Writer's Blog

I am interested in writing more, and so I completed an exercise this morning with a prompt, "Describe the best piece of writing that you've ever constructed."  Below is the work that was created from that prompt.  Please enjoy both this work as well as the work it mentions.

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On February 24, 2005, I was at my in-laws in Mt. Vernon, NY and everyone was out shopping for dinner and ingredients for making gooey and decadent chocolate truffles.  It almost felt like they were the hunters and gatherers while I was holding down the proverbial fort with my pencil, notebook and schoolbag.  I was sitting on the corner of the long dining room table feasting on my Gender, Race and Class textbook. 

I loved the book, but loathed the class. The textbook was filled with personal stories from people of various oppressions including people of color, different sexual orientations, and gender expressions and identities.  It helped deepen my understanding of oppression and woke my somewhat still dormant inner activist.  However, my frustration with the class was that my professor would assign these readings from the textbook for homework and then in class, she would read the assigned passages aloud to us.  Sometimes I felt like it was story time at Pace University’s Pre-K and I would long for my juice and blanky! 

And the discussions were dismal.  One time, after a reading about sexism, I was working out a theory in my head about how Catholic females had Mary as a role model, which seemed unfair.  I wanted to see how the thoughts in my head would match with my professor’s expertise, back when I thought professors were the experts.  So I asked, “If Mary is the ultimate woman, doesn’t that set all girls and women up for failure?  I mean, to be as awesome as Mary was a person who identifies as a female Catholic would have to be able to give birth without having sex. Doesn’t that create a no win situation for females?” “Also,” I added, “doesn’t that fuel more myths about rape, sex, and issues around abortion?”  I was on fire with my desire to gain clarity on some of these issues, for as a young Catholic boy, I was not allowed to ask questions, but had only to listen and observe.  I was eager in my inquiry to see whether or not my observation held any weight. 

My professor smiled and said, “No. That has nothing to do with sexism.” 

In later years, I learned that sexism is all about that and more.  And that was the reason I loved the book, but loathed the class. 

In the book, I read this week’s assignment, which waswritten by Langston Hughes.  In this essay, he explored ways in which a person can internalize oppression.  He talked about how he knew of an artist that didn’t want to be known as a black artist, but simply as an artist alone.  He challenged this man’s wish by stating that he wanted to be known as a white artist because that would be the automatic assumption of the common person.  This reading had my head reeling.  When I finished reading his essay, I closed the book, and sat and stared at the pink walls in the dining room.  I found it hard to breathe and I cried for a little while.

Suddenly, I felt a burst of energy and reached past my notebook for my journal.  In it, I started writing.  The words flowed through my right arm into the pencil and onto the page seamlessly.  The words seemed to have a life of its own.  It was as if I was a vehicle or instrument that something bigger than me was using to create the work forming on the page.  When it was done with me, I felt exhausted and excited.  I wondered for a moment if I had been used to carry a message, like Mary was used to bring God’s message. 

This was one of the few times I had experienced writing where I didn’t have to think; I was an instrument of something much bigger than me.  It is rare that I feel a connection with writing, and so I treasure and savor them, much like the way I savored the chocolate truffles my in-laws made when they returned from shopping later that night.  And the soft and decadent chocolate truffles were scrumptious, though they melt away so quickly.  Lucky for us, writing creates a more permanent piece of work that can be consumed over and over again. 

The work created that night on paper, now digitized is as follows:

The Washing Machine - JY

The melting pot
blending of coloring's not.
What's the true plot?
Like a washing machine bleaching us all clean.
Colorless we seem.
We need to see what's between the sheets, the lines.
It's more than what meets the eyes.
Can you read their minds?
Not while we ride this spin cycle, turning, learning to be burning our own earning and buy their sense.
Smelling their scent, so pungent and unclean.
Using bleach to hid the mean.
We ain't dirty as they seem.
We are just like them, human beings.
So why do we purchase their dreams, and ideals, learn how to feel how they feel, wash away and drown out what's real? Is that the new deal?
I think not.
Clean out your closets, shoes and socks.
Hang out your laundry.
Clean and beautiful are we not?
Color so vibrant. Feel the rush of the tide pulling us under, begging us to hide what's inside.
But we can't be denied our right to fight, to stay true blue, not just red and white.
This battle's for all.
Hear the cattle call herding us, hurting us and paining themselves.
We ain't in the history you put on your shelves.
Painted by numbers with only one color, raping our sisters and killing our brothers, is there any way for you to justify or rectify or do I need to build my own hope and erect it by spreading out the truth?
Let the water subdue.
Realize we're all in this together.
None of our hands are clean in this washing machine.