higher advantages. And because the scholar, by every thought he thinks, extends his dominion into the general mind of men, he is not one, but many. The few scholars in each country, whose genius I know, seem to me not individuals, but societies; and, when events occur of great import, I count over these representatives of opinion, whom they will affect, as if I were counting nations. And, even if his results were incommunicable; if they abode in his own spirit; the intellect hath somewhat so sacred in its possessions, that the fact of his existence and pursuits would be a happy omen.

Meantime I know that a very different estimate of the scholar's profession prevails in this country, and the importunity, with which society presses its claim upon young men, tends to pervert the views of the youth in respect to the culture of the intellect. Hence the historical failure, on which Europe and America have so freely commented. This country has not fulfilled what seemed the reasonable expectation of mankind. Men looked, when all feudal straps and bandages were snapped asunder, that nature, too long the mother of dwarfs, should reimburse itself by a brood of Titans, who should laugh and leap in the continent, and run up the mountains of the West with the errand of genius and of love. But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace without grandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty, — which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders.

I will not lose myself in the desultory questions, what are the limitations, and what the causes of the fact. It suffices me to say, in general, that the diffidence of mankind in the soul has crept over the American mind; that men here, as elsewhere, are indisposed to innovation, and prefer any antiquity, any usage, any livery productive of ease or profit, to the unproductive service of thought.

Yet, in every sane hour, the service of thought appears reasonable, the despotism of the senses insane. The scholar may lose himself in schools, in words, and become a pedant; but when he comprehends his duties, he above all men is a realist, and converses with things. For, the scholar is the student of the world, and of what worth the world is, and with what emphasis it accosts the soul of man, such is the worth, such the call of the scholar.

The want of the times, and the propriety of this anniversary, concur to draw attention to the doctrine of Literary Ethics. What I have to say on that doctrine distributes itself under the topics of the resources, the subject, and the discipline of the scholar.

I. The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his confidence in the attributes of the Intellect. The resources of the scholar are co-extensive with nature and truth, yet can never be his, unless claimed by him with an equal greatness of mind. He cannot know them until he has beheld with awe the infinitude and impersonality of the intellectual power. When he has seen, that it is not his, nor any man's, but that it is the soul which made the world, and that it is all accessible to him, he will know that he, as its minister, may rightfully hold all things subordinate and answerable to it. A divine pilgrim in nature, all things attend his steps. Over him stream the flying constellations; over him streams Time, as they, scarcely divided into months and years. He inhales the year as a vapor: its fragrant midsummer breath, its sparkling January heaven. And so pass into his mind, in bright transfiguration, the grand events of history, to take a new order and scale from him. He is the world; and the epochs and heroes of chronology are pictorial images, in which his thoughts are told. There is no event but sprung somewhere from the soul of man; and therefore there is none but the soul of man can interpret. Every presentiment of the mind is executed somewhere in a gigantic fact. What else is Greece, Rome, England, France, St. Helena? What else are churches, literatures, and empires? The new man must feel that he is new, and has not come into the world mortgaged to the opinions and usages of Europe, and Asia, and Egypt. The sense of spiritual independence is like the lovely varnish of the dew, whereby the old, hard, peaked earth, and its old self-same productions, are made new every morning, and shining with the last touch of the artist's hand. A false humility, a complaisance to reigning schools, or to the wisdom of antiquity, must not defraud me of supreme possession of this hour. If any person have less love of liberty, and less jealousy to guard his integrity, shall he therefore dictate to you and me? Say to such doctors, We are thankful to you, as we are to history, to the pyramids, and the authors; but now our day is come; we have been born out of the eternal silence; and now will we live, — live for ourselves, — and not as the pall-bearers of a funeral, but as the upholders and creators of our age; and neither Greece nor Rome, nor the three Unities of Aristotle, nor the three Kings of Cologne, nor the College of the Sorbonne, nor the Edinburgh Review, is to command any longer. Now that we are here, we will put our own interpretation on things, and our own things for interpretation. Please himself with complaisance who will, — for me, things must take my scale, not I theirs. I will say with the warlike king, "God gave me this crown, and the whole world shall not take it away."

The whole value of history, of biography, is to increase my self-trust, by demonstrating what man can be and do. This is the moral of the Plutarchs, the Cudworths, the Tennemanns, who give us the story of men or of opinions. Any history of philosophy fortifies my faith, by showing me, that what high dogmas I had supposed were the rare and late fruit of a cumulative culture, and only now possible to some recent Kant or Fichte, — were the prompt improvisations of the earliest inquirers; of Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Xenophanes. In view of these students, the soul seems to whisper, 'There is a better way than this indolent learning of another. Leave me alone; do not teach me out of Leibnitz or Schelling, and I shall find it all out myself.'

Still more do we owe to biography the fortification of our hope. If you would know the power of character, see how much you would impoverish the world, if you could take clean out of history the lives of Milton, Shakespeare, and Plato, — these three, and cause them not to be. See you not, how much less the power of man would be? I console myself in the poverty of my thoughts; in the paucity of great men, in the malignity and dulness of the nations, by falling back on these sublime recollections, and seeing what the prolific soul could beget on actual nature; — seeing that Plato was, and Shakespeare, and Milton, — three irrefragable facts. Then I dare; I also will essay to be. The humblest, the most hopeless, in view of these radiant facts, may now theorize and hope. In spite of all the rueful abortions that squeak and gibber in the street, in spite of slumber and guilt, in spite of the army, the bar-room, and the jail, _have been_ these glorious manifestations of the mind; and I will thank my great brothers so truly for the admonition of their being, as to endeavor also to be just and brave, to aspire and to speak. Plotinus too, and Spinoza, and the immortal bards of philosophy, — that which they have written out with patient courage, makes me bold. No more will I dismiss, with haste, the visions which flash and sparkle across my sky; but observe them, approach them, domesticate them, brood on them, and draw out of the past, genuine life for the present hour.

To feel the full value of these lives, as occasions of hope and provocation, you must come to know, that each admirable genius is but a successful diver in that sea whose floor of pearls is all your own. The impoverishing philosophy of ages has laid stress on the distinctions of the individual, and not on the universal attributes of man. The youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires. In solitude, in a remote village, the ardent youth loiters and mourns. With inflamed eye, in this sleeping wilderness, he has read the story of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, until his fancy has brought home to the surrounding woods, the faint roar of cannonades in the Milanese, and marches in Germany. He is curious concerning that man's day. What filled it? the crowded orders, the stern decisions, the foreign despatches, the Castilian etiquette? The soul answers — Behold his day here! In the sighing of these woods, in the quiet of these gray fields, in the cool breeze that sings out of these northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens, you meet, — in the hopes of the morning, the ennui of noon, and sauntering of the afternoon; in the disquieting comparisons; in the regrets at want of vigor; in the great idea, and the puny execution; — behold Charles the Fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham's, Hampden's, Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day, — day of all that are born of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting the self-same life, — its sweetness, its greatness, its pain, which I so admire in other men. Do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable, obliterated past, what it cannot tell, — the details of that nature, of that day, called Byron, or Burke; — but ask it of the enveloping Now; the more quaintly you inspect its evanescent beauties, its wonderful details, its spiritual causes, its astounding whole, — so much the more you master the biography of this hero, and that, and every hero. Be lord of a day, through wisdom and justice, and you can put up your history books.

An intimation of these broad rights is familiar in the sense of injury which men feel in the assumption of any man to limit their possible progress. We resent all criticism, which denies us any thing that lies in our line of advance. Say to the man of letters, that he cannot paint a Transfiguration, or build a steamboat, or be a grand-marshal, — and he will not seem to himself depreciated. But deny to him any quality of literary or metaphysical power, and he is piqued. Concede to him genius, which is a sort of Stoical _plenum_ annulling the comparative, and he is content; but concede him talents never so rare, denying him genius, and he is aggrieved. What does this mean? Why simply, that the soul has assurance, by instincts and presentiments, of _all_ power in the direction of its ray, as well as of the special skills it has already acquired.

In order to a knowledge of the resources of the scholar, we must not rest in the use of slender accomplishments, — of faculties to do this and that other feat with words; but we must pay our vows to the highest power, and pass, if it be possible, by assiduous love and watching, into the visions of absolute truth. The growth of the intellect is strictly analogous in all individuals. It is larger reception. Able men, in general, have good dispositions, and a respect for justice; because an able man is nothing else than a good, free, vascular organization, whereinto the universal spirit freely flows; so that his fund of justice is not only vast, but infinite. All men, in the abstract, are just and good; what hinders them, in the particular, is, the momentary predominance of the finite and individual over the general truth. The condition of our incarnation in a private self, seems to be, a perpetual tendency to prefer the private law, to obey the private impulse, to the exclusion of the law of universal being. The hero is great by means of the predominance of the universal nature; he has only to open his mouth, and it speaks; he has only to be forced to act, and it acts. All men catch the word, or embrace the deed, with the heart, for it is verily theirs as much as his; but in them this disease of an excess of organization cheats them of equal issues. Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. The vision of genius comes by renouncing the too officious activity of the understanding, and giving leave and amplest privilege to the spontaneous sentiment. Out of this must all that is alive and genial in thought go. Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, all flock to their aid. Observe the phenomenon of extempore debate. A man of cultivated mind, but reserved habits, sitting silent, admires the miracle of free, impassioned, picturesque speech, in the man addressing an assembly; — a state of being and power, how unlike his own! Presently his own emotion rises to his lips, and overflows in speech. He must also rise and say somewhat. Once embarked, once having overcome the novelty of the situation, he finds it just as easy and natural to speak, — to speak with thoughts, with pictures, with rhythmical balance of sentences, — as it was to sit silent; for, it needs not to do, but to suffer; he only adjusts himself to the free spirit which gladly utters itself through him; and motion is as easy as rest.

II. I pass now to consider the task offered to the intellect of this country. The view I have taken of the resources of the scholar, presupposes a subject as broad. We do not seem to have imagined its riches. We have not heeded the invitation it holds out. To be as good a scholar as Englishmen are; to have as much learning as our contemporaries; to have written a book that is read; satisfies us. We assume, that all thought is already long ago adequately set down in books, — all imaginations in poems; and what we say, we only throw in as confirmatory of this supposed complete body of literature. A very shallow assumption. Say rather, all literature is yet to be written. Poetry has scarce chanted its first song. The perpetual admonition of nature to us, is, 'The world is new, untried. Do not believe the past. I give you the universe a virgin to-day.'

By Latin and English poetry, we were born and bred in an oratorio of praises of nature, — flowers, birds, mountains, sun, and moon; — yet the naturalist of this hour finds that he knows nothing, by all their poems, of any of these fine things; that he has conversed with the mere surface and show of them all; and of their essence, or of their history, knows nothing. Further inquiry will discover that nobody, — that not these chanting poets themselves, knew any thing sincere of these handsome natures they so commended; that they contented themselves with the passing chirp of a bird, that they saw one or two mornings, and listlessly looked at sunsets, and repeated idly these few glimpses in their song. But go into the forest, you shall find all new and undescribed. The screaming of the wild geese flying by night; the thin note of the companionable titmouse, in the winter day; the fall of swarms of flies, in autumn, from combats high in the air, pattering down on the leaves like rain; the angry hiss of the wood-birds; the pine throwing out its pollen for the benefit of the next century; the turpentine exuding from the tree; — and, indeed, any vegetation; any animation; any and all, are alike unattempted. The man who stands on the seashore, or who rambles in the woods, seems to be the first man that ever stood on the shore, or entered a grove, his sensations and his world are so novel and strange. Whilst I read the poets, I think that nothing new can be said about morning and evening. But when I see the daybreak, I am not reminded of these Homeric, or Shakspearian, or Miltonic, or Chaucerian pictures. No; but I feel perhaps the pain of an alien world; a world not yet subdued by the thought; or, I am cheered by the moist, warm, glittering, budding, melodious hour, that takes down the narrow walls of my soul, and extends its life and pulsation to the very horizon. _That_ is morning, to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of this sickly body, and to become as large as nature.

The noonday darkness of the American forest, the deep, echoing, aboriginal woods, where the living columns of the oak and fir tower up from the ruins of the trees of the last millennium; where, from year to year, the eagle and the crow see no intruder; the pines, bearded with savage moss, yet touched with grace by the violets at their feet; the broad, cold lowland, which forms its coat of vapor with the stillness of subterranean crystallization; and where the traveller, amid the repulsive plants that are native in the swamp, thinks with pleasing terror of the distant town; this beauty, — haggard and desert beauty, which the sun and the moon, the snow and the rain, repaint and vary, has never been recorded by art, yet is not indifferent to any passenger. All men are poets at heart. They serve nature for bread, but her loveliness overcomes them sometimes. What mean these journeys to Niagara; these pilgrims to the White Hills? Men believe in the adaptations of utility, always: in the mountains, they may believe in the adaptations of the eye. Undoubtedly, the changes of geology have a relation to the prosperous sprouting of the corn and peas in my kitchen garden; but not less is there a relation of beauty between my soul and the dim crags of Agiocochook up there in the clouds. Every man, when this is told, hearkens with joy, and yet his own conversation with nature is still unsung.

Is it otherwise with civil history? Is it not the lesson of our experience that every man, were life long enough, would write history for himelf? What else do these volumes of extracts and manuscript commentaries, that every scholar writes, indicate? Greek history is one thing to me; another to you. Since the birth of Niebuhr and Wolf, Roman and Greek History have been written anew. Since Carlyle wrote French History, we see that no history, that we have, is safe, but a new classifier shall give it new and more philosophical arrangement. Thucydides, Livy, have only provided materials. The moment a man of genius pronounces the name of the Pelasgi, of Athens, of the Etrurian, of the Roman people, we see their state under a new aspect. As in poetry and history, so in the other departments. There are few masters or none. Religion is yet to be settled on its fast foundations in the breast of man; and politics, and philosophy, and letters, and art. As yet we have nothing but tendency and indication.

This starting, this warping of the best literary works from the adamant of nature, is especially observable in philosophy. Let it take what tone of pretension it will, to this complexion must it come, at last. Take, for example, the French Eclecticism, which Cousin esteems so conclusive; there is an optical illusion in it. It avows great pretensions. It looks as if they had all truth, in taking all the systems, and had nothing to do, but to sift and wash and strain, and the gold and diamonds would remain in the last colander. But, Truth is such a flyaway, such a slyboots, so untransportable and unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light. Shut the shutters never so quick, to keep all the light in, it is all in vain; it is gone before you can cry, Hold. And so it happens with our philosophy. Translate, collate, distil all the systems, it steads you nothing; for truth will not be compelled, in any mechanical manner. But the first observation you make, in the sincere act of your nature, though on the veriest trifle, may open a new view of nature and of man, that, like a menstruum, shall dissolve all theories in it; shall take up Greece, Rome, Stoicism, Eclecticism, and what not, as mere data and food for analysis, and dispose of your world-containing system, as a very little unit. A profound thought, anywhere, classifies all things: a profound thought will lift Olympus. The book of philosophy is only a fact, and no more inspiring fact than another, and no less; but a wise man will never esteem it anything final and transcending. Go and talk with a man of genius, and the first word he utters, sets all your so-called knowledge afloat and at large. Then Plato, Bacon, Kant, and the Eclectic Cousin, condescend instantly to be men and mere facts.

I by no means aim, in these remarks, to disparage the merit of these or of any existing compositions; I only say that any particular portraiture does not in any manner exclude or fore-stall a new attempt, but, when considered by the soul, warps and shrinks away. The inundation of the spirit sweeps away before it all our little architecture of wit and memory, as straws and straw-huts before the torrent. Works of the intellect are great only by comparison with each other; Ivanhoe and Waverley compared with Castle Radcliffe and the Porter novels; but nothing is great, — not mighty Homer and Milton, — beside the infinite Reason. It carries them away as a flood. They are as a sleep.

Thus is justice done to each generation and individual, — wisdom teaching man that he shall not hate, or fear, or mimic his ancestors; that he shall not bewail himself, as if the world was old, and thought was spent, and he was born into the dotage of things; for, by virtue of the Deity, thought renews itself inexhaustibly every day, and the thing whereon it shines, though it were dust and sand, is a new subject with countless relations.

III. Having thus spoken of the resources and the subject of the scholar, out of the same faith proceeds also the rule of his ambition and life. Let him know that the world is his, but he must possess it by putting himself into harmony with the constitution of things. He must be a solitary, laborious, modest, and charitable soul.

He must embrace solitude as a bride. He must have his glees and his glooms alone. His own estimate must be measure enough, his own praise reward enough for him. And why must the student be solitary and silent? That he may become acquainted with his thoughts. If he pines in a lonely place, hankering for the crowd, for display, he is not in the lonely place; his heart is in the market; he does not see; he does not hear; he does not think. But go cherish your soul; expel companions; set your habits to a life of solitude; then, will the faculties rise fair and full within, like forest trees and field flowers; you will have results, which, when you meet your fellow-men, you can communicate, and they will gladly receive. Do not go into solitude only that you may presently come into public. Such solitude denies itself; is public and stale. The public can get public experience, but they wish the scholar to replace to them those private, sincere, divine experiences, of which they have been defrauded by dwelling in the street. It is the noble, manlike, just thought, which is the superiority demanded of you, and not crowds but solitude confers this elevation. Not insulation of place, but independence of spirit is essential, and it is only as the garden, the cottage, the forest, and the rock, are a sort of mechanical aids to this, that they are of value. Think alone, and all places are friendly and sacred. The poets who have lived in cities have been hermits still. Inspiration makes solitude anywhere. Pindar, Raphael, Angelo, Dryden, De Stael, dwell in crowds, it may be, but the instant thought comes, the crowd grows dim to their eye; their eye fixes on the horizon, — on vacant space; they forget the bystanders; they spurn personal relations; they deal with abstractions, with verities, with ideas. They are alone with the mind.

Of course, I would not have any superstition about solitude. Let the youth study the uses of solitude and of society. Let him use both, not serve either. The reason why an ingenious soul shuns society, is to the end of finding society. It repudiates the false, out of love of the true. You can very soon learn all that society can teach you for one while. Its foolish routine, an indefinite multiplication of balls, concerts, rides, theatres, can teach you no more than a few can. Then accept the hint of shame, of spiritual emptiness and waste, which true nature gives you, and retire, and hide; lock the door; shut the shutters; then welcome falls the imprisoning rain, — dear hermitage of nature. Re-collect the spirits. Have solitary prayer and praise. Digest and correct the past experience; and blend it with the new and divine life.

You will pardon me, Gentlemen, if I say, I think that we have need of a more rigorous scholastic rule; such an asceticism, I mean, as only the hardihood and devotion of the scholar himself can enforce. We live in the sun and on the surface, — a thin, plausible, superficial existence, and talk of muse and prophet, of art and creation. But out of our shallow and frivolous way of life, how can greatness ever grow? Come now, let us go and be dumb. Let us sit with our hands on our mouths, a long, austere, Pythagorean lustrum. Let us live in corners, and do chores, and suffer, and weep, and drudge, with eyes and hearts that love the Lord. Silence, seclusion, austerity, may pierce deep into the grandeur and secret of our being, and so diving, bring up out of secular darkness, the sublimities of the moral constitution. How mean to go blazing, a gaudy butterfly, in fashionable or political saloons, the fool of society, the fool of notoriety, a topic for newspapers, a piece of the street, and forfeiting the real prerogative of the russet coat, the privacy, and the true and warm heart of the citizen!

Fatal to the man of letters, fatal to man, is the lust of display, the seeming that unmakes our being. A mistake of the main end to which they labor, is incident to literary men, who, dealing with the organ of language, — the subtlest, strongest, and longest-lived of man's creations, and only fitly used as the weapon of thought and of justice, — learn to enjoy the pride of playing with this splendid engine, but rob it of its almightiness by failing to work with it. Extricating themselves from the tasks of the world, the world revenges itself by exposing, at every turn, the folly of these incomplete, pedantic, useless, ghostly creatures. The scholar will feel, that the richest romance, — the noblest fiction that was ever woven, — the heart and soul of beauty, — lies enclosed in human life. Itself of surpassing value, it is also the richest material for his creations. How shall he know its secrets of tenderness, of terror, of will, and of fate? How can he catch and keep the strain of upper music that peals from it? Its laws are concealed under the details of daily action. All action is an experiment upon them. He must bear his share of the common load. He must work with men in houses, and not with their names in books. His needs, appetites, talents, affections, accomplishments, are keys that open to him the beautiful museum of human life. Why should he read it as an Arabian tale, and not know, in his own beating bosom, its sweet and smart? Out of love and hatred, out of earnings, and borrowings, and lendings, and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of travelling, and voting, and watching, and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws. Let him not slur his lesson; let him learn it by heart. Let him endeavor exactly, bravely, and cheerfully, to solve the problem of that life which is set before _him_. And this, by punctual action, and not by promises or dreams. Believing, as in God, in the presence and favor of the grandest influences, let him deserve that favor, and learn how to receive and use it, by fidelity also to the lower observances.

This lesson is taught with emphasis in the life of the great actor of this age, and affords the explanation of his success. Bonaparte represents truly a great recent revolution, which we in this country, please God, shall carry to its farthest consummation. Not the least instructive passage in modern history, seems to me a trait of Napoleon, exhibited to the English when he became their prisoner. On coming on board the Bellerophon, a file of English soldiers drawn up on deck, gave him a military salute. Napoleon observed, that their manner of handling their arms differed from the French exercise, and, putting aside the guns of those nearest him, walked up to a soldier, took his gun, and himself went through the motion in the French mode. The English officers and men looked on with astonishment, and inquired if such familiarity was usual with the Emperor.

In this instance, as always, that man, with whatever defects or vices, represented performance in lieu of pretension. Feudalism and Orientalism had long enough thought it majestic to do nothing; the modern majesty consists in work. He belonged to a class, fast growing in the world, who think, that what a man can do is his greatest ornament, and that he always consults his dignity by doing it. He was not a believer in luck; he had a faith, like sight, in the application of means to ends. Means to ends, is the motto of all his behavior. He believed that the great captains of antiquity performed their exploits only by correct combinations, and by justly comparing the relation between means and consequences; efforts and obstacles. The vulgar call good fortune that which really is produced by the calculations of genius. But Napoleon, thus faithful to facts, had also this crowning merit; that, whilst he believed in number and weight, and omitted no part of prudence, he believed also in the freedom and quite incalculable force of the soul. A man of infinite caution, he neglected never the least particular of preparation, of patient adaptation; yet nevertheless he had a sublime confidence, as in his all, in the sallies of the courage, and the faith in his destiny, which, at the right moment, repaired all losses, and demolished cavalry, infantry, king, and kaisar, as with irresistible thunderbolts. As they say the bough of the tree has the character of the leaf, and the whole tree of the bough, so, it is curious to remark, Bonaparte's army partook of this double strength of the captain; for, whilst strictly supplied in all its appointments, and everything expected from the valor and discipline of every platoon, in flank and centre, yet always remained his total trust in the prodigious revolutions of fortune, which his reserved Imperial Guard were capable of working, if, in all else, the day was lost. Here he was sublime. He no longer calculated the chance of the cannon-ball. He was faithful to tactics to the uttermost, — and when all tactics had come to an end, then, he dilated, and availed himself of the mighty saltations of the most formidable soldiers in nature.

Let the scholar appreciate this combination of gifts, which, applied to better purpose, make true wisdom. He is a revealer of things. Let him first learn the things. Let him not, too eager to grasp some badge of reward, omit the work to be done. Let him know, that, though the success of the market is in the reward, true success is the doing; that, in the private obedience to his mind; in the sedulous inquiry, day after day, year after year, to know how the thing stands; in the use of all means, and most in the reverence of the humble commerce and humble needs of life, — to hearken what _they_ say, and so, by mutual reaction of thought and life, to make thought solid, and life wise; and in a contempt for the gabble of to-day's opinions, the secret of the world is to be learned, and the skill truly to unfold it is acquired. Or, rather, is it not, that, by this discipline, the usurpation of the senses is overcome, and the lower faculties of man are subdued to docility; through which, as an unobstructed channel, the soul now easily and gladly flows?

The good scholar will not refuse to bear the yoke in his youth; to know, if he can, the uttermost secret of toil and endurance; to make his own hands acquainted with the soil by which he is fed, and the sweat that goes before comfort and luxury. Let him pay his tithe, and serve the world as a true and noble man; never forgetting to worship the immortal divinities, who whisper to the poet, and make him the utterer of melodies that pierce the ear of eternal time. If he have this twofold goodness, — the drill and the inspiration, — then he has health; then he is a whole, and not a fragment; and the perfection of his endowment will appear in his compositions. Indeed, this twofold merit characterizes ever the productions of great masters. The man of genius should occupy the whole space between God or pure mind, and the multitude of uneducated men. He must draw from the infinite Reason, on one side; and he must penetrate into the heart and sense of the crowd, on the other. From one, he must draw his strength; to the other, he must owe his aim. The one yokes him to the real; the other, to the apparent. At one pole, is Reason; at the other, Common Sense. If he be defective at either extreme of the scale, his philosophy will seem low and utilitarian; or it will appear too vague and indefinite for the uses of life.

The student, as we all along insist, is great only by being passive to the superincumbent spirit. Let this faith, then, dictate all his action. Snares and bribes abound to mislead him; let him be true nevertheless. His success has its perils too. There is somewhat inconvenient and injurious in his position. They whom his thoughts have entertained or inflamed, seek him before yet they have learned the hard conditions of thought. They seek him, that he may turn his lamp on the dark riddles whose solution they think is inscribed on the walls of their being. They find that he is a poor, ignorant man, in a white-seamed, rusty coat, like themselves, no wise emitting a continuous stream of light, but now and then a jet of luminous thought, followed by total darkness; moreover, that he cannot make of his infrequent illumination a portable taper to carry whither he would, and explain now this dark riddle, now that. Sorrow ensues. The scholar regrets to damp the hope of ingenuous boys; and the youth has lost a star out of his new flaming firmament. Hence the temptation to the scholar to mystify; to hear the question; to sit upon it; to make an answer of words, in lack of the oracle of things. Not the less let him be cold and true, and wait in patience, knowing that truth can make even silence eloquent and memorable. Truth shall be policy enough for him. Let him open his breast to all honest inquiry, and be an artist superior to tricks of art. Show frankly as a saint would do, your experience, methods, tools, and means. Welcome all comers to the freest use of the same. And out of this superior frankness and charity, you shall learn higher secrets of your nature, which gods will bend and aid you to communicate.

If, with a high trust, he can thus submit himself, he will find that ample returns are poured into his bosom, out of what seemed hours of obstruction and loss. Let him not grieve too much on account of unfit associates. When he sees how much thought he owes to the disagreeable antagonism of various persons who pass and cross him, he can easily think that in a society of perfect sympathy, no word, no act, no record, would be. He will learn, that it is not much matter what he reads, what he does. Be a scholar, and he shall have the scholar's part of every thing. As, in the counting-room, the merchant cares little whether the cargo be hides or barilla; the transaction, a letter of credit or a transfer of stocks; be it what it may, his commission comes gently out of it; so you shall get your lesson out of the hour, and the object, whether it be a concentrated or a wasteful employment, even in reading a dull book, or working off a stint of mechanical day labor, which your necessities or the necessities of others impose.

Gentlemen, I have ventured to offer you these considerations upon the scholar's place, and hope, because I thought, that, standing, as many of you now do, on the threshold of this College, girt and ready to go and assume tasks, public and private, in your country, you would not be sorry to be admonished of those primary duties of the intellect, whereof you will seldom hear from the lips of your new companions. You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What is this Truth you seek? what is this Beauty?' men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, 'As others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season;' — then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect. It is this domineering temper of the sensual world, that creates the extreme need of the priests of science; and it is the office and right of the intellect to make and not take its estimate. Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom. Forewarned that the vice of the times and the country is an excessive pretension, let us seek the shade, and find wisdom in neglect. Be content with a little light, so it be your own. Explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatize, nor accept another's dogmatism. Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not takeaway your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope.

You will not fear, that I am enjoining too stern an asceticism. Ask not, Of what use is a scholarship that systematically retreats? or, Who is the better for the philosopher who conceals his accomplishments, and hides his thoughts from the waiting world? Hides his thoughts! Hide the sun and moon. Thought is all light, and publishes itself to the universe. It will speak, though you were dumb, by its own miraculous organ. It will flow out of your actions, your manners, and your face. It will bring you friendships. It will impledge you to truth by the love and expectation of generous minds. By virtue of the laws of that Nature, which is one and perfect, it shall yield every sincere good that is in the soul, to the scholar beloved of earth and heaven.

[red-will]

This is how we can envision Black freedom

For the U.S. to untangle itself from its legacy of white supremacism, we must live like we understand what our true history teaches us, from Emmett Till to George Floyd.

PUBLISHED MAY 25, 2021• 20 MIN READ

I.

On June 27, 2015, Black artist and activist Bree Newsome Bass climbed the flagpole at the South Carolina statehouse and took down the Confederate flag that had flown above the people of that state for over 50 years. This act came 10 days after a white supremacist murdered eight Black parishioners and their pastor at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Grown from a congregation first organized by enslaved and free Blacks in the late 18th century, Emanuel is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal church in the American South. It is a church where Black freedom has been envisioned and practiced throughout the entirety of its existence, from the 19th-century congregant Denmark Vesey—who bought his own freedom and helped plan a revolt of his fellow human beings who were still enslaved—to the 20th-century civil rights marchers and leaders who regularly gathered within its sacred space.

As she expected, Newsome Bass was arrested as soon as she rappelled down the statehouse flagpole, Confederate flag in hand. Her act memorialized Emanuel’s pastor and parishioners. It also made an ephemeral but indelible monument to Black freedom.

When asked why she did what she did, Newsome Bass answered, “I did it because I am free.”

What does it mean to be Black and free in a country that rejects Black freedom?

II.

I am an educator who teaches students about submerged histories, revelatory art, and the critical thinking that sharpens questions that move us toward truth. I am a poet, and my poet’s tool is the word. The word is holy and bears the heft of human experience; the poet must wield it as precisely as possible. I have found that writing poems brings me closer to understanding my fellow human beings—individually and in community—in our many contradictions and complex histories. Poems give form to truths and understandings that might otherwise be lost.

As leader of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, I am privileged to help support artists, thinkers, researchers, and other kinds of builders who illuminate stories and experiences that have often been hidden, overwritten, or mistold.

In a year darkened by loss, their light shone with particular power through the work we are supporting with the largest initiative in our history, the Monuments Project.

We have found inspiration in monuments like artist Judith Baca’s “Great Wall of Los Angeles,” a vibrant mural more than half a mile long that has brought together dozens of community members over 40 years to paint a richer, more inclusive history of California.

We supported a new memorial to Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who, when visiting family in Mississippi in the summer of 1955, was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by two white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman. His mother brought his body back to Chicago for an open-casket funeral to “let the people see what they did to my boy,” and Jet magazine published photographs that would widely spread the word of a terrifying story that was not isolated.

Till became an emblem of the racist violence that Blacks were still subject to and helped to catalyze the civil rights movement. The site sign that marks where his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi had to be replaced many times because it was riddled with bullet holes.

As an educator and fieldbuilder in African American studies, I believe that the knowledge from this field sits at the center of any genuine understanding of the United States, holding the legacy and ongoing existence of anti-Black enmity in its unflinching gaze alongside the knowledge, philosophy, and creativity that emerges from this American history of struggle and endurance.

The lynching of Emmett Till and the mass murder of the Emanuel parishioners—among countless other acts of anti-Black terrorism down through the generations—underscore this truth about our country: It was built in part, and is still being built, on anti-Black hatred and violence. How do we move forward with this contemptible knowledge and its antidotes as our guides?

III.

On January 6, 2021, domestic terrorists carried out a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol. Incited by the president and some in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, this armed and organized mob brutalized law enforcement; killed a police officer; terrorized democratically elected representatives, their staffs, and some of their family members; assaulted journalists; erected a gallows; looted offices; stole documents and laptops, including that of the speaker of the House, which the thief allegedly planned to sell to Russian agents; smeared human feces through the building; and extensively defaced commemorative displays and works of art, including a memorial placard to Congressman John Lewis, the recently deceased civil rights icon.

Also on that day: A Confederate flag, which had never before breached the heart of Congress, was waved in its halls by one of the terrorists. This flag memorializes white supremacy, commemorates the lost cause of those who fought a war to keep Black Americans enslaved, and instructs race-based hatred.

After hours spreading savagery and chaos through the halls, the terrorists were largely allowed to depart the Capitol unfettered. Photographs showed Black and brown custodial workers cleaning up the wreckage the mob left behind.

IV.

Years ago, I wrote a series of sonnets in the voices of young Black women who studied at Quaker educator Prudence Crandall’s school in Canterbury, Connecticut, in the 1830s. White parents pulled their daughters from the school because they did not want them educated alongside Black students, but Miss Crandall continued educating those young Black women and girls despite the violent opposition of Canterbury’s white residents. Those residents ultimately burned the school to the ground. Miss Crandall’s unwavering courage could not keep the schoolhouse safe. But in the sonnets’ vision, the rare quest for education for Black women was “the one perfect religion” that the townspeople could not destroy.

Without learning, without knowledge, without the voices and the experiences and the insights gained from a determined excavation of our country’s past, we will never eradicate racism and racial violence. If we are to stop weaving white supremacism into the fabric of our country, then we must learn our full histories. We must live like we understand what that history teaches us.

In a poem, I once portrayed the great poet Robert Hayden in the 1940s as he dedicated himself, “stoop-shouldered,” to sifting through the records of the slave ship Amistad, extracting history’s hidden insights and the story of resistance from that ship’s log. “Blood from a turnip,” I wrote of his daunting and exhausting process of deep research to tell the story of “this / protagonist-less / Middle Passage” from the perspective of the captives rather than solely that of the captors.

Ultimately the “slavers’ meticulous records” revealed the determination of the Africans on board to resist being dehumanized as property. That gave Hayden, in turn, the knowledge he needed to tell us the story too few had contemplated: that there were many Black people who challenged slavery as their fate and fought back for their freedom, as well as white people who were their allies.

To return to Miss Crandall: After her school was destroyed, in 1834, one of her students, a young Black woman named Julia Williams, moved to New Hampshire to study at an integrated school. There, as in Canterbury, the act of teaching Black and white children together drew a violent response from white people in the community. I researched the history and then described, in the conjured voice of Miss Williams, an unforgettable true scene:

From the town and neighbors came three hundred armed men, ninety oxen teams.

They dragged the school building utterly off its foundation. I have twice seen bloodlust and ignorance combust. I have seen it.

Bloodlust and ignorance combust. I continue to return to those words.

V.

New York City, where I was born, is a city that exists in the mind and in the matter-of-fact corporeality of day-to-day New Yorkers as one definition of freedom—freedom of expression, freedom of belief, and the power of a multicultural metropolis.

The identity emerges from complexity. More enslaved Black people lived in New York City in the 1700s than in any city other than Charleston, South Carolina. Many free Black people lived in New York as well, in places such as Seneca Village, where residents were forced out by eminent domain in 1857 before the community was razed to build Central Park. Those enslaved and free Black people’s stories still speak to us through material clues such as the coins, beads, coffins, and shrouds left behind in subterranean sites like the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan.

In Brooklyn, in 2001, five corncobs laid out in a distinct shape were found in a crawl space of a house. Those corncobs formed a star, scholars determined, that suggested a West African cosmogram, one that conveys two worlds of the living and the dead, both eternally connected in a West African vision of the cosmos in diaspora.

When I read about that archaeological discovery, I envisioned the moment when the rumor of freedom was made real, in a poem called “Emancipation”:

Corncob constellation, oyster shell, drawstring pouch, dry bones.

Gris gris in the rafters. Hoodoo in the sleeping nook. Mojo in Linda Brent’s crawlspace.

Nineteenth century corncob cosmogram set on the dirt floor, beneath the slant roof, left intact the afternoon that someone came and told those slaves,

‘We’re free.’

Imagine, the revelation of freedom—two words, “We’re free.” We are still enacting and imagining the aftermath.

VI.

In mid-century Los Angeles, in the Watts neighborhood, an Italian immigrant named Simon Rodia built an extraordinary structure by hand. The Watts Towers soar toward the sky in multiple forms, nearly a hundred feet tall at the highest. Rodia envisioned and built the towers day by day over three decades, from durable steel and delicate wire mesh, bottle glass, white seashells, pottery shards, mint chip and maraschino mosaic tiles, shades of lapis lazuli, cobalt, and the thick, bright yellow of a crayoned sun. Like the “corncob constellation” left behind in the crawl space of the house in Brooklyn, each seemingly mysterious object carries power and meaning.

“It shows that we are people too, that we have brains and we can make it too if we put our minds to it,” Carolyn Byers, a young woman from Watts, said of the towers. She was talking to a reporter in 1991, the year Rodia’s vision was designated a national landmark; six months before that, a Black man named Rodney King was brutally beaten by white police officers in the San Fernando Valley, and the officers’ subsequent acquittal sparked five days of riots across South Los Angeles. 

Rodia moved to Watts about a century and a half after the Spanish founded the pueblo that became Los Angeles. Many of the Gabrielino-Tongva peoples who were the first inhabitants of the Los Angeles Basin were forced into enslaved labor at the region’s Spanish missions. By 1848 the part of Tovaangar that would become Watts had passed from the Spanish Empire to the Republic of Mexico and then was taken, along with more than half of Mexico’s territory, by the aggressively expansionist United States at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War.

Rodia lived in the community as it changed from one populated mostly by whites and Mexican Americans to a home for African Americans who had left the South in the Great Migration. By the time he completed the towers in 1954, the Watts community was predominantly Black; today, one full century after he first put his hands to steel at East 107th Street, it is majority Latinx, including large communities of Mexicans and Salvadorans. Throughout this time—throughout Los Angeles—descendants of the Gabrielino-Tongva peoples have continued to live in and honor their ancestral homeland. None of these complexities contradict; we must understand them together.

I have always been so moved by the inspirational power and seeming impossibility of the towers that I described them in the poem “Stravinsky in L.A.”: “The Watts Towers aim to split / the sky into chroma, spires tiled with rubble / nothing less than aspiration.”

To aspire: from the root meaning, fundamentally, “to breathe.”

VII.

When my family moved to Washington, D.C., from Harlem in late 1963, many parts of the city were racially segregated. I grew up a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. My family and I would regularly stroll its meticulously tended grounds and sometimes picnic. Most years on the Fourth of July, we’d lay out blankets in the humid evening and listen to the U.S. Marine Band as fireworks exploded overhead in the summer deep darkness.

The Library of Congress was my childhood library because the Library of Congress is a public library. In high school I would research and write my papers there. Sitting in the glorious rotunda, I would think with excitement how the very building in which I learned held almost every single book on Earth. Anyone who walked through the doors had access to them.

I knew that the Capitol was where the actual business of our country’s governance took place and that it stood gleaming as both a symbol and a site for working out the complexities of millions of different people, with all their beliefs and backgrounds and experiences, living alongside one another in an ever evolving democratic experiment. My parents taught me that the Capitol was built by enslaved Black people, and that reverence for a space that was ours did not erase understanding voter suppression and the three-fifths compromise. They showed me how to hold seeming contradiction with a comprehension of our full history.

At the Lincoln Memorial, the towering marble form of the 16th president might make a child feel dwarfed, just as it made me feel as a child. But I want the child of today to understand that this figure is not merely a shadowing stone statue. It is also a site of powerful community gathering and activation. As the central location of the 1963 March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech—and so many marches to follow—the Lincoln Memorial is one of the most significant sites of civic action in our history. When Marian Anderson sang “my country, ’tis of thee” on its steps in 1939, she rebuked the segregation that had barred her from singing in Constitution Hall before the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Monuments and memorials are places where people come together to remember, to collectively mark a moment, to be a “we,” to help identify a new direction, and to make a way forward. This is the case even when the way forward is shaped by grief and not by joyful determination. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by the artist and architect Maya Lin when she was just 21 years old, introduced into the D.C. of my young adulthood a memorial that had no precedent in the D.C. of my childhood. This slash into the earth bears no figuration. It holds instead the ephemeral reflections of those who walk down into the ground to mourn their dead, evoking the true cost of all wars. It does so even as it raises unarticulated questions about the millions of Southeast Asian people who also were killed in that particular war, and whose names are not recorded on the memorial’s black granite.

What would it mean for us to have monuments and memorials that do not teach us to memorialize war or to commemorate fighting against others? What would it mean to enact the enduring spiritual’s words, “I ain’t gonna study war no more,” in our monuments?

VIII.

Tell the whole damn truth, in our history, our art, our words, and our memorials.

Mighty civil rights and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer’s words are the simple truth: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Fighting for Black freedom means, in the words of Robert Hayden, “visioning a world where none is lonely, none hunted, alien.” It means understanding 19th-century Black enslavement alongside 21st-century Black mass incarceration; comprehending why Emmett Till’s casket is the most sacred object in the National Museum of African American History and Culture; acknowledging the horror of George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s murders standing in seemingly never ending seriality with so many other murders. Fighting for Black freedom means centering the crucial questions raised by decades and decades of African American studies; they are still the right questions. And recognizing that the bravery of Bree Newsome Bass in June 2015 is more powerful than the violent desecration of the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.

Most days I play or hear in my head Nina Simone’s 1967 version of the Billy Taylor song, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” The song has light and delight; it is singable, and in one facet, joyful. But the “wish” is both a commanding action—wish it, make it happen—as well as a word that says we’re not there yet. The conditional tense, “would,” marks that freedom is not fully attained.

The song’s bright music moves us ever forward. But Simone’s voice, in all its coloration and nuance, the dark side it carries in its light, reminds us that freedom—the right of every one of us—is a process. Freedom is work. Freedom doesn’t come by wishing. We must vision it. And we have survived by enacting those visions.

Elizabeth Alexander—poet, educator, memoirist, scholar, and cultural advocate—is president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is the author or editor of 14 books and twice was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; her book The Trayvon Generation is to be published this fall. She wrote the poem “Praise Song for the Day” for Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration in 2009 and delivered it there.

This story appears in the June 2021 issue of National Geographic magazine.

[ultramaga]

She alleged that joss whedon treated her terribly, especially when she was pregnant

- all these years later, I am still mad about her being written out, and if her claims are true, I think whedon was an idiot from a business perspective. I get it, she was hired because hot, but by the time the fanbase was watching her be pregnant, we were old enough that we were having kids too.

I think joss tried to revitalize the fanbase with Dawn, but the impression I have is that the bulk of the audience was charisma's age.

The removal of young mums from fictional depictions is peculiar. Onscreen attractive mums are usually shown as being in their forties. Charisma is a little younger than me but I can tell you I knew girls who dropped out of school to be mums

(one of whom I saw on Facebook and she was successful and happy)

An awful lot then had kids in their twenties, which is best biologicaly - infertility and birth defects soar after that time.

But leftists hate young mothers, and either show them having abortions or being punished for their folly - there's not a lot of exceptions.

In fact, I see leftists boasting that they helped save the world when they hit menopause. I notice they suddenly have lots of cats or dogs - child substitutes. Most humans have an instinctual need to have children and grandchildren, and I have talked to many old people who have never had them,or who only had one who died, and not one were happy about it.

You can hope that the State will look after you when you are old, but unless you are rich, the State merely helps you exist, not live. You need young people in your life when you are old.

I talked to one old woman in a retirement village - she'd stopped making friends there,because she knew it meant shed soon have to go to their funeral.

Only through children, grandchildren, great grandchildren,could she have some hope of long term relationships.

The purging of young mums from fiction, or the vilification where they do exist, means we are robbed of seeing them - and ourselves - as happy in families.

And that is a dead end - any culture that doesn't value having children will be replaced by one that does. Why do leftists want our culture to be replaced?

Charisma Carpenter

[techcrunchappcom]

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China uproots ethnic minority villages in anti-poverty fight | World News

CHENGBEI GAN’EN, China (AP) — Under a portrait of President Xi Jinping, Ashibusha sits in her freshly painted living room cradling her infant daughter beside a chair labeled a “gift from the government.”

The mother of three is among 6,600 members of the Yi ethnic minority who were moved out of 38 mountain villages in China’s southwest and into a newly built town in an anti-poverty initiative.

Farmers who tended mountainside plots were assigned jobs at an apple plantation. Children who until then spoke only their own tongue, Nuosu, attend kindergarten in Mandarin, China’s official language.

“Everyone is together,” said Ashibusha, 26.

While other nations invest in developing poor areas, Beijing doesn’t hesitate to operate on a more ambitious scale by moving communities wholesale and building new towns in its effort to modernize China. The ruling Communist Party has announced an official target of ending extreme poverty by the end of the year, ahead of the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021.

The party says such initiatives have helped to lift millions of people out of poverty. But they can require drastic changes, sometimes uprooting whole communities. They fuel complaints the party is trying to erase cultures as it prods minorities to embrace the language and lifestyle of the Han, who make up more than 90% of China’s population.

At a time when the party faces protests by students in China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia over plans to reduce the use of the Mongolian language in schools, officials want to show they are sensitive to minority cultures.

They invited reporters to visit Chengbei Gan’en and four other villages — Xujiashan, Qingshui, Daganyi and Xiaoshan — that are part of what authorities see as a successful development project for the Yi in Sichuan province’s Liangshan prefecture.

The initiative is one of hundreds launched over the past four decades to spread prosperity from China’s thriving east to the countryside and west.

Mass relocations still are carried out because some mountainous and other areas are too isolated, said Wang Sangui, president of the China Poverty Alleviation Research Institute of Renmin University in Beijing.

“It is impossible to solve the problem of absolute poverty without relocation,” he said.

In Sichuan, which includes some of China’s poorest areas, 80 billion yuan ($12 billion) has been spent to date to relocate 1.4 million people, according to Peng Qinghua, the provincial party secretary. He said that included building 370,000 new homes and over 110,000 kilometers (68,000 miles) of rural roads.

In Chengbei Gan’en, 420 million yuan ($60 million) was spent to build 1,440 apartments in 25 identical white buildings, a clinic, a kindergarten and a center for the elderly.

Craftspeople sell silver jewelry, painted cow skulls and traditional clothing that are popular with Han tourists. Yi women can study to become nannies, a profession in demand in urban China, in classes taught with pink plastic dolls.

Roadside signs call on people to speak the official language. “Mandarin, please, after you enter kindergarten.” “Speak Mandarin well, it’s convenient for everyone.” “Everyone speaks Mandarin, flower of civilization blooms everywhere.”

Murals on buildings depict the Yi with members of the Han majority in amicable scenes. One shows a baby holding a heart emblazoned with the ruling party’s hammer-and-sickle symbol.

In one village, Xujiashan, annual household income has risen from 1,750 yuan ($260) in 2014 to 11,000 yuan ($1,600), according to its deputy secretary, Zhang Lixin.

Development initiatives can lead to political tension because many have strategic goals such as strengthening control over minority areas by encouraging nomads to settle or diluting the local populace with outsiders.

In Inner Mongolia, students boycotted classes this month over plans to replace Mongolian-language textbooks with Chinese ones.

The party faces similar complaints that it is suppressing local languages in Tibet and the Muslim region of Xinjiang in the northwest. Xinjiang’s Han party secretary said in 2002 the language of the Uighurs, its most populous ethnic group, was “out of step with the 21st century” and should be abandoned in favor of Mandarin.

The party boss for Liangshan prefecture acknowledged its initiative isn’t purely economic.

Authorities want to eliminate “outdated habits,” said the official, Lin Shucheng. He listed complaints about extravagant dowries, too many animals butchered for funerals and poor hygiene.

“We are fighting against traditional forces of habit,” he said.

At the same time, ruling party officials say they are preserving Nuosu, a Yi language, through bilingual education in schools and government support for a Nuosu newspaper and TV show.

“We protect and promote the learning, use and development of the Yi language,” the provincial party secretary, Peng, told reporters.

The party might be willing to promote Nuosu because, unlike in Tibet or Xinjiang, the Yi demand no political change, said Stevan Harrell, a University of Washington anthropologist who has spent more than three decades visiting and studying the region.

“There is no ‘splittism’ in Liangshan,” Harrell said, using the party’s term for activists who want more autonomy for Tibet and Xinjiang.

“So it is kind of safe to have the Yi language as a medium of education,” said Harrell. “And it scores points for the government against those people who rightly point out that Uighur and Tibetan languages are being severely suppressed.”

The region, like the rest of China, reeled from the coronavirus outbreak, said Lin, the Liangshan party boss. But he said anti-poverty work was back on track and authorities were confident they could meet official deadlines.

Older villagers welcome the jump in living standards.

“You can eat whatever you like now,” said Wang Deying, an 83-year-old grandmother of five. “Now even the pigs eat rice.”

———

AP researchers Yu Bing in Beijing and Chen Si in Shanghai contributed to this report.

[kashmirfreedom]

Burhan Wani – an icon of Kashmir’s freedom fight

Nobody knew in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) that a 22-year-old boy will change the narrative of guerrilla warfare by mounting a challenge to the massive Indian security grid. That, too, without concealing his identity. He appeared with his real name. Showed his presence in combat uniform from dense forests and lush green orchards in the south of IOK and ruled over the hearts of the young generation of Kashmir across the Line of Control (LoC). The boy was born in September 19, 1994 at Dadsara village of Tral area of Pulwama in an upper middle-class family of Muzaffar Wani who named him Burhan. Both his father and mother are teachers at government schools in Tral. Burhan is survived by two young brothers and a sister. Burhan joined the armed struggle in October 16, 2010 to avenge the humiliation when he was severely beaten by Indian troops along with his brother Khalid Muzaffar Wani, who was later killed by the Indian army in custody on April 13, 2015 for meeting Burhan in Tral forest.

Since 2011, Burhan was popular on social media as a commander of the largest indigenous Kashmiri freedom fighters orgnaisaiton — Hizbul Mujahideen. Burhan used the latest technology and the internet to promote Kashmiri cause on social media that sent shock waves across top ranks of the Indian army in New Delhi and gave sleepless nights to the New Delhi’s security establishment for more than six years. Burhan had his own schedule of armed life. He and his colleagues used to sleep in the day and moved from one area to another at night to change their location in south Kashmir. The pictures of their movement in forests and orchards made Burhan and his whole group famous among Kashmir’s young generation. He broke more than 20 Indian army crackdowns with the help of local people who came to rescue him while pelting security forces with stones during siege and search operations that showed the popularity and love of the people for Burhan in IOK.

Burhan was a smart Kashmiri freedom fighter with political guts and was completely following the line of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) to promote Kashmiris struggle. India using chemical agents against Kashmiris: FO On the issue of separate colonies for Kashmiri Pundits, who migrated from IOK to India during the 1990s on the instructions of the then Jammu and Kashmir Governor Jagmohan, Burhan issued video messages on different occasions and discouraged separate residential colonies, saying Kashmiri Pundits were part and parcel of Kashmiri culture and wherever they wanted to live they could live, showing Burhan’s mature political approach on the issue. A soft-spoken Burhan having European features with a dashing look became the real face of Kashmiri freedom fighters since 2011 to 2016 on social media. It was only Burhan who gathered all militants in Kashmir to fight under an umbrella against illegal Indian rule in IOK.

He never used a laptop and cellphone twice for sharing and uploading images, posters and videos during his six years in armed struggle. Burhan was a good cricketer and big fan of Pakistan’s star cricketer Shahid Khan Afridi. To arrest Burhan, the Indian army had announced one million Indian  rupees bounty. It was the martyrdom of Ishfaq Majeed Wani in March in the 1990s that shook the entire IOK and after 27 years Burhan’s martyrdom gave a new life to the freedom struggle. The Indian army along with other security agencies martyred Burhan Wani and his two colleagues — Sartaj Ahmad Sheikh and Pervaiz Ahmad Lashkari — at Bumdoora village in Kokernag area on July 8, 2016. More than one million people gathered at Eidgah Tral and offered 40 funerals of Burhan. He was laid to rest close to the grave of his elder brother Khalid Muzafar Wani.

Following the martyrdom of Burhan, the entire IOK was embroiled in violence beginning July 8, 2016 to February 2017. During the longest shutdown and curfew in the history of IOK to mourn the martyrdom of Burhan, clashes erupted between Indian forces and protesters in which nearly 100 people were killed, 15,000 injured and hundreds were made blind by pellet guns. The martyrdom of Burhan by the Indian army was also highlighted by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who termed him the icon of Kashmir’s young generation for the struggle of right to self-determination at the UN General Assembly session on September 2016.

[charlzm]

Short reviews of the books I read in 2017

Chairman of Fools by Shimmer Chinodya 

Farai Chari an author and professor returns home to find his family changed. His wife has become too religious and he finds solace in drinking. Struggling between culture and the demands of modern life, he spirals into alcoholism which puts a strain on his relationship with his wife and he finally ends up in a mental institution. Farai suffers the consequences of society’s expectations of masculinity. The book offers a glimpse into mental illness and the burdens of tradition and culture. 

A Question of Power by Bessie Head 

The story of Elizabeth who has a mental breakdown which threatens to tear her away from her young child. Her daily routine as a teacher is disrupted by the nightmares and hallucinations she experiences in her new found home in exile in Botswana. It’s during her times of insanity that she questions good and evil, love and power and begins to doubt her self-worth and identity. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between her lucid moments and moments of insanity. The book is a semi-autobiographical work which explores oppression, gender discrimination, power struggles and sanity in the most fascinating way. 

July’s People by Nadine Gordimer 

This book tells the story of the Smales, a white liberal family, and July their black servant. As racial tensions flare in apartheid South Africa the Smales seek refuge in July’s village. The Smales adjust to life in the village taking part in the assigned roles for men and women. July who has served then loyally for over ten years keeps the keys to their car which brought them to his village from Johannesburg – thus begins a shift in relations. 

The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga 

Lindanathi, a young HIV positive man, spends his days slaving at a job he hates, selling his antiretrovirals and taking drugs with his two friends. Haunted by the trauma of the death of his brother ten years ago during an initiation ceremony he numbs himself with drugs and alcohol. Avoiding the responsibilities of adulthood and chasing the next high the three friends sometimes get philosophical. Also offering a glimpse into life in Cape Town, the tail end of the story seems to give hope for a different life for Lindanathi when he tries to reconcile with the past and make peace with his family. 

The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini 

Lindiwe and Ian are next-door neighbours in Bulawayo as independence dawns in the British colony of Rhodesia. Ian is accused of gruesomely murdering his stepmother and sentenced to jail but comes out after just two years. Lindiwe is fascinated and drawn to the young man and a friendship develops between the two. After Ian leaves the country the friendship temporarily breaks down but is rekindled when they begin exchanging letters. Though curious of the mystery that surrounds the murder of his stepmother, Lindiwe has also kept a secret from Ian, which ultimately brings them together. It’s a story of secrets, love, race relations and violence. 

Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o 

One of the greats of African literature gives a critic of post-colonial Kenya through the eyes of four main characters – Munira, Abdulla, Wanja and Karega. Munira is a school teacher who moves to the dormant Ilomorog village. Abdulla is a trader who sets up a shop and a bar in the village. Wanja is a barmaid who returns to the village from the city and Karega is a school dropout who becomes a teaching assistant to Munira. Moving between the present and the past it exposes government corruption, the excesses of capitalism and empty promises of post-independence governments. A great social and political commentary.

The Uncertainty of Hope by Valerie Tagwira 

This book explores life in the high density suburb of Mbare in Harare through the eyes of two friends Onai and Katy. It delves into poverty, abuse and HIV. Onai the main character is a devoted wife and mother who is at the receiving end of abuse –emotional and physical, from her drunkard husband. She is determined to keep her marriage at any cost despite her husband’s numerous affairs that expose her to HIV. Her husband neglects the family leaving Onai to fend for the family as a street vendor. The book also explores the other side of life in Harare thought its other characters; Tom, a businessman, Emily, a doctor and Faith, a law student. 

Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera 

Fumbatha a construction worker in pre-independence Zimbabwe is mesmerised by the young and ambitious Phephelani. He loves her so deeply all he ever wants is to be with her and provide for her. Phephelani though charmed by Fumbatha yearns for more in life and wants to be a nurse. Their love blossoms in the high density township of Makokoba but faces the ultimate test – ambition. Phephelani’s desire for more freedom suffocates Fumbatha’s love. Her desire for a better life and more independence ends up tearing them apart. A great love tragedy. 

Swallow by Sefi Atta 

Tolani and Rose navigate life, love and work in Lagos. Tolani is stuck in a relationship with a man who is afraid to commit to marriage and Rose suffers sexual harassment from her boss. In trying to survive the women find themselves down a dangerous path of drug trafficking. The preparations to be a drug mule sap the life out of them and ultimately Tolani throws in the towel but Rose is determined to get rich or die trying. It’s an insightful look into the complexities of life in a mega city. Perhaps the statement that sums up this book ‘Someone in power does something wrong to you and everyone treats you as if you are at fault. You yourself begin to feel you’re at fault. And for what? No reason. No reason at all’ 

Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye 

This book tells the stories of three Senegalese women who encounter rejection, deception and male dominance - Norah, Fanta and Khady. Norah a lawyer in Paris visits her father in Dakar who abandoned them when she was young. He requires her to defend her young brother who is accused of murdering his stepmother. Fanta a former school teacher, who moved to France to be with her husband Rudy, gets into a heated argument with him. Rudy tells her to go back where she came from and the racist remark fractures their already fragile relationship. Khady a domestic helper in Norah’s father’s house is desperate to move to France for a better life after being widowed young. She finds herself stuck when the people smugglers decide to up their price. 

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Darling, a ten year old girl in Bulawayo lives in a shack with her mother after the government’s clean-up operation razed their home. She spends her days, with her friends Stina, Bastard, Chipo and Godknows, roaming about the streets, stealing guavas in the affluent suburb of Budapest and imagining life in places like America. She and her friends do little skits imitating the things they encounter in their neighbourhood – funerals, political violence and food donations from aid agencies. That is until she moves to her aunt in Detroit where she finds that life in America is not as her and her friends imagined. 

The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna 

 A delicate examination of the effects of war and the pain of unrequited love. Adrian, a psychologist from Britain, comes to Sierra Leone to help people cope with the devastating after effects of civil war. Kai, a surgeon at an understaffed government hospital, is haunted by nightmares from his experiences during the war which he tries to block out by keeping busy. Elias, a former lecturer now a terminally ill patient at the government hospital and Adrian’s patient, reflects on his life before the war. All three men are tormented by the loss of love – once had and lost or unrequited – and they are connected by the love of one woman.

The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah 

Memory is an inmate on death row at Chikurubi Maximum Security prison in Zimbabwe. Convicted of murdering her adopted wealthy father, her lawyer seeks to appeal her conviction and encourages her to write down all she remembers about her life and the murder. It’s through those letters that her struggles as a young albino child growing up in the high density suburb of Mufakose are revealed, from the bullying to the alienation and health challenges. A wonderful story on the fragility of memory, tradition and love. 

[info-copa]

Racism, Rioting and Justice in the Time of Covid

The powerful and terrible image of George Floyd’s long 9 minutes of suffering is emblazoned in our collective vision forever. We can never unsee it, and nor should we. We need to see it as it is - the natural progression of a more than 400 year old story in North America where the shackles of the enslaved over time became the handcuffs on not only George Floyd, but on millions of incarcerated Americans and Canadians. The police who murdered George Floyd are only enforcing a system of racism that all of us have colluded to maintain, and if you felt any surprise when watching this tragedy then you are only awakening now from a dream.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that “…. a riot is the language of the unheard.”  The volatility then, of these protests and the accompanying rioting and looting, only reflect our deafness to the consequences of centuries of marginalization and exclusion of Black people. Anger and frustration at an entrenched system of racism have impelled those who are most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society to risk their lives in order to be heard. They deserve our honouring of their anger and fear, and our understanding when they lash out in violence. There is a Nigerian proverb that says, "the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth".

Although violence and looting are at any time and place abhorrent, would the world be paying such close attention now if anger had not caught flame in the United States? “There is now, as there always is amidst protests, a loud call for the protesters to follow the principles of nonviolence. And that call, as (Ta-Nehisi) Coates says, comes from people who neither practice nor heed nonviolence in their own lives.

But what if we turned that conversation around: What would it mean to build the state around principles of nonviolence, rather than reserving that exacting standard for those harmed by the state?” (Ezra Klein). Perhaps, as Toronto activist Desmond Cole says, "The answer for the police is to stop policing and to start supporting and caring."

Unfortunately, “We have created a culture where police officers think of themselves as warriors, not guardians.” (Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and one of COPA’s heroes). And lest we as Canadians think this is an American issue - last fall, the Montreal police service released a report from three independent researchers which found that Indigenous people and Black people were four to five times more likely than white people to be stopped by police. In 2018, the Ontario Human Rights Commission revealed that “A Black person in Toronto is nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be shot and killed by police.” Even though “white people allegedly threatened or attacked police more often than Black people.” CBC reported that although Black people are only 8.3% of the population of Toronto, they represented 36.5% of fatalities involving Toronto police between 2000 and 2017. This is not news to Black communities, however, there IS a resistance to the allegations of systemic racism by many in the halls of power.

As Indigenous activist Myra Tait says in reference to racism against Indigenous people in Canada, “If you assume that Aboriginal people are less than…then anything is fair game to put us in our place. Policing is one of the tools used in the silencing.”

The cost of this entrenched system of racism, abuse of power, and dehumanization is high. Referring to a recent incident of racial profiling by police in Laval, Quebec, Will Prosper articulates: "You feel excluded, and you develop a frustration with a system that doesn't do anything for you. Nobody cares for you — that's the feeling we are having."  To reiterate: “…. a riot is the language of the unheard.”  

Beyond the frustration and sense of exclusion from society, is the very real fear that you will be the next target, and that no matter what you do or don’t do, the colour of your skin, your very identity as a Black or Indigenous person, puts you at risk of dying violently at the hands of an abusive and uncaring social system. It changes the way you live.

And then there is the exhaustion – from worry, fear, anger, and the constant effort of trying to explain it all to people who don’t understand or who don’t want to understand. This is a common theme for those living enmeshed in systemic racism: the sheer exhaustion of living in a system that considers them as less than human.

The Role of the Pandemic

The pandemic has only increased the pressure and prevalence of racism and “othering”, and at the same time has disproportionately affected already vulnerable and marginalized people. It has also exposed the ways in which entrenched biases and systemic racism actually manifest and hurt people.

Black Americans are dying from COVID-19 at a much faster rate than white Americans for many reasons related to the poverty and disadvantages that thrive along with systemic racism. And because of the enormous disparity in economic security, Black Americans have less access to health care and sick leave. “More than 1 in 5 Black families now report they often or sometimes do not have enough food — more than three times the rate for white families. Black families are also almost four times as likely as whites to report they missed a mortgage payment during the crisis — numbers that do not bode well for the already low Black homeownership rate.” (Washington Post)

Blacks in the USA and Canada are also more likely to work in industries that are the first to be adversely affected by quarantining. And in both countries they are more likely to be front line health care and service workers, and less likely to be able to work from home - thus more vulnerable to infection.

Canada did not even begin to collect data about race and death from COVID 19 until the end of April, which means that we are blind to the impact this is having on Black populations in Canada. Our blindness does not help us to understand and address the inequities inherent in systemic racism.

“What are we to make of the disappearance of Blackness from all of the reporting of COVID-19? Blackness seems to have been erased from the Canadian landscape in the repetitive “stay at home” narrative. Our faces are not seen in the daily news, we are not asked how our families are coping, even though it is well known that many Black people are on the front-lines as health care providers in numerous capacities, as cashiers and cleaners, in fact, more exposed to the virus. In addition to the realities of homelessness, Black people face evictions and lack of income support of any kind. Yet the increased deployment of police surveillance buttressed by a snitch line, harsh fines and other punitive legal enforcement methods issued across the country, will particularly target Black bodies. We are invisibilized in the discourses of protection and safety but hyper-visibilized in punitive discourses and practices invested in Black death.“ (Beverly Bain)

The blaming of others for the spread of Covid-19 has resulted in many racist attacks on Americans and Canadians of Asian descent (650 in one week alone in the USA). Among other factors that feed this blaming, is the rhetoric that comes from the highest levels of government in the USA.  The spread of disease has historically been entangled with racial discrimination toward those who are vulnerable, partly due to the fact that disease spreads more rapidly in impoverished communities where resources are scarce, and overcrowding is rampant.  

And a shocking research study by Amy Krosch in Scientific American, revealed the reluctance of white people to share resources with Black people. She found that “white decision-makers facing economic shortages may fail to see Black faces as fully human, implicitly justifying giving them less.” Racism assumes that some of us are more fully human than others and deserving of more resources, power, and privilege.

The exacerbating of racial inequity by the pandemic has hugely deepened the anger and frustration of those who are marginalized by racism. “A magnifying glass on inequality”, as Andreas Kluth calls it. Then George Floyd was murdered, and the whole world witnessed it, and what was unbearable became something that Black people and many others among us became unwilling to bear any longer. Brian Resnick in Vox says: “These two stories are linked. They are both public health stories. The link is systemic racism.”

Maimuna Majumder, a Harvard epidemiologist working on the Covid-19 response, tells Vox: “The forces that put many minority communities at risk during a pandemic have also put them at risk of police violence. Years of diminished economic opportunity, of marginalization, of structural racism, have led to both.”

And Dr. Onyenyechukwu Nnorom, a public health physician and assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, states that “It’s crucial when examining Toronto neighbourhood data on coronavirus cases that it’s understood why these disparities exist in the first place — which is systemic racism.”

Hope and Change 

We NEED you to see colour. If you cannot or will not, how can you ever be an ally? How can you ever see that our skin marks us out as a threat? How can you ever lift the knee from our neck? How can you ever stop us dying? 

- Obioma Ugoala

Is there any hope? At George Floyd’s funeral the Reverend Al Sharpton, a long-time civil rights activist said he is more hopeful today than ever. He said there is a difference in what is happening in these times, and he talked about seeing more young whites than young Blacks at some of the protests. Sharpton is not alone – the word hope is used often these days in the media, even by weary activists, writers, and thinkers too, like President Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates. And in fact, in the USA, 74% of people polled agree that Floyd’s death was an injustice based on racism. That is a huge shift.

This movement has captured the attention of the whole world. Because of a smartphone and social media, the horror of George Floyd’s death had witnesses all over the world. And many of those witnesses understood for the first time what deep injustice has been perpetrated on Black people. And they became allies, and they are demanding justice – not only for George Floyd but for all Black people.  

The question is, what does it mean to become an ally, and what is the work of an ally?

Simply protesting is not enough. How will we teach our children, how will we act in the workplace? What else will we be willing to do in order to insist that justice is delivered? We who would be allies must realize that when we go back to our lives after the rioting ends, we will not be living the same reality as Black people in the USA and Canada who are exhausted from the life long struggle of everyday life in a society that sees them as less than human, as dangerous, as not equal in value to those who hold power and wealth.

As is often said, it begins with educating ourselves so that we understand how and why racial inequity is kept in place. Now that so many of us are awakening from that dream, let’s read and listen to the history of racism - that of both the United States and Canada. They are inextricably linked to each other, and to all of us.  

Bryan Stevenson says that “We need to reckon with our history of racial injustice. I think everything we are seeing is a symptom of a larger disease. We have never honestly addressed all the damage that was done during the two and a half centuries that we enslaved Black people. The great evil of American slavery wasn’t the involuntary servitude; it was the fiction that Black people aren’t as good as white people, and aren’t the equals of white people, and are less evolved, less human, less capable, less worthy, less deserving than white people. So, for me, you can’t understand these present-day issues without understanding the persistent refusal to view Black people as equals.”

Let’s talk to each other and surface the stories we need to hear, like that of Ernest, a middle-aged Black man who owns his own business, but cannot work past dark in Myrtle Beach, SC in 2020 because it’s not safe for him. Or Samuel, a young Black man from Montreal, who was pulled by his dreadlocks out of a car he was a passenger in - for no reason, and then brutalized and insulted. And who now suffers intensely from anxiety: "At night, when I'm alone, it's in my head. I can't sleep. I need some help."

At COPA, we believe that working to create a more equitable and inclusive school, community and society starts by looking inward. This is a lifelong process that can bring about a fundamental change in our perspectives and attitudes. Everyone has a part to play in creating an equitable and inclusive culture, and everyone has the capacity to be an ally to those who have been marginalized and excluded.

It is important to accept that there is no magic bullet. Change that leads to equity and inclusion occurs as a result of a continuous process of learning, asking, exchanging, listening, explaining and trying. It requires patience, determination, and the knowledge that the work will never be finished, and we will make mistakes. Compassion for ourselves and others is absolutely essential as we move forward together.

 About COPA: COPA believes that all structures, institutions and relationships in our society are predicated upon inequity and social exclusion leading to the marginalization of children, women and other social groups. Inequity and exclusion are rooted in and perpetuated by a set of systemic, pervasive and discriminatory beliefs and practices.

Inequity and exclusion increase people’s vulnerability to assault, triggering and perpetuating a cycle of violence against children, women and all other marginalized social groups.

Therefore, all resources and activities created, developed, adapted and disseminated by COPA aim to break the cycle of violence against children, women and all marginalized social groups. The goal is to promote positive change through reflection, learning, skill and knowledge-building, by changing attitudes and beliefs, and by changing social structures that contribute to perpetuating the cycle of violence.

For more information about our work:

https://infocopa.com/

http://www.copahabitat.ca/

https://www.safeatschool.ca/