Just the other day, I ran into the early years of myself. Barely, 4 feet tall, mostly all knees and elbows. I knew it was me, The sun became the smile on both sides of my cheeks. The wind never did know how to style my hair.
Laughter and I were two peas in a pod. Laughing so hard, til my spleen ached in between the moments of leaving home so mama could find another job and a better place to live. Those were hard and good times. Times of pruning and turning. Times uncertain yet worthy of learning.
They were the years the taught me the most resilience. Mama always had a bounce back, (back-bone) spirit. Even now, Mama still wears her smile like its’ Sunday.
She leans over from her hospital bed takes a few sips of steamy Chamomile and says “chile, just smiling, that’s makeup’ enough for me.”
Mama never did believe God made anyone old. Just grace enough to keep on living.
Mama: “getting old was a concept man made. You know, the beauty that God gave, never get’s old. Even when life beats at you or dust-your-coat a few times. So what! You gotta, keep picking up that dust. Blowin’ it back to the wind. If gets down into your eyes and makes your face, get all red and puffy. Wipe that snot off.
Mama: “Crying is the water of life. So if I’m crying, I’m still here. If I’m in pain. My body make a little noise at night . I’m still striving, cause I’m still here.”
I wanted to count the days a little longer. Stay under the brightness of the winter-storm. Snow and sun, and snow, slightly picking up mesquite winds. Although our worlds are shifting.
Our Merciful prayers have never been the same. The baby birds were cooing underneath the misty drizzle. The temperatures steady but dropping. The sky and I, weeping over something weak and terrible.
I think we were enjoying too much of self pity as of late. Tasting salt droplets, like leftover pudding. Cream still there just harder, firmer now. Puppy wrinkles for eyelids and the sky too. Didn’t seem to matter much. Neither one of us seem to help the other.
Then my soul goes off without me, as if it should, wondering about darkness, sickness bending one and the same ashy-twig, frantic but holding.
Dear God, the weakness inside my soul seeps out like weeds.
the needs of your people, ever-growing but God, this is where you crack our heads open with miracles unfolding.
Re-imagining myself as a writer, by grace, I am alive. Writing the script of my life -sifting through warm, dark, soil. Tending to the lumps that shape pages, where I’ve been, where I’m headed, how I’m still changing.
On the morning of discover,
I am the afro-haired girl
with friends of freedom,
we are soulmates,
in good company, we are miracles of change,
aggrandized gold, sprouting through the cracks
bountiful seedlings, dancing across the Alantic,
arising, gas-lighting stars bursting with higher thinking
Through the years, I’d stumbled lightly over the term “growing up” Looking over the silliest complexities in growing. I can remember the tender age of eight. The best thing ever, since slice bread. I brought to my class, on Show and Tell, a brand new rabbit. I was so happy, I could have slapped myself. (okay I probably did)
When Mr. Luna said “good morning class.” My hand shot up like a rocket in the air. My bunny-rabbit was neatly tuck away in a cage, with a warm grey cotton top. I was’ leaping in my chair like it was a trampoline. And I was trying out for the star role on the Olympics.
Mr.Luna : who would like to be first?
Me: o-o-h, me, please, me, me.
Mr.Luna: Alright Krissy you can go first.
I slowly stood up, beads of sweat and joy building upon my forehead. I was prepared for it. I took out Kwanana’ brown’s birthday napkin. I’d saved in my desk for times like these. Usually in high pressured moments, I’m one to sweat heavily under the armpits. I guess all the extra toilet paper and baby powder that morning, the sweat had nowhere else to go.
So there I was lifting the soft grey cotton top. My fluffy grey and white rabbit with its brown button nose. I could hear the class o-ohs’ and aw’s. I carefully lifted my rabbit, that I’d named Honey’ by 8:00 am that morning.
Tasting nothing less, than sweet victory. I’d steal the crown, The Class’ Favorite Show-And Tell, starring Honey!
I smiled, like I’d won the lottery on the 6:00 o’clock news. I presented myself, hi” everybody, my name is Krissy. This is my beautiful baby rabbit Honey. I’ve always wanted a pet. Mom always said no. Then she found out that the mail-lady had gifted me an abandoned rabbit almost three years old.
Mom said the rabbit could stay as long as I kept up with: cleaning it, feeding it, washing it and all my other chores. I didn’t care that Honey was a lot of work. I truly wanted Honey.
In the middle of my big speech Christopher Jones said “Whoppi-doo,doo. Honey can’t do tricks, can she? I shook my head, “not at the moment.” So what’s so special about Honey?
I had to think fast. That’s when it hit me, all the church services I’ve attended. All the songs I’d listened to. Watching the saints’ and those who came close including me.
“Yes,” I replied, Christopher Jones. You believe in God don’t you? Before he’d muster up an answer. I revved back in little girl preacher mode, swallowed a lump of spit and said,
“Well this is one of God’s gentle creatures.” By this time with my church finger swinging in the air. “You know, they don’t bite. In fact, its probably proven, that bunnies, can alleviate stress. I know it does for me.”
“Honey brings me joy when I’m sad.
Honey has taught me things like rabbits don’t eat carrots.
Honey is kind and sweeter than sugar to me.
Honey has saved my life, more that I can count,
probably even my childhood.”
That being my last word, I wiped my face. Somehow drenched in a bucket of water and took my seat. The class cheered and applauded.
your kindness sister Krissy (true stories from my childhood)
IN memory of The Poem, sung By Billie Holiday “Strange Fruit”
Southern trees bear a strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh Then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck For the rain to gather For the wind to suck For the sun to rot For the tree to drop Here is a strange and bitter crop
In the beginning, of the long dark, frosty night. I stood watching the angelic clouds, beautiful angels hold gatherings-surroundings of the same dark city. Deeper and deeper- angels brought us safely across bridges and stoic mountains holding our dark past within its grooves.
We over came the hatred of ourselves. The hatred of our skin’s- bitter fruit. Strange things, “scented Magnolias sweet and fresh” the eyes of the south, the burning of the mouth and “blood at the root.” Hold out your tongue, chile,’ don’t cut it out.
The soul of black bodies, the soul of white folk, marching,
“Jim crow” behind us,
all the while,
the cross before us.
and we made it,
some places, we bore the heat of the chain,
some bore slavery at its shame, and we made it,
somebodies’ son, somebodies daughter, “swinging on the poplar trees”,
the road are swollen, some, no road at all.
Still, we made it
and all the while, there were “splinters, tacks and boards torn-up”.
We never stop, we never sat down.
and now, my dear chile’, with the road before us, we’ll hold on,
Yesterday I felt like my writting had hit a snag, okay, okay a slump. What- ever this is, I know can write my way out. God always makes a way out. Now that ‘s not to say, there isn’t spilled milk or crying, going-on over here. I’ve done plenty. As the old saying goes, no need crying over spilled milk. I guess the writer forgot to add, when there is spillage and honey there will be spillage.
Nobody knows how far the spill spreads, a little here, a little there. Feels like I’m swimming around in it. One small drip into a thousand more, cascades off the light pink-brown table down onto the brown rustic wooden legs seeping into kitchen cracks. I’m running around looking for a clean dish rag. Why? I don’t know why?
I know this makes no sense but that’s just the way life is. There’s the car that won’t start so I walk my kids to the school bus, only to find the milk still leaking. My neighbor stops me to tell me, that the doctors have found a small tumor in her throat. Milk still leaking.
I just need God to come through, for my neighbor, my family and everyone else around me, even those reading this right now.
As I’m cleaning and praying.
I couldn’t use my kitchen towels because my seven-year old’s glue stick project was fully occupied with slimy goo. Pasted in red letters, Happy Valentine’s mushed in-between.
I thought of the next best thing. Hey no judgment! These things happen, when the milk is being spilled.
I found some old shirts, thick enough to absorb a gallon of -precious jewels like this.
There’s nothing reuse-able about God’s holy spirit
God I know you can hear it, the cry of your people
In the south, way-way back in the woods stood my old -home-church. A small off-white building. Where I learn to play the drums, direct the youth choir and for the life of me- I don’t know why, I do believe.
I would take off my Sunday shoes and race on that dusty- dirt road. Covered in dirt from the waist down. Felt like, I did, some of my best running back at that ole’ church.
I remember the hot sweaty air, accumulating down into my off white stockings. My off white stockings slipping pass my hips. My long piano fingers -pinching my waistline for dear life. All I wanted to do was win.
Kick my heels back, point my chin to the sky, taste sweet nothings’ in the breeze, close my eyes and feel like I’ve been running for miles, only to go fifteen meters toward the church steps.
Dust off my ruffled black skirt and walk up the stairs like the wind had been knocked out of me. All the while I could hear the joyous music of praise and jubilee.
Krissy Mosley Ministries 