Absolute

It’s been too long since we have last posted to this blog.  The summer, even during the pandemic, diverted our attention. New workshops, writing a paper, focusing on the future and how we will mold it to our vision.  And a fear that I personally was using it as a platform for my agenda, my beliefs, my pain.  It can be a fine line of representing an organization and misrepresenting your own beliefs as the organization’s.   But I realize that not focusing on the blog was a mistake.   So I, we, will make an effort to post regularly. 

To start our renewed efforts, I end with a poem that Dr. Rabow read at yesterday's Symptom Management Service meeting, one that is particularly powerful as we contineu to fight against racial injustice.

Absolute
by Jacqueline Woodson

The summer I was ten a teenager named Kim butterflied my hair. Cornrows curling into braids behind each ear.

Everybody’s wearing this style now, Kim said.

Who could try to tell me I wasn’t beautiful. The magic in something as once ordinary as hair that for too long had not been good enough now winged and amazing now connected

to a long line of crowns.

Now connected to a long line of girls moving through Brooklyn with our heads

held so high, our necks ached. You must know this too – that feeling

of being so much more than you once believed yourself to be

so much more than your too-skinny arms and too-big feet and too-long fingers and too-thick and stubborn hair

All of us now suddenly seen the trick mirror that had us believe we weren’t truly beautiful suddenly shifts

and there we are

and there we are

and there we are again

and Oh! How could we not have seen ourselves before? So much more

We are so much more.

About This Poem

“‘Absolute’ was written about the beauty, obviously, of Black and Brown girls, and it’s based on a true story. The first time I got my hair cornrowed, I saw my amazingness, which my daughter, of course, says I’m conceited to even say. I want Black and Brown girls to walk through this world knowing how amazing they are. Knowing how brilliant they are. Knowing how magic they are. So this poem was written for, and is dedicated to, each and every one of them.” —Jacqueline Woodson