It’s Raining – My Sisters are Pooring 3


(It’s  raining, it’s pouring, my sister are pooring.*)

If we had really understood, do you think we would have ended up here?

  • Homeless
  • Poor
  • Alone
  • Siloed
  • Barely visible

Untethered to a child (we had none)

A partner (we never committed)

A sibling (we were only children or distanced ourselves from sisters and brothers)

Family (we left on the fastest transport out of our hometowns and stayed gone)

  • Overlooked
  • Unremembered
  • Unheralded
  • Stuck in the miniscule

Too frequently looking back, reviewing triumphs long past

Hoping to revive them or “the times that used to be”**

Trying to figure out:

  •  where the fork was in the road
  • the wrong choice made
  • the wrong person loved and invested in

Embittered by old envies and rivalries with others who might have been friends/partners/companions/champions

Systems of oppression played a part but are not the reason for our pooring

We are a tribe of women

who should have done better, who could have done better, who certainly knew better but didn’t do better and now the clock is ticking loudly and the alarm is about to ring.

We took our talents and youth for granted

We stayed on a compound of our own creation

afraid to and uncertain of how to break free

thinking opportunities would be endless

We believed the hype instead of the action holding on to ideologies that only served the progenitors and did nothing for the followers

We followed even as we gradually grew alone and lonely

 

Who looks after the faithful, the cadre, the reliable?

We  ignored the samples/advice of parents, grandparents, teachers, and counselors, and the enslaved ancestors long before:

  • Get you a piece of land
  • Buy a house
  • Put some money away for that rainy day
  • Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing
  • Is it a need or a want?
  • Can you do without?
  • Take care of yourself before you take care of others
  • Find somebody to love, you can love somebody you know…

It’s raining

My sisters are pooring

A cautionary tale.

*(Pooring – the gradual and steady diminishment of several Black women I know.)

Related:

**The Times they Used to Be is the title of a children’s book by the late, great poet, Lucille Clifton.

The Dichotomy: Those that Have and Those that Have Not by Candelaria Silva

 


About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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3 thoughts on “It’s Raining – My Sisters are Pooring

  • Helen Credle

    It’s Raining – My Sisters are Pooring”.
    Thank you beloved Candelaria for this awareness – appreciated!
    I’ve read your 2 thoughts presentation over and over in an attempt to discover what was making me feel uncomfortable and/or not quite agreeing.
    I found that I was subconsciously challenging the word “WE” as opposed to “SOME”.
    The moment I reconciled my core with my brain and heart on this I found my comfort zone.
    It’s some of our sistuhs and brothas that are “Pooring”.
    It would be great to analyze the “some” to ascertain what’s missing in their mindful leadership self-management of themselves.
    Loving you Candelaria continues to be our blessing.
    You are one of those special kinds of gifts that keeps on giving – a wonder in our Universe.