For the Comfort of Karen

 On yet another day of yet another news report, the Karens and the Todd's are wiggling around, most of them are younger GenXers afraid of their shadow, casting their discomfort upon the rest of the world.

These, the ones who were Latchkey, envious of the awareness and freedom of their Boomer older siblings. 

They became the parents of the Millennials, that self-absorbed generation of Tiffany's and Joey's who only understand what is flashed on that tiny screen they hold, never considering the impact of their actions as they appropriate what is not theirs to become TikTok Influencers with contracts while the ones they stole from created the content.

Oh for the comfort of the Karens.

We have watched over the pandemic how it has been the screeching screaming shrill voice of their discomfort that has made this deadly time even deadlier.

No one ever told them no.

Certainly not their parents.

I've seen it.

Whatever they want, they get, and if they are from the elite elite, they have a sun kissed or warm tan someone to fetch their every whim while Mummy sips mimosas and talks about how hard life is.

Then, something happened to connect everyone and everyone's everything was turned upside down and the Mummys with someone and the wannabe stroller legging wearing ones suddenly realized they did not have what almost four hundred years of KarenSallyAmyJane had - help.

Karen went in an uproar.

Tantrums in stores, even losing her sh*t literally in a store aisle. Others coughed, all unmasked, claiming oppression.

These germinfested creatures whose very heritage includes pandemics wiping out entire villages due to their filth, these same ones on full recorded displayed privilege spreading their germs everywhere.

Until it caught up with them.

Many died.

Some became very ill.

All of them had their lives turned upside down and they faced the monster in the mirror.

The reflection was too much for their fragile soul.

They had no culture no depth of understanding or connecting with society, believing their greasy stringy hair and pale skin was enough to render them invincible.

For the comfort of the Karens.

Many many endured contamination on planes, in grocery stores, those vulnerable who had to work to provide were once essential and then called entitled, they paid the price.

AmySallySue was not satisfied.

Because it raged and raged and her little Bitty and Bobby were not invincible, little carriers of death they were, and it continued to spread faster than the speed of light.

So they ranted and yelled at schools and threatened with guns and waved signs claiming freedom to spread death everywhere.

And no one shut them up.

Oh the history of this country is replete with the comfort of the Karens and oh so many lives fallen for their selfish absorption of self.

They envied and tried to create fashion to immolate what they desired but it took a big tall pecan uncle auntie to remind them they weren't even that.

They tried to shut out the words and a red headed caramel took them to task on a day to celebrate a King and put his words back on their false claim of solidarity.

They claimed to be for all when only money appeased their purple maroon glasses so much they even stopped others from attending to the franchise.

Oh the KarenKristenKrissy's of them all.

So many thousands lost because the color of water is so dirty they can not see the emptiness of their soul.

And so for the comfort of them ponytail running ragged hoping BillyBob wants them again, they screech and threaten and are a nuisance in big rooms and big skies.

But who will really seek justice for the ones harmed for their feigned fainting falsehoods?

One day, we are waiting for the one day.

For further reading - especially for the Karens who don't want to be a Karen

The Trouble With White Women: A Counter History of Feminism by Kyla Schuller

Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)Comfortable Talking About Racism by Sara Blanchard

How to be Anti Racist by Ibram X. Kendi

Shoutin' in the Fire: An American Epistle by Danté Stewart

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Karen on the plane and on to London

Karen attacking elderly on plane and another one

Karen at the school board

Karen at the grocery store

In the Quiet Still of My Unspoken Day

 The first Monday of the semester begins today for my college daughter.

As fate, cold, and Covid would have it, we had to change her flights from leaving on Friday to leaving in the too-dark-for-anyone hours from our home to drive up to the airport. She flew out this morning, it is still cold, still covid but the winter storm of last week has emerged to just bitter cold and sunshine this morning. 

She lugged her two trunk cases down the stairs, filled with all she thought she would need, from Connecticut-to-Mississippi, for her second semester sophomore year.  She did it all herself and I just marveled at how she maneuvered it all.

After a quick breakfast while her father prepared himself to do the drive, I made myself a cup of Rooibos tea at 3:30am. It was too early to be awake, even without acknowledging daylight savings time, and honestly, I was beginning to feel the exhaustion.

Once they were pulling out of the driveway, I turned off the lights, climbed the stairs, let some Netflix watch me, and went back to sleep until my youngest daughter and last child rose for the week.

Thankfully, all she wanted from me was one of my cups of coffee, "no butter, though, mom." 

Since she turned eighteen on December 1st, one of the things her Dad promised her was a car. It came just before Christmas Day so she had the independence over holiday break that she desired. Having a car and figuring out her commute time, she was preparing to leave at 6:45m.

I made her the requisite coffee with my homemade brown sugar syrup and perfectly frothed milks. She hugged me, grabbed her bagel and keys, "everything is already in the car, mom," backwave and out-the-door she went.

Then I just stood in my kitchen for a moment. 

It was not yet 7am.

I am on a privately funded writing, reading, and researching sabbatical for the semester, so unlike the first real Monday a year ago, I don't have a nonsensical meeting to attend. I only had myself and my own agenda. 

It was quiet.

The kind that knows there has been a shift in the atmosphere, someone is not there and won't be back for a while.

It happened after Turkey Day when my youngest son was here with his love heart. I felt a slight vacuum but knew they would be back.

We had a month from holiday-to-holiday of non stop activities - milestone birthday, concerts and concerts, college girl coming home - literally Christmas Eve getting and decorating a tree - to the Epiphany that was also the one year anniversary of the unthinkable. All while Covid decided it wasn't finished sending the message the collective we forgot.

I felt like my body hadn't rested, hadn't stopped.

Me being new to my state, I haven't had a chance to really meet and engage with people to form friendships, not the way my daughter has or my husband. My sorority members and I are playing it safe with Covid, so no gatherings, so I spent most of the time attending to my family.

They have my heart and my love, so I did the things I do for and with them.

We had joyous meals and cakes I made, went out to family outings -safely - and enjoyed the noise of being. A full house of memories and a few flashbacks to when I couldn't even wrap my mind around my youngest one coming of age in the early second decade of a new century. Where did time go?

This holiday season was my first when all five of my children were adults.

I was able to engage with them in a different way.

And in so doing, begin discovering myself, anew.

I'm no longer responsible for anyone's day-to-day everything. Legally, my last daughter is a senior. while she is actually still dependent on us, she has her own time, her own car, and a very long list of activities that made that car necessary for her last year of high school. I don't have to set my writing and research schedule around 2pm when I would leave to pick her up and 3pm when I had to drop her off at her activities or 5pm to pick her up and drop her off for more than ended at 8pm.

Time was given back to me.

What do I do with it?

I have plenty and since I've structured my life to be in rhythm of my early-rising-nature, my to-do is usually over with plenty of daylight left. After thirty-five years of parenting and fixing my work life for necessity and not always purpose, I am reaching into those parts of myself waiting for me to hear her.

So when everyone left this morning, I resisted to urge to be productive, to do something, to prove my worth, to do any of the to-dos that sometimes rattle so much noise on women. 

I chose to stand still, holding my coffee, looking at the closed door to the garage and smiling.

Turning on my heels, I pivoted away from anything that seems like work - washing sheets and blankets after the kids have all left, Monday morning towels, even loading her breakfast plate. I moved away from the love labor that has allowed my family over the past nineteen years to reach into parts of themselves without an obligation in its way. It gave them space to dream.

Dreaming is what had me standing still in my kitchen, looking at the door. Doors that open and doors that close. Emily Dickinson came to mind about dwelling in possibilities.

It briefly had me close my eyes and think would productive thing I could do, after all, that is how we are conditioned. Then, I changed my mind, held my warm creamy latte with lemon and brown sugar, pivoted, and walked upstairs.  I snuggled in my warm comfy bed, surrounded by my items of work and creativity, letting the crisp chill of the falling temperatures invite me further into the recesses of my comforter.

I didn't have to put on clothes yet and didn't have to attend to anyone but me.

Some would call that privilege, others would call that entitled, or even spoiled. 

As a Black woman who used to be up and out of my house by 6am with two toddlers in tow to catch the morning bus before work, I call it - earned.

I'm not sure what will happen in the world around me today as all of us continue to navigate the effects of Covid on everything in our lives, but for one day, I chose to let this Monday be my unspoken and unaccounted for day.

In the quiet still of my unspoken day, all I can hear is my evolution.

 They never yell at White women.