The 10th Anniversary Edition of Stumbling Toward the Buddha is on its way to the copy editor. I thought it was going to be a quick and easy project. Just dash off an author note for each of the essays in the original edition. But one of the dangers of writing is that it requires more of you than you’d intended to commit. I say thank you to all the folks whose energy fueled me.

You. For crying out loud, you’ve been reading excerpts for the past few months, and here you are, back again. There’s no greater gift. Thank you.

Jessica Conoley, author, intuitive, coach, speaker, founder of The CE Coaches. Jessica reprised her former role as book editor just for this project. After an initial read of the author notes, she emailed, “Say what you’re not saying.” Her words bonked me on the head and opened up my prose. She and I have been first readers for each other for as long as I’ve been writing for publication. Where you find inspiration in my words, it’s due to a partnership between Jessica’s heart and mine.

Cori Smith, founder of BLK&BRWN A Smart Bookstore, the shelves stocked exclusively with books by black, brown, and indigenous authors. The BLK&BRWN ecosystem gave me friends, audience, purpose, and a fire in the belly for black feminism. When I thought up the idea for a 10th Anniversary Edition, Cori was the first person I told. Because she loved it, I kept going. While I was working on the new edition, she hosted a reading of the original Stumbling. Her interview questions—swear to god, she knew my book better than I did.

Yolanda Williams, sister girlfriend since we met as college freshmen. Throughout the writing of this book, she told me to keep speaking my truth. Whenever reluctance crept into my work, I remembered.

Margie Towner and I also met as college freshmen. We were friends who ran into each other’s arms, if we’d been apart for more than an hour. We lost track for decades, when she found me online through my blog. We phone every single week to talk about our writing projects. Also yard work, grandchildren, music, and international affairs. Ask me what I do for self care; I’ll answer “Margie!”

Other Downeys contributed their writing energies to my creative identity. Granny Mum—Hellena Johnson Downey 1874-1952 (Chicago Defender articles), Mon—Beaulah Downey 1898-2003 (Ottumwa Courier essay) Bill Downey, Sr. 1922-1994 (five books, syndicated column), Al Downey, Sr. (graphic novels), Michael Downey (playwright), Courtney Downey (novels).

My sister Michelle Downey Lawyer brought Mozart and Beyoncè into my creative life. She also passed on messages of encouragement from the ancestors.

My brother Michael Downey filled in family history. He responded to excerpts of this project with deep insights based on his experience as a drama professor, playwright, and director.

Carolyn Celestine, yoga teacher, kept me grounded in time and space, with class three times a week. Creativity required roots to bring me back from floating in the aether.

Necia Gamby, massage therapist, dug the knots from my back when unpleasant epiphanies clenched me into a ball of tension.

Paid subscribers to Dawn Downey’s Teachable Moments (Lisa Daly, Tina DuBosque, Marilyn Jahnke, Anne Melia, Nicola Mendenhall, Cheryl Wilfong, Peg Willson, and Erica Zeitz) validated my writing ethos and helped cover production costs of this book. Month after month, their dollars told me that my words were valuable.

Founding subscriber and girlfriend, Usha Rengachary brought me out of reclusiveness. We hung out every Saturday, fueling my imagination with trips around town to support BIPOC creatives. Her vision showed me the energetic connections among justice, art, and idli.

Nicky Mendenhall, Margie Towner, Ben Worth, and Erica Zeitz shared their reactions after I read “Precious Moments” at an online author reading. I hesitated to express what I initially felt, but these white friends were antidotes to the white gaze. Their responses clarified my thoughts about the Author Note for that essay.

Julie Tenenbaum, as she has with all my books, protected me from perfectionism. I did not obsess about verb tense (which is my habit), because I knew Julie would catch every misuse of language that slipped onto these pages. It was a luxury to be able to focus on content.

Dan Blank, through The Creative Shift newsletter and its previous iterations, nudged me into a consistent writing/publishing routine, always stressing generosity. He validated my intuition on the one hand and expanded my comfort zone on the other.

Marcia Meier edited the original Stumbling. Her intuition about abuse in my family led to the essay “The Doll House,” which to this day continues to heave up insights like aftershocks.

Matthew Flickstein guided me through the teachings of the Buddha during the years when the events in Stumbling took place. The last advice Matt gave me was, “Forget everything you learned here. Go live your life.” So, here I go. Thank you, Matt.

Phil Bohlander was my therapist, with a magic bag of soul-fixing tools. I once went to him with an amorphous feeling of threat. Phil, I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t feel safe anywhere lately. My white Jewish Buddhist therapist had the timing of a stand-up. “Of course not, it’s open season on Black people.” A few minutes after I wrote the words Thank you, Phil in the author note for “Toadstools,” I got a phone call. Phil had just died. It’s still open season on Black people. I’ve come undone again. If Phil were here, he’d put me back together. He was thoughtful enough to leave behind his toolkit.

Ben. Big Sweetie, Vitamin B., Sugar Daddy. Husband. Every day, he encouraged me to “go mine some words.” He fulfilled every writer’s fantasy—laughed at the funny words, teared up at the sad ones. And then, he sang my praises to everyone he met. Throughout this project (and, you know, life), he’s been head cheerleader. Thank you, honey.

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

****

"It was so free, so abundant, it had lost its fervor."
———Toni Morrison
———Song of Solomon

When I turned the key in the ignition, Honda responded with only the click you understand, if you have a history with used cars. Even though Missouri summer was bouncing off the parking lot in shimmering waves, I wasn’t mad. Maybe it was the end of the road for the object of my car-OCD. Hubby had sprung for after market splurges—spoiler, alloy wheels, custom leather steering wheel cover. My membership at the automatic car wash entitled me to unlimited trips through the tunnel for only (enter what you think a car wash is worth and triple it) dollars a month.

I called Ben. “Honeee, the car won’t start.”

I put the phone on speaker and turned the key. Click. Any second now, he would say I’m on my way.

“We’ll need to get it towed …”

“Uh huh.” I waited patiently for I’m on my way.

“I can’t get to you any faster than a tow truck …”

Still waiting.

“I’ll call. He’ll take you and the Honda to Northtown Auto Clinic. I’ll meet you there. Okay?”

No. Not okay. Not at all.

I would have to ride in a pickup right beside a white man, a white man stranger, a white man stranger who drives a pickup.

Pickups like the one that had pulled up alongside my car at a red light, the driver snarling the N word at me and spitting out his window. White men like the ones who put their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. Pickups and white men like the ones who dragged James Byrd, Jr. to his death.

No, the plan was not okay, but it was a simple, efficient, rational plan that I could not wiggle out of.

It was an impressive rig. My car was not going to be towed, unceremoniously lifted at an undignified angle and dragged on two wheels. Honda was going to be carried like nobility in a sedan chair.

When he hopped out of his truck (oh no, a red ballcap), the pickup driving white man stranger grinned. “That is the cleanest 2001 Honda I’ve ever seen.”

The specificity. The exclamation point in his voice.

Here’s a man who’s seen a lot of cars, and within that a subset of Hondas, and within that a subset of 2001 Hondas. Here’s a man who recognized me as a person who would understand the multiple layers of the compliment. Here’s a man who knew the owner of the cleanest 2001 Honda he’d ever seen would know that clean meant pages and chapters more than Webster’s paltry “free from dirt.”

Not fair, coming at me with a gearhead compliment right off the bat. I was deflated and puffed up at the same time. I grinned back. “Thank you.”

I climbed my overheated self into the air-conditioned cab of the (Kansas City Chiefs ballcap wearing) white man’s pickup.

When my husband offered me the dark chocolate his friend had brought him from Paris, I wasn’t even tempted. I’d given up my favorite treat, because it triggered migraine, instantly, with the pain intensity in direct ascending correlation to the quality of the chocolate. At the time my husband offered it to me, that French chocolate was as appetizing as mud.

However.

Someone … somewhere … sometime … said something to me with ridicule in their voice. The details escape me; what remains is the heat in my face and the trembling of my lip. I wanted to climb into a hole.
There was no hole, but there was chocolate.

In the back of the cabinet, behind a jar of tomato sauce, under a package of ramen noodles, the candy bar lay in wait. The label read 65% cacao. Less than expected. 70% would definitely be deadly, but 65%, no problem.

A nibble would be safe. After all, it takes two simultaneous triggers to produce a migraine, and even if that chocolate were a trigger—which it probably was not—a tiny experimental bite would equal only one half of one trigger.

I slipped the prize from the wrapper, my mouth watering at the sight of the naked bar, cool and slick in my palm. Shiny as a new dime and scored into squares. I snapped off a square, carried My Precious to my writing room, and closed the door. Leaning against the door so my good sense couldn’t barge in, I broke the square in half and then broke the half in half. I placed the thumbnail-sized shard on my tongue like a tab of acid.

And then, it was gone.

I checked my hand to be sure I wasn’t still holding it.

It had slipped down my throat too fast to provide the tactile pleasure of chocolate melting in my mouth. Too fast to overpower the shame I was trying to outrun. Too fast to deserve the emotional logistics I’d committed to this exercise.

Still, I'd eaten chocolate without getting a migraine. I’d have to settle for that victory, as tiny as the shard.
I tossed the remains of the square on the desk and drove off on an errand. Seven minutes later, the migraine exploded. My skull squeezed down on my brain as my stomach lurched, and I struggled to see the road and remember the route home.

I’d have to take a pain-killer, and the insurance company only allotted nine each month to relieve the eighteen headaches I got each month, and now I’d have to take one for a headache I’d caused myself, but by the time I got home, I needed to take two, which left only three till the end of the month, still thirteen days away. Math intensified the migraine.

I collapsed into bed, waiting for the relief I did not deserve.

Stupid stupid stupid began to rise to my consciousness, but I had too little energy to fuel self criticism. Recrimination sank under its own weight.

I imagined the people whose poisons actually provided a couple hours relief—whether it be from chronic pain or chronic reality.

Here’s to us, who couldn’t say no. To Dawn who ate the candy she knew would split her skull, to the homeless man who bragged he’d get himself a beer with the money I gave him, to the mother on the 6:00 news who sneaked another OxyContin even though the court would take away her kids.

To all of us, I say, It’s okay, dear heart. We’ll try again.