My Father's Wisdom: on forgiveness in South Carolina

Maybe it is apples to oranges…not drinking poison vs pressured support.

I had a conversation with my dad today, a man phone averse unless a conversation is an actual conversation. He has little tolerance for small talk, even with his long distance family. He’ll ask about my day, give me the basics on his, but unless we are actually talking about something substantive, he hands the phone to my mother and goes back to whatever retirement activity he is engaged with at the time. 

I never take offense. I tease him about it, but I know there is no malice in it. Quite the contrary. If my dad is talking to you on the phone for any extended period of time, it means he wants to. And when he is done wanting to, he says goodbye. 

Given today’s historical significance, hell, this week’s significance, and my dad’s affinity for political conversation, he took the lead on the phone where my mother usually does. 

Today was rife with conversational possibilities. Today was legalized gay marriage (and the apoplectic right wing fits that followed it) and Amazing Grace singing Obama. This week included fair housing and Obamacare surviving the supreme court, this week brought real conversations about bringing the confederate flag off of capital buildings, and this week was the saddest republican presidency launch so far (I'm looking at you Bobby Jindal); and that is saying something with Ben Carson’s gospel tribute and Trump’s escalator ride to bigot town. 

We skipped around on all of these fronts. We hailed the successes of the court and wondered verbally about the fate of other cases…I brought up abortion and we wondered where Kennedy would fall on the issue. 

Of all the things we discussed though, the one that tugged at me, was a residual thought from my recent blog. This connection in my mind that I cannot seem to sever, linking Mo’Ne Davis’ support of a bully and the proffered, and unrequested, forgiveness of the South Carolina murderer. Something about those two things feels so similar…if they are not the same- I argued – they are siblings. Relatives close enough to prove my point.

But my dad wouldn’t budge, holding firm that they are confederate flags and rainbow flags, totally different symbols that stand for unrelated things. 

He has a point.

Forgiveness is centered in my unease with both stories. My father reminded me that forgiveness is as much about the person giving it as it is about the person receiving it. In some ways it has nothing to do with the person receiving it. Not really. My dad talked about hate and resentment and how he heard a pastor liken it to drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die -the pain is solely your own. The only thing you can control is you. And so forgiveness can be an act of kindness to self. A salve on a wound so painful that no one else can soothe it. 

So people offer it up. Forgiveness. Offer it not because any of us deserve it, but because forgiveness is a thing they can do…in the midst of senseless tragedy, the only thing they can do. I’ve done that.

I have been so angry I needed to forgive. So angry on a daily basis, so filled with hate that it was physically exhausting. The object of my hate was never impacted. Never lost sleep. Didn’t change appetite. Didn’t suffer in any way. Didn’t even have to think of me.

I thought of that person almost daily.

Until I didn’t anymore. I forgave. And it slipped away soundlessly.

My dad’s other point was about the macro vs the micro. For the families impacted by the Charleston massacre, forgiveness is actually none of my, or anyone else’s business. Those people were personally attacked and how they choose to live through that is how they choose to live through that. That is the micro. 

For the rest of us…black people…how we experience and engage and endure what happened to the more global “us”, that is the macro. Our collective grief and rage is palpable these days. On social media, in heated conversations. Hushed tones because, really, this level of collective rage has not happened in a while. This rage that has risen incrementally with each passing insult, each passing assault on our father’s and daughters and sons and sisters and friends. In the wake of the recent spate of horrors that have been dispensed upon the collective black psyche many of us are not at forgive.  We are busy grieving. We are busy simmering our tears into rage. We are busy regurgitating the ills we’ve been assaulted with for so many generations that forgiveness is not a word we can comprehend let alone grant...right now.

And that’s ok. 

Right now that is ok. 

I managed to conflate forgiveness with absolution, forgiveness with a request to separate a person’s actions from the consequences of those actions. The South Carolina massacre victims overwhelming generosity did not request absolution for Dylan Roof, if they do seek to absolve him that would be a different conversation and I have a different opinion.

With the courts already inclined to provide absolution in the name of the law, such an act would be reckless from our ranks- already so bruised and bloodied, already so tired. If there is a request for absolution – wholly different from the personal action of forgiveness – than black people should have voice because in the pardoning of this act, so cruelly directed at the black body, all black bodies, sends a message of pardoning of all such actions. 

If there is a request for absolution, my thread linking Mo’ne and the Charleston massacre survivors together would be intact. We will have taught our little (brown) girls and our (strong) black families that there should be no consequences for actions against our lives. I cannot support that. 

But that thread is not intact. There is only forgiveness, a kindness I marvel at because I am not there yet.

Flawed human that I am, I am happy to know that grace exists in this world, happy to know I might be forgiven for my wrongs…but I am mindful too, that forgiveness is a singular thing and justice is another.

My American was showing

Hasty.

My staff's assessment for me in Uganda was hasty. When pressed for specifics no one seemed able...or, maybe, willing...to give me examples. All these years later and I fear they may be right.

I booked my hotel before boarding the Blue Cruise so that my transfer would be organized for my late arrival to Istanbul. My reservation canceled on me the day I was disembarking. I hastily arranged a new place they suggested in the absence of the one I’d booked.

Yes! I’ll take that.

Only, after the exhausting travel and confusion that marked my return to Istanbul my focus wandered in and out. I wanted food. I yearned for sleep. But suddenly we were in a dark alley. No lights, no obvious hotel signs. I began to panic. Where was I?

I’d seen familiar signs...Taksim Square, Sultanahmet. Those were known places to me. This place was not. There were no shadows because everything was shadows, dogs lounged carelessly beside shuttered buildings. Trash was heaped at random intervals.

This was not my idea of a place to stay.

The hotel clerk assured me the full amount (for four days) had already been charged to my card - I suspect they are accustomed to people's less than receptive response to the location. I launched in, I do not feel safe here." my voice was curt- something I didn't intend. Unease and fatigue were exfoliating my travel presence. Unfortunately, my uncomfortable American was showing, not at all my best self.

I composed myself.

"What is your name?" I asked. I apologize Rayan, it is not my intent to be rude; I am very tired. Please excuse me." Rayan smiled and offered me water. He assured me he would explain everything in the morning.

But here is where the haste comes in. Bathed in exhaustion, I climbed the steps to the top floor where my very palatial room(s) awaited. My previous Istanbul hotel was nothing if not compact. This hotel provided me with two bedrooms, one of the large enough for a couch and room enough for me to spin and twirl if I so desired. It also had two patios, facing two substantial mosques.

I also had the acrid smell of smoke that not only permeated the hallway but all of my rooms. I had a chill in the room and three non-functioning heaters. I had one sheet as my only cover (and eventually an additional one I pulled from the other bed. I had to decide, smoke or open windows.

Smoke tempts my asthma. The open windows introduced me to the neighborhood sounds...clanging of some sort, music blaring. I compromised and traded back and forth once one option proved too much.

I found a slug crawling his way across my floor. Where he came from, with me so many stories up, I have no idea.

I slept- finally. But before I slept, I booked a new hotel for my remaining days in the city.

I woke to a not cold but not hot shower and headed downstairs to the typical breakfast. Only this typical had warm bread and freshly pressed orange juice, no just tea.

In the light of day I probably wouldn’t have had such a visceral reaction. In the light of day I would have noticed the three huge beautiful mosques and been enchanted by the call to prayer launching from one and then then another and then the last…then fading away. In the light of day I would have found Rayan delightful and an intriguing person to talk to and learn from. In the light of day I would have realized how far removed I was from tourist food (I hate tourist food).

In the light of the next day I discovered all of those things.

Courtyard of my second hotel

I strolled around the area, found a magnificent view of the city from the grove/grave(?) of Mehmet Emin Tokadi Hz, a spot where people come to pray. I wandered through an actual neighborhood with mostly Turkish people going through their day. I listened to some music.

Still...I already made alternative plans. And if I hadn’t made them, I would worry about coming home from dinner winding my way - conspicuous as I am - through the darkened street.

In the light of that day…and the next…I enjoyed my respite from tourism, saw what I could see before departing for less personality filled accommodations. Next time, I’ll try to be less hasty....

 

Dunderi from scratch

I haven’t really been in the kitchen much since my vacation. I took a cooking class in Turkey, but that was only one day, and I’ve been sick and busy since I returned. 

Sickness lost me almost an entire CSA box. Too sick to put it away it mostly rotted while still packed tightly in brown paper bags and sitting in a patch of sunlight. Warm and closely bound, the beans molded the apricots spoiled.

I salvaged the basil, and made pesto (realizing for the first time that my food processor works better than the blender). The pizza that followed was ok, but nothing dazzling; something was off and I can only blame myself. So long removed from my kitchen I seem to have lost my touch: I added too much sugar to the crust, the pesto lacked bite, the zucchini lacked salt.

Sunday, sickness testing my body for a possible return, I didn’t manage to make ,anything more than taco soup (one can of black beans, one can of pinto beans, one can of corn, one can of diced or stewed tomatoes, one can of pumpkin, and taco seasoning- ground meat optional). 

I made tortillas (also slightly off) the night before and a kohlrabi and cabbage slaw. It should have been amazing, but mostly it was just ok.

Today was the day though. I found a recipe in Tasting Table before I left for Turkey. It tantalized me from the beginning…a pasta made almost entirely of cheese. This seemingly inverse of gnocchi…light and airy to gnocchi’s density. I’d never heard of this…dunderi…but oh how I wanted to.

Fleeing from the day’s stress, discarding my working demeanor, I took to measuring out ingredients.

I never used to measure everything out, like on the cooking shows, it always seemed so wasteful, extra things to wash. But my recent spate of cooking has taught me that order before cooking makes orderly cooking –mise en place makes sense. And so I pulled down ramekins, measured out flour, separated eggs, minced rosemary. 

Everything in the proper place, I began to mix according to the recipe. 

I’m not sure I’ve ever made a more ridiculously decadent dish that wasn’t a dessert. Two cups of ricotta cheese, one cup of parmesan, six egg yolks, and a little more than a cup of flour (a bit of kosher or sea salt). 

The recipe calls for nutmeg but I hate nutmeg as I hate few things and the idea of fresh fragrant rosemary called to me and so I minced it as fine as I could and sprinkled that in with the other ingredients. 

Rolling it out was a learning experience – one I’ll improve at next time, having learned what the dough does in a huge pot of boiling salted water. The little dumplings expand in the water, their edges, if not definitely rolled fluff out wildly like my hair. Holding their shape firmly or waving free in the boiling currents of the water, they float to the surface when they are ready to be fished out and drained. 

The final step is a half cup of butter melted and browned slowly on the stove top. Two teaspoons of lemon and a little zest and salt. Drop the hot dumplings in and coat. 

I fancied mine up a tad. I lightly pan-fried some eggplants, diced fresh heirloom tomatoes, sautéed some kohlrabi greens, and grated parmesan on top (as if the cup inside the pasta wasn’t enough).

Delicious.

The whole thing is light and airy, not particularly cheesy.