“After he dropped me off, I knew he was going to get back to flying and crashing because flying and crashing were what people in our family did when were alone, ashamed and scared to death.”(Laymon  Pg 178 )

In the last section of the book, we see Laymon leave his food eating addiction behind and replacing with an exercise one. However, he does not see it that way. He even thanks god that he is not flying and crashing like his family members. (178) This illustrates the cycle of flying and crashing he is speaking of, a form of self-sabotage. We also see this with his mother who has always struggled with a gambling addiction. It is very ironic since she is the person who always requested perfection of Laymon yet she has her own flaws and addictions. This goes back to the point I made in on of my previous blogs about how it is very difficult to end cycles when the role models around you are very flawed and toxic themselves. Not only does Laymon discuss cycles of addiction and suffering in his family but he discusses many in America and black communities.  An example being when he discusses the fact that men of color would only sell drugs to men of color to have in come because white men have too much power and can easily ruin their lives. He ends the book by stating that these cycles will continue as long as  long as we keep lying to ourselves and hiding these harsh truths.

In the second section of heavy “black abundance” we follow an older version of laymon who seems to understand the cruel world he lives in a bit more. This Section continues to elaborate on heavy topics previously discussed in the book as well as new ones.

I think laymons view on the world has become a lot a larger in this section. He states “no one ever taught me to write to or for my people.”( P 98)  Although he was referring to writing this quote is much deeper than it may seem. He is stating that he was never taught to have a voice to speak up on issues people of color went through and in ways to empower the people dealing with those struggles. Not only that, but “no one taught me” goes along with a lot of the section. This is reinforced when he states, “they never said the words: ‘economic inequality,’ ‘housing discrimination,’ ‘sexual violence.’ ‘Mass incarceration,’ ‘homophobia,’ ‘empire,’ ‘mass eviction,’ ‘post-traumatic stress disorder,’ ‘white supremacy,’ ‘patriarchy,’ ‘neo-confederacy,’ ‘mental health,’ or ‘parental abuse’ yet every student and teacher at the school lived in a world shaped by those words.” (p114) Since he has constantly lived thought this and is now older he slowly becoming more aware of it and becoming angry, unfortunately at this point of the book he is punishing himself over this. This also goes back to wanting to write a lie, since the world was ignoring all these problems and not putting this labels to them, it would have been much easier for him to do the same.

Laymon, Kiese. (2018). Heavy. New York, NY: Scribne

Dear classmates,

Dear classmates,

Going into this class this semester, I did not know what to expect. I
honestly wasn’t very excited at first but after attending my first class on
Thursday and reading the blog posts responses, that gas changed. I am now more
excited than i expected to be and am looking forward towards our future
classes. I am especially excited to have our first in person class session, as
it would be first in person session since the start of the quarantine lock down.
I have some expectations for the class that I am sure everyone will meet.

To begin I expect everyone to be welcoming in our first session on Thursday. I am expecting an environment full of communication and open minds. A place
where everyone is allowed to voice their opinions, insights, and perspectives. I
hope we’re all able to rely on each other for feedback and can ask one another questions in moments of confusion. I am hoping we all able to help each other grow as both writers and people.

Best,

Luis Tolentino