psychics, prisons and grandmothers

Say you're a woman      and you agreed to attend a psychic class to help you to have a healthy relationship with yourself and other people. 

So you get on your bicycle and pick up the pace because you're running slightly late. You definitely left the house alone.

How many folks, of your own, end up at the class with you? 

I thought of riding faster because I left a little late. Good thing I decided against wearing my hoodie so I can feel the breeze, cool on my arms. I missed this class last week because I went to a prisoner support group meeting. Today, I feel overjoyed  that I'm able to attend this class.  "Mo au!", me too!," my grandmother Sauliloa, riding a minimoke, three-wheel transporters that were popular in Tonga in the 1960s and 70s, calls me from behind. "'Aka mamalie," she warns against pedaling too fast, "nake tapeva 'o mate," you might trip over an object and die.  "Tau 'alu fakataha Loa e," we're coming with you girl! 

I didn't think of her today, but here she is, my grandmother Sauliloa. My son Niko and I were able to be with her in Tonga for her last three months of living before she passed away. Now she travels often with me, her namesake.

I go into the class where we begin meditation exercises. A healer prompts us to ground ourselves in the healing space we are in and to let and usher others out. She specifically tells us to let loved ones who we took care of and nursed to leave this particular space. I think of Sauliloa and allow myself to be alone in my healing space. I also let go of Niko and Fui and Mo and allow myself to be alone. 

The healer offers us psychic tools that help to clarify our thoughts, to allow us to be playful and creative about the immense pain we carry and ultimately, these tools give us the power to see our beautiful selves without flinching and running for cover.  They help us, as women, to take up the space that we deserve and that we've worked hard for and to be proud of who we have become. 

The healer instructs us to imagine a rose in front of us. "Let this rose represent what kind of relationship you want from now on." The healer gives us several minutes for this exercise then she asks us to share a description of our roses with each other. 

A few minutes go by and no one volunteers to speak. "OK," the healer recognizes this silence, "Raise your hand if you encountered something that is telling you that you can never acquire the relationship that you wanted. Something that is saying its impossible, you can't do it because of so many reasons?" We all raise our hands. She asks us to name some of the forces that are blocking our abilities to own the beautiful relationships that we want. A woman explains that she clearly sees her pattern of rejecting a man who seems "normal" for a "fixer-upper" relationship and, concludes, it will be impossible to overturn that pattern. Another woman, a great healer herself, foresees so much hurt that accompanies becoming part of a relationship. I don't tell the women what I see. 

I was creating a beautiful rose in front of me. I wanted a gorgeous pink rose that was passionate, sexy, fun and...boom came down the prison bars. Everything became bare. A small steel toilet stood near by and I was crumpled on a stone floor in a dingy, beige suit with chains tightened around my ankles and handcuffs gnawing the bones at my wrists. I pushed myself to face the door and to imagine it opening and me walking out into the sunlight. My body was

too  weak and I was praying that someone would open the door for me. Then I remembered from my own physical experience that wardens don't open prison doors for prisoners.  So I slouched back on the stone and accepted my fate as a prisoner. I continued to work with the psychic tools we were given, trying to create my brilliant pink rose but a screen of prison bars continued to stampede the rose. But I kept working at it, pushing, looking for a way to free myself through the doors. 

Steadily, I sat up and I looked around. The prison changed colors to a bright yellow. One by one, the walls of my prison cell, steel and concrete, crashed and fell away. The walls themselves became the petals of the rose, peeling away like opening a banana. I stood up and raised my hands, like the stamen and pistils in the middle of the hibiscus, and I was free! 

I cannot wait on someone to open the prison gates for me and I cannot look to the gate as 

my only road to freedom. If I begin with myself as a free being, there are no walls, even a physical prison, that can incarcerate my spirit. This is what it truly means to be a free spirit. And so, I was able to reach and create my glorious pink rose, full of passion, intimacy, sexiness, fun, wisdom, commitment and love. And when I did reach my pink rose, there were seconds where the prison bars were reappearing and I had to tell them to get off my stage. 

I strongly believe that the metaphor of the prison walls shows me why it is that I am committed to working with prisoners and injustices in the systems of incarceration. And therefore, I feel that I am receiving a gift of understanding that the work I want to do with prisoners and their families must incorporate the spiritual tools of the feminine and the women healers. I realized that I no longer accept working with prisoners and their families within only patriarchal and masculine dominated paradigms. Those approaches may be good to begin with but men, women and children need the full power of the feminine to access knowledges that will divert us from incarceration and towards healing. These visions have humbly helped me to envision new creative and important ways to reconfigure my commitment to working on issues of incarceration. 

The class ended and we had a little party. Someone brought spring rolls and someone brought brownies. 

As soon as I came out and got on my bike, my grandmother Sauliloa reminded me, "Ta 'alu fakataha Loa, ki 'api." Loa, let's go home together. This is a significant thing for Sauliloa to say because all her life, she never lived with anyone besides her own nuclear family. Sauliloa did not like any of the women who married her sons. She also did not accept people coming to live at her house. Her own mother, my great grandmother, Mele Sanipepa, lived in a separate house adjoining the main house, when Sauliloa married my grandfather Siaosi. 

At the age of 93ish, Sauliloa had a stroke. She was kept at the hospital for a month and had to be returned home. But she could not take care of herself because the stroke paralyzed her entire body. She couldn't return to her big white wooden house that she shared only with cats, dogs and pigs. That's when Niko and I returned to Tonga. On the day we unpacked our suitcases at my uncle Pasi's house, Sauliloa moved in to Pasi's hous too. This was the first time she ever lived outside her own nuclear family setting.  Three months later, she passed away. 

In leaving the healing class, Sauliloa reminded me that she's coming home. This means that she has chosen to come to live at our house with us together. The healing I was doing at my class, was healing that also helped my grandmother. My grandmother did not have these tools for healing because Tonga had become steeped heavily in christianity and a lot of indigenous knowledge and medicine about spiritual healings had been eradicated before my grandmother's childhood. 

As Sauliloa and I headed home, Mele Sanipepa called out, "Mo o e. 'Ofa atu Loa mo Loa e." "Good night you two, lots of love." My great grandmother Mele went to her home. My maternal grandmother Vai called out too, "'Ofa atu Loa mo Loa. Malo e." "Lots of love, thanks so much for our good time tonight!" Polo, my uncle who passed away recently, came with his mother 'Iva and I said, "Mo po'uli a e," goodnight to them. Saane, my grandfather Siaosi's sister came. Saane's mother, Vika, and her sister, Lesieli, who all passed away in the influenza epidemic that killed countless Tongans in 1918, headed back home too. 

All the women in the family and some of the men had attended the healing class with me. I think many times that I travel alone in life but that is not true. I travel with an entourage of grandmothers, aunts and uncles. The healing I do, helps them to heal too. 

My grandmother Sauliloa was never able to share her own home with other people who were not her husband or sons. She attended all the healing classes I went to and now she allows herself to live with her grand daughters. 

We can heal our relationships between women, even after physical life ends. Men can do this too among friends, fathers, brothers, cousins, lovers. Women and men must heal together too. 

I do spend a lot of time waiting to find a key to unlock the prison gates. I am now working on remembering that I can see that there are no walls. 

Mohe a Sauliloa. Ta a pongipongia o ako 'ae lsat.     

 

 

after another class, forpeopleofcolor.org

It's only the 3rd day of the Blueprint LSAT prep class and it KICKED MY ASS. After class, I immediately went to the public library to study but I just couldn't think. I'll keep doing my homework and I'll keep attending class. I definitely will take the test on June 8th and I know that the knowledge I obtain by then will allow me to do well. 

At the last part of class, I didn't know how to diagram the logical reasoning problems so I must do twice the homework. 

I am lucky to live with my sister and my brother-in-law because they help me out so much that I am able to have the time to study. I know a lot of folks out there, especially single parents like myself, must work and take care of a million things. I am very blessed to be able to have the time to study. 

Yall know that the June test is the preferable test to take, yeah? It is. This is the earliest test date. You want to take the test in June so you can have ample time to concentrate on all the other requirements for the law school application process. Taking the test early also allows your scores to be posted earlier during the process, which allows schools to assess your scores and offer you fee waivers to apply to their schools if your scores are good. 

The LSAT is extremely important but no matter what my score is, I am going to law school, and, I'm going to a school I want. That of course means that I will do my absolute damnest. The law school I will end up attending will be the program I was meant to attend. I'm not going to law school for fun (although it will definitely be fun!) or because I want to be an important person. I'm an unemployed fat divorced woman with a 10-year old son living in her sister's apartment. My goal to be a lawyer didn't grow out of my ass.  Becoming a lawyer is just a part of the process that I have been engaged in since I was a high school student, in working for social justice.  

If you are thinking of law school and you're a person of color, you MUST check out the website

www.forpeopleofcolor.org

and you MUST make an effort to attend their workshops. 

They are a crew of attorneys of color, and their allies, who mentor people of color to go to law school and become lawyers. They're a formidable force of information on every step of the way to law school and to becoming a lawyer AND they encourage you to keep your head up when things get difficult. 

I was able to attend their February workshop with my brother-in-law, Mo, who also looks forward to becoming an attorney in the near future too. It was held at the law firm of Munger,Tolles & Olson in LA. We were already in LA for my cousin's 21st birthday. Unfortunately, we missed the birthday party to attend the workshop, but we made it to the after-party, which is the party for cousins only. 

The experience of being with Anthony Solano and the crew of For People of Color.Org and to be among other people of color who know the shame and pain of racism and marginalization so well, and yet, they choose to rise above it, against great odds, was invaluable, beautiful! and humbling.  When I sat through that workshop, I said, "I'm scared to work towards becoming a lawyer," then I looked around me and concluded, "But I'm not alone." 

I've kept up with the announcements from forpeopleofcolor.org for a year and so I know that they will be coming to the Bay Area around April-June. Mo and I will attend that workshop and we will take drafts of our personal statements so the forpeopleofcolor.org staff can make comments and give us feedback on them.   

These folks are a blessing to us prospective law students of color. Like all blessings, they are meant to be used well, heeded and loved. Mo and I gave Anthony a beautiful piece of ngatu for his organization when we met in LA. It would be wonderful if he got so sick of ngatu because so many Tongans and Pacific Islanders were crowding his workshops with their parents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and homies. 

 

mornings

Berkeley is a pretty little town. There are plants and flowers everywhere, throughout the year. 

Niko, my son, is in 5th grade. He's 10 years old. He takes a school bus to school and we walk to the bus stop together each morning. 

Today, Niko pointed out a silver eating spoon stuck into the street post. Last week, we witnessed a double rainbow arched brightly across the sky. The earthy, distinctive scent of smoked marijuana greets us on our path to the bus stop. Once the smell was so pungent, I thought one of us farted. The kids who ride the bus are Latinos and Blacks, and Niko, a Pacific Islander. There is a kindergarten kid, a white kid, the youngest kid at the bus stop, who comes with his mother and his toddler sister. But only sometimes, most of the time, his mother gives him a ride.

Niko said that the bus picks up a few Samoan kids at a different school on its route back home. At school, the 5th graders help the 1st graders to read better. Niko's 1st grade reading buddy is a boy named Samoa. Niko asked Samoa once if he is Samoan, which by the way he is, and Samoa replied, "I don't know."

Two different Latino families who come to the bus stop are junior high school brothers and sisters who accompany their younger siblings. When the bus arrives, the younger siblings board, and the older brothers and sisters walk to the city bus stops to go to their schools. There is an older brother of a girl who goes to school with Niko. This brother takes his sister everywhere. I saw them at the Grocery Outlet on a Saturday and saw them waiting for the bus on Dwight Way on a Sunday. His grandmother, who lives next to the bus stop, told me that the boy and his older brother take very good care of their younger sister because, she and the children's parents, work everyday. 

I admire this boy for taking care of his family although he is only in junior high school. If you were to see him, you would say he is timid, awkward, ungraceful. This makes me admire him even more, that although he may be uncomfortable in his own skin, he continues to get up in the morning to help his sister and his family.  I also admire this boy for the lessons he is learning. These experiences help to build him into a certain kind of strong person. He is the kind of boy I want my son to be like. But Niko doesn't have anyone to care and be responsible for, not even himself most of the time. Since Niko's Music Together classes, Baby Yoga and art at the Red Lotus, pottery and movement at the Sorenson Center, Aikido at the age of three, dance classes at the University of Utah with toddler girls who aspired to be ballerinas, piano/guitar and community theater at Zumix, I have accompanied Niko. How can Niko learn to be his own person and to be responsible for himself and to help others, if he has never had to in his 10 years of life?    

When we lived in Worcester, I was in grad school full time and worked a legal internship full time. Niko had to take care of himself after school. He learned a lot during those two years.

In Worcester, Niko organized his own 10th birthday party. He called his friends and visited their homes  to announce his plans. On his birthday, I was walking home from work at 6:00pm and saw his friends, new immigrants from Somalia, dressed in their Sunday best. I asked them what was the occasion and they all enthusiastically replied, "Niko's birthday party!" Niko's friends brought several presents wrapped in Price Chopper grocery bags. Inside were the video games that Niko loved to play at their homes each afternoon while I was at work. In entering our apartment, filled with Niko and his sharp dressed friends, I received a call from Daniel, one of the Lebanese American brothers at Fantastic Pizza. "Wassup Daniel," I said. "Hey Loa," he said, "You really want 7 large cheese and onion pizzas. I thought Niko only eats pepperoni." I looked at Niko puzzled and asked about the onion pizzas. "Duh," said Niko, "My friends are Muslim, pepperoni is pork." "Hey," yelled Daniel on the telephone, "You must be eating pizza with Muslims." "Yes," I answered, "I'm partying with Niko and his friends."  

Now we are living in Berkeley with Fui, my sister, and Mo, my brother-in-law. Niko has more support around him and have family to help raise him. We all want to raise a young man who can take care of himself and can work well with others to take care of his community. Hell, I'm still working to become that kind of person.  

   

lsat prep class,

Just finished my second LSAT prep class an hour and 48 minutes ago, and my head is still aching and I'm very wired. This happened the other night after my first class. This happens because I spend 5 hours doing homework for the class, food break, and then go to four hours of class. Nine hours of logical reasoning problems and logic games makes me- not even a beer can shake this funk off- but engaging in nine hours of logical reasoning and logic games three times a week and five hours each day for the rest of the week- makes me want to ace this fucking test.  Shoot, after spending each waking hour devoted to learning logical reasoning and logic games and getting muscle cramps in class because I don't know most of the answers to the teacher's questions, I'm going to a top law school. 

This is the kind of devotion that I need to give to any commitment that I believe in and that I love.  I really love people, especially  poor people, people of color, young people, young men like my son and  women, like my friends Emma, Becky, Jenna, Anita and Fui. I have a great love for prisoners and their families and a strong commitment to working together with them to change our practices and ideas of incarceration. I love people who are in the U.S. without proper legal documentation, but insist on staying and forging a life for themselves or/and their families. I am proud and am in love with Pacific Islanders, indigenous people of the South Pacific region, where my ancestors and I come from. 

When I think of becoming an attorney in the near future, I think about being Tongan. I think about the violent household I grew up in in Tonga and the challenges my parents, my siblings and I faced as new immigrants in Provo and Orem, Utah. I also think of the burgeoning Tongan Pro-Democracy movement that continues to transform the Tongan political and cultural landscape and gained momentum from the hard work and sacrifices of diverse Tongan people and their allies. I think of my own coming-of-age in the US when I learned about social justice and not to believe corporate media. These are narratives about my life that I have gained wisdom from. These aren't my stories alone though. Everday, so many people experience narratives just like mine.