A Family is Born
A friend reminded me that when the world seems lost, when i can’t drink enough water to compensate the tears, when all our seedlings turn to embers; we create.
So i will make a new world. Right now. A world without the chaos. Where there is no noise, no making the murderous greater again, no ivory trade, no colorism, no fatherlessness, no empty seats at your first recital. Admission is a bared heart, marred with a lived black experience on Earth. Child molesters and rapists will be denied access. This world will be adjacent to this one. Some will call it “heaven”, some say “it’s like a Day of the Dead for black people” and that is fine. i will call it “Caimile”.
Caimile is where everything is warm, except the freezer. Where i chase rainbows and catch them and set them free again. Where language tastes like deep red earth and, from that, we are born. Caimile is a portal off the Ghanian coast, is a poem written in promises. Caimile is a cool salve on pulsing wound, is a physical place and it is real and it is real. Caimile is where all “black vs. brown”, and all “lighter vs. darker”, all our war-torn this and forlorn that, all the things that are simply not this world are stripped at the gates and we are all in our true form; brilliant, endless, golden. Caimile is where you hear the drums that align your spirit and instantly stand taller. Where, in perfectly unpracticed harmony, a choir of elders sing “Welcome Home” as the gates open and i crumble at the weight of such love. Caimile looks like Wakanda but everyone is here and no danger befalls her.
Caimile is where the drums never stop, they just roll with the ever lush hills and become the landscape. Here, everybody wakes up moisturized. Of course the sky is always blue and the weather is always warm and the sick are never sick and we only raise our hands to catch lightning bugs. But more so than that. My cousin teaches Tamir how to play Fortnite. Trayvon’s mother hangs his college diploma over the door frame. Eric’s family decided that the next 19 days are Father’s Days so today they will make him blueberry scones. Sandra and James treated themselves to a board game and wine. Mike is at the block party playing touch-football with my brothers and Alex and no one is keeping score. Aiyana and Clifford stage a puppet show for the kids who never saw one. Martin, Malcolm and Maya slam dominos on plastic tables out back and Emmett listens to “Black Habits” on repeat and whistles along. i am on the porch, peeling a mango for my great-grandmother, Evelyn, while trying to explaining what a “Whole Foods” is. She doesn’t understand and that’s the magic of it. She will never need to and that’s the power of it. My mother was right, we would be best friends.
Some say that in heaven, we forget the hurts that happened on Earth but not in Caimile. For how can we forget the events that formed us? And this love that becomes us is so much deeper having triumphed such darkness.
Some say that in heaven there will be no color but here there is. In this sea of gold faces, we receive a healing that no other heaven can provide. Because we know. we know. we know. This historic pain. This vibrating rage. This unyielding sadness. Doesn’t just. Dissipate. But it can heal. Together. Only together.
But i can only visit this middle ground. For now.
This place where sons leave and always come back home. This place where children grow up. This place where we can dance in the joy of knowing tomorrow will be another day that greets us. This place where every place is a safe place. This place where Ahmaud jogs with Apollo into every morning light and there is no winner for there is no race. Only a gentle, distant drum, steady breath and laughter.
