I am me.

'A black artist can paint a wall of smiley faces and people will ask why they're so angry.'

Flipping through hundreds of channels this evening I stumbled upon The Black List. If you haven't seen any of it, I highly recommend you do.

I know I've written about this series previously and it makes me ponder race, ethnicity, and identity every time. First of all, what do these words mean?

Race: a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.

Ethnicity: Identity with or membership in a particular racial, national, or cultural group and observance of that group's customs, beliefs, and language.

Identity: The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.

What do they mean? I've been sitting here trying to interpret these three terms in my own words without using one of the other two and I've failed. Why? I guess race is the most straightforward of the three. It's the most immediately visible isn't it? How much does how we define ourselves in relation to these three terms make us who we are at the core?

If you're black, is that all you are?
If you're gay, is that all you are?
If you're a woman, is that all you are?
If you're Turkish, is that all you are?

It gets more complicated when you're a mix of these things and even more complicated if these terms that 'define' us are challenged.

How dark do you have to be to be labeled as black?
How gay do you have to be to be labeled as gay?
If you feel like a woman trapped in a man's body, are you a man?
Even one's nationality can become questionable.

I feel like some think of these as cut and dry matters.

I know they aren't for me.

I know I am a mixture of many things, experiences, as well as a reflection of the people around me. I don't want to be defined as any one thing because I'm just not. I'm. Just. Not. I don't fit anywhere and I truly like that about myself. I can't say that I always have but I know that I do now.

There's one overarching theme in all three volumes of The Black List that's brilliant in it's simplicity and brevity:

I am not this, that, or the other. I am me.

'i just heard myself'

i went up to Beacon this weekend to see my oldest friend E. she took part in an open studios event and i thought it'd be lovely to see her. off i went with 3 peeps in Hubie2 Saturday morning.

i wont bore you with details about the day other than that we saw some lovely art, went to a vineyard, and crashed a house party.

what i came away with, (you knew this was coming!) was a realization about what dear E means to me and why i've always felt such a strong attachment to her.

picture it: we met when i was all of 8/9 years old. she was my 15/16 year old teacher in Saturday morning German language school. (my mother wanted me to learn the language since i'm Swiss.) she was smart yet chill, completely charming yet humble, one of the most approachable and accepting people i've ever met and to top it off...she's a halfie. she was my first halfie role model. you may not ever think of this, or maybe you do, but it's not often that i'm face to face with someone who looks like me.

whether you recognize it as important or not, i never realized that very fact until i attended a Loving Day event a few years ago and was in a room full of halfies. i daresay most of the others in that room probably felt the same as i did. it was neither a feeling of woe and isolation nor one of happiness, rather it was a feeling of shared experience and solidarity. as you know, i have some of the very best friends in the world but i believe even they would have a hard time comprehending the feeling of awe i felt in that room simply because it's not likely something they've ever encountered. and it's not something i'd expect from them as non-mixed people. why would i? would i say i comprehend the black experience to my black friends? no. it's one of the few things in life one has to be to understand.

so it was this past Saturday I fully recognized my connection with E and why I've always held her friendship so close to my heart. i saw her almost every Saturday for 5 years and to be as young as i was and see a well-adjusted, unaffected, and brilliant biracial, i think, really had an effect on me. as i've said before, being biracial is only a part of who i am and i'd never want it to be more than that but it's an important part nonetheless. there was so much that didn't need to be spoken. we just understood each other. at one point on Saturday she said, 'it was like i just heard myself' while she listened to me rant about my Loving Day experience. precisely, how i've felt in her presence my whole life.

i know i have friends who don't see me as biracial and i honestly love that they're colorblind to it. but it's something i've always been aware of. in my impressionable years, it wasn't something that conjured a feeling of pride. i had been on the receiving end of one too many racially charged comments. i knew people didn't accept my mother because she had a kid with a non-Chinese and out of wedlock nonetheless. gasp! undoubtedly some of it was also self-imposed. was it why my dad left? and where were the role models who could've showed me otherwise? so you see, all this internal and external loathing made an indelible mark.

the silver lining is, as i became more confident and self-assured, i came to recognize my difference as uniqueness. it didn't automatically make me less and just because i didn't see many people around who looked like me (and by extension, felt as i did) didn't make me less worthy, less loved or less worthy of being loved and i needed to stop looking at myself that way.

so, dear E, please know that in the 20 years i've had the pleasure of your acquaintance you've unwittingly become my main halfie role model in all realms of life. i know you're so much more than being someone of mixed race but that part of who you are has been important to me. thank you for showing me tolerance and acceptance.

p.s. apologies for not retaining a lick of German! :)

Madea makes me think

"You never had anything happen to you in your childhood? Then what kind of adult are you?" - Tyler Perry

I'm watching The Black List: Volume 2 right now and this quote struck me. Apparently Tyler Perry had a colorful childhood, to say the least. He followed by saying, 'It's made me who I am. It's made me the man I am.' (I wouldn't say this is verbatim but it's the jist of his comments.) He prefaced the first quote above by saying that he felt sorry for people that had a 'perfect childhood.'

I think and I think and I think and I look and I look and I look around me and the people who understand me best have experienced some kind of adversity in their youth (or young adulthood). And while, I wouldn't wish a 'colorful childhood' on anyone, especially a child, it appears there's something to be said for what it does for personality and character building. It's not to say that everyone that has been through adversity is more well adjusted or that people who haven't been through adversity are any worse off. I'm just saying that it's a pattern I've noticed in my life. It's hard to pinpoint what it is. Perhaps it's a slightly different model of empathy and compassion. Perhaps it's an acknowledged understanding and respect. Perhaps it's a different kind of humility. It's why gays understand gays differently than straight people understand gay people, and visa versa. Same goes for people of the same race or, in my case, of mixed race. If you haven't dealt with it, it never occurs to you that there's anything else. And it's not to say that the people who haven't dealt with 'it' can't understand. I think one of the most amazing things about some people is the ability to recognize that it's something that hasn't been part of their experience and then consciously make an effort to try to understand. I have such great respect for people who acknowledge that they don't know. Because it's a humbling thing. We like to think of ourselves as open and worldly but it's not about ignorance, which has a negative connotation, it's about acknowledging and then opening up yourself to broaden YOUR experience. Because, in the end, it benefits everyone.

Here I go separating. Making myself and these people around me 'the other.' But like I've always said, normal is boring.

Men's Health Urbanathlon, #789

I've never seen Central Park in such a fog. It was almost 7am, almost race time, and I was almost at the start line, but not quite. I observed the quietness of the park at that hour. The only audible sounds were the pounding feet of the regular morning runners making their rounds around the main loop. I start seeing people who were there for the same purpose as me and I follow them. I'm more nervous than I was right before I went skydiving. Is it strange that I was more afraid of this than falling out of an airplane?

I find D and we head to the start line JUST as the race was about to begin. We've got our respective ipods strapped in, give each other a high five, and get to work. It was certainly surreal jogging across 72nd street at 7am with 1500 other people under this immense fog. I wonder if any of the people sleeping cozily in the nearby buildings are aware of this mass of runners just beneath them. We decide to split as we get on the path along the Hudson. I notice that I can't even really see New Jersey just across the river. I look ahead of me. I look to the side. I try to focus on the carefully curated playlist I'd tweaked the night before in preparation. My feet are already wet and the unseemly thought of blisters pops into my head. Will I have to abort the race because of blisters? Luckily D told me he was going to get dri fit socks the night before and I made a hasty stop at Paragon to pick up socks and a longish pair of chocolate running shorts.

I stay at my own pace and run to my own beat, after all, my goal was to finish without stopping. This was not a race of speed but rather a challenge of the mind and body. Could I do this? I notice runners with "Go Army" tees pass me and I realize that I'm going up against people who run drills like this regularly at work, who've likely seen war, and who will leave me in the dust. But no matter, this is not a race. I see the first obstacle and think, "Here we go Barb." I see D exit the obstacle as I approach it. I jump and crawl my way through it easily. "That wasn't so bad, I hope they're all like this," I think. I left a piece of skin behind while crawling through one of the tubes. I'm bleeding. Great. I skip the water stop and head on. No stopping. No stopping.

I jog along, past the 34th street heliport and see a couple about to split. "Go on," she motions. As he pulls ahead of her. I end up in line with him, running at an awkwardly similar pace right next to each other, one of us hoping to pull ahead and leave the other behind for solitude. He pulls ahead of me. I see two cars of people pull up near 14th street with signs looking for the runners they came to support. "Cute," I think. Onward. I see the pier where the second set of obstacles are sure to be. I crawl. I wipe by hands on my shirt before gripping the monkey bars, sure that I will fall off before reaching the other side. Did I train for this? "If you fall off, you'll have to backtrack a lap and try again," I hear. I miraculously get across in one shot. Pain sears trough my shoulders and traps. "How the hell did I just do that?" I see the marine hurdles which might as well be walls. The logjam leading up to it served as a nice break. "How am I gonna do this?" I turn around and ask the guy behind me, "Will you boost me if I need it?"

"Sure, no problem."

There were probably 5 hurdles, #367 boosted me on each one. I could feel the bruises on my knees each time I hoisted myself over the wood.

"I got you hon, don't worry."

I finish the hurdles, "I owe you big time, #367." I high-fived him and went on.

Onward.

I jog past city streets and think about people I know comfortably sleeping in their beds nearby, dreaming away. "Why the hell am I doing this?"

Fatigue starts to set in near Canal St and I marvel that I've made it this far. "Just gotta get to 7 World Trade Barb, that's all you gotta do."

I see people careening out of the building as I approach. I jog through a small group of supporters, past relayers waiting on teammates, and into the escape stairwell. The air is thick, ventilation is limited, and the sweat on the rails reminds me not to touch my face directly with my hands from here on out. I hear someone say, "this is the real death march," and I think of the other 'death marches' I've been on consisting mainly of endless walking around new cities. I suddenly have a refined definition. Big strapping men wearing boot camp tees are stopping on the landings. Young volunteers appear on every other landing offering support, "only 40 more flights to go!"

One woman says, "I don't think I can make it." "Yes you can!" I say "You're almost there." Onward.

I get to the 52nd FL. I hear, "Rest this way, otherwise this way to head back down."

I head right back down. Legs are wobbly. I take it slowly. I feel my 17th wind and speed up. Round and round. I look up for a second, get dizzy, look back down.

I exit 7 World Trade, grab a big jug of water and pour it into where I last remembered my mouth should be. I run on.

"More stairs!???" I hear someone exclaim.

It was the overpass back to the river side of the highway.

My final mile to the finish was a slow slow jog. "Don't stop Barb, don't stop you're almost there."

I'm reminded of an airport arrivals area as I enter Battery Park and pass through throngs of well-wishers.

I see people slide across the taxis. I see the wall. The very. Big. Wall. With just a rope. What I have is beyond fatigue but the finish line is just on the other side of this wall. Just. I lock eyes with a man who was waiting at the base offering boosts. You ready? Yeah, I guess. I get up and barely peek over the wall. I see the finish but my muscles are not helping me get anything more than my eyeballs over this wall. "Are you okay?" I hear. I feel the wood burning marks into my skin. "Just a little bit more!" I say. I contemplate stepping on his shoulder and head to give me that extra boost. Somehow we get me up and over. I steady myself on the platform before heading onward to cross the finish. "Barb!" I hear. I look over and see D. Euphoria sets in. We high five each other. "Oh my god I'm so proud of us" we both say repeatedly. Euphoria, adrenaline, whatever it is causes us to babble on for a minute or so until I realize I need water. "Lets get some water."

I feel a tap on my shoulder, "Congrats." It was the woman in the stairwell who 'couldn't' go on. I say "yes, you too."

I'm #789 and it's almost 9am.