10 questions from Kim Jones (7 answers)

As a writing project for myself I asked a few people to send ten questions for me. The harder the questions the better. Any of you can participate. If you would like to, please send ten questions to jahazainabu@gmail.com. These are the questions from Kim Jones. So far I have answered six. The other answers are coming.

1. Why the name change?
2. What, if anything, has it cost you to be Jaha?
3. What is your lifelong dream?
4. If this world was yours and you could change anything, what would be first?
5. What is your deepest regret?
6. What are you most proud of?
7. What do you want everyone to know about you?
8. What or who inspires you? Why?
9. What is your relationship with Jesus?
10. What is the best thing that ever happened to or for you?

1. Why the name change?

I have always been looking for a way out of being called Robin Rachael Reed. Mostly I had issues with my middle name. It's pronounced Ra-shell but spelled Rachel. I don't know what it was but I never owned the name. In the sixth grade I went through spelling variations of my first name. Robynne, Robbin, Robinn. I settled on Robyn and that's who I was until about '91. For about a week I was Robbie. When I was at Grambling State University (go Tigers!) in '92 (or was that later in '91?) I was done with all of the variations of Robin and Jaha was born. It wasn't some religious experience. I wanted a name I wanted to answer to. A name I hadn't heard before. I saw the name in a book. It comes from Kenya. It means dignity. I wore Jaha like a sweater and it fit. I have always been Jaha. Always been looking for Jaha inside of Robin.

In '93 (or was it '92?) I got married. We didn't stay together long. Maybe a year. The relationship was hard on me emotionally. I lived most of it not fully expressing who I was, how I felt, not living into my dream. That wasn't Jaha. There was no dignity in the life I was living. Funny because he was the man I was with when I became Jaha. The very moment. I had the book in my hand while he was with me.

I didn't want to be Jaha Reed but didn't have a last name. I was just kind of Jaha. Like Cher and Madonna. After we broke up I wanted a last name and found another book of African names. I wanted a name that could have belonged to my ancestors. I knew I would know it when I saw it. Zainabu. Zainabu is a girl's first name also from Kenya. It means beautiful. I never thought I was beautiful. I'm not being down on myself here. I always thought I had a unique look. I was cute enough. I was fly and cool enough. Not beautiful in a standard way though. Whatever that is. But my own kind of beautiful. So...Jaha Zainabu.

I'm still Robin Reed too though. Not to new people in my life but to some family, old friends, bill collectors and anybody who needs to write me a check. I never went through any period where I asked people to stop calling me Robin. Some people did though and sometimes it was awkward. I knew they were just trying to be respectful but Jaha was different from the Robin they knew. Really though, like I said, I was Jaha all along. Some people are weird about it and make too much of a thing. I have a cousin who literally calls me "Robin, because I just can't get down with the Jaha thing so I'm gonna call you Robin." Like, she says that whole sentence when she could just call me Robin because I never asked her to call me Jaha anyway. It does make me think though. What if I did want everyone to call me Jaha? What if it was that important to me? I feel for my trans friends who are not only called by names they don't choose to go by but are also addressed as genders they don't identify with all because some old friend or family member "can't get down with" their choice for themselves.

So really, I don't have a problem being called Robin by people who knew me as Robin. I don't like people who I introduced myself to as Jaha finding out my name and calling me Robin. I think they think that makes us closer. Like they know me as family. It doesn't make us closer. In fact, people who do this are usually people I don't dig that much. I dated a guy years ago who found out my name and TOLD me that he was going to call me Robin. NOPE! No you're not! Now, Shihan is a friend I've had for about twenty years and he is the host of a Da Poetry Lounge in Los Angeles and sometimes from the stage he calls me Double R to be funny. I don't mind that. Nobody even knows who he's talking about. You get my point. Oh, and it's not a stage name either. I hate that. My uncle used to introduce me by saying "This is my niece, Robin. Her stage name is Jaha though." I was always like, dude, TMI. Whatever though. Family.

I guess, there you have it. That's how and why and when I became Jaha Zainabu.

2. What, if anything, has it cost you to be Jaha?

For me, changing my name meant committing to something bigger than myself. It meant leaving behind the safety of ignorance. Leaving the comfort of living in a small bubble. Hiding behind religion, behind family and superstitions. Being Jaha has cost me silence. For years I protected abusers with my silence. I turned my head away from violence toward myself and others. I was quiet about children being mistreated. I was silent about injustice all around me. Sure, I prayed about it. But that wasn't enough. Saying my prayers and then living life business as usual not using my voice to make a difference in the world. Being Jaha and using my voice has cost me more than the comfort of silence. A life that wasn't really so comfortable if I'm being honest with myself. It cost me relationships with some friends and family. While some of these people are still in my life, the relationships have shifted. I won't sit by anymore and let jokes go by. Jokes about gay people, fat people, homeless people, Jewish people, Mexican people, any people. I won't sit by and watch children being mistreated and bullied. Not on my watch. If an innocent person is uncomfortable in the room then so is the whole room. Now, there are days I fail at this. But I get up and recommit to doing better the next time. And calling foul is calling foul on myself too. And I do. It huts. My ego is bruised. I'm embarrassed. But I do. 

Many years ago I was in my apartment and I could hear a woman was being beaten by her boyfriend. He was beating her bad too. I could hear his had hitting her face. I was so afraid. I was afraid for her and afraid for myself. I was afraid of calling the police because I didn't want him to know it was me who called. I was afraid of him beating me like he beat her. His window was open and a couple of young men walking by stood on the sidewalk and laughed at her. They were laughing and I got so mad at them. But I was no better. I was on the floor in the corner of my living room crying. I knew better. I had made a commitment to do better. But I didn't do better by her. I didn't use my voice. I let that woman get beaten. I will never forget that day. So, what has being Jaha cost me? I don't get to erase sound of his voice calling her a "stupid bitch" while kicking her in the stomach out of my head without remembering that I didn't do anything but pray that it would stop. 

Like I said in question 1, I wanted a name I wanted to answer to. Jaha means dignity and when people think of me I want them to think ok, yeah, I can see that. I haven't lived a perfect life since taking on that name. I have made some major mistakes and done some really undignified things. There are people I have hurt that I can't clean up with and I hurt about that. But I take that pain as lesson. And I've learned. Being Jaha has cost me easy passes. I don't give them to myself and I don't give them to family, friends, preachers, presidents, sinners, saints, nobody. We all gotta human up. 

4. If this world was yours and you could change anything, what would be first? 

If I could change anything in this world I would first erase violence. While this whole world is not mine, my world is mine. That make sense? My world is the world I can impact. So in my world I try everyday to rid the violence I can. Violence is a big word that covers a lot. Violence against children and animals. Violence against all people. Violence that people do to the earth. Homelessness is violence in a world where there is more than enough food and shelter for everyone. 

Violence is more than physical. Human beings in cages is violence. People living in homes and working in places where they are verbally abused is violence. Women working for less pay than men is violence. The quick prayer Black parents send out when we send our children out into the world is because of violence. Rape is violence. Anyone's body parts on anyone's body parts without permission is violence. 

I feel violated when men send me pictures of their penises in my inbox. What is that? If I want porn I know where to find it. I hate it! When I read and hear stories about police beating Black people for no other real reason than the color of their skin, that is not just violence against those people and their loved ones, it is violence against me. My safety is in jeopardy. Mike Brown's blood spilling in the streets of Ferguson was violence that still haunts me. You know how many Mike Browns there have been? You know how many Oscar Grants? How many Travon Martins?

You wanna talk about the water in Flint? About war? About Palestine? About Israel? Wanna talk about hate everywhere?

Children shunned from their homes and places of worship because of who they choose to love and the names and gender they identify is violence. Bullying of all forms is violence. For profit prisons is violence. The abundance of unhealthy food compared to affordable healthy food in poor communities is violence. As a Black woman, I have to deal with medical professionals not believing me when I see them. And that's about physical ailments. Wanna talk about what I go through with my mental healthcare professionals?

Can we talk about rent? Can we talk about healthcare? People can't afford to live. People are choosing between food and medicine. The schools in our communities aren't safe. Many of the racists teachers and staff are just as dangerous as the bullies. Many of our churches aren't safe spaces for women and children. The way we treat mentally ill people in this country is violence. There are Black men and women sitting in jail right now because they sold weed on the same street corners that companies are legally selling weed in much higher quantities now. That people can't walk through their neighborhoods without being threatened by gangs is violence. Wanna talk about how our elders are treated? I was sitting in a church where a preacher told a young woman in the congregation who was in a wheelchair that she wasn't healed because of her faith! Can we talk about the violence in that? This is all violence. I can't choose one form of violence to start with. There are as many forms of violence as there are blades of grass on this planet. Maybe I will come back to this list and add to it periodically.

It's not impossible though. You know? It's not. We can all do what we can do in our own little spaces we take up to end the violence in this world. Will it ever all be gone? Maybe not. There has never been a world without violence. A woman can dream though. A woman can dream. 

5. What is your deepest regret?

My deepest regret is staying in relationships longer than I should have. I don't just mean romantic relationships here. There were also friendships I should have ended long before I did. Many relationships I should have never entered to begin with.

There were always flags. In some cases I wanted to prove to him / her that I was different from the rest. That I wouldn't leave. That I understood. I could take it. That I would be a loyal friend. Sometimes I waited for abusive behavior to change. It never did.

In too many cases I overlooked abuse because I didn't want to call it abuse. There was one relationship that should have ended long before he punched a hole in the wall right next to me. It didn't even end then. Because I was never physically beaten I didn't consider other actions abuse. So I existed in romantic partnerships and friendships with people who were verbally abusive, put me down, spread hurtful stories and secrets and worse. I stayed because I hoped it would get better. I hoped me being nice would make them change. I was lonely. I was afraid of what the other person would do if I left. I didn't feel like my reasons for leaving were valid enough. I felt like I needed reasons. I felt like I owed them something. I wanted to prove to myself that I was lovable. That I could make a relationship work. There were many reasons.

I remember sitting with an ex lover at our kitchen table telling him that I had to go because the relationship was unhealthy for me. And it truly was. I felt like it was more important to him to change and control me than get to know me. I hated how often he criticized me and acted like he knew me better than I knew myself. I used to suffer greatly with really hard menstrual cramps. Once I was coming out of the bathroom after throwing up. He was standing in the doorway staring at me. He told me that "it wasn't that (my) cramps were that bad but that (I had) a low tolerance for pain." One night, early in our relationship, I told him about a man in my past who was physically...inappropriate with me when I was a child. We were sharing and exposing vulnerable spots and I thought I was safe. He told me "that was a good story but it wasn't true." I told you, there were always flags. But I stayed in the relationship. A relationship where I felt more property than partner. My no was never respected. My no to anything, including sex, was met with statements about why I should do this or that. That day at the table in the kitchen when I said I was leaving he told me that it wasn't that the relationship was unhealthy for me, it was that I was a runner. By then I was done. Nothing he could have said was going to keep me there. I did leave. I knew where I was going for the weekend but no plans after that. But ain't God good?!! A friend was leaving for the summer and let me stay in her place.

I regret sitting through tiny needle pricks. One on its own was almost nothing but prick, prick, prick after prick left emotional scars I'm still not over. I'm learning though. Honoring myself more all the time. These days when I get that feeling that I am not safe or respected in any way I run. So maybe he was right after all. I am a runner. I don't need a bunch of data. I'm just gone. And you know what? I praise God for these feet.

6. What are you most proud of?

Let's see. How do I answer this? I'm proud of a lot of things. Although my southern Baptist upbringing has me shy away from the word proud, the truth is many wonderful things have happened to me. Right now, I think the thing I am most proud of is my blog.

It is a mess. It's all over the place. It's called Jaha's World because that's what it is. My whole world. My blog is eleven years old now and I post in it almost everyday. It's like a journal. I write about my days and nights. About my mental health. There are photos I've taken. Videos of me reading and performing poetry. Videos of some of my favorite writers, rappers and singers. Letters to my son. When I started the blog I was living in Georgia and he was in California. Sometimes I would talk to him when I couldn't talk to him. There are also stories, poems, essays, musings, art, interviews I've done with family and friends and so much more. It's also where I grieve. Where I ask God questions. The same ones sometimes, over and over.

I'm proud of the blog because it's something I have to leave behind. Something I have that will live on after me. My blog is filled with me telling my story my way. I don't have grandchildren, but maybe someday my son will have children. If I am not here maybe they will want to explore who I was. Imagine if your grandmother left you her journal.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how long I have left here. None of us know. Not really. Unfortunately dementia runs in my family. I pray it does not hit me but if it does I want my journey documented by me. In my right mind.

My son doesn't read my blog. At least I don't think he does. And that's okay. But maybe one day he will and there will be some good life lessons waiting for him. There are other young folks in my family I think about when I'm writing in my blog. One young cousin specifically. Imani. I love her. We have only met once. We have spoken on the phone but I only saw her once in person. She lives in Texas and is now a very beautiful and very intelligent teenager. I have a good relationship with her grandmother (my aunt, Valerie) and with her father (my cousin, Deon) but not with her. She doesn't know me. Not really. But I wish we did have a relationship. I wish I could listen to her stories and pass down some of mine to her. That might not happen. One day, maybe when she is grown she might want to know her big cousin. I leave stories for Uraeus, for Imani, my family and friends, and poets and artists and people who live with mental disorders. I leave stories for myself. To remind me that not all of my days are dark. That I loved and was loved back. I leave drafts of essays and poems to develop myself as a writer. I leave stories because sometimes the depression and mania are scary at darkthirty. When my thoughts tell me no one wants to hear from me, God and my blog are there. I post prayers in my blog. Prayers and gratitude logs and dreams. Posts over pills is what I call my writing in the wee hours. If you're interested, stop by some time. jahasworld.blogspot.com

8. What or who inspires you? Why?

I am often inspired by many things and people. I will answer this question with just one person though but know that she is not the only one. Toni Morrison was a great inspiration to me. She still is. Her physical death has not changed that. I cried when she died. My body was numb at the news. I felt like I lost someone very dear to me and nobody could tell me that wasn't true.

Living in L.A. I see people now grieving Kobe Bryant everyday. There are mourners in front of the many murals. Laker gear on every corner. People talking about him in coffeeshops. I did not have a connection with Kobe like that but I do understand how people who didn't even know him could be hurt by his passing. For my good money, there isn't a better writer than Toni Morrison. Reading her work makes me want to keep developing my craft as a writer. I am not the same kind of writer she was but her work reminds me and pushes me to keep working. Keep studying. Early last year I was in a pretty bad depressive episode. I used to watch her interviews on YouTube. There are many of them and I would watch them over and over. Her wisdom, courage, talent, humor was a big part of what got me through a very dark place.

One of my first boyfriends as an adult was a guy named Kevin. My son's father's name is also Kevin. Not him though. Another one. Kevin was a book smart brother from Dartmouth. We weren't together anymore but were still kind of cool. I had just come back from Grambling (a school he told me that he and his school friends used to talk badly about because HBCUs were not schools that...measured up.) Anyway, we had a very long conversation about black women writers. He sat in my mother's home and explained how black women writers hated black men. "Alice, Toni, all of them." I didn't have the fancy words he did but don't nobody sit on my mama couch talkin' 'bout Alice, Toni or none of them. So there was him and his whitewashed degreed speech and me and my dropout black woman writer self debating whether or not a black woman could be a writer and love black men and tell all the stories that we tell. Toni Morrison has addressed this many times way better than I did with Kevin. With all my poetic words I ended the conversation with a drawn out "Negro pleeeeese." But Toni, with her still composure and perfect eyebrows talked about being a black woman who did not forget the times black women were not treated like "Queens." She would not be a woman to ignore those stories to prove her love to black men.

I found my voice through her writing. She gave me freedom to tell my stories. To call the foul in my life. Gave me freedom to love. Showed me that love didn't hide behind a bandage. That healing happened in the telling. That the telling was a part of loving. She told me my voice and stories matter. I say told me because she was my teacher. We never met. I talked to her anyway. In my thoughts, my journals, sometimes out loud. Toni Morrison invites me to sit in dark and messy and scary rooms and dares me to write my way out knowing that only just the right phrase will unlock the door.

And then her son, Slade died in 2010 and that she didn't flush herself down her own toilet was enough to inspire me. She wrote more. She taught. She breathed. She stayed. You know, it's not just her books. And they are all masterpieces as far as I'm concerned. It was her. SHE was inspiring. She is inspiring. She asked a question during one of Oprah's life classes. "Does your face light up?" When our children enter a room and see us often what they see is criticism on our faces. It changed how I relate with my son. Even now, and my son is twenty-two. So, especially now. I want the black man I birthed to see my lit up face when I see him. He is met with criticism enough in the world.

I could talk about her all day. Toni Morrison was someone I never had to meet. I would have loved to but I didn't have to meet her for her to have the impact on my life that she did. What would I have said to her anyway? Deep sigh. Blessed Toni, Mother Morrison, Magic maker, Queen. I hope she is resting now. May her work live on forever.

10. What is the best thing that ever happened to or for you?

The best thing that ever happened to me was being Uraeus's mother. I almost said that having him gave my life purpose but that's not true. My life had purpose and meaning before he was born. Before I was born too. But having him kept me focused. I truly believe I am on this planet now because Uraeus is here.

I have lived through depressive episodes since early middle school. I thought about my death many times throughout high school. Never me killing myself though. My belief that suicide was an unforgivable sin was enough to deter me from that. Instead I fixated on how I could "accidentally" die. When I grew up, many of my beliefs changed and I no longer accepted that I would burn in hell forever for escaping the pain of heavy and unexplainable sadness landing on me for weeks at a time for no reason I could see. Back then, there was no universal conversation about mental illness. I had only heard the term Bipolar 1 maybe a few years before I was diagnosed and that was well into my adulthood.

I was twenty-eight when I had Uraeus. I was in love with him. I didn't know he was a boy when I was pregnant but it didn't matter. I loved the baby inside me. I had baby fever before he came and now I believe it was him calling to be in this world. I was happy to be pregnant. My external circumstances were rocky though. I wasn't sure about my relationship with his father. I had very little money. During the final stage of my pregnancy I had a job as a receptionist at some small company out in the valley and I knew I wasn't going to stay there. There was a lot going on but I was always happy with my baby. Even physically I was happy. Maybe happy is not the word. I was sick. But I was okay. Morning sickness was a problem. Sleeping was impossible. I was tired and cranky and teary and blah blah blah but a whole person was growing inside of me. So there. Also, for the first block of my life since the sixth grade I didn't have a menstrual cycle. And my cycles were pure d death. Every single month for seven or eight days. Heavy bleeding and frequent vomiting and crazy nausea. None of what I was experiencing during my pregnancy held a Dollar General candle to my monthly periods. Besides, I kind of liked the way my body was changing. I was always thin before I was pregnant. Thin was new. Growing up I was skinny. I liked my new breasts and thickness.

Uraeus was a week late. That was according to the doctor. Babies come when they come. On November 14 after twelve hours of labor that felt just like my cramps and then a c section, Uraeus was here. I didn't know he was a boy until that day. My grandmother had a stroke while I was pregnant. While she was in hospital she went into a coma from which she never woke up. Before the coma though, I asked her if I was having a boy or a girl. She told me a girl. But then this boy showed up in my world and I was fine with that.

His dad and I split up when Uraeus was six months old. I knew we weren't going to make it as a couple. I was glad though that we both deeply loved our son. I didn't know what to do or where to go and moved in abruptly with my mom and stepfather in Long Beach. I didn't do it in a cool way. Uraeus and I were just kind of there. So that was rocky.

Postpartum depression, a disease I had heard of but thought only white women got, had hit me hard. As much as I loved my child, I spent many days on the couch wishing I was dead and then feeling guilty about having those thoughts. At the time I was working for the sheriff's department in Malibu. I hated that job. Not just the job. I hated my life. Much of the time I hated that I was alive and I didn't understand what I was going through emotionally.

The depression was crippling. I started missing a lot of work. Some days I would call in and sit on the couch with Uraeus. Now remember, this was '98. There was no Google. No social media where I could ask the world if anyone ever experienced the feelings I had. I reached out to a friend and used the best language I had to describe how sad I was. She told me that I should be happy. That I had a new baby and a new job and I didn't really have anything to be sad about. I wish I had another word. Sad is sad. Sad has never described my feelings.

So it was me. I was...trippin'. I wanted to get better though. For Uraeus. He deserved better. But I didn't know where to go. Whoever heard of someone going to the hospital because of sadness? Not me. Not then. I remember my stepfather used to come home from work and find me on the couch and I felt like the absolute worst human ever. "You didn't go to work?" He asked. But it wasn't a question. There was no reason to wait around for an answer. I was a loser. Then days would come and I would be happy. Too happy. But the word happy is like sad. It's not an accurate description. I could see a future for myself and my son. I had all these grand ideas about art and poetry and life and...and...and...And then the dark clouds would return.

I had a nervous breakdown at work. That's all I'll say about that.

The next day or the day after I went back to my job. Before lunch I told my supervisor I wouldn't be back. "Back from lunch?" No. Just not back. No one was sad to see me go. I think I did my supervisor a favor. She didn't have to have the talk with me. As an employee I wasn't worth the paper a write up would have been written on. See, the lie depression tells you is that the world and your loved ones would be better without you. That you are a burden. And I believed it.

But then Uraeus. There was something about him that I knew I had to be alive for. Even though I didn't know what I could bring to his life. I had to be here. I started setting small milestones for myself. I would stay alive until he started kindergarten. Until he finished elementary school. For sure until he got out of middle school. I thought when he graduated from high school I could leave. I told myself he would be okay. I knew it wasn't true. I knew it wasn't time.

When Uraeus was eight he went to live with his father and stepmother. I had / have great respect and appreciation for her. Whatever problems his dad and I had I knew he loved Uraeus and could take care of him and wanted to and I knew his wife would be good to him. Once Uraeus said to me "Mom, if I have a girl one day then I'm gonna name her (my name and his stepmother's name combined)." I was alright with her. And really, you can't have enough people loving your child. Another time, Uraeus was describing a situation and said "My mom (stepmother)" then caught himself and said "I mean...I mean..." I told him "Uraeus, that's okay. If you're calling her mom then she's treating you like son." But even when I was the "non custodial parent" I was in his life. I always loved him. We loved each other.

He moved back in with me when he graduated from high school. By then I had been diagnosed as Bipolar 1, was on meds and regularly seeing a therapist. I finally had to create a goal for myself that I could live into for me. My own reason to live. I've had...thoughts since then but when they come I have a better vocabulary around depression and the mania. I have resources. He's grown now and I can even talk to him. Because he should know. He listens and understands. I deeply, deeply love the man he has grown into. I love being his mother.