DOM DRINKS COFFEE

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The Black Dad That You Don’t Think Exists

The black dad that you don’t think exists falls asleep with his son on his chest after rocking him for what felt like fo…

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My phone is always, always dying. It’s a problem that I know I have but I just can’t seem to transcend it. I’m not sure whether it’s because I use it so frequently (flipping back and forth between my three apps of choice) or if it’s because I avoid chargers since I have an eight month old with an affinity for tugging on wires. But about 90% of the time I’ve got under 10% battery left.

Today, I went to grab a coffee with the intent to come back home and write because, as usual, my phone was about to die. I got a dirty chai and made my way back to my apartment. When I arrived at my door, I saw my son’s eyes fixate on the people passing by us.

“You want to go to the park?” I sighed, because my body hurt, but it was gorgeous out, weather only the liminal seasons can bring. We walked past our place and headed to the park.

The longer I walked, the less I felt the exercise hangover plaguing my muscles. The sun coated everything in gold. The breeze was unobtrusive. There was no one occupying the baby swings. I put Miles in one and he just beamed at me. Like children of the new millennium often do, I thought, “this would be a perfect time to take a 15 second video.” So I pulled out my phone. It died about eight seconds in.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I didn’t want to have to go home. It was beautiful out. Miles was watching other kids play, dreaming of more mobility. Someone was napping under a tree. A dad and son were playing catch with a football. The farmer’s market was there! But my phone was dying. How would I connect with the outside world (I understand the irony in this, now, but at the time it seemed like a valid concern)?

I took Miles out of the swing, and put him in his stroller. We began to cross the grass towards the sidewalk, when we stumbled upon a rogue piano. Yes, a baby grand piano was just sitting there, in the middle of the park, unoccupied. Miles had never seen an instrument, and he has a major interest in slamming his hands on things. I couldn’t resist. I parked his stroller, and sat down on the overturned recycling bin doubling as a piano stool and put him on my lap. He banged at the piano and squealed. I played the little bit of the Mortal Kombat theme song that my brother taught me when I was small. He played what his compulsions led him to. We sat there for maybe 45 minutes, him exploring the ability to create music, me admiring his ability to explore. The sun coated everything in gold. The breeze was unobtrusive. I’d have taken a fifteen second video, but my phone was dead. And sometimes that’s ok.

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PHOTO BY @yabisyab Mona, I can see it in your eyes, you're not well. Your sun doesn't rise. Your moon doesn't swell. Desdemona, I despise trudging through hell to show you my photographs of heaven. We were seven the second time I saw that face. Seven, in a foreign place, trapped, in bodies that the darkness chased. We were just then getting to know our souls. I ascended past the pull of it, you dipped into a hole. We were just then getting to know our souls. I dragged you out, Mona, as I lift you up now, but your eyes kept a bit of that black, somehow. Your eyes roll back, your lips avow that there's a night in you with no use for well-wishing, now. But I was there with you at the wishing well, casting down prayers, as you cast down spells. I was there with you on the day you fell. I saw you rise again.

You like to say you didn't, but I know the truth. In your black moon brain, I have seen the proof. No, you're not well, Mona, I can see it in your eyes. But I have also seen you RISE

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photo by @yabisyab

WHEN “GO WITH YOUR GUT” IS BAD ADVICE

I suffer from a generalized anxiety disorder. It took a long time for me to call it that. Before I had a diagnosis, I had my family’s opinions. Dominique worries too much. She just needs to chill out. She stresses herself out over nothing. My fellow sufferers know it’s not so simple. We know the weight of worst case scenarios swarming through the hive of our anxious minds, that it feels like our chests are being crushed beneath it, how it penetrates everything.

The other afternoon, I was plucking stray hairs before a BBQ while my husband drove. I told him that I felt a pang of insecurity that he could slam on the brakes and the tweezers would lodge in my carotid artery causing me an untimely death. We laughed at the Final Destination quality of my fears. I arrived at the cook out hairy. I couldn’t pick the tweezers back up. When we are eating dinner at night, having a conversation about anything mildly important, I get airy-headed, dizzy, sensitive to sound. Then, I get angry. I become so on edge and frustrated in my inability to navigate why, that I lash out at the sound of him chewing. I did the same to my mother before I moved out. I got angry at my brother’s noisy breathing. The thinking part of me knows that I am being unreasonable, but my entire body reacts to the cortisol alarm bells ringing that I am in danger, that I am doomed, that the worst is yet to come. I unrelentingly try to shut these alarms down, but I only ever manage to hit the snooze button– they come back blaring in due time.

Everyone knows the common notion of advice columns, inspirational dramas, and the girlfriend get together tribunal trope: Go with your gut. The other night at around 2am I realized that my left breast was red. I breastfeed, my son does a lot of pinching, Hulk gripping, pulling, and he’s teething. He loves the left breast so much that it’s two cup sizes larger than the right (I’ve nicknamed them Biggie and Smalls respectively). It made perfect sense that my left boob was red. Not satisfied with the logical explanation, I consulted Dr. Google about it. After scrolling quickly past the articles on how breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast cancer, I came to the conclusion that I had developed a rare case of inflammatory breast cancer. I started to panic. I imagined not being there to see my son grow up. I imagined him not knowing how much I love him, carrying the weight of his motherlessness. I found myself consumed in essay by a woman who developed breast cancer while breastfeeding and read with pure terror her advice:

Go with your gut. If your body is telling you that something is wrong, listen to it. Don’t write it off.

I understand the merit in this for a person with a normal gut. But for a gut that still checks the closet for serial killers before going to bed, this advice is a death sentence. I thought, “Well, that’s it for me. My gut definitely senses that something is wrong. This is what the end feels like.”

That wasn’t the first time I believed I was going to die. The first was reading a Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul story when I was ten. I diagnosed myself with Leukemia because I had bruises on my legs like the boy in the story. Mostly I was just clumsy. But the second most recent incident was a year ago. My husband and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie and the panic came over me like a wave. He noticed me repeatedly checking my pulse and asked what was wrong. “I’m fine,” I said, afraid that if I said how I felt out loud it would become more real. I took a shower. Every time I blinked and the bathroom went black I was certain that the room would stay black and I would be dead. I got in bed, I hyperventilated, my chest began to ache. I paid another compulsive visit to the good Dr. Google and typed in the phrase “anxiety attack vs. heart attack.” A war was waging between the part of me that knew it was anxiety and the part that couldn’t stifle the feeling that my body was breaking. All it took to know that I was dying was reading the words that one symptom of a heart attack is a sense of impending doom, that in your gut you know that something isn’t right. That’s me! I thought. I definitely feel like I’m headed for the void!

“I think I’m having a heart attack,” I announced to my husband. At 1am, he rushed me to the emergency room. Two ultrasounds, one x-ray, one EKG, a hefty medical bill, and 8 hours later, I was released with a diagnosis of anxiety. I called out of work, still shaken.

Sometimes, going with your gut means forfeiting a battle you can’t afford to lose. Sometimes going with your gut means diagnosing yourself with three types of cancer and struggling not to cry at your desk. Sometimes going with your gut means accusing your loving partner for the third time that month of wanting to leave you. Sometimes it means believing you’ll never amount to anything, or that you can’t accomplish your goals. Sometimes going with your gut is bad advice– when you need someone to tell you to transcend it. I don’t condemn the gut, I don’t condemn the wonders of nature and intuition. As are many sufferers of anxiety, I am fairly superstitious, prone to the wims of my gut. But for the worriers of the world, I want you to know that your gut is not always right. Work to turn the volume down. Hone in on the lone voice in a sea of fears that tells you that things might turn out fine, that good things can happen, that life has pleasant surprises too, that there’s no way of knowing what’s to come– that you are allowed to be happy, and that sometimes happiness means going against your gut.

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Photo by @yabisyab

A few weeks ago my son fell out of bed. I shot up from sleep to the sound of his thud and I’m pretty sure my heart fell into the deep recesses of my stomach. I panicked. I scooped him up, hyperventilated, tried to nurse my wailing baby. He calmed down. I didn’t.

After I talked to his doctor, after I inspected his head for the faintest sign of malady, after I rustled through the drawers to find a ruler to measure the distance between the bed and the floor, after I called my husband 7 times and googled enough to steady my heart rate, after the franticism settled, I lay in silence under the dim living room light watching him sleep.

I felt awful. I felt like I failed him. Everyone said not to bed share, why did I think I could transcend the risks? I felt like I didn’t deserve the unassuming sweetness asleep in my arms. I think every parent has felt this at some point, like they fall short of the person their baby sees when it looks at them. From the moment my son’s stare pierced me, I’ve been struggling to be the person he thinks I am.

But sometimes I can’t do it. Sometimes I am regular, flawed, 23 year old me, who doesn’t always pay her phone bill on time and forgets to look in the mirror before leaving the house (resulting in a lot of lipstick on teeth and uneven collars). Sometimes I can’t get the dishes done, sometimes I can’t find socks to match his outfit, sometimes his kinky hair (like mine) has lint trapped in it. As I ruminated and googled other stories of moms whose babies rolled out of bed, my son fussed and squirmed. I comforted him as much as my split mind could allow, but he wanted all of my focus. His lip jutted out. He began to cry. I put my phone down. It was then that I realized that the anxiety I felt, the self degradation, the dwelling I was doing on my shortcomings was actively getting in the way of me being the best mom I could be. Beating myself up wasn’t helping him, it was indulgent and doing him a disservice.

As he struggled to drift back asleep, I knew he didn’t blame me for what had happened, he wasn’t angry. But he did look to me to make it better. And I knew I could do that for him. Even if I couldn’t keep all the bad things from his life, even if I couldn’t always save him from taking tumbles or getting little boy scrapes, I could be there to make it better for him. And that’s what he asks of me. Not perfection, not guilt for not being perfect. I already am the person he sees in me. I’m his mom. I’m his protector. I’m his safe place.

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When people find out that I’m married, they don’t hide their shock. Sometimes they correct me. “My husband works at the hospital,” I say. “Oh, my girlfriend works at a hospital, too. What does your boyfriend do?”  No. Three years ago, three months after my 20th birthday, and two months after we became a “Facebook official” couple,  my husband and I eloped. I’m always asked about how he proposed and I don’t have an answer.

Our brief engagement began with more of a challenge than a question. He was in the Navy, in San Antonio, and I was in Vashon, Washington, interning on a small organic farm. We were Skyping, as we did every night, consumed by one another. I must’ve have said something charming because he said “I’m gonna marry you.” And I said “I’m gonna marry you first.” And he said “You won’t,” like a dare. For the next week or so the notion of marriage kept manifesting in our conversations. My trip ended, and I flew back home to New Jersey. He finished his training in Texas, and was stationed three hours from me in Connecticut. He drove to see me every weekend. One afternoon, there was an email from him in my inbox. I began to read: “Hey, if you’re serious about this marriage thing…” What followed was a plan for us. A school I could enroll in near his base. How soon he could get out of the barracks so that we could get an apartment. How quickly I’d have to move up there before the semester started. It was happening. That afternoon, I sat on the floor of my mom’s room and said “Mom, me and Femi are getting married.” She laughed. Two weeks later, we were exchanging rings.

I don’t tell people this when they ask me for details. Even without the details, many immediately seek reasons to invalidate our love for each other, because we’re young and because we’re black.  So I tell them the parts that romantic comedies are made of. I tell them that I’ve had a crush on him since I was fifteen. I tell them that when I was 16, I used to pretend to shop at the Wet Seal across from the store he worked at in the mall, hoping he’d notice me. I tell them that because we had teenage attention spans and lived an hour apart with no licenses, we fell out of touch. A year later I went to college 600 miles away and had a boyfriend. He joined the Navy and had a girlfriend. I tell them that after I dropped out of college (and my relationship) and he and his girlfriend broke up, he had a dream that we were in Target and I was helping him find the mystery item he was looking for. I tell them he had another dream that we were in a yellow car and I kept telling him to put his seatbelt on. I tell them that after he woke up, he reached out to me for the first time in years, and it sparked a Skyping frenzy of infatuation and impulse.

All of these things are true, but none of them matter. What matters is that we work. I’d be lying if I said that getting married wasn’t a huge culture shock and adjustment. It still is. Until then, with the exception of dorms and barracks, neither of us had lived anywhere but with our parents. And despite being drawn to one another, there was a lot we didn’t know about making a life together (or making a life at all, for that matter). We had this selfish idea that we were soulmates, that we were both tailor made by the universe to push forth the narratives we each envisioned for our individual selves. We’re not.  We’re real people with needs and wants and insecurities and  boundaries that sometimes clash with the other’s. We learned quickly that marriage is an intricate dance of giving and taking, of sacrifice and forgiveness and compromise and acceptance. A merging of wills. We know that love is a choice, and we always choose each other. Growing up is hard no matter the circumstances. We’re doing it together, always evolving. We’re in our 20s, and in a time that we’re told should be centered entirely on ourselves, we must work to maintain a constant of compassion, affection, and understanding for one another. Many think it’s foolish for us to have committed to that so young. But from where I sit, it’s Sunday night. My husband is rocking our son to sleep. I can smell the homemade pasta sauce that’s been slow cooking for about an hour. When Miles is in his crib, Femi and I will drink a glass or two of wine and I’ll shamelessly hit on him (I always do when I’ve had wine). He’ll edit his photos and I’ll creep around the internet. We’ll eat. The Leftovers will come on, and we’ll argue about who gets to put their head in whose lap to get their dreadlocks played with. I can’t imagine a better kind of Sunday.   We’ve changed so much since our marriage began. We look at the people we were and laugh. But who I am today still wants who he is today, and I want who he’ll be tomorrow. That part stays the same, among other things. I still remind him to put his seatbelt on in our yellow car. He still comes up with master plans for us. When people ask me how he proposed, I don’t have an answer. It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge. Marriage always is. And every morning we rise to it, and every night we spoon.

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marching along the old route

All these black bodies breaking burning bloodying the ground them drunk on our pain our tears tequila who will spare us when open season’s all year round?

It’s a noose around the neck this feeling stones strapped to my feet in pitch black waters this feeling this sinking feeling at the center of my life

All of us dark are doomed us so frequently consumed with a weight on the chest that looms and never leaves it’s never done

I see the news I see my son It never leaves It’s never done

And if I’m angry I deserved it If I’m weary I deserved it Don’t respect them I deserved it Laugh too loud I deserved it Get too proud I deserved it If I see it I deserved it If I say it I deserved it Try to run and I deserved it Didn’t take it I deserved it Black and being I deserved it They believe that We deserve this

to be bodies broken bodies burning bloodying the ground black brown red sprawled and spread and dead

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A Mental Health PSA

Living with mental illness is hard. Living with mental illness without having anyone around you who can really empathize is even more difficult. I have always loved the Myth of Sisyphus by Camus. I loved it because he asserts that the fact that Sisyphus rises to roll the Boulder uphill again and again despite knowing it will tumble back down means that he has conquered his fate. It suggests that getting up and trying when it seems destined to be futile is something to celebrate. I am always struggling with whether my efforts are enough. I am exhausted by every day things. Sometimes just leaving the house is hard.  I fight it the best I can. And Camus makes me feel like it’s okay to celebrate that I fought. No one sees this struggle. I don’t talk about it, because I feel embarrassed and unreasonable although I know it’s not the case. But when I have reached out to people I love and talked about it, or talked about my frustration with feeling like I’m not doing enough, or fearing that this will keep me from living the life I want–or feeling like I’ve lost the ability to do the things I love–I have often gotten responses that make it worse. I’ve been told to stop making excuses and to just figure it out, I’ve been told that I just have to try to be happy, I’ve been told to get over it. And it makes me feel guilty and weak and isolated and at fault for all the time I’ve lost to this. So just a PSA. If someone you love is struggling with mental illness, any mental illness, just listen. And read about ways you can be supportive. They are constantly fighting a battle that you can’t see. And sometimes they might not have it in them to fight. And I don’t know what you do then but don’t make them feel bad. Their brain does enough of that. 

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My son is eight months old today. I don’t know when it happened. Somewhere in early August I stumbled out of the sleepy haze of the first six months of loving him. I can see his face changing. Eyes more alert, a brighter blazing fire behind them. He’s becoming a little boy, able to act on his curiosities. At some point in the past three days he’s figured out how to crawl, then sit, then pull himself up to stand. Like most babies, he is attracted to everything he shouldn’t touch, and he is relentless. I admire him for it. When he crawls across the floor, over the soft pillow and stuffed animal barriers I’ve set up for him, and pulls himself up to snatch my phone off of the table, I let him chew on it for a minute. As much as I like my cell phone dry of drool, I want him to revel in the rewards of his hard labor. I am moved by his stubborn inquisition. 

Yesterday he learned how to squeal. He’s been trying for months, but his vocal chords withheld and let out only a strained cracking hiss of a sound, like the static of a crowd’s applause. When the noise finally broke through, we both jumped, equally astonished at the volume of his delight. He did it again. And again. And again. He hasn’t stopped yet, but I’m not sick of it. He’s found a way to proclaim his joy, and he is always joyful. I watch him work with all of his wobbly might to propel his tiny body around the living room, blissful just to be trying. May his eyes always burn for the small things.

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PHOTO BY @yabisyab

Hey, and welcome!  My name is Dom. I’m 23.  I live in Philly. I have a husband, a son, and a whole lot of feelings. Staying at home with a baby can get pretty lonely. Most days, I drink my morning (and afternoon and evening) coffee with a tiny person who can’t talk about the world with me, yet.  Now, I’ll drink it with you. Thanks for listening.