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.

Lena Horne

Last week, I found myself listening to the song, "If You Believe," as sung by Lena Horne, almost non-stop. Last night, Lena Horne left this world for the next one.

Dear Ms. Lena, thank you so very much for helping me to believe in myself. Rest in peace sweet spirit, powerful woman, child of Africa. You brought us love and lived with dignity during a time when dignity was denied to black people and most of all black women. I love you, Ms. Lena. We all do. Sleep well.


Lena

In dignity denied
during Jim Crow's time
you held your head
cocked to the side
smile curving
breasts and hips
taped up in black soldier's lockers
paraded across USO stages
staged a one woman war
to protest military segregation
marched in Birmingham
on Albany
because you believed
in your own freedom
free will to free yourself
and freed us
from head rags
and rag time
left behind minstrel shows
and showed the world
that black woman and sex symbol
are synonyms
made L.E.N.A
into an acronym: LUSCIOUS, ELEGANT, NEGRO, and ALIVE
you refused to hide
your sensuality or sexuality
the duality of living in a black/white divide
skin a passport and a barrier
harried by children that called you white
never white enough for Hollywood
you kept on
and kept us
keeping on
with song and dance and laughter
a beautiful sister
unafraid to be black
unashamed to be woman
unsurpassed as a human

Sweet mother
you've earned your peace
sleep well.

Ashe. Love. Lena.

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-May 10, 2010