Between the World and Me

Reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehsis Coates brought countless questions to my mind.  They sit heavily in my stomach while I sit on this bench, while I write, while I talk to my children on the phone.

What place do my children have in this, our shared history of plundering, pain, and lies that Coates chronicles? How does their Senegalese father's history combine with the land of their birth to create their own individual rooms with unique views onto this world? When will my children become aware of the distance between themselves and the world? How is their distance similar to or different from Coates's son's distance?

Am I part of the "they" who "think they are white," to whom James Baldwin and Coates refer? Or am I just Abe and Marieme's mom, who has peach skin? (And when will the language or white and black overtake my children's Crayola vocabulary or peach and brown skin colors? Never, I hope.) Is it possible to be part of the group the world identifies as "white Americans" and not think I am white, in the sense that Baldwin and Coates evoke? Or is there no way to avoid thinking of oneself as white, with all the privilege, history, and power to plunder that is, according to Coates, congenital?

What would Coates make of my life, my family, my skin, my children's skin, my country, my people?  Who are my people?  Where is my country?  Who is my home?  

"The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books.  I was made for the library not the classroom.  The library was open, unending, free.  Slowly, I was discovering myself."  Coates is at home in the library, as am I.  Does that mean we share a home?  Can a person have more than one home?  Or does my question belittle the importance of the home, the country, the people that Coates identifies?

My questions are all I have, and they are certainly enough to fill my body and direct my eyes for some time to come.  

My room, my part

I'm starting a room of my own to write, to think about the world and doing my part.  Virginia Woolf told me I needed a room of my own, and so this is it.  I have my library, my thinking cave at home, and this room in the cloud. Sister Simone Campbell told me I can't do everything, so focus on figuring out what my part is and do that.  So here's where I'll collect, ruminate, and experiment on how to best do my part in this large world.  Welcome.