Confession Station

A vote for him gave me confidence but

I’ll confess I hold fear for what others might do with their guns and hate and spit.
How can I dismiss those undercurrents that drag down hope?
Many incidents told me I was marked or not welcome here:

The cop who said Shut the Fuck Up! when I started to speak for a friend during a stoplight intervention; the busboy who spat in my bread basket at a restaurant after 911; the passengers who got up promptly then moved away when I entered the CTA car; the times I got picked out of airport security lines and drilled; the Federal Marshall who cut in line and followed me to the plane then took the seat at my side, asking questions, asking questions; the woman who phoned the police to come pat me down on her street as I walked to my teacher’s house for a piano class; the car of rowdy flag-bearing young men near downtown who screamed the N-word and told me to Go Home as they sped past; the female guest at a bridal shower hosted in my home who asked if I was the hired help; the plainclothes officers who patted me down one evening as I walked to the park with my unlit flashlight held down; the man at the farmer’s market who ignored me and continued to serve customers on a sunny Saturday morning in Autumn.

Steely as I am, I hold fear for what others do with their prejudices. I confess, too, that I’d worked hard to dispel my own.

My aunt Kristina (Tinka for short) was murdered by her lover, in 1954, at the age of 35. Her image, one of my earliest memories, lingers crisp and amazingly accurate, after all these years. One winter day, her last winter, she was standing in our living room, warming her back against the tall, coal burning, ceramic tile stove. I remember her against the shiny, ornate tiles. She was wearing a short fox coat and an ankle length narrow skirt.  She had seamed silk stockings and golden brown leather high heel shoes. Her hat was bright green, with a feather on one side.  She was eating warm popcorn, picking each peace slowly with her long, perfectly manicured fingernails, polished in shiny red. (Mother is amazed, to this day, that I remember this image so clearly.)  I was not even four.

Aunt Tinka was the only person in our family that exhibited creativity and artistic talent. The oldest child of my grandparents, she was sent, at barely sixteen, to a private school for seamstresses. This was at her insistence and grandfather couldn’t resist. His daughter would be a professional woman, not a housewife. The time was before WWII, and my grandfather's bankruptcy.