no mask

When I sat down to write this letter, it was my 297th day of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the Coronavirus. You were only three and a half months old, born into a world we could have never imagined. I hadn’t met you yet. It was breaking my heart to not be there to witness you as brand new member of our family. I also missed my chance to see my son become a father for the first time. I had tried to come twice, tickets purchased, time taken from work, but as each time got closer I felt the risk to you, your mom and dad, and to me was too high, so I waited. If you put people into three groups based on how closely they followed the safety rules for COVID, you’d have the “who-cares-about- the-rules” people, the “okay-I’ll-follow-some-or-all-of-the-rules” people, and then the “I’m-making-up-extra-rules-to-stay-safe” people. I’m in the last group, and I think the way this year started had a lot to do with it.

>> ammunition | zero minus fourteen to forty

When I got back to Austin, where I was living then, I had a wild weekend planned that involved more travel. I worried that maybe it was too risky, but I had lived my life strictly by the rules up to now, and I needed to embrace the moments, so YOLO, I did it! On Thursday, I flew to Dallas to see the soulful Miss Jill Scott. She is one of my favorite Black female vocalists, and I really didn’t want to miss the opportunity to be in her presence. A flight and a concert with 2,000 people was risky, and looking back I’m glad I took the risk, that was my last concert for a very long time, maybe even forever. The bigger risk was flying to New York right after Dallas. There was a workshop that I was attending with a group of friends I had met in January at a week long retreat. This was our first chance to reconnect. It was honestly too soon to be doing this workshop as a refresher, but we had bonded, and being together again was a big motivator. On Saturday, after the workshop, and a group dinner, and dessert in a private ice cream parlor, I Uber’d back to my hotel to pack for my flight the next day. Early the next morning I took walk through Central Park with my camera. It was one of my favorite things to do when in New York, especially before the park wakes up. The morning was crisp, there were joggers and people walking their dogs, but not as many people as I usual. I met a friend who had flown in from Belgium for the workshop, and we set out on a mission to find a journal for your mom to track her pregnancy with you. I had found out about you a few weeks before and I was beyond excited to know you were on your way to our family. My friend and I walked the streets of the upper east side where a lot of shops were still closed. The quietness was not just in the park, but now I felt it throughout the city. It was odd, noticeably off, but I tried to stay in the moment of being with my dear friend.

On my walk back to the hotel I thought about the year so far, I was only 8–9 weeks into it and was living my best carefree, globetrotting life. I had done deep healing work in January after the end of a long-term relationship the year before, and things were finally taking shape. My plan for 2020 was to leave Austin in the spring and create new roots somewhere in the world. My work in London was a perfect reason for frequent trips to the UK, and I had my trips booked for the next six months. I had been creative with my travel, booking extensions on either end of a company-paid flight. Two days in Paris, 3 days in Morocco, or a weekend in Amsterdam before or after a week in London for work. It was going to be a year of exploration and adventure, and I could not wait.

Back in my room, I watched the news as I did a final check to make sure I had everything. The virus was in New York. The number of cases had gone from less than 10 to over 100 that weekend. The newscaster reported that a Uber driver had tested positive and spread it to passengers. Could that be true? I was in shock. Stuck standing in front of the TV that was now communicating the importance of hand-washing, and not traveling. I had been on 2 international flights, and 3 about to be 4 domestic flights in the last 14 days. My brain worked overtime as I made my way to the lobby where I ran into one of the attendees from the workshop the day before. She was headed back to California. We went to hug each other and both hesitated — should we do this? We went ahead and embraced, and said our good- bye’s and what became the phrase of the year — “stay safe”. That hug would be the last physical touch I had for the next six months.

On my flight home, I randomly thought about groceries and the fact that I could have been exposed or worse was exposing others. The man in the seat in front of me coughed, sneezed, and coughed again, and I cringed. “Don’t breathe”, I thought to myself. I didn’t want to go to a grocery store or into my office for work, or anywhere — so my first online grocery order of the 2020 pandemic was placed before I landed. I placed 54 more grocery orders by the end of the year, and I never stepped foot into a store.

The early weeks of sheltering-in-place passed easily after my 14-day quarantine, and I was relieved that I wasn’t sick. I thought about going back out into the world, but why would I? I knew I was safe, so the safest thing for me to do was stay put. I was grateful that my company established remote working but completely irritated that all of my travel had been canceled. I recognized my privilege, and how incredibly entitled I sounded to myself, but I was still pissed that Singapore and Bali weren’t going to happen. People were losing their jobs, and Seattle had just become the hot spot. People were dying quickly, and I was scared. Being from Seattle, I had friends I worried about and more importantly your great-grandparents. They weren’t following any of the rules. Your great-granddad would go to the grocery store for 1–2 things almost every day. He was 81, high risk, and it was frustrating to be so far away. I felt like we had reversed roles and I was constantly scolding them for not taking the virus seriously.

Stores were out of toilet paper, my grocery orders took strategic planning and had to be made a week in advance, and a sense of panic was beginning to rise. I thought about an escape plan — Did I need one? Where would I go? The virus was everywhere. Would I be safe if I tried to escape alone? I envisioned the show The Walking Dead, and I had a firearm that I knew how to shoot, but I had very little ammunition. Searching online I found out that it was sold out everywhere! What was happening? Was the country preparing for something bigger, something different? Why didn’t I know about this? When I found a seller, the smallest amount they would ship was 10 times more than what I needed, but I bought it anyway. The final question was — Could I go? Was my car ready for this get-away adventure? The last time I had driven was coming home from the airport weeks ago. I was in such a state when I landed, I came straight home and my car had less than a quarter of a tank of gas. I’d have to get gas, which meant I’d have to leave the house.

>> puzzles | fortyone to oneten

I’ve learned that I have two preferred modes of operation — traveling or chilling at home. So this staying in still wasn’t that bad for me, but I was starting to yearn for someone in real life to connect with. My neighborhood had become very familiar. From my daily morning walks, I knew what corner had the barking dog, and which homes had young kids who hung their coloring art in the front windows. I’d take work calls on my walks or use the mornings to listen to meditations, audiobooks, or podcasts.

Online shopping was my preferred way to buy things pre-COVID, but I had found new things to have delivered. Art supplies and classes held over Zoom, yoga, and fitness classes that I could do at my convenience, and my favorite new hobby outside of buying things for you was puzzles. I found a site called JIGGY PUZZLES, that took beautiful watercolor paintings and made puzzles from them fit for framing and hanging once complete. My favorite puzzle purchase was one called “Boobs” made up of boobs of all shapes, sizes, and skin tones. I bought one called “Poolside” that reminded me of a terrace in Spain or Italy. An Instagram ad got me for a beautiful rainbow spiral puzzle that took 3 months to arrive from China. It stayed in my COVID package quarantine spot for 2 weeks before I opened it. Puzzles were a great way to pass the time, use my brain, and create something beautiful. However, I never finished any of them, but I did make strong attempts. The great thing about puzzles, and what I was finding with the days of COVID was that I could decide to just begin again.

April passed, and with it, COVID took two of our family members. I wanted to go to our cousin in Dallas to support him in the loss of his older brother, but it was too risky. His brother had been sick — the flu or something, but he wasn’t flagged by a tele-health specialist to get a test. It occurred to me that his being underinsured could have played a role in his opportunity to get tested. I had heard others were getting tested multiple times, even when tests were hard to find, but they were white and affluent. Maybe if he had been tested he’d still be with us. Something wasn’t right, I didn’t feel like myself. Something within me was stirring. My cousin died alone in his home and wasn’t found for over 24 hours. I was living alone and was staying safe, but still afraid. The second death was your great-uncle. He had suffered on a ventilator for weeks before coming off, showing improvement and then dying days later. Our family needed each other. These deaths were early in the year of the pandemic, and close together. It wasn’t normal yet to grieve over Zoom. We were unable to console each other over the comforting food that showed up in Black homes for celebrations of life. Over Zoom, we talked about missing the collard greens, the barbecue, and macaroni and cheese, and someone’s amazing pound cake, while we did our best to honor our family members and support each other. We told stories of their lives and the lives they touched. We discussed funeral arrangements that would be held until a time when it was safe to come together. The world was on pause, and that put our grief on pause as well. This wasn’t normal.

May brought focus to the death of Ahmad Aubrey. A young Black man who was out for a run when he was killed in broad daylight, while it was recorded. Ahmad was not much younger than your dad, doing something your dad loves to do — running for exercise. I worried about your dad’s safety living among proudly hung confederate flags in your town in North Carolina. Ahmad’s death, the overly high rate of death in the Black community due to COVID, and the deaths in our family were filling me with a sense of unease, and then George Floyd was murdered. Something in me was jolted, like a gear being forced into place. The nation was sheltering in place and had nothing else to do but witness a white male police officer kneel on a Black man’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, with his hands in his pockets, while George Floyd repeatedly said “I can’t breath”, and cried out for his dead mother as he feared he was losing his life. I wasn’t able to focus at work or sleep or eat. It was like a dream state I didn’t know I was in had abruptly ended. Like coming out of a hypnotic trance, with the loud snap of a finger, I was awake.

The pain from years of molding myself into shapes that were tight and constricting only to make people in the rooms who looked nothing like me feel comfortable repeated to wash over me like waves — WOOOOOSH. The masks I was a masterful artist at creating and wearing for however long I needed to get through a conversation, to pick up my change from the counter because the clerk didn’t want to touch my hand, or to navigate my career, were breaking — CRAAACK! Keeping up with the news, food, and fashion trends of the dominant culture so that I could appear up to date and relevant was exhausting and I had no idea how tired I was until the moment I woke up — SNAP! No one was keeping up with, or asking about what was happening in my culture unless it was to appropriate a saying like “You go girl”, or a dance move for Tik-Toc, I had held all of this in and had performed for acceptance my entire life. I had been complicit in trying to assimilate into a system to feel like I belonged. The same system that was killing men who could have been any Black man in my life — my brother, my son, or my father. It had been enslaving and killing us with no regard for hundreds of years for its own benefit. I was processing a lot of new information but I also felt lost, this was new. I felt like my insides were on the outside. All the tactics I used and had been skillful at hiding were on display. It was as if systemic racism was this thing that only existed in certain parts of the country, and no one talked about it, until George Floyd took his final breath on every screen, large and small, over and over and over.

>> green glass | oneeleven to oneseventy

Water had been my most ordered item since March. I had a faucet with clean running water. I had reusable water bottles, and I even had a filtration system in my refrigerator. But the mountain spring water, in the green glass bottles, was what I ordered. When drank ice cold or at room temperature, it felt smooth and soft in my mouth. The weight of the bottles were comforting, they were heavy, and they made themselves known in my hand. Knowing that there were 4 or 5 stashed in the wine fridge that now doubled as a non-alcoholic beverage cooler felt safe, I had enough and I’d be ok. Finishing a bottle was rewarding because I wasn’t great at remembering to drink water, so when the last drops would drain from the green glass I felt healthy and nourished. Next to blueberries, my green glass bottled water was my most treasured grocery item. It was simple and reliable, in the midst of so much change.

June added pain, and a frenetic energy to do something. To be of service to other Black people who I imagined were feeling like me — suddenly aware of the true nature of this country. When I’ve experienced trauma in the past a creative release would happen and I’d spring into action. Within a week of the murder, I established an online program for Black and brown people across the country. I set up an LLC, bought a domain, and built a website. The program allowed us to virtually gather in private safe spaces to discuss how we were coping, our anger, sadness, and our fear. It served as a way for us to support each other, and every week a group of strangers came together and created a sense of community. It provided a point of connection at a time when it felt like the world was watching us or was staying silent about the situation because of ignorance. We could all sense the uncomfortable feeling in our workplaces with people who didn’t look like us not knowing how to approach it. It was the silence, the not addressing an event that was so blatantly wrong, the not understanding or being able to empathize with our pain that hurt us all so deeply.

For me, work had become unbearable. The white spaces I showed up for every day as the only Black person were awkward. Days went by and the murder, protests, and civil unrest were not mentioned. No one asked how I was doing or if I was ok. When my boss did try to make small talk she centered herself in every attempt leaving me with the burden of her discomfort alongside the weight of my anger and now fear. A Black coworker had shared a photo of “Die Nigger” scratched into his car door a few miles from where I live. The guilty tears of fragility from white friends and coworkers who reached out with good intention were more weight being put on me, as I was coming to terms with my own complicit guilt. This workplace trauma was topped off by a senior manager telling me that they thought racism was over and that their small percentage of Native American blood had suffered more than Black people. I asked if they thought if they would be identified as white or Native American in a room full of strangers, there was a pause and then the answer, “hmm, I guess white.” The conversation continued with insult after ignorant insult, until I abruptly stopped the insidious disrespect. I stood in my living room and felt electricity coursing through my body and over the surface of my skin. Beads of sweat formed on my upper lip as I trembled and cried the hottest tears I’ve ever cried. The transformation was complete. I was fully formed, a Black woman, finally fully awake. As I drank from my green glass bottle, I thought about the 23-minutes I had just spent with an entitled person of privilege granted to them by birthright. Was who I was looking for acceptance from, why? That conversation was the final push that brought focus to my new existence. While it was painful, frustrating, infuriating, and totally unbelievable, in hindsight I was grateful.

>> messages | oneseventyone to twothirty

By August, I had officially made a friend who I put through the wringer before he could get within 12 feet of me. We had weeks of socially distanced dates in a local park, and long talks on the phone or FaceTime. It was a slow start, reminiscent of what I can only imagine were days of being properly courted. He surprised me with a negative COVID test the afternoon we had planned a socially distanced masked DJ dance party in my garage. After eight weeks of getting to know each other platonically, we had our first kiss and my first physical connection with another human being in over six months. I was alive and happy. I had found love after almost two years of solitude and six months of isolation.

I also found a new thing to order online, statement tee-shirts. These would be my silent voice that could show up on work video calls. Shirts that spelled out M-e-l-i-n-i- n in the same rainbow-colored logo as the Friends TV show, or said “I’m rooting for everyone Black”, or “I am my ancestors wildest dream”. I was supporting small Black businesses, and making bold statements on Fridays when I would choose the message to be delivered depending on how I felt.

You, my first granddaughter and first grandchild were born in early September. The morning I got the phone call that you were earth-side, was the best day of the year! You were here, you were healthy, and you made me a Umi. I had thought a lot about the name I wanted to be referred to, and I know you will ultimately choose what you call me, but Umi felt right. Arabic for mother of mothers, it felt like a soulful easy name

that represented who I wanted to be in your life. The artist Mos Def had a song where he recalled his Umi telling him to “shine his light on the world”, and that’s exactly what I want you to do. Hopefully, it would be easy enough for you to pronounce and it would stick.

>> books | twothirtyone till today 297

There were starting to be more good days, but still, days that drug into weekends that drug into work weeks again. The days when I got to see you over FaceTime and watch your mommy and daddy take such good care of you were my best days, even if it was only for a few minutes before you fell asleep or started crying because you were learning to use your voice. When I wasn’t working or waiting for those precious minutes with you, my days were filled with soul searching. What did I really want to contribute to this world? Working for global brands had afforded me amazing experiences, but it had done nothing for my own true sense of purpose. If anything, it had taken from me, stolen my ability to really develop into the Black woman I was meant to be. I purchased a library of books on Black history, white history, the true history of this country. I bought and read books about the trauma our bodies (white and Black) had been carrying through 400 years of hate and oppression. I immersed myself in study. Drowned my anger and fear in learning, and writing. I gave vulnerable open talks about my pathway to the white conference rooms I sat in, and how hard and unlikely it was for most Black people to get to that seat. I was in the process of a very deep metamorphose. I was clear on the parts of me that I was releasing, the parts of me that never fit and were never going to bring me wholeness. I was shedding the lie that I had bought into. The lie that said I was equal, the same, and accepted as just a human being on this planet like everyone else. I saw everything and questioned everything through new eyes. Was I thought of in the design for that new thing-a-ma-bob, did they talk to Black people for that research study? I had awakened to my Blackness and the fact that it will always come first. That to many it held no value or was seen as a threat to be feared. At the retreat in January, I worked through childhood trauma and found my truth in using my voice. The last nine months had not only birthed you into the world but re-birthed me. In the eyes of Black women, Black children, and even Black men — I was a goddess, a powerful creator who had walked through fire many times to become the woman I am. By December I saw myself and knew the depth of gifts, they were being wasted in corporate America, and a big change, the biggest risk of my life was coming. I knew that one day you would read this, and I would proudly tell you my stories through word, song, and image. As my story continued to unfold, I made you a promise that your journey would never require a mask, because you would always know your truth, your power, and that you belonged wherever you chose to be.