Dark girl

Dream: There is a dark skinned baby (maybe one year old) crying. I pick her up to soothe her.

Rodger mentions that for the baby to feel her pain, I need to let her cry instead of picking her up to get her to stop.

Homework: see the baby crying and let her cry without picking her up

This homework is difficult. I want to pick the baby up, but I don’t. I let her cry. Over time as I do, I begin to feel her pain inside of me.

I wonder about the dark skin of the baby in the dream. Although it may have no connection to the dream, it does remind me of something that happened in my first few days of first grade. I have a dark complexion and get very tan in the summer. And so I must have been very dark when I started school that year because two second grade boys who were the “door holders” called me “nigger” every time I walked through. I didn’t know how to react. I went home and rubbed baby powder on my skin to try to make my self look more white so that they wouldn’t call me that name. Even though I can’t say I understand the effects of racism that many people actually experience over a life time, I can say that I got a small taste of it in those first few days of first grade.

I am surprised when these memories bring sadness up for me. I didn’t know I still had those feelings inside of me. It then gets me thinking of times when kids would ask me, “What are you?”. I was always confused about that question. One time when I was about 8 or 9, we were at a beach and a bunch of kids were standing around me in the water asking me that question. They kept saying, “What are you?” over and over again. I really had no idea what they were asking me. I went to my mom and asked her. She said something about me being a mixture of many backgrounds. I guess people like to put you in some category or another and so they ask that question, “What are you?” To be honest, I still don’t exactly know how to answer that question when it comes up. I do the best I can…. 1/4 French, 1/4 English, 1/4 German Jewish, 1/8th Irish and the other 1/8th is unknown. As I look at what I just wrote I realize that it looks like a recipe. A quarter of this, an eighth of that and in the end it all adds up to me. But, of course it really doesn’t. Maybe that is why the question, “What are you?” was so confusing to me as a kid.

Dark Girl

Oh, I guess I am different

Apparently not in a good way

I had no idea

No idea

That others might see me as less than

Less than what? Who?

I come with love, light, joy

I leave as the dark girl