Dance

My dancing feet wouldn’t stop au lieu de fatigue and sadness. The whole morning, I played the song over and over again. I asked you to copy my moves and tried to synchronize our moves. We danced.

Late at night, when you fell asleep, Louane kept singing, and my feet kept fidgeting. I found myself choked with tears as I listened to Cooper’s tribute with the long list of names of victims. Most victims were young; young with a bright future with various professions. Their lives cut short as a result of hate (and) crime. Amongst the victims, a mother was there to support her son. She survived cancer once, but was now survived by her son.

As an introvert, I didn’t do clubbing when young. One of the bad things I’ve done in preteen years was being a mean girl in a clique. I constantly thought of the girl I chipped in taunting behind her back, with remorse. I am always happy to learn she’s doing so well despite all those years of being the target of unwanted attention even after I moved on, out of the old circle of friends and my comfort zone. After the transfer, I then became the taunted; not even my outstanding academic performance could save me from being bullied. That’s when I understood what “karma” meant. That was the worst part of my early life.

I moved on and it got better. Because of the persistent guilt and sense of obligation, I kept my distance from any group, clique and openly advocated of It Gets Better project.

“Mama, but why do we dance?”

“Today, let’s dance for them, babe,” For those innocent, for those who are brave to embrace themselves for what they really are despite that they are disapproved of by some “worlds”, for those who fought and have been fighting for equality, for those who enjoy life when they were forced to exit the stage of life, of this world involuntarily and abruptly, and for those who are secretly feeling stifled and strained in the closet.

“Why are there different worlds? Aren’t we all human?” You asked.

Then I paused. Yes, I wanna ask the same question, my dear. I too, want to know why can’t love be love and why can’t we acknowledge and appreciate, and coexist peacefully with our differences? All those crimes in the name of religion, political struggles, hatred and whatever the FUCK. But I cannot tell you everything will be alright; I can’t even provide a political correct answer to your question. Instead, I have to look up, take a deep breath and mind my moves and language for you, telling you: let’s dance!

We danced, I picked you up and kissed you. I am so fortunate to be living this life, to be able to tell you that I love you no matter what, and to dance with you with the music. With the question in mind, my child, we dance on and do not back off. We may never be party animals, nor dancing queens, but let’s dance on, move on, with our hope to carry on the legacy and make our best effort to make this world a better place, shall we?

Homey

Morning commute, there was this radio show we tuned in every morning.  This topic has been on and off for discussion.  We see it everywhere in our lives and it's been affecting us, more or less.

There are reasons for homelessness.  Different reasons.  Just like there are various coping strategies with all the homeys when they walk up to you.

I used to put change for spare in the pocket, but not any more.  I asked C why would there be so many young people opting for living on the street and becoming panhandling.  C sighed.  In her point of views, the most common reasons are mental illness, psychological problems that obstruct their way going back to the mainstream.

To see the problem simply as most homey's "laid-back" attitude or substance abuse is over-simplifying the whole train of problems.  Multiple reasons might be contributing to homelessness.  Gentrification, substance abuse, domestic violence, and mental illness can be all related.  And amongst all, surrounding response to homelessness can be another effect.  

Out-of-control housing prices and uprising living expense further push the imbalance of social order and polarize inequality.  Young people run away from home due to domestic violence and later problems of intoxication appear as a result of temporary relief from the reality.  The demand and abuse of substance becomes intense and push them further away from the mainstream pathway.  In addition, the youth and the senior homeys are the groups particularly oppose to the idea of being controlled and contained.  

There were days that I kept my pocket with change to spare for all those who hold up signs of help.  But then some day I realized the food that we offered to help have been dumped on the exact panhandling site, causing public disorder and health concern.  I felt that our compassion and little help have been taken advantage of.  All those years, friends have been persuading me from handing out little gesture to help.  "You are helping them to get further intoxicated and abuse themselves with substance," they said.  I simply ignore them and kept doing it.  Nonetheless, it was right there, I saw my food scattered on the ground where that homey sat.  The muffin was intact, dumped at where he sat.  The news had another man angrily protested for helping a panhandler constantly, only to find it later that that homey he's been helping was actually driving a new car, far better than his old oldsmobile.  There were even a whole family standing at the intersection, with a mom holding onto one infant and the rest of the two or three children squatting beside whilst the dad holding up the sign for help.  I found my heart pounding hard and I hate to see kids as a prop, begging for my sympathy.  

So manipulative.

So there I stopped helping any.  I drove by, still feeling kind of guilty and uncomfortable.

Mon ange

"Meet Cixous."  She said.  Holding out a baby to me.

It's not a real baby; it's one of the most updated technology, which they incorporated 3D printing to "print out" the look of the fetus, based on the 4D ultrasound.

She was unearthly gorgeous.  She looks incredulously alert with her googly eyes as if they were actually wondering around, being curious.  So unlike a real baby.  (Well, to be more exact, she's just a couple month fetus.)

They first found her when I was five month pregnant.  I was not at all aware of it, until a visit to the clinic in order to get consultation on the irregularity of my menstrual cycle.

Then months later, she held out this printing.  Not merely a flat printing; it's a solid, three dimensional one.

"Oh, she's perfect!"  I exclaimed.  I was choked with my own tears.  But there's no one beside me to share my joy.

I went home and showed the printing to BD.  He was overjoyed.  I wondered whether he knew that he's gonna be a big brother, but he seemed to be overwhelmed.  After all, we were still working on handing excitement in a more appropriately way.

Then a lot of things happened.  I didn't know why because the following scenarios were all dashing through in a blur.

One moment we were crying in each other's arms, with me blurting out with tears of joy.  "Oh, it's perfect; it's perfect!!  Now it's all complete.  Our family.  With one son and one daughter, it's totally a realization of the character 'hao' (Good)."  

And then the next, I was taking the public transportation and suddenly I felt a big light headed, but such tremendous pressure.  My eyes alighted on my belly and I was astonished to find my bulge was gone.  I collapsed.

Then I woke up.

It was the first day of the lunar new year.  And she came back to me, like the couple of times she had been visiting me from time to time in the past years.