The Day Kamala Was Selected
Wave of Consciousness
I took the afternoon from work this week and went to the beach with my dear friend, Lisa. I decided I needed more time for myself in the wake of my brother Oscar’s death after the tsunami of loss, fear and grief of this year wound up a slurry of jam packed days that left me unable to read more than a page or two of a book after work hours. It felt so good to stand up for my needs and take time for myself. I’ve begun to navigate the waves of grief I felt at the start of the year, and have gotten better at making it seem like I was gliding along, but was really fighting a current that threatened to sweep me under.
The sky was bright and sunny when I left Manhattan and the roadway was busier than it had been for months since the peak of the pandemic. As I approached the beach the sky became increasingly clouded and hazy, a sublime fog that both threatened the day and surprised me. Undeterred, I parked, pulled out my tote, blanket and chair. I was ready to sit and breathe in the ocean air.
On the boardwalk, plumes of fog rolled in from the ocean, large gray clouds moving so quickly from the sand westward and beyond between the condos that face the water. The air felt cooler than it had at home and landed moist and salty on my lips. I sat staring at the horizon for sometime before we went swimming. The tide was strong and had almost pulled someone under the riptide. The beach had come to life as a lifeguard rushed to save the man who seemed paralyzed by the waves. His head was the only visible body part above the water. He was dangerously close to the jetty, but surprisingly close to shore. I was confused by how little I could see his body struggle although it was obvious he was caught by the fast moving current under the surface. When we went in the water later after the hubbub subsided and everyone was back on their beach blankets, the memory of his bobbing head kept me in shallow water as we swam.
Late in the afternoon, Lisa and I talked about feminism and Cardi B. and the repressive men in the world we’d left behind on the island of Manhattan, a world impatiently lurking on our untouched phones.
A woman wearing a sweatshirt over her bathing suit at the shoreline interrupted the heady swirl of our thoughts as she screamed “HALLELUJAH!” and began flapping her arms wildly, running into the small waves crashing before her. I myself had just screamed “I love you” moments ago to Lisa when she read my mind about the controversy over the song WAP, so I didn’t think much of the woman’s joviality. When I picked up my phone to check the time it began to make sense when I saw the New York Times news alert.
Senator Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s pick for vice president. A pragmatic
moderate, she is the first Black woman on a major party ticket.
I read it aloud and we celebrated the historic moment.
“Oh my God, that’s why she screamed ‘hallelujah,‘“ Lisa said.
I was hopeful that was the case, but wasn’t sure. You never know these days. A few minutes later, as we packed up for the day, I decided to walk over to the woman to confirm.
“This might be a strange question to ask, but why did you scream ‘hallelujah’ just then?” I asked.
Without skipping a beat, she said, “Kamala!”
We both began dancing around and it looked like she was about to hug me, but then we both stopped — COVID, ugh — and in that moment of salty air and parting clouds, the intermingling of hope, optimism, pragmatism, love of life, community, womanhood and healing swept over my tan body, brown skin and salt water drenched air. It was no longer the August it had been when I arrived. The August laden with grief, anxiety and furrowed brows faded. We were now in a light and lifted day.
Later, we ate cheeseburgers, fried avocados, french fries drenched in cheese, corn fritters, and overly-sweetened pink lemonades that tasted more like melted cherry Italian ices. I thought about summers past. I thought about a family trip to Lavalette down the Jersey shore in ’88 when I kissed a boy named Rusty who I quickly decided was an idiot and not worth my time when he didn’t get my joke about his name — ‘Is your last name NAIL?’ I felt so powerful at 13, like the whole world could change with five words slipped out of my cherry Chapstick coated lips. So far away and yet so close, like maybe I could reel it back in and hold it close to my heart.
As Lisa and I walked back to our cars, I watched a group of three beautiful Black teenagers dancing to a glorious song blasting out of a massive speaker on the boardwalk with their backs to the ocean.
“Can I kick it?” Yes you can,” the A Tribe Called Quest sample asked and replied over and over, as we all smiled back and forth at one another, sharing a perfect vibe on the beach — a perfect vibe that floated up into the sky, between the buildings and beyond, a plume of hope and beauty.
“Can I kick it? Yes I can,” came the last reply.
