Jason Madison is a storyteller from Richmond, CA and a 7th year RYSE member. A fixture in RYSE's Speak Poet workshop and Performing Arts Advanced Media Producer internship, among many others, he has a deep passion for expression and inspiring others to open up by way of telling his stories; stories spanning identity, healing, trauma, and self-love. Photo Credit: Laisha Luna Aguilar, current RYSE member (@photographsbylaisha)
I’m learning how to become me. My name is Jason, I’m from Richmond, CA. I’m still learning. It’s a process. But it’s a good, wonderful process. I’ve been at RYSE since 2016. RYSE and Richmond is two different places, to be honest. Richmond was crazy. It’s a lot of violence, a lot of things that go on like a lot of shootings, a lot of dudes trying to holler, or people snatching young girls and snatching young boys. My community at RYSE taught me how to love myself. RYSE staff helped me to build my self-esteem. Everybody’s different at RYSE, all the cool staff. Marissa was my counselor. But she was more than that. She was a sister, a friend, and a great person to talk to, for real. She made me feel comfortable being truly myself and I trusted her with my whole heart. She gave me permission to let the pain go.
You can be struck so many times and you still stand up tall: lightning striking us, hitting us so many times, I mean so many times. But we’re strong. In Marissa’s office the color was a lot of rainbows. It’s like a let-it-be-known color: super bright, super shining, a super be-yourself color, and the texture is soft. I identify with he/him, they/them pronouns. It took me a while to understand, to be like “oh ok this is me.” I’m still kind of struggling with that. I was a lonely little girl at the time. I used to hold things in, never really share my emotions with nobody. I was that person where I was nice, I was sweet, I was smiling, but on the inside I was in just so much pain. I was looking for love and people not giving up on me.
A safe space for me is being yourself, not worrying about people trying to mess with you, not worrying about violence. We live in a struggle world, California in general. We go down in a deep, dark space. My biggest fear is hearing a gunshot. Around 15 years ago on Halloween we was in the house. My mom felt something. She felt like she shouldn’t go to church. My dad kept telling her “come on, let’s go to church.” We started walking but before we walked in, all we heard was “boom boom boom.” We was in the crossfire of a drive-by and my nephew and mom got shot. We didn’t know my mama got shot at first, until she felt something running down her thigh. She was in shock, with her grandson. It was dudes that was getting shot in front of me too. They didn’t die, but it’s the fact that I still kind of dealt with that, you know? I feel like it’s more of a trigger than a fear. Because that’s two different things. You go back to your trigger, you go back to that moment in your life. It really triggers you out of your mind. I was super young. My nephew was 2, now he’s finna be 17. And he remembers it.
A safe space feels warm. It looks like a bunch of unicorns, it sounds like kindness, encouraging words, like me snapping my fingers, like “PERIODT”, like “yesss.” It sounds vulnerable. Marissa really made me feel comfortable. I said I was a Christian and I’m in the LGBTQ community and she also said she’s a Christian and Queer. That made me comfortable ever since. You meet a lot of Queer people and you meet a lot of Christian people. You don’t meet a lot of people Queer Christians at the same time. We had conversations about how churches don’t really accept us. RYSE taught me to not say all them negative things about myself. They stopped me in a quick second. “Nope, you’re not ugly, you’re not dumb, you could do whatever you want to do.” I feel like RYSE is very fun, very transparent, they look out for young people, they make sure we’re safe, and they make sure we have food in our mouths. Anger for me, it feels like a pot of boiling water, just steaming. When I walk into RYSE the water would start to cool down. It would cool to the point where it’s freezing; purple and teal and green. A few years ago in Marissa’s office I walked in very frustrated, very upset. She could see it in my eyes. I was just hiding my face. And she said “it’s ok to cry, why are you hiding?” Marissa gave me permission to cry.
You have to love yourself. I would tell my 16 year old self don’t be scared to be who you are. Even though you was raised up in the church, just be yourself, be happy, and don’t let nobody tell you different. When I have kids in the future, I want them to be comfortable about truly being they self. I want my nieces and nephews to truly be they self. My baby nephew loves My Little Pony. I love how he loves that, but it just makes me upset because his mama say “stuff like that, it’s not for boys.” In my mind it’s for whoever. It’s no gender to it. And unicorns are pretty. My brother used to call me a tomboy because I used to play football and I’m like, it’s nothing wrong with that. I feel like nothing has a gender to it. This world makes it seem like everything got a gender to it. I’m trying to tell my nephew it’s cool to be who you are. If he wants to wind up being whatever he wants to be in life, I really don’t care. I will love him. I will care for him. I would accept him for who he is. That’s my baby at the end of the day.
Lightning could be all the bad things you went through that strikes you every time, that hurts you every time. I miss being in Marissa’s office. It felt like home. You could feel warm, you could feel laughter. One thing I can’t control is death and being safe, but Marissa made me feel safe. She passed on January 3rd 2021. I felt sad and upset because I was supposed to have talked to her around that day. I think about her non-stop. Marissa helped me through a lot. She helped me trust her and to talk about my problems. I want to show my nieces and nephews that they can trust me enough to talk about anything and everything. Schools could learn from Marissa to be patient and passionate about what they do. Schools can learn from RYSE about treating people how they want to be treated, loving people, and not judging people.
You know who you are. Are you learning to be yourself?