Brown Girl Dreaming

Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen.

I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.

When there are many worlds you can choose the one you walk into each day.

Then I let the stories live inside my head, again and again until the real world fades back into cricket lullabies and my own dreams.

The empty swing set reminds us of this-- that bad won't be bad forever, and what is good can sometimes last a long, long time.

How can I explain to anyone that stories are like air to me, I breathe them in and let them out over and over again.

Somewhere in my brain each laugh, tear and lullaby becomes memory.

Sometimes, I don't know that words for things, how to write down the feeling of knowing that every dying person leaves something behind.

I do not know if these hands will become Malcolm’s—raised and fisted or Martin’s—open and asking or James’s—curled around a pen. I do not know if these hands will be Rosa’s or Ruby’s gently gloved and fiercely folded calmly in a lap, on a desk, around a book, ready to change the world . . .

When we can't find my sister, we know / she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand, / a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her. / We know we can call Odella's name out loud, / slap the table hard with our hands, / dance around it singing 'She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain' / so many times the song makes us sick / and the circling makes us dizzy / and still / my sister will do nothing more / than slowly turn the page.

I work hard, he says, I treat people like I want to be treated. God sees this, God knows.

Deep winter and the night air is cold. So still, it feels like the world goes on forever in the darkness until you look up and the earth stops in a ceiling of stars. My head against my grandfather's arm, a blanket around us as we sit on the front porch swing. Its whine like a song. You don't need words on a night like this. Just the warmth of your grandfather's arm. Just the silent promise that the world as we know it will always be here.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them then blow gently, watch them float right out of my hands.

We all have the same dream, my grandmother says. To live equal in a country that’s supposed to be the land of the free. She lets out a long breath, deep remembering.

I am not my sister. Words from the books curl around each other make little sense until I read them again and again, the story settling into memory. Too slow my teacher says. Read Faster. Too babyish, the teacher says. Read older. But I don't want to read faster or older or any way else that might make the story disappear too quickly from where it's settling inside my brain, slowly becoming a part of me. A story I will remember long after I've read it for the second, third, tenth, hundredth time.

Y'all know how much I love you? "Infinity and back again," I say the way I've said it a million times. And then, daddy says to me, "go on and add a little bit more to that.

Will the words end, I ask whenever I remember to. Nope, my sister says, all of five years old now, and promising me infinity.

My birth certificate says: Female Negro Mother: Mary Anne Irby, 22, Negro Father: Jack Austin Woodson, 25, Negro In Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr. is planning a march on Washington, where John F. Kennedy is president. In Harlem, Malcolm X is standing on a soapbox talking about a revolution. Outside the window of University Hospital, snow is slowly falling. So much already covers this vast Ohio ground. In Montgomery, only seven years have passed since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus. I am born brown-skinned, black-haired and wide-eyed. I am born Negro here and Colored there and somewhere else, the Freedom Singers have linked arms, their protests rising into song: Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday. and somewhere else, James Baldwin is writing about injustice, each novel, each essay, changing the world. I do not yet know who I’ll be what I’ll say how I’ll say it . . . Not even three years have passed since a brown girl named Ruby Bridges walked into an all-white school. Armed guards surrounded her while hundreds of white people spat and called her names. She was six years old. I do not know if I’ll be strong like Ruby. I do not know what the world will look like when I am finally able to walk, speak, write . . . Another Buckeye! the nurse says to my mother. Already, I am being named for this place. Ohio. The Buckeye State. My fingers curl into fists, automatically This is the way, my mother said, of every baby’s hand. I do not know if these hands will become Malcolm’s—raised and fisted or Martin’s—open and asking or James’s—curled around a pen. I do not know if these hands will be Rosa’s or Ruby’s gently gloved and fiercely folded calmly in a lap, on a desk, around a book, ready to change the world . . .

Nothing in the world is like this- a bright white page with pale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencil the soft hush of it moving finally one day into letters.

It's easier to make up stories than it is to write them down. When I speak, the words come pouring out of me. The story wakes up and walks all over the room. Sits in a chair, crosses one leg over the other, says, Let me introduce myself. Then just starts going on and on.

Everyone else has gone away. And now coming back home isn't really coming back home at all.

Write down what I think I know. The knowing will come. Just keep listening...

In downtown Greenville, they painted over the WHITE ONLY signs, except on the bathroom doors, they didn’t use a lot of paint so you can still see the words, right there like a ghost standing in front still keeping you out.

If someone had taken that book out of my hand said, You’re too old for this maybe I’d never have believed that someone who looked like me could be in the pages of the book that someone who looked like me had a story.

Maybe, I am thinking, there is something hidden like this, in all of us. A small gift from the universe waiting to be discovered.

Some evenings, I kneel toward Mecca with my uncle. Maybe Mecca is the place Leftie goes to in his mind, when the memory of losing his arm becomes too much. Maybe Mecca is good memories, presents and stories and poetry and arroz con pollo and family and friends... Maybe Mecca is the place everyone is looking for... It's out there in front of you, my uncle says. I know I'll know it when I get there.

I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist twirl across the page. When they settle, it is too late. The class has already moved on. I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them then blow gently, watch them float right out of my hands.

This is the way brown people have to fight, my grandfather says. You can’t just put your fist up. You have to insist on something gently. Walk toward a thing slowly. But be ready to die, my grandfather says, for what is right. Be ready to die, my grandfather says, for everything you believe in.

But I don’t want to read faster or older or any way else that might make the story disappear too quickly from where it’s settling inside my brain, slowly becoming a part of me. A story I will remember long after I’ve read it for the second, third, tenth, hundredth time.