I like crystals and stones and have taken to having them around in my home as well as my office. They're beautiful of course, but I'm definitely about their energetic properties. Last week someone asked if I do anything to clear the energy between clients, and I mentioned the couple of stones and rose water. She offered the hot tip that the Science Museum is a great place to find reasonably priced crystals. What a coincidence, I was gonna be there on Sunday to see the Race exhibit with MidWest Mixed.
After spending some time in the exhibit, I cut out early to make sure I had time to go rock shopping before we had our debrief. The elevator doors opened and I stepped in, noticing the only other occupants were a little Mixed girl, maybe 7 years old, with her White grandparents. I made eye contact with her and smiled. I did not make eye contact with her grandparents, but I could feel their eyes on me, along with the question mark that hung just under the fluorescent lights. If I were Alissa, I would've engaged them in a conversation about being Mixed and given them a card and invited them to the conference. But I don't know, it's just not how I roll. So instead I radiated gentle openness to her, and then turned around and minded my business. The doors opened and we all got out. It was crowded, I got my bearings and headed toward the gift shop.
I quickly identified the crystal cases and began browsing. Before long I became aware that the little girl and her grandparents were nearby, primarily by her grandfather's voice narrating all of her options. Writing this, I realized I never heard her speak. But what I learned from his [nervous] chatter was that she was also looking for crystals.
I was doing a general sweep, making sure I got a look at the big picture of my options, and then she was standing beside me looking at something else in this case. I glanced over at her and breathed calmly. I noticed her hair, relaxed and in really good shape, somebody was definitely spending money on her hair. Part of my insides were jumping out of my skin to hug her or talk about how cool crystals are. Instead, I just let us stand next to each other.
She moved on to the loose piles of stones at a nearby table. I examined the amethyst and citrine.
I made my final selections and we descended on the cashiers desk at the same time. Grandfather talked about the things she could buy this time, what could wait for next time, "Oh why don't you grab some of that rock candy, that's cute." I paid for my crystals, our eyes resting on each other a couple more times.
I can't tell you how she felt, I can't tell you how much I was projecting. But that little girl was me in a tunnel of time travel to 1983, with grandparents who narrated too loud out of their own discomfort in how to explain the little brown girl they were toting around. I could sense/project her curiosity and discomfort (and was that a little embarrassment?) being out in the world with doting grandparents who would buy her anything and understand nothing about the brown woman who was looking at her from the future.
I left the store, and took the elevator back upstairs into an empty classroom that would in a few minutes be full of people who looked like me, and in a few more minutes be full of the effortless language of layers and layers of complexity and vast space for the in-between.
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