I'm not that girl.

I like teasing. I do. So when I said I wanted to go to this guy's house to record a song with him, though I really wanted to, I knew I wouldn't actually go. I showed my man the number in my phone, saying I'd use it when I had time. "Okay?" I asked. He just looked at me, stone-faced. I smiled and asked again, "Okay?" I like to see him squirm a little, be a little jealous. But he couldn't even pretend he was okay with it. And as I said before, I wouldn't actually go and I told him so when I saw that he was really bothered. But that wasn't enough.

"This is one of the things that confuses me," he said. "How can you go to the house of a man you don't know?" I really just want to sing and I told him that. He looked completely irked.

He told me, "You have two choices here. You can be American and live like you are an American in Sudan. Or you can be with the family and be Sudanese and live by our rules."

But no, I don't have to choose. And I won't. I want to know what he needs from me. I want to know what he can live with and what he can't. I can make changes but I won't become a different person. I am American and Sudanese. And he knew that from the beginning, from day one. And there is no choice. I am who I am. I thought he loved me for who I was. If he wants to marry someone who is Sudaniya, Sudanese, mia al mia, 100%, he should go find her.

Because I'm not that girl. Nor do I want to be. I am proud to be who I am: Sudanese and American and an artist and a mother and a damn good teacher and an activist and a New Yorker and a writer and so many more things. I am proud to be creative and intelligent and passionate and strong and loving and sexy and beautiful. I don't want to be some other girl. I will not hide who I am nor pretend to be invisible as I am required to by "the rules." And though there are tears in my eyes as I write this, if he needs me to do that, he's fallen in love with somebody who I will never be.

Beyond that, he needs to undergo some thorough self-examination. Because he doesn't follow the rules. If he did, he wouldn't be with me. I wouldn't be wearing this ring and these gold hoops wouldn't be hanging from my ears. I wouldn't know the comfort of his arms or the warmth and gentleness of his hands. Nor the softness of his lips or the sweetness of his words.

He's being a hypocrite, picking and choosing which words of the Qur'an and which rules of Sudanese society he will follow. The hypocrisy is not in this choice. The choice is a natural and expected part of living and being an adult. The hypocrisy lies in his attempt to hold others, myself included, to a higher standard than that to which he holds himself.

He will have to decide what kind of man he wants to be. I can live with his imperfection but not his hypocrisy.

I'm not that girl.

The Silver Lining

It's not actually the silver lining because that would imply that there are a lot of clouds. And that's not the case. I'm just trying to reflect on the good things and share them, mostly to keep a smile on my face and not stress my child's father out.

So here they are:

The Top 10 Good Things About Sudan So Far:

10. My child now knows that meat doesn't come from supermarkets. All meat comes from animals and he would like to know whether chickens go to heaven after we eat them.

9. My little New Yorker knows how to groom a horse - all seven steps - and he knows what mucking out means. (And let's hope he doesn't know what making out means.)

8. I have 14 students and a teaching assistant and air conditioning and a pool at school. This is NOT the NYC Department of Education.

7. I know how to drive a car with a manual transmission. Yes, I can drive stick.

6. I used to teach kids, "You are as good as anyone." Now I get to say things like, "If you think your nanny is an idiot because you don't like how she packed your lunch, you should pack your own lunch!" and enjoy the looks of horror and shock on their little faces.

5. I have a new principal and a new supervisor who think I am a good teacher. I have therefor not yet had a disciplinary write-up entered into my file. This was not true a year ago.

6. My child only cracked the window of the company car. It didn't shatter and fall out completely.

7. I can now count backwards and forwards as evidenced by my inability to count properly on this top 10. Back to number 4 now...

4. My child used to want to be a clown. Now he wants to be the President/The New King of Pop/a magician.

3. Juwafa bi lebben. Guava milkshakes. 'Nuff said.

2. I can afford a nanny/housekeeper five days a week who does laundry, irons, sweeps, mops, babysits (staying overnight when necessary), makes beds (though I never understood why this was important) and loves my child.

1. And the number one good thing about living in Sudan is....





...not really any of your business. wink.

I always knew...

I always knew I was Black. At least, when I was little I knew I was Black. I remember a self-portrait I drew, stashed away amongst the many things my mother has kept. It is a typical four-year-old drawing, clumsy and cute. And I colored over my face in black crayon.

My mother made sure I knew I was brown. She collected every Ezra Jack Keats book she could because, at that time, he was the only author writing and illustrating for children with brown characters. I always knew my father was from Sudan. And that he had died in a plane crash. And that I had sisters and a brother that I might someday meet.

When I got to elementary school, I think I thought I was Dominican. I mean, everyone around me was. All right, I knew I wasn't Dominican but I once found a tape of myself and sure sounded Dominican. I was happy and chubby and fit right in with my classmates.

And then I switched schools. Suddenly, I was getting teased mercilessly about the size of my ass. I was getting called "zebra." I got taunted for "sounding white." And I was a very different kid than my son is. He's been hitting the kids who tease him and call him names. I just buried myself in books, flying through them with amazing speed. I once read twenty books in two weeks for a read-a-thon. Everyone thought I was such an amazing reader. In reality, I was just more comfortable in a world some author had created than navigating the social scene in my new elementary school.

Throughout middle school and high school, I hung with the other kids that didn't fit into any clique. My friends were every color of the rainbow, but I was comfortable. I didn't have to talk in any particular way, or dress in any particular way. I just was who I was. And I avoided being a part of any group, preferring to make friends on a one-on-one basis.

This wasn't especially comfortable. I developed an intense anxiety in social situations with people I didn't know. I was especially scared of groups of Black people. Not scared in the same way white people are - clutching their bags and suddenly falling silent. I was scared of being found out. Scared of being seen as a fraud - a fake Black person, not Black enough. People didn't seem to understand that I wasn't Black in a way that allowed me to understand a shared history and experience. I didn't grow up around Black people. I didn't go down South to see my family. I couldn't reminisce about grandma's candied yams because my grandma made ratatouille, roast beef, and matzoh brie.

And though my step-father is Black/biracial, I don't think he was ever comfortable being that. Something about growing up with a white mother in the mid-west during the Civil Rights Movement did a number on him from which he will never recover. I remember him ranting about me being African and Arab and something about seven wives and oil. The most racist, anti-African and anti-Arab sentiments would spew forth from him, directed at me. It really pissed him off that after my sister Rihab came to visit, I began to know and embrace my Sudanese heritage. I changed my last name from his (Smith) to my father's name, Hamid, in high school.
There's always more to say, but it's bed time. My son has told me that I have to be in bed by 11 from now on so I don't have trouble getting up in the morning. And he's right. So off I go...