Saturday, October 15, 2011

Escapism(s)

Trifflin knows no bounds!I once had a friend who we used to call "King Trifflin". He was all that and more. I know he suffered from a severe case of Napoleon complex mixed with a heavy dose of light aint right and a few other potentially crippling mental afflictions. He was every's one best friend and he was our group mascot until the day he transition due to complication from A.I.D.S. He now holds the distinction of being the first and other member of my childhood 'gang' to pass from that horrible malady. I can not wrap my thoughts around what happened to him those many years ago and I still struggle to wrap my thoughts around those who suffer from it. My brother-in-law transitioned this pass weekend after a long battle. I still don't know what to think...or how to think about these two disparate but tangentially related deaths. They are related by proximity to me and by the virus that attacked and decimated their bodies. Violently and savagely destroyed their organs and broke down their will to fight back. days before the latest death, my childhood friend, "Son" was killed the familiar way, the way i have grown accustomed to. The way that makes sense to me in a ridiculous, macabre sensibility. He was gunned down...that phrase also struck me as odd...'gunned down'. what does that mean?  How about he was shot multiple times with a handgun that was part missile launcher? That is what happened. This 40 year old man was murdered in the garage of his motorcycle club by presumably another Black man. I only say presumably because the police have not confirmed. That doesn't matter to me right now, that he was murdered doesn't even matter to me. What can I do in my position about any of these premature deaths? I read something a student of mine just wrote and he used the term  "escapism".  I thought long and (somewhat) hard about that and how he used it and how it meant something totally different to me than to him. Or so I thought. He escaped to our people while I have been trying to escape from our people for a long time. Then the more I thought about it the more I realized that we did have the same meaning as I wasn't really trying to escape from- but trying to escape what has been done to us, over and over again. Black Death has been a constant in my life and I have learned from it as I have tried to keep it at arms length. I have done this by detaching my emotions and feelings from my people. I have detach myself from living...from feeling and even from fully loving. I have to learn how to love all over again and I have to embrace life while acknowledging Death. ...................................................................................................