02.27.01

Sometimes I feel like furniture. Exotic Furniture. Furniture hand crafted in India, by a genuine artisan, but furniture nonetheless.

At the end of the day, furniture is still furniture, and pretty though it may be, it has a purpose. You sit on it. Or put your coffee cup and Nokia cell phone on it. Leave the stains for someone else to deal with.

Sometimes I feel like furniture at my office. Genuine Made-In-A-Third-World-Country-What-A-Great-Conversation-Piece-Wherever-Did-You-Find-It Furniture.

I-Got-It-For-Only-$50-Can-You-Believe-It-And-Genuine-Hardwood-Too Furniture. Why-That's-Practically-A-Steal Furniture.

Yeah, a steal. You got that right. Let's not even get into the stealing.

Sometimes I feel like furniture, and here's why. I am a Genuine Colored Girl. I have a Non-Western Name. I even speak a Native Dialect (Hindi). I even have an Eastern Religion (Buddhism) in which I actually believe, isn't that so wonderfully quaint. I cook Ethnic Food. Most of my family lives in Other Countries. Third World Countries. And at my oh-so-lily white office, I am a Conversation Piece. My coworkers have given me the honorary title of Cultural Expert. I never asked for this title, but it is mine.

You got a question about Culture, I have an answer. I probably made it up, but my brown skin authenticates it, makes it believable. Ask me about Japan. No really, go ahead, ask me. I've never been there and have forgotten everything I ever learned about it, but I am Asian. We know these things.

My Asian sisters can back me up here. We teleport information. We know everything about all Asian Countries. We can speak Chinese even if we were born in Korea, India, Malaysia. These things just come to us, you know. We are, like those Nokia cell phone faceplates, interchangeable.

My boss has proudly stated, passing my office, "Oh, and that's _____. She's from India, and most of her family still lives there! She even speaks Hindi!" The visitors ooh and aah, Oh-A-Touch-Of-Native-Color-And-How-Wonderful. However-Did-You-Find-Her-And-Does-She-Cook-Too? What beautiful furniture you have here.

She's even toilet trained. She barks on command. My Cultural Credentials pass with flying colors, hurrah.

You might think, here is an angry girl.

I am not angry. My blood pressure has not risen.

But furniture has been known to get up and walk off into the night, carrying the local color, the backbreaking effort of creation, the unique character, the Atmosphere, with it, leaving behind only white space left bare of Conversation Pieces and emotion.

****

xoxo,

moonbird

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