-M.C. Escher

I haven't been getting the best sleep of my life since I moved to Eugene. I love my apartment, and while my bed isn't the comfort slumbermarine that greeted me each night in San Francisco, it does the job. Yes, there are the thoughts buzzing with the move and the anticipation of the school year, but I also think it might have something to do with the White Bird Crisis Center but 1.5 blocks away.

The eligibility parameters for the White Bird Crisis Center:

"Anyone in crisis and the mentally ill."

I wonder where the residents see themselves on the eligibility spectrum. Are they at the center in crisis? Mentally ill? Certainly the two bleed into each other. Mentally ill is presumably a much more binding condition than in crisis. Semantics. Perception. The more we know the more we know the less we know.

The other night I woke up at 4 AM to a bellowing debate:

"I AM BLACK. I AM FUCKING BLACK!"

(Not your traditional lullaby. I peer out through a crack in my blinds, but cower back as soon as I see a streetlamp for fear my recon will be uncovered)

"You're black? You're not black! I'm black motherfucker!"

"I'm black. I am!"

You get the gist of it. I want to emphasize the rigorous strain put on the voices that erupt in the parking lot by my window in the wee hours of night. These people yell so loud, I imagine the trachea vibrating, the larynx swollen, red and angry. They do not just want to be heard, they want to be understood. And I suppose, if you're having an impassioned argument at 4 AM about your racial identity, and you need to have it loudly to ensure that your conversation partner really gets it, along with the witnesses you might have to contact later for verification of the exact words used, dropping as many f-bombs as possible can only help your cause. Within the cloud of this situation that mystifies me, this is a clear kernel that I can hold onto, that I am sure of. While you're at it, say fuck. A lot.

He's not just black. He's fucking black motherfucker and fuck you for fucking with him. Fuck.

You see what I'm saying? The man, from everything I can tell, really means what he has to say.

When I initially awoke to this tiff, I thought I was dreaming. No, this is not normally the stuff of my dreams, but a few hours earlier, I had read Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B.", a black student's brief meditation on race as he tries to complete an assignment for class. The poetic speaker reflects:

I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.

But we are, that's true! 

After I got up to putter around my apartment, refold the flaps of unpacked boxes, stub my toe, eat a piece of chocolate, it became clear that this was no dream. And these two men in the parking lot, did not want to be part of each other, especially our naysayer. He wanted absolutely nothing of the other man to reflect on his own person. But in yelling so loudly, dropping so many f-bombs, continuing the futile act of repeating his counter argument, I began to think that the other guy probably was black, and that's precisely why fuck man felt so defensive.

It's a bitch to realize you have things in common with something you hate. Pretty humbling. Maybe it makes you more compassionate. I'm learning from the people in crisis and mentally ill who like to hold fucking court at 4 am in my building's parking lot. So there's that.