Status Updates From Notes on Her Color

Painfully relatable which is why I’m dragging my feet reading this

“That’s when ‘Play as if you have nothing to prove to anyone’ became ‘Play as if you have everything to prove and everybody hates you.’ I understood that too.”

"I received responses from my pre-med university applications. Orlando, Tallahassee, Gainesville, and Miami were all enthusiastic to welcome me...My father was thrilled, but he had already decided on his alma mater in Gainesville. He wanted me to go farther in life than he had, but not so far that he couldn't reach out with one hand and pull me back into the hell he had built for us.". 😔😔😔

"My father was mowing the lawn with the rest of our neighbors when I came home. A mechanical symphony of men taking pride in the curation of their gardens which, much like their children, were weeded, watered, and nourished by their wives the other six days of the week." -- commentary on gendered division of labor?: women clean and care daily; men do the periodic "big" things and think it's equal.

Amazing writing. But this is the first time I've picked the book back up in several days and I just realized why: I don't enjoy reading fiction about emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I mean, you're not supposed to "enjoy" that either, but good writing should carry you through it. I'll finish the book and be better having read it. I will. Just hard. Easier to read Cardenal's politically conscious poetry.

This is such a great book. But the dad angers me, in part because I experience a flicker of self-recognition in his words and actions and it scares me.