I miss blogging regularly like I used to 4 years ago. Sometimes I have things to say. Sometimes I don’t. I like to write about semi-profound things on this blog rather than ramble about my kids and my dog.

Oh wait, I don’t have either of those things.

[awkward pause]

Currently the things taking up my time include:

– A new job (I’m a librarian! Whee!)
– Novel revisions (A 22-week self-paced course in which I’m already 5 weeks behind! Whee!)
– Preparations for my grandmother’s centenarian celebration (I’m sending out the invitations 7 weeks before the event and asking people to RSVP in no later than 5 weeks! Whee!)

Some sarcasm present but honestly, I’m very fortunate to have a job I love to pieces, a novel with a story I love (even if it’s poorly written), and a dear grandmother who is nearing 100 years.

My fingers have been itching to write but now that I’m sitting at a computer and typing, my mind draws a blank. Perhaps I could rant about how poor I am with time management but I have no solutions to that. I’d like to write something a bit more serious (like how I support bipolar disorder being covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act) but I lack the brainpower for that right now. (And besides, it belongs on my rarely updated mental health blog, Depression Introspection.)

My life is busy but I can offer nothing of creative, social, political, or theological interest at the moment. Sure, there’s supposed mosques near Ground Zero, Koran burnings scheduled, and the New York Times conceding they’ll eventually stop printing hard copies of their paper soon, but these are only facts I can rattle off to you and I have little mental fortitude to offer any wit or commentary on any of these things. And I’m in no mood to rehash my already beaten-to-death topics on gay rights, infant baptism, and what dissatisfies me currently in life.

So all I’m trying to say is, I’m still alive, my fingers were itching to write (instead of edit, for once), and I have nothing of value to say.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m not the typical Black chick. I didn’t vote for the first Black (biracial, really) President of the United States, I’m married to a White guy, my close friends aren’t Black, and I’ve spent a good part of my childhood accused of being a sellout because I articulated myself well and listened primarily to music other than hip-hop and R&B.

Every now and then I really struggle with making the color of my skin connect with the person inside of it. I struggle with issues connected to my racial identity, often feeling insecure and overanalyzing why I don’t have any close Black friends.

But then there are other times when I realize I’m simply a Black woman who just doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with most of my Black peers.

A few years ago, I held a summer internship at a popular Black magazine. I felt fortunate in obtaining an internship and being part of the company’s history and legacy. I learned a lot during my 3 months there, but even as a temporary employee, knew I didn’t belong there. Most of the people I worked with possessed a certain amount of Black pride—I’m not talking about Blacks are the greatest race on earth or anything like that. My coworkers carried themselves with a sort of confidence and grace that seemed to announce, “I’m Black, I work for a prestigious Black magazine, and I’m honored to represent Black people in a way that encourages them to better themselves.” Not that that’s bad but I’ve never seen myself that way. I’ve always spent most of my life wishing to be someone else when it came to my personality; it should come as no surprise that it wasn’t any different when it came to my skin color.

After my internship ended, I subscribed to the magazine for 3 years (mostly with the hope that I’d write freelance articles for it; never did). At first, I read the magazine voraciously each month but then grew more and more disenchanted with it to the point where I began tossing it into the garbage for the last year of my subscription once it arrived in the mail.

And somehow a year ago, I was anonymously subscribed to Essence magazine, which is unfortunate as I’ve never cared for the magazine much at all and have taken to tossing it in the trash most months as well (or I’ll take it to the hair salon and leave it there).

The idea of exclusive racial magazines bothers me. I think there was once a time for Ebony, Jet, Essence, and other popular Black magazines, but I think that time has come and gone. (Although subscriptions, of course, contradict me.)

Many of these magazines arose during a time of racial tension. Ebony and Jet began publishing in the late 40s/early 50s of the 20th century while Essence started in 1968 and Black Enterprise began in 1970. Even after the Civil Rights Act, equality and integration still had a long way to go. Whites were reluctant to include any other race in their magazines so Blacks had to cater to their own demographic.

Forty years later, however, predominantly White magazines have made a concerted effort to include more diversity—not just Black people but also Hispanic, Asian, and other nationalities. (Although one could reasonably argue they still have a long way to go.) But Black magazines continue to cater strictly to Black people with little attempt at integration. Many of the articles infuriate me because they pit Black people against White people in various comparisons:

• Black families earn less than White familes
• Black women are less likely to be married than White women
• Black men are more likely to be in debt than White men
• Black children are less likely to get into Harvard than White kids

I’m being partially facetious with those bullet points but many of the comparisons run along those lines. These magazines rarely make comparisons against Hispanics (a race/nationality on track to overtake Whites/Caucasians as the majority).

I’m all for celebrating Black culture—not the color of our skin so much as many of the things common to American people of sub-Saharan African descent—but I just wish that Black people’s calls for equality and integration would ring true within our own community. I would love to see a magazine that caters to women of all skin colors, all hair types, all different backgrounds and nationalities. I would love to see a magazine in which you can’t predict the nationality of the person on the next page because it’s not all White or all Black. I want an magazine that’s not afraid to discuss the challenges of an integrated nation, the acceptance of interracial relationships, and the need for cultural sensitivity among different groups.

Do I need to start that too?

Perhaps I’m a fool for making this public. Perhaps my private conversations with God should remain just that… private. (And maybe I’ll make it private.) But typing on a computer now feels about as cathartic as holding a pen pumping ink into a lined journal. And I type faster.

I’m in the midst of a spiritual winter. I feel far from God. I feel far from everyone except for my husband and maybe close family. Jesus is real but he’s somewhere else. Not here. The Holy Spirit? I forget about and ignore him most of the time. I operate as a Christian atheist, confusing conviction of the Holy Spirit for general conscience — I’m that far gone.

I have some great need to know that I am loved and cared for beyond just my husband and immediate family. It shouldn’t matter. But it does. And really, if I get down to it, I’m seeking in other people what I should be seeking in God. Continue reading “Early winter” →