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.

The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

Do you ever have those days when you know, without a doubt, that the Hand of God has been on you?

Yesterday was one of those days. I started the day happy as a dung beetle in a pile of horse shit. It was a sunny day in Manhattan. I was off to the gym where I had a great cardio work out. I came home, made a delicious lunch, finished a couple of things I needed to get done online...was preparing for a well deserved nap...and then my partner's ex and his boyfriend came home. I let them know that I would be laying down, and my "roommate" starting cursing at me about me taking a nap and how he wanted to play his music. I again stated, respectfully, that I would be taking a nap and they were welcome to play music, but if they would keep it down, I would greatly appreciate it. I then closed the door and prepared to take a nap.

Then World War III broke out.

I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that these two extremely wounded human beings nearing 50...knowing that my boyfriend was out of town...ambushed me and basically took turns screaming at me and hurling vileness at me with such a deep hatred...that it was obvious...even during it all...that what they were projecting at me was what they were really feeling towards each other and about other circumstances in their lives.

I used every single training experience I had ever been given to de-escalate the situation. I never raised my voice...I spoke calmly...I listened to what they had to say even when they were screaming, even when I was called out of my name. Finally, they left. That is when I broke down.

Knowing that what had gone down was not about me didn't matter. For real...my boyfriend's ex's current boyfriend and I have met two times...and we had never exchanged harsh words. Nor had I ever spoken unkindly about him in any way.

I have never felt so unsafe in my home as an adult.

The fact that I stayed completely calm, acted with absolute integirty, did not demean or debase the people that were attacking me, and showed them respect even as I was being disrespected was a gift from God (and a credit to those fantastic people in my life that have taught me what it means to be in conflict and how to be in conflict without losing myself...I am not always good at it...but yesterday I was flawless...and that fact alone is proof that God was with me).

The rest of the day also was God touched.

I went to softball practice, and I hung out with my new team for the first time. I adore them. I think I remember most of their names, but I sure as hell know that I couldn't attach their names to them all. We had a great practice...my pitching was decent (it can always use improvement)...and then I batted. Now, I have never had a problem hitting the ball. But I have also never been a Herculean hitter. Yesterday, almost every ball I hit was, at the very least, deep in the outfield...a couple of times they would have been straight up home runs. I was in awe of myself. Either the bat was magical or I had an angel swinging along with me. I refuse to take credit for it until I actually do it in a game.

My coach is hilarious. The guys were super welcoming and sweet (and crass and hilarious....sweet God I felt at home). We went to the ultra-bear bar for super cheap drinks. I met Danny O'Donnell...Rosie O'Donnell's brother who is also a NY State Assemblyman...he is a very nice man and very...friendly. He also took me to task for talking smack about Jennifer Holiday's duet with Jennifer Hudson...sorry but the woman was terrible.

I then hightailed it to a borough to a secret location to hang out with some friends plotting an electoral revolution...more to come on that in the future.

It is rare that you have the opportunity to see, in different ways, the good Lord working in such diverse ways...but from the support of my partner, to my conduct during the conflict, to new friends and a great team, to a great evening with my co-conspirators, it was obvious that even though some of the day was extremely difficult and called up memories from childhood that I thought were laid to rest...that I was not doing any of it alone...and that God himself and an assortment of characters that sometimes took the shape of cute Greek first ladies and old friends in new places were right there with me.