Sky Full of Elephants

by Cebo Campbell

“They did everything they could to stop our sun from shining. But I’m still here. A sun that just kept on rising.”

Every day that a tree is growing, it’s dying at the same time.

Now you got no excuses for who you can be. So who you gonna be? Same as you were? Or everything you would’ve been otherwise?”

So, what is a truth when fact is no longer accepted as true?

After that dinner, his mother told him being black is being the villain in someone else’s story.

Words are magic, you see? You say anything enough and you believe it. Belief is the first step on the path of being.

Parenting isn’t as much about them as it is about you. Don’t matter who they are or who they want to be, you love and support them. Make space for it, understand? Not just raising them, but changing ourselves in the process. We spend too much time trying to wedge our children into something we think is right rather than following their lead. I don’t want my child to carry what I carry, to feel what I feel. I want Zu to be free. And the only way to be free is to set them free. ‘Go on,’ I say. ‘Go on and be,’ and I make the space for them to be. That means moving my own shit—baggage, fears, worries—out of their way. Our children won’t be like us, they will be better. So we can’t put our insecurities on them. Space and time. For you and for them.”

“Feeling what deserves to be felt is the only pathway to understanding. Let’s get it straight: white folks did rape and steal and kill, and black folks died by the thousands—was dying all the way up’til a year ago. Never feeling shame for that, and not allowing us to feel anger over it, means we don’t evolve. We just go on repeating evil we can’t understand. I’m sure your momma was a nice lady with a good heart, but her not feeling ashamed about all that happened is the same as not feeling anything at all.”

“I don’t believe there has ever been a more terrible weapon in this world than the word they.”

“I’m a hell of a lot more than angry.” “Sad? Confused? Ashamed? Afraid? Let yourself feel it. Feel all of it. Then dance with me until it burns up, until you can finally stop apologizing for being who you are. You can’t go backward and there’s nothing you need to settle to go forward. Let go of it, Sidney. Just let go.” Nona took Sidney’s face in both hands. “If you’re here with me now, you are us. You don’t have to know how to dance. Listen to that beat. That’s our calling. Our rhythm. You have to move and move with all your body, because it’s how you give those feelings inside you a way out. Don’t worry about where you’ve been or where you’re going. You are here right now. But you have to let go. Come on. You have to let go.”

“You have to let go. Move with me, Sidney. Close your eyes and feel all that anger, sadness, loneliness—all of it—and let it shake out of you. Dance until what haunts you can’t haunt you anymore.”

“Your value is decided on all the things you are willing to accept about yourself. And what you won’t.”

“I’ve always thought of it like a sky full of elephants,” Herald said absently, as though he weren’t speaking to Charlie but to different versions of himself. “It’s up there, been up there, heavy too. All wisdom and memory… sorrow. A weight so heavy it would damn us all if it came down. But you can’t see it’til you see it. No matter how many times I tell you they’re up there, you can’t see’em until you see’em.”

“White isn’t a race, it’s an idea. People who still cling to it, they’re here.”