reflections on immigrant knowing

the process of trying to get to know each other

is fraught with contention with

the promises and liabilities that come from

being a complex person in a world in which

identities clash and are historicized, from

vulnerabilities seated early in childhood where

parents taught us not to show ourselves,

taught us to be afraid of strangers.

the process of trying to get to know each other

is fraught but beautiful nevertheless. 

in that ecstatic moment when you let go of a part of

yourself into the eyes of another, a small released

thunderbolt, a little bit of

cosmic energy flies from the tension of our

separate souls back to the origin.

when we communicate it's not about the words

or the stories. it’s about the energy, the imminence.

it's about the bond that is built when the

stories are broken, about the grace we share

when the narrative has irrational, 

irredeemable gaps. it's about the containers that

arise from the process of telling stories. it's about

these meta-stories which hold the moment in place and

then release it. toward something neither of us can predict.