Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 112

“I’m a year out from breast cancer. They caught it early but...

“I’m a year out from breast cancer.  They caught it early but it still required two surgeries and radiation.  My body took a long time to heal and I lost all my stamina.  Before the diagnosis, I was running half-marathons.  I was kickboxing and lifting weights every day.  But the treatment really wiped me out.  And it was really tough for me because I’ve always been such an active person.  Exercise is how I lift my spirit.  But it got to the point where I could barely walk twenty minutes on a treadmill.  There were days I thought I’d never be my old self again.  But I’m starting to get my health back on.  I’m at about 75 percent now.  I’m lifting heavier weights.  I’m starting to feel strong.  I even signed up for an obstacle race next Saturday.  There are 27 obstacles, and I’m going to do as many of them as I can.  I’m getting back to my glory days.  Actually I’m going further than that.  I’m going to 120%.”

“I’d always play stickball in the streets, but my mother took...

“I’d always play stickball in the streets, but my mother took me to see my first real baseball game in 1952.  It was the Brooklyn Dodgers: Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider.  I’d seen them all on television, but it was a strange feeling actually being there.  The ballpark was a bigger than I thought.  The crowd was louder than I thought.  I was hooked.  I’ve been to over one hundred games since then.  I’ve been to Cooperstown five different times.  I don’t get to the ballpark much anymore, but I listen to every Yankee game on the radio.  I like to listen outside.  I’ll pick a different spot each time.  Sometimes I sit down by the river.  Once I went to Coney Island.  I pick my bench based on where the wind is blowing.  Occasionally people from church will walk by.  All my family has gone or moved away.  It does get lonely sometimes, mainly when I’m inside.  But never when I’m listening to the ballgame.”

“I’ve worked as a doula for over twenty years. I’ve attended...

“I’ve worked as a doula for over twenty years.  I’ve attended over 400 births.  My job is primarily to support the mother.  And I try to bring a spiritual element into what can seem like a clinical experience.  I never speak the language of the clinician.  Because if you can change the language, you can change the energy.  Birth is a mystery initiation.  It’s the transition between spiritual consciousness and earthly consciousness.  I tell the mother to ignore the machines.  Ignore the beeping and the charts.  Technology can seem sexy but it’s really a bullshit representation of what’s going on.  Nothing is broken and nothing needs fixing, because birth is not pathology.  It’s a beautiful design that’s worked since the beginning of time.  So just tune into your baby who is a sentient, conscious being, and do this thing together.”

“I got divorced when my daughter was very young. So she’s...

“I got divorced when my daughter was very young.  So she’s kinda been my whole life since she was five.  It’s just the two of us.  I go to work, I come home, and she’s always there, maybe a little less now because she’s eighteen, but you know what I mean.  She’s about to leave for college in Chicago.  And it’s a little scary to send her off into the big world.  But she’ll be finding her tribe.  She’ll be learning about herself.  I’m excited for her. And I’m excited for me, too.  Because I think we both have a much bigger world ahead of us.  I’ve been holding myself back a little bit.  I’ve always wanted my daughter to know she’s my first priority, and that’s become a bit of an excuse.  An excuse not to travel.  An excuse to be overly selective in my relationships.  An excuse to not pursue new opportunities. For the longest time, if I said ‘no,’ it meant I was being a good mother.  But now if I say ‘no,’ it means I lack courage.”

“It’s basically the newborn stage forever. He has both...

“It’s basically the newborn stage forever.  He has both epilepsy and a very rare genetic disorder.  He can’t feed himself.  He’s not toilet trained.  He can’t speak.  He can’t tell us if he’s sad, or grumpy, or hungry.  He’s had more doctor appointments than both of us combined in our entire life.  We’re actually heading to a neurologist appointment right now.  The most difficult thing is finding peace and serenity.  Every time he has a seizure, I’m afraid it will be fatal.  People with his disorder don’t live very long.  But the disorder also makes him very happy.  So he’s oblivious and enjoying the world.  But I’ve been traumatized.  My husband is so supportive but a lot of days I feel completely alone.  There have been times when I’ve filmed myself on my phone just to have someone to talk to.  But every day I can choose to not be overwhelmed by my anxiety and fear.  Instead of curling up to cry, I can choose to meet him with joy where he’s at.  I felt loved by God when he was born.  I was working as a special education teacher, so I thought that God had given me a perfect fit.  We named him Iman Yageen, which means ‘faith without doubt.’   That name has become a reminder to me.  I say it all day long when I’m trying to get his attention.  And it reminds me that one day I’m going to hear him speak.  If not here, then in heaven.”

“Too many people are faking the funk. I was at the club the...

“Too many people are faking the funk.  I was at the club the other night.  And I’m scrolling through my Instagram and I see a post from a girl I know.  And she’s at the same club.  And in this photo she’s holding up a bottle, acting crazy, looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world.  But the club wasn’t even rocking like that.  It was a Thursday.  So I look across the room and there she is: sitting down, looking bored, scrolling through her phone, and clearly faking the funk.”

“I’d been putting it off because I didn’t have the money or...

“I’d been putting it off because I didn’t have the money or time.  But a program at the VA offered to help with tuition, so I enrolled in Empire State College.  I wasn’t there to play.  I wasn’t there to party.  My only goal was to get an education. And more than the degree, I discovered that I needed the people.  I met people at college that I could bounce ideas off.  People who could challenge me to go further with my interests.  Two of my mentors were Dr. Fullard and Professor Whiteside.  Both of them had retired from corrections so they had a passion for helping black males.  They’d tell me: I notice you have a strong ability for ‘such and such,’ and I’d love to see you develop it further.  So that’s what I did.  Even though I majored in business, I found myself learning all about history and economics.  Right now I’m reading a book about the Haitian Revolution.  It has nothing to do with my major, but it’s important to me.  It’s part of my personal curriculum.  And that’s the most important thing that I got from college.  I got a degree.  But more importantly I developed a personal curriculum that I’ll be using for the rest of my life.

“I’ve lived here my whole life. I’m ready to leave. I just...

“I’ve lived here my whole life.  I’m ready to leave.  I just graduated college and I’d love to experience a new city.  But I’m stuck.  My dad is trying to become a citizen, and I need to stay in the city because I’m the one petitioning on his behalf.  We’ve been waiting for five years already.  We’ve spent so much money.  But it’s the least I can do for him.  I’ve seen where he lived in Mexico: tiny houses, dirt floors, no shoes.  He was the youngest of twelve.  His family couldn’t afford to educate him.  So he came here when he was seventeen and worked as a migrant worker in California.  He slept in train cars and ate food out of the trash.  Even now he works fourteen hours a day.  He comes home, we talk a bit, and he goes to sleep.  It’s been that way my entire life.  He’s turning fifty soon and he’d love to start his own business.  So I hope he gets his citizenship.  It’s a little dangerous because he’s on the radar now.  They have his fingerprints.  But he’s got a son that fought in Afghanistan.  And now he’s got a daughter that graduated from NYU, so I think he deserves to stay.”

“I danced with him for ten years before I knew his name.”

“I danced with him for ten years before I knew his name.”

“When I was younger I fell in love with a black man, which my...

“When I was younger I fell in love with a black man, which my mother didn’t like.  She tried to tell me that it would cause my grandmother to die of a heart attack.  But we married anyway.  And after having two children we got divorced.  My mother especially didn’t like that.  She was appalled.  She didn’t believe in divorce.  She told me that I couldn’t possibly love my children.  Our relationship never got better.  Over the years we’d have a weekly phone call.  We’d reenact the same conversations again and again.  I wanted her to acknowledge that I’d lived an interesting life.  It made me angry that she saw me as deficient.  I wanted her to see that my life had meaning, even if I was on my own.  She’s 89 now.  Two years ago she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which has made her even blunter with her opinions.  She now openly expresses her preference for my brother.  It’s becoming clear that she won’t change her mind about me.  And it carries a sting.  Because I guess we never stop hoping to be understood.“