| I Remember: Part 1 Family Gatherings I remember sips of strong black coffee. Arab coffee. No milk. No sugar. Bitter memories in a cup. That's the way we liked it. We sat in the back seat of his dark red Oldsmobile. It smelled like cherry car fresheners that should have been thrown away months ago. We'd go. Sit. Feed. Pray. They are our blood, but they treat us like the needy. I remember pushes to the front. Had to be the brave one. Had to go first. Little brother never felt brave enough. Old country stations, mixed with Sunday afternoons filled with Habibi Bak bak and Kalthum the great. Pinched cheeks and cookies with sesame seeds on them. Running barefoot on pale marble floors. Cold when you put your face on it. Discussions of whose child was smarter, bigger, better, braver, but in the end we all lost out. We were all dark beauties. Light skin. Tainted eyes. Soft brown locks. I remember talks alone with my cousin. All boys. Few girls. We'd sit up at night. Everyone down stair, we in the attic. I wanted him to hold me as a sister. He wanted to follow the family and have a wife. And so I left. Never to return. Always to return. I remember... I remember... I remember southern fried chicken and fresh corn bread. Conversations of "back in the day" and "nigga please" flew from person to person. Men sitting in their undershirts and work pants. Beer in one hand, possibly a child sitting near the other or a cigarette in his fingers. Every sentence starting with "baby, let me tell ya'..." or "nigga, you don't know..." Wild laughter roaring in every direction. Thin dark children running from porch to yard to play set to person. I remember glimpses of talk, who knows if I was meant to hear. "...nigga chil' as white as dem white folk..." Grandma Nora and Ivory never let anyone get away with it. They'd tell them to step and if they didn't, they'd catch a beating. I remember trips back in the Oldsmobile. Men sat barefoot. Cross legged. Laughing respectfully. Kifhalik and Alhumdulilah flying from mouth to mouth. The women wore long shirts. Sat on the other side of the room. Feet covered. Planted on the floor. Little smiles. Adoring, hateful eyes at their husbands. Their cousins. I was the only child sitting on their fathers lap. He did it to show off. He did it, to show off. My mother rarely came to these types of gatherings. There would no mix of talk or laughter. No women showing skin or men drinking and smoking, throwing "nigga please" around. There were no "niggas" here. At least not on the outside. Sitting at tables with cubas and black olives. Plates of tan hummas and tea being passed around. Piles of meat, rice filled with walnuts and cashews, racing at your nose. I remember...I remember... I remember big breasts and tank tops. Rocking chairs in the yard. Grandpa covered in oil from his car. James Brown on a near by radio screaming, "it's a man's world, but it ain't nothing with out a woman. It's a man's world, but it ain't nothing with out a woman!" I remember wearing frilly dresses, posing for pictures I knew I wouldn't see or understand until years later. I understand now, these memories that hold me like a cup of coffee. I remember never liking to take sips of black coffee. So I mixed lots of sugar and tons of milk. Giving taste and flavor to the bitter memories. And that's the way we like it. That's the way I like it. |