The Breaking Beyond Repair

     
     I wanted to share something, but struggled to do so because it may not translate well...
     Nevertheless, I do so anyway. This anklet in this picture has literally been around my left ankle for 20 straight (never removed) years—bought it in 2000 from a beautiful Pakistani brother that I became fond of and him of me. He asked questions out of curiosity and genuine interest. So I shared things concerning African-American culture with him and he with me about Pakistani culture. I supported his business regularly in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania where I lived at that time. When I opened up my bookstore in Upper Darby he visited me and purchased several books from me... a bookstore that was extremely short-lived because the locals hated that it (I) was there. But I won’t elaborate on that.
     So on last evening as I slept somehow my foot got caught in the anklet, and half asleep I aggressively pulled it away and broke my anklet. And tears started rolling down my face... I didn’t bellow out cry, but gently teared up.  And not over the anklet... of course not. But because I felt the symbolism of the breaking...it hit me in the breaking of my anklet that my heart has been broken over the last few days over the state we are in... this point of arrival in our history. The breaking felt like the breaking of my friendship (connection) with my Pakistani friend that I haven’t seen in 15 years. It felt like the breaking of mutual respect and loving kindness that we had for each other because we were intentional to embrace each other’s differences. It felt like the breaking of stability and of something that remained the same in a world of chaos, constant change and upheaval—in my personal world of constant change, that anklet was a constant...  then I tried repairing it and broke it even more... and that’s what it symbolized to me—that everything happening right now, is broken beyond repair—and that’s why the tears.šŸ’”

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