For Oni

I’d been thinking. Thinking about life and respect for life and whose life gets what kind of respect. In the wake of the Sean Bell verdict, which I am still hurt and furious and scared and confused to recall. In the wake of reading about a cemetery in Bay Ridge that has been cleared for a condominium development.

On Tuesday night, I was on the train, headed home, and a cop got on with a giant German Shepherd. He was standing in the doorway at the end of the car, and there were four young black men, probably around sixteen, seventeen years old, standing in middle doorway of the car. I was sitting a few people away from them, when I heard one of them say to the other, in a stern whisper: “Calm DOWN. Don’t you see who’s over there? If he thinks you’re acting rowdy, he might Sean Bell your ass.”

The four of them stopped talking, stood still, watching the cop and his dog and looked terrified. They got off at the next stop.

I stayed on a few more stops. I felt crushed and furious and motivated and a bit lost. When I got home, I was thinking through all of this, thinking about sitting down with my journal to write out my thoughts and then I checked my email and got an IM from a friend who is still in college and I was really lost:

“Hey Katie.”
“JASON! What’s up?”
“Did you get the bad news?”
“No.”
“Oni passed away a few days ago.”

Oni Faida Lampley, actress, playwright, mother, director, professor, taught me in classes junior and senior year of college.

When I think of people I’ve known who I’ve truly been inspired by, Oni has always immediately come to mind. From the first day I met her, Oni knocked the air out of me with her energy and humanity and her honesty. When I called Sydette Tuesday night to tell her, I was stuck on the thought that Oni was one of the most alive people I’ve ever known.

The class I took with Oni was focused on writing for performance. Oni had us write for five minutes straight everyday, in addition to reading and specific writing assignments to get us in the practice of “the process.” “Writing is a process,” she told us. She stressed that it wasn’t easy but the more we did it, the less we’d censor ourselves. She never let us forget that it was hard. “This writing is your blood, sweat, tears, your shit, your air,” she said. But for whatever struggle we reached writing out ourselves, the moments where we hit upon something rich, something to write forward with, well, there are both no words and many words for those moments.

Junior year, I was going through it with a childhood friend that was living far from home in an unsafe environment. My writings were filled with her, writing in her voice, writing about her, but never writing about my experience with her, or my experiences with me. After a certain point, Oni told me I wasn’t allowed to write about her anymore. I had to write about me, which was pretty much what I had been fighting tooth and nail.

Sydette and I took that class together. Oni was the teacher who proclaimed us Wifeys. One night, as we were all packing up to leave class, Sydette and I were deciding what to get for dinner and I whined about vegetables and she told me something along the lines of “Vegetables will keep you regular.” And Oni just cracked up and said “You two are the funniest couple.” And after a moment of “Couple? What? But we’re just friends. Oh, but you mean we bicker like an old married couple,” we jumped into trying to figure out which was the wife and which was the husband before dropping the heterosexist pretenses and declaring ourselves both Wifeys.

Oni came back to teach the same class senior year, and I audited it. I was in the process of figuring out what to do with myself after college - where to live, finding a job, finding an apartment, and I remember the day I signed a lease, I went to class feeling so, so… so, I was sure. Just so. And I told Oni this and she said “You’re going to be a real person now. You’re feeling that potential.” And she was right. My mind was racing with all of the things I might be about to do. Oni told me to pay attention in the coming months, to listen to everything bouncing around in my head.

Every class with Oni was a safe space. Everyone in her classes shared things that I don’t think would have been shared outside of the space she created. I know I wouldn’t have. At the time, I was coming to terms with myself and there were lots of things that putting down on paper took a huge leap of personal faith. I didn’t read everything, I didn’t always share. But I did learn that to truly take responsibility for the words and thoughts I put out to the world, I had to be as honest as possible. And, specifically, as truthful with and about myself as possible.

I hadn’t been in touch with Oni since graduation, but she left the type of mark in my life where I think of her probably once a day. I try to write for five minutes every night, which I started in Oni’s class. She encouraged us to carry a pen and paper to write down words, phrases, quotes that move us, and when I’m sitting in a theater, eavesdropping on the subway or waking up at 5AM with a random inspiring dream, the pen that lets me scrawl what moved me is there because of Oni’s initial suggestion.

I don’t know that I’ve fully processed the thought that Oni has passed on, but I do know that her teachings will always live in my heart and mind. The most real the knowledge of her death has been to me was when I found a website dedicated to creating a college fund for her sons.

I still remember, in my first class with Oni, the day she brought one of her sons to visit. At the time, he was about fifteen. And I was completely struck by the willingness of a teenage boy to jump right in with the free writes and writing prompts with the rest of us and, even more so, by all the writings he shared with us. In every memory of her sons that Oni shared with us, it was so beautifully clear that she lived and breathed her boys. And I hope that each of you will be able to take the time to visit her memorial website and contribute what you can.