Month: January 2011

I knew his death would trigger something or put me into another perspective.

Now I look at my legal family, dad mom and sister and I need to face it.

I just feel totally off them. Not like stranger off, more like alien off. I have this memory of an evening where for the first time I cranked up the volume of my radio to blast What’s Going On. Of course I didn’t know what it meant, I just loved the voice, the feeling and the music. My parents went apeshit telling me that we were not in the ghetto so I had to turn that down. Damn I was like eleven or twelve and never thought that I would remember this forever.

It was telling a lot about how I’m different from them  -they don’t care about music like I do and don’t know shit about black music at all, they’re talking about people of my color like they’re bad and just a little bit of excess is not allowed- but of course, I was just confused. Now I know why I’m still confused. Because I see how by having a typical stuck-up white intellectual family on one side, a really divided and discriminatory society on the other side, I feel so screwed. Neither of them are satisfying. And yet by my position, I have it all but. Fuck.

BlackGoldOfTheSun

I have to recognize that overall it always felt artificial with my parents, from the beginning. Like an industry contract: you help me out in life, I’m a good son to you. Nothing too personal, just business. I mean, it started with them coming to visit me, offering me presents at my foster family house and when you’re a kid you go where you can have more of these. I call that business. Then I just learned and soaked up knowledge they were giving me like a sponge. Looking back on it , that’s all I did, sharing emotions, love was more than rare despite trying and create awkardness. It’s hard to admit it and I’m sure they would be sad but hey, letting me do what I wanted to do without support, like an obligation they have to fulfill, does that too. That’s ok.

I have a connection with my foster family that looks like the “default family connection”, like most of you have. Because I grew up there I guess. It feels natural. Despite the same physical differences I feel connected in a way that I have never been able to reproduce with my parents. I tried, I hoped, it was bullshit. You don’t really create that, it exists or it doesn’t.

They warn people that old –that is, any baby after 12 months- adopted child integration into a family is complicated. Since the beginning I feel being a character, playing a role. For a long time I thought it was going on pretty well and felt real but it honestly never felt true. There was a big “…and scene” moment when I was at last, alone. 25 years like that.

What is left when you don’t connect at all emotionally with your family? What’s like to talk about black hair with your black dad? Damn I wish I knew. It’s terrible when people including the closest are both pointing at me as black while saying I am not black because I don’t act like a black dude kind of sending the message that I’m neither black or white and so I don’t belong anywhere. Guys, I am black, dark skinned or chocolate if you want. Visually I can’t hide it, hence the classic “where you’re from? I mean, ethnically” I get all the time in France la Rude. Otherwise I’m just Harold. I don’t fit any of your boxes. Even when I want it.

The terrible under representation of black people in circles I’ve been involved in didn’t help feeling comfortable. Don’t laugh at it, a lot of white people get totally depressed living in Japan and I remember this black Katrina refugee sent to Utah, 1.4% of black people there (compared to 12.9% nationwide). She went crazy. Well I’m doing that since day one so in some way it’s easier but it’s also much heavier. I grew up being the 1% black stat and when I saw a lot more black people I was twenty something and they were friggin’ undereducated 99% of the time. France, US it’s all bad. WTF am I supposed to do with that. It feels like it pushes me into craziness: being all the time the exception and wanting to be more in the pack –but which one?- while still wanting to be different because it’s a positive value. Often. But not too much? How much then? I’m confused.

Recently in the past few years, it feels too much. Probably because of the depressing state of work and business in France in which I sank myself in for poor benefits but anyway. I can’t take looks people are giving at my family and me when we hang out in public. I can’t look at my parents, sister, in the eyes anymore. I kind of don’t want to see the extended family despite the fact that I miss them a bit but man in the south they don’t like guys like me and I still have painful memories of escaping looks when I was taking pictures with my beautiful deep blue eyed white cousin. I can’t take that shit anymore, having to explain how the fuck I am related to him her or them.

It’s easier to connect with friends because the relationship“doesn’t have to be”. No question asked. It’s easier with women because they deeply know even if they say that they don’t, what discrimination and living in a world that looks ok but is totally fucked up are. It’s easier with people who happened to have a not so conventional personal life. But even in these cases, I’m  dealing with my quite unique paradigm which draws me away from everyone.

I guess that’s why I appreciate so much to be alone, to be myself by myself. I worked on that, how to be happy alone since forever. I’m good at it now, thanks to OCPD tendencies, music and games. Oh and the internet.

And that’s also why I love so much improvisation: a set of rules and total freedom around it. No judgment, no why, it’s on the fly. Can’t stop won’t stop. It’s also one of the rare, universally appreciated skill.

That’s what I always did. And that’s probably what I’ll always do.

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act.

It’s maybe because my not-so-private life is shacking or because there are too much networks to follow at the same time but I feel that all these services offered for free in exchange of scanning our lives are going to witness a slow down in registration. So much privacy issues. But yes, I just signed up for Quora. <sigh>

A lot of services get me with stats. From views to plays to followers, of course it’s addicting. But sometimes it just feels so useless. The real value of networks is what I get from people and what I share. It will never change.

It’s amazing how a blog, on a server you rent, feels so much more cozy and at home than Facebook despite the fact that both are equally public. Except that Facebook technically does own what I share where on my blog, search engines give access to it and that’s it.

So even if this is kind of true, I guess I will do it over and over. Blogging freely.

PS: the import closed all the comments, sorry. Also, you might need to update your rss with the same address as before, it has to be done, sorry for the inconvenience. The feed address: http://har0ld.com/playground/feed

The kind of day you never forget.

Of course we were late for the ceremony. Searching for parking when people were entering the church. Being at the door away from the family and the coffin felt so painful. I am part of this family too, I should be there. I close my eyes and try to get the anxiety away, listening to the church dude. “He’s been living here for 41 years” 10 years later I was a baby in his life. “He was involved in different local organizations”. I can see him play petanque, getting ready to go hunting or fishing, his perfectly organized workshop. “He was in pain, which reminds us of Jesus on the cross”.

What the fuck is that. I forgot about that disgustingly lame behavior. Fucking church  you ruined it I fucking hate you.

Then I am not listening anymore, so angry (and then you ask money huh? I hate you church). Before the incense thing someone from the family sees me and gets me a place with everybody in front. Bursting in tears seeing her and others, I feel so embarrassed. After all I am the only black man in this all white crowded church. But one of the closest person of the dead. It’s kind of overwhelming.

We all follow the coffin outside. I say hello to everyone, some I had never seen again since being in my “current” family 25 years ago. My dad is chatting a little bit with her but he’s keeping it simple. After all he barely knows more than my foster parents which is a number reduced to one now.

We’re the first at the house. She arrives, I think she looks amazingly kind and pure. Exhausted too. Quickly everybody is here in the living room, starting to put on the buffet on the table. Smiles, tears, everybody is here and it’s beautiful and warm. But it’s also unbearably awkward with my dad, the stranger to whom no one talks to almost. He’s in the corner, sitting down with a plate I made for him and as pretty much all day, I can’t look in his eyes at all. I can sense that everybody is like “keep the bad language down, there’s Harold’s dad listening what would he think then huh?”. I feel bad for him. I feel bad too.

I just try to get to chat a bit with everybody, following cigarette breaks outside, getting back for more coffee to fight the jet lag and the cold thick fog of the afternoon. As much fog outside and inside my head.

It’s 2pm, the family leaves for the crematory later and while I would love to join, we have some road to hit before the Parisian traffic. It’s like I’m staying 5 minutes saying we’re leaving and doing nothing, just enjoying to have them all around me. I feel so lucky and proud. They say they put a picture of me in the coffin too. Humanity at its roots. For what it’s worth…

I think the hardest part is to stretch out my mind in order to include everyone I love. So many different worlds, so many differences, so many unique connections when in some ways, I’d like to be in a “normal“ situation with “normal” connections.

What “normal” is, what family, love, friends are. Sometimes I don’t fucking know. I just freeze.