If You Believe

I was born with an abundance of faith.

In a world, in a life, in a childhood, in a journey that would have destroyed, and rightfully so, the faith of some...the fact that I have survived, thrived, and been surrounded by the greatest gifts of love any man could receive and more than most will ever receive has proven the presence of God/Community/Love/Faith in my life.

I have always been afraid of calm. Stability has terrified me. Peace has been my kryptonite. Joy was for someone else. Happiness was temporary. Crisis was comofrtable. Pain was deserved. Misery was my comfort blanket.

No more. No more. No more.

I repeat.

No more.

Right now, I am sitting here, in my apartment on a Saturday afternoon. Lena Horne is playing. She is singing Stormy Weather and If You Believe.

"If you believe, within your heart, you'll know. No one can change the path that you must go."

I have walked a path. My sweet Lord Jesus, have I walked a path. The earliest paving stones were laid down for me. They twisted my feet and bowed my knees, and they had me walk bowlegged into my early adulthood...and it has taken a long as time to straighten them out. I still walk from side to side now and again. Sometimes I have a limp, and sometimes I trip over my own feet, but damn if I haven't taken Thor's Hammer to the street in front of me, shattered the crooked ways and grabbed the twisted path and shaken it until it lays straight...ish.

Hot damn Miss Lena could sing the panties off the Virgin Mary.

In the Litany of the Saints of the Common Man, Saint Lenam, Our Lady of Peace and Fierceness, has sometimes sung me through some ugly places.

Today she is singing me a different song.

"Believe what you feel, and know you are right because the time will come around when you'll say it's yours. Believe that you can go home. Believe you can float on air!"

Float? I am flying. I am flying. I am flying through this world, and I have been lifted up and hung on the wind by all ya'll. By the teachers that encouraged me all throughout out school, by my family--especially my Grandpa Carey and my Honey Bun, by a community of friends that stretches from Norway to Los Angeles---from Troll Baby who once told me that it was ok for me to be small (maybe no other words, short of I Love You, have meant more to me in my entire life)...to David Berube who taught me that I deserved to be loved....to Keith who has walked many of the paths I have walked and saw past the masks....to all of the amazing human beings that have been angels in my life. Angels, if you believe, walk amongst us each and every day.

And I want to single out Mr. Kamal Fizazi without whom I wouldn't be sitting here typing this. I love you my friend.

I am walking the right road for me now...and I will not wander from its path. The Universe reminds me each and every day that I am doing justice by myself...and when you do justice by yourself...you are a light for justice in the world.

I have much gratitude and this note is just to say thank you to you all for believing in me.

Ashe.