Journals

Prayer Flags + Sacred Seeds   Flagstaff   Bikes. As in, the thing I haven’t ridden in 25 years. They were left for us by the host to cruise around town. The boys are tired and want to take a nap. Cool. I’m grown, resourceful and overall a badass woman, so I can surely figure it out.   Having a fairly uneventful ride into and out of town was apparently not the thing to worry about. Trying not to hit the ditch in the road and simultaneously get strangled by my looping sacred seed necklace from Brasil while racist White guys try to take my head out…that‘d be the stuff to be on the look out for. As blessings, fortune and I suppose the orixas would have it, I bent down to untangle my necklace and thankfully missed having a water balloon clip my head. *lucky* me. They missed my head and caught, ever so slightly, my ear. Yup. A white pick up truck with confederate flag license plate holder and three white skinheads were so manly as to ride around town throwing water balloons at a defenseless biker Black girl. Getting off my bike, definitely mixed between scared, disoriented and angry, I looked around: no one else saw or cared. Passing through Flagstaff taught me that even in a place where Tibetan prayer flags are blowing in the wind dotting porches here and there, racism is too.   That night at the caravan event I couldn’t do my normal talk about Cuba and the caravan, and I suppose I surprised my fellow caravanistas. I was just sitting there, steaming, thinking that if this group of folks attending are remotely socially conscious individuals interested in human rights, equality and fairness, they should think globally and act locally. There’s more than enough work to do for peace right here in their own home town.   The reaction I got was waaaaaay different than I expected. White women (there was only one other Black person at the event) were in disbelief. Perhaps I had gotten mixed up (how, and about what?!) on the events that transpired. Or no, even better - perhaps the racist guys were out-of-town visitors headed to the Grand Canyon on a vacation. Are you kidding me?! So just as I was getting riled up all over again and frustrated at being hurt earlier and now having my thinking and reasoning capacities insulted, three White guys caught me getting seconds on dinner (eating out of frustration, for sure) and offered help/hugs/support and love. It was so so so beautiful and certainly unexpected. I was starting to trail off in thoughts about how racism would never go away in the United States, how I would always have my guard up when traveling alone, and how sad and disillusioned I would be if I stayed in this country. But then these guys completely dismantled all of these thoughts, one by one. They told me about skinheads in town and basically how difficult it was to be White but different. Asking me the whole while if I was okay, did I need help, was I worried about security etcetera etcetera etcetera. I am more concerned about the path my life would take if I did NOT have that sweet encounter with these men. I am almost certain that walls would have popped up all around me and I would start being fearful/distrustful of humanity and traveling in unfamiliar places (even after all these years and experiences) in general and White folks in particular.   I can’t say I was sad to drive off from Flagstaff. That’d be me telling a bold-faced lie. When we finally cruised into Tucson though, surviving the 105 degree mid-day heat with no air conditioning on our old but reliable bus, the boys were a little concerned. They kept telling me to drink, they weren’t completely sure where my head was at, and I was swearing off liquids for fear of few and far between rest stops. Instead I took my chances and gambled on heat stroke in favor of my bladder. I must have been delirious because that’s one of the dumbest traveling decisions I‘ve made aside from hitchhiking in Mexico with police, and probably had me look like a possessed woman when we touched down at the Revolutionary Grounds café for the Aztec dancing event. Skipping the Zapatista coffee (I am one of those people who cannot do coffee at night) and heading straight for some lemonade + cactus juice (not the hallucinogenic variety) I realized I was once again: over stimulated. Too much chitter chatter. Too tired. Too loud. It is most certainly time for me to take a mental break or else I will definitely become the Angry Black Woman that reality shows are always intent on casting. But what to do, what to do, what to do…?   Next Stop = Texas, aka hotter than hell’s gates + spiritual guides + deja vu + the border