Where have you been?

Jul 3
4 min read

Where have I been?

I have been all over the place.

I have been in my classroom. I have been in emergency rooms. I have been in my thoughts.

I have been wanting to write but could not find the time, space, or energy to do so. I have been running behind, running behind her little behind.

I have been struggling to find time to grade essays. I have been a dangling modifier, unclear of my place at times, unclear of what my thoughts …out of order… reveal about my sin tax. I have been chatting with Claude and arguing with ChatGPT. I have been studying the temptation of tech, knowing the flesh (and the mind) is becoming weaker by the byte.

I have been thinking about masculinity, specifically my projection, my production, and my protection of it as a partner, parent, and male person in a house with 2 women, my wife and my daughter. Protection of what? I have been asking myself this very question since my biological father got caught between a (white) rock and a hard place.

I have been quietly watching my baby’s chest cavity inflate and deflate at night.

I have been locked out of apartments, between meconium and mercury retrograde. I have been teething as well, nervously chewing my own nails down to the white meat.

I have been between fear and fatigue, between an early death and a long life.

I have been crying in my car monthly at the possibility of me passing away too early, leaving my Ivy without one of her roots.

I have been praying more, not for more money or materials, but for more life.

I have been in a daze of nostalgia. I have been a baby, a teenager, and a man all in the same 24 hours.

I have been remembering the person (I was), the people, the places, and the principles that have held me down for the better and for the worse.

I have been calling my mother. I have been asking more questions about her parenting and her upbringing.

I have been fighting becoming overly self-indulgent and delusionally self-made in the margins. I have been asking what’s a victory and what’s a villain? I have been the victor, the villain, and the vice in my stream of consciousness and the stress of my consciousness.

I have been escaping ugly world war(s) by looking into the mint condition of my baby’s pretty brown eyes.

I have been seeing my deceased grandmother in my dreams, tidying up her house to welcome me back one day. Until then, I have been at Gracie’s corner.

I have been to the doctors to learn of my pre-diabetic predispositions. I have been lost in the online backrooms, forced to encounter CHUDs, CHADs, Clavs, and Crashout Boys…I have been overstimulated and dysregulated on the sugar highs of low-hanging algorithmic fruits, leaving me with tingling hands, a twitch, and other habits hard to kick…Guess I have been following an ailing American society more than the pops and pains of my own middle-aged black body.

I have been reconnecting with old college friends, one hang-out or call at a time.

I have been saving money, knowing money alone won’t save me. I have been seeing how far a dollar can go…overseas…over heads…incoming. I have been led to believe both the flesh and the fiat are programmable…terabyte by terror-byte.

Though I have been missing the man I call my father, I have been hesitant to call.

I have been wondering what my daughter will call me in her early years and whether she will call me in my later years.

I have been wondering how I could hate my parents.

I have been wondering how I could love my parents better.

I have been conscious of my baby’s golden skin, knowing I along with the world will place her between the teeth of black hotcombs and white-hot racism.

I have been foreseeing the mixed emotions the outside world will lay on my baby’s baby hairs, so fine, so curly, so rebellious…so Ivy.

I have been at Lazy Susans, pouring tea for tài pó, collecting red envelopes, and enjoying the cadence of conversations in Cantonese. I have been met with big warm smiles from the numerous Asian aunties who learn my wife and Ivy reign from Taishan.

I have been rubbing my wife’s feet less. I have been up and down with my own vanity metrics, evaluating my expectations, my responsibilities, and my worth as a husband and father. I have been enjoying being a stay-at-home dad. I have been worried about the inverse relationship between stay-at-home payoffs and take-home pay. I have been taxed in every single way. I have been provided with so many questions about the role of the provider.

I have been scrolling LinkedIn feeds to marvel at the milestones of my former students. I have been wondering whether I will return to that library baby reading circle to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider and Humpty Dumpty alongside those mommies and nannies. I have been praying that the King’s men keep me together through fatherhood.

I have been in tents with a six-month old, camping among the natural elements that inspired her name.

I have been thankful for the homies who donated years of baby clothes. I have been thankful for my English department covering me during my family leave. I have been thankful for my students who were very understanding when I told them about my decision to take time away from the classroom to raise my daughter. I have been thankful for my mother-in-law and my wife’s aunt and their hours of love given to Ivy while her parents were at work.

Again, I have been fighting becoming overly self-indulgent and delusionally self-made in the margins. I have always been family-made, community-made. I have been continually rescued and renewed by my family, my friends, my colleagues, my students, my village and now my baby girl.

Where will I go?

Home, to my little Ivy-Raine. 爱你