I’m listening to pigeons outside the living room window and hoping that I don’t grow tired, or annoyed, of the sound. Yeah, they’re flying rats, but I prayed for this. For more than a decade, I prayed for this.

I’m here. I’m in Harlem.

I’m sipping coffee from my Hamilton musical mug, thinking about the million things I haven’t done… but just you wait. Just you wait.

I’m trying to take in this joyous occasion with a heavy heart.

Protests rise from across the country,

throughout this city, throughout the boroughs.

Because they won’t stop killing us.

White supremacy can’t socially—and politically, and economically—distance themselves from suppressing Black people.

Not even during a pandemic.

A pandemic that is disproportionately infecting and killing our Blackness.

They can’t give it a rest.

Racism cannot give it a rest.

We keep saying “nature is healing”

The air is clearer.

The trees are greener.

But we are still Black and

we are still hunted.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I’m angry. I’m tired. I’m grieving. I’m prayerful.

But what kind of hell are Black people living in for me to find comfort in the sound of pigeons outside my living room window?