I was in one. A car accident. One of those ones where you're just driving along, minding your own business, yelling at the car in front of you in your head when BAM! out of nowhere, your car has moved forward into another car and you're wondering WTF???
The worst part is the whole going to the hospital. They strapped me onto the board, taped my head down and then made me stay on the straight board for about an hour. It sucked and my massive headache was aided by one hour with my head taped down to that straight board. In fact, when I finally got to the part where they could unstrap me, I received an impromptu brow wax, sans the wax. For about 10 minutes after that, the only pain I could report was the back of my head and my eyebrow. My doctor found it hilarious.
I'm okay though. No head injuries or spinal injuries. Just a crazy hardcore eyebrow waxing and neck and shoulder pain. The cop who talked to me said that the guy who hit me blew three times the legal limit into the breathalyzer. He said I was lucky. I don't feel it now, but the fact that I feel makes me lucky indeed.
If you follow me anywhere else and if you just take a look at my front page, you'll realize that I participated in National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo for short), and that I wrote my 50,000 words in 30 days and though it was hard, it was SO satisfying.
My story was crap. It was supposed to be a young adult novel, but it turned into a romance novel combining some aspects of the YA novel I started. Once again, it was crap, so no one will be reading it. Yet that crap was the best thing I've written in a long time because it showed me something I've been trying to teach myself for some time now.
1. It showed me that the first step to good writing is crap writing. When I finished that draft, even though I didn't want to do anything with it, I immediately had ideas for what I would do to fix some of the more glaring errors. That's what I need to do for my script writing, just write the first draft and then figure work on the glaring errors later.
2. It taught me to sit at my desk at any point and be able to write, even if it's crap. It's the whole, if you do it for 30 days, it becomes a habit. Now that I'm not writing for this specific goal, I get to do more things out of the house, but sitting at my little desk in my chair is something I do every night now and doing that comes with some writing, even if there is more television watching going on.
3. If you tell people what your goals are, they force you to keep it. They push you when you need the push and poor the glass of wine when it's time to celebrate.
4. I can do more than I am doing, but I don't have to stress myself out trying to do it. My initial thought when I started the 50,000 words in 30 days quest was that I wouldn't be able to do anything other than write. Yet when I went out to drink, I was the nerd sitting in the corner writing, my glass of Guinness at hand. I went to live shows and hung out with friends with my phone's notepad application to catch every thought if I needed to jot something down. I was prepared to write at any given moment will still be able to enjoy myself. I buckled down when I needed to, but overall, I didn't stress myself out to do this.
This past November was exactly what I needed to further keep me on the road to becoming the writer I want to be. Yay me!
I've gotten stuck. I'm writing everything but my NaNo. Part of it is the same thing it was last week. In the middle of the week, I work both jobs, but at the beginning and end of the week, I have a little more free time. By the 15th, I need to be at 25,000 words. That's 10,000 more words in the next couple of days. But that's not going to happen. However, if I can get two days of 3,000 + words, I will be doing good. I did almost 6,000 words one day and almost 4,000 words another. The good thing is that I have the first three days off and I am also off on Friday that week. Friday has been a good writing day thus far.
In other news, I'm still writing at Hey! Media!, Snacking on Macon, and Dispatches from the Road. I guess this idea of writing every night, even if it isn't on my story, is a habit this month will help develop for me. Maybe if I get over word count, I can start making script writing a part of that instead of simply coming up with stories or just writing whatever happens to come out of my mind.
I'm at 15,000 words, which is 5,000 more than I've ever gotten doing NaNoWriMo. I had a good spurt over the weekend, but I've hit sort of a wall. I will get back down to it. I sat and wrote several posts tonight, so even though I didn't get all my words, I stockpiled posts for tomorrow's Hey! Media! posts and I wrote about Africa at Dispatches from the Road. I'm trying to be better at all this posting. I may just combine it all, although I enjoy the freedom of being pieces of myself all over the internet.
Right now, it's 6 frakkin':20 and I haven't been to bed. I've been up since 9am and I have to work from 11am - 10pm. I should be in the bed, so that's where I'm going.
I do it every year. I say I'm going to do NaNoWriMo because, when you think about it, 50,000 words spread out over 30 days with no self editor filter shouldn't be that hard. I know that I've written more than that in a shorter period of time, it's just words on a page.
But each year I've choked, getting no further than 6,000 words during the first two years and 10,000 words last year. I'm growing, but I'm choking.
This year, I'm having to re-evaluate some things and one of those things is the place writing has in my life. I'm getting paid to write. Everything I write for someone else is for pay. It may not be much, but it's something. I enjoy writing, but I have to train myself to use the pressure.
There is a pretty big group here in my hometown and they love to meet at my favourite little coffee stumping ground. It's a great place to go to write as long as you write. Unlimited coffee (well, limited by how much you want to pay), delicious desserts, and espresso based beverages - and even stuff for the non coffee drinker, like tea and sodas. Whatever you do, you will either be on a caffeine high or a sugar high so that you can get those daily word counts.
I thought about doing a daily word count, but I looked at my weekly schedule, which changes each week and from Monday - Wednesday, I'm working from 8am -10pm with two of my jobs and I decided to go by the weekly word count instead. I'm going to be so tired and I won't be able to get as much done on some days as I will on others, like this Thursday, on which I have a half day free) and Friday, which I took off completely. If NaNo started today, I could get my weekly word count on those two days and during the weekend.
So what am I looking at here? I have to write 1,667 words a day, 12,500 words a week. The daily count doesn't seem daunting. It's the weekly count that's doing it. This year, I'm doing something a bit different, creating a pre-writing outline. I have a couple of stories that could make the cut, but only if they look real pretty in their outline format. I like a good profile. Anyway, bad humour aside, I'm pretty excited about it, again, this year. I feel like I could really make it to the end of the month with 50,000 words of a story written out.
But I want to write for television, which, although it doesn't preclude being a novelist, does seem to ask why I push myself to do this. The simple answer is to accomplish some writing feat that I haven't accomplished before. The second simple answer is that all the ideas are original spec ideas and so if I can flesh out a good story with any of these ideas, I can put together a good script. And by the time I get to 30 days, the hardest part of writing my own original spec will be done. It's not rocket science, but it will take determination and I've got plenty of that.
So, when I say that my life is getting less stressful, what I really mean is the next three months will be very stressful as I try to write and what I accomplish in this period of time will prove that I continue to write or I just keep it as a hobby.
I hate putting that kind of pressure on me, but I can't keep living with this "one day" syndrome that I have. And the facts of my job gives me this brief window to concentrate on things that I haven't had the time to concentrate on in the last year.
When I say I hope I do this, what I mean is that I hope that I really invest in myself. There is no reason now for why I can't move forward. The only reason I wouldn't is because it isn't what I really want. But I see it and I know it's what I want. I just have to make this time work for me.
I just don't want to be whiny about it. But believe me, I will whine if it helps.
When he walked through the door, I swore I heard bells. He had on a bright red shirt, overall, and black boots that, when shined, would look good underneath a red suit. His hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and the underneath hair flowed white down his back. His beard was big and bushy and the mustache above his lip curled up in a cunning little imitation of the handlebar mustache.
I said hello, looking for the twinkle in his eyes. I almost added Santa, but I'm pretty sure he was incognito. He walked to towels before disappearing around the corner. When he finally came back to the counter, he had two bags of Lindt truffles and was talking on his bluetooth. I joked about the imaginary bluetooth of crazy people, then we had a short conversation about chocolate where I recommended the milk chocolate ones with the white chocolate centers that melt in your mouth. He bought his candy and left. A few seconds later, Santa comes back with one of the white chocolate truffles in his hand, which he gives me with a wink and a smile.
A few minutes later, my manager and another worker come up. "I just saw Santa," I say. "I saw him too!" L. says. "Good, I didn't think I was going crazy," I say. "Did he have a list?" T asks. "No, but he gave me candy."
Santa is awesome.
My dad has cancer. He has it because he drank and smoke most of his life. I have a conspiracy theory about his time in the Vietnam War, but we'll save that for another post.
I don't see him often. We were never really that close, but 2 years ago I lost my favourite uncle to cancer. It happened so fast that two months after I found out, he was dead. A year later, my dad was diagnosed. I didn't want the same thing to happen. So I started visiting my dad more often. The first visits were at the hospital, so depressing because he was sliding downhill while they delayed his chemotherapy to wait for insurance to cover him. He refused to talk because he thought talking might mess up his voicebox and the tracheotomy would be permanent. I believe he nearly died, but they started him on chemo and I got to see him doing well right before I left for Europe. I saw him a few more times and then right before and right after Africa in July/August, I saw him. He was thin, shockingly so. His voice rasped because he still had his trach. But he was getting better he was less morbid and his sense of humour was returning. I saw him one more time where he convinced me to take him to the store to play the lottery and he bought me a peach soda like I was his little girl.
I saw him again last night and he'd aged 30 years in a month's time. He sounded the same, he walked the same, but he looked like his dad, my grandfather - he looked like they were brothers and not father and son. I don't know what my face looked like when I saw him, but for any of you who know me, you know the emotion was plainly on my face.
I don't know how to be, but the resolve to visit my dad has grown. Which will make my grandmother happy, although she doesn't understand that my dad like people (especially people visiting) even less than my husband. So we'll see how it goes. I think, for the sake of the only good conversation my dad and I ever had, I will be there during the election to see if we will watch history together or if we will once again be disappointed.
Death makes me feel small. I feel it waiting, watching the proceedings. Death doesn't smile with glee, it just bides its time. It knows that this is inevitable. In a macabre sense, I know that my dad is ready, has been since he stopped being so morbid. He's been enjoying life, getting out, doing things that, I think, he always wanted to do. Being responsible for something when he was always afraid to before. Taking the time to get to know his children as people and not as, well, as children. We don't visit as much as my uncle's children did and still do because we didn't have the same kind of relationship. While my uncle's children were abandoned by divorce, my dad abandoned us while he was still there. Not all of it was his fault, but he is reaping the repercussions of not having a close relationship with any of us.
But we're growing and I hope we get to learn new things before Death decides it's time to go.
I used to be able to have 2 or 3 jobs without blinking an eye. Bills need to be paid, money needs to be had, that sort of thing. But now that I'm getting older, I'm realizing that I need to be smarter, not just by doing something like budgeting, but even by doing things like job consolidation.
Granted, I only have three jobs because I include writing in that, but the other two are sucking the life out of the writing job. Saturday, I got called into my second job and I had to turn them down, not because I didn't need the money, but because I needed to just sit down and write.
I found out I also needed to sleep. And that my feet were killing me.
I also need a new needle for my record player.
And although those things are beside the point, they are the point for the life I'm leading. I think I should replace "need" with "want" in my vocabulary - for most things. I definitely need more sleep. But I only want a new needle for my record player.
Oh well, want. need. In the end, we work for it because we feel like it's a necessity. But maybe when we get it is when we realize that we never needed or wanted it after all. Whether it is going back to school or eating a slice of chocolate cake from Market City - we do the things we want and we do whatever it takes to get there. So I'm sucking it up because I want to do the things I want to do, working my jobs, making that paper, and maybe when I've done what I need to do, the ends will have been justified by the means.
I have an inner editor. She likes to be very precise. I, however, don't. This inner editor can get in the way because I'll want to write something and she'll think it's not perfect enough and so then I don't end up writing.
So I say screw the editor. If it makes you feel better, you can point out the errors. I may ridicule you publicly. I may take what you say under consideration. I will, however, not stop to edit myself. Well, I will change the occasional spelling errors and rewrite a sentence here or there that could be better, but I will send this stuff out the way it came out of my head.
You'll just have to deal with it.
While I'm at this thing, I am going to go back to that format of writing whatever's in my head. That could be short or long, depending on what I think about. It could also reference stuff that I talk about on my other blog, Hey!Media! I know, it's a bit weird to have a blog on two different sites, but that's how it is.
Anyway - Whenever the thought of Barack Obama being president comes into my head, I start to hyperventilate. I know it is hard for anyone to believe that a black person would vote for Obama for some reason other than him being black. However, no one who is black can't say that the impending sense of a black president doesn't cause some sense of accomplishment, validation, something that is a slap in the face of anyone who put any of us down. Oh, I don't want him in the office to validate me. Hell, he'll probably be just as disappointing as any other politician (well, not ANY other politician - I'm not pointing any fingers, Bush). But he's a great public speaker and he instills an sense of calm. I mean, I don't want to put McCain down. He went through a hell of a lot for this country. I just don't want to see someone who wants to "win" a war they don't even know what "winning" looks like get to the White House.
Anyway, this is by no means a political blog, but in a way, you can't help but be political with less than a month to go before the election.
I just discovered apples and peanut butter. My husband assures me that white people have known about for a while, which is appropriate because it was somebody white that told me about it. What a great sweet and salty snack.
Anyway, to the three people who read this site, or check their RSS feeds everyday hoping for something from me but getting nothing - or to the people who get led here searching for "lightest person"- I apologize for not writing as much as I would like or as I should to get regular readers.
Many things are going on, the least of which is work. I have a LOT of jobs right now. I need to downsize, even as I try to biggie size my finances. I'm looking at some sort of consolidation, we'll see what that is. For now, I am busy trying to get my writing act together. Getting a 3rd job has been hard on the others, especially the writing. Everybody that I've worked with as a writer, upon finding out that I had to get a 3rd job, have tried their best to get me in there, writing about something so that I can get some more money in. In truth, that's what I want to do. I just need to learn a little something about organization - things that I never taught myself. I've been getting by on charm and good looks all this time, I need to start using my brains. They're a little out of work.
So I still think about Africa nearly every day. I had to reset my phone, lost some pictures that I don't have anymore on my computer so I put our beautiful leopard from Xakanaxa as my background. I still feel Africa when I talk about it. I recall Europe with fondness. I still feel Africa.
I'm discovering so much, I can't wait to share. I just hope I make myself sit down and get it out while it's in my head, because I want you to know and because I want to tell it and maybe, in the telling, I can discover more about you, myself and this big, wide world I call my home.
I have to keep reminding myself why I am here - not some strange metaphysical answer to the big eternal "WHY???", but really, a firm, solid answer about why I am writing Little Southern Girl. I'm writing because I have a lot to learn and I want to have fun doing it.
Because I can get depressing as shit.
I have had a lot of things happen in life, but nothing nearly as life altering as the last 4 years. In the last four years, I've gotten married, traveled like I've always wanted to, lost friends I thought I would have forever, kept friends who probably should have let me go years ago, and realized that my faith journey was going to be one hell of a bumpy road.
I truly don't understand how to think about all these things without a little bit of drama. I'm supposed to like drama, I guess, being a girl - but being the type of girl I am, I can only stand it when someone else writes it. My own drama makes me want to smash my head against a wall and start all over again.
In the next life, I want to be an ant. The kind that rips people to shreds like in the Indiana Jones movie.
"I've got that same thing," I say and everybody laughs. Hobbit has just shown us how white his stomach is compared to how dark his arm is from working in the sun. I take another swig of my margarita and give them all a look.
"I think you're going to have to prove that statement," he responds. I graciously decline. "Come on, show us!" my other friend H. says, joining in the fray. "Alright," I say and lift my shirt a little. I drop my arm to the exposed skin and show the room. Everyone is staring and amazed. To almost the same magnitude, my arm is as dark against the pale skin of my stomach as Hobbit's.
It's bothered me at times how fair I am. My awareness of my skin colour started when I was in elementary school, a first grader away from home for the first time. I can assure you I never thought of skin colour until that year, when I tried to make friends with other students and was shunned along with the other mixed kid at school, Marvin S. His mother worked at the school. He knew he was mixed. I didn't. My mom was a tad bit darker than me, but she was fair and my dad was dark. I remember being chased home by kids yelling "white child!" with the same vitriol that the citizens of Salem might have used when they called someone a witch. I would look through pictures for some kind of clue. I had a picture of my dad holding me and compared to him, I looked white. But there I was, a little baby in his arms, so I stuck to my guns and demanded the kids leave me alone because I was just as black as them and I had two black parents at home to prove it.
Over time, I stopped trying to prove myself to others, although I still longed for smooth ebony skin instead of the honey coloured skin that God had given me. I met other people whose ideals and philosophies helped me become more comfortable in my cafe au lait skin.
The summer of my 19th year, I discovered that my biological father was not the daddy that I'd lived with all my life. It was such a shock and came at a very stressful time in my life and my mother's life. Struggling with the lie she'd told all these years, her newfound salvation prompted her to become right with all mankind in the sight of God. Dazed by the information, I walked into my brother's room - half brother suddenly - and woke him, told him the story and went back to sleep. If it were all a dream, he wouldn't know this information in the morning.
My baby sister cried when mom told her. Granted, she also learned that Santa Claus didn't exist in the same sitting, but the shock was separate and distinct for each new revelation and when she ran out of the room yelling that my mom had lied to her (her 9 year old brain rattling with the new facts), I couldn't help but feel sorry for her.
There was a sense of relief, though, to know that parts of me was something else. "Mixed" is a strange word. I am black. I claim black with pride. Where black people have come from is amazing. It isn't all set down in writing - from music to inventions, from architecture to zoology, we have had a hand in the creation of so many things. But as I learned to like me for me, I found that I was clinging to some things because I didn't want others to doubt my "blackness". It's a weird place to be and hard to explain, but I figure someone who does something they don't really want to do all in the name of "manhood" or "popularity" can sort of understand where I'm coming from. In a way, to others and eventually to myself, "mixed" became a form of freedom and acceptance. Freedom to dabble in other forms of expression and entertainment, freedom to move past the bonds that society likes to package around people of all persuasions, and the freedom to accept myself and my own singular idiosyncrasies. I can admit, at times, that I enjoy being weird and all the ways that happens with me.
After I proved the magnitude of colour difference between my arm and belly, Hobbit puts his arm up to mine. Though I am the only black person in the room, I am not the darkest person present.
I'm getting better and better with being okay with who I am and not fighting other people's stereotypes of me, good or bad. And slowly, I'm getting more used to being the lightest person in the room.
I haven't had a drop to drink since I left Africa. Now, granted, that has only been five days as I write, so I feel sort of like an alcoholic saying that, but then, who doesn't feel like an alcoholic when they've spent nearly 41 hours in a state of inebriation because of the stress of traveling.
I may have mentioned once or twice about traveling surrounded by kids.
Okay, so I went to look in the fridge just now and was about to grab a glass of red wine, but something stopped me. I don't know what it was. Maybe it is the thought of tomorrow night's party. The word "copious" was used to describe the amount of alcohol and it's possible that my new favourite drink, Amarula (thanks, Ian), will be the drink of the day. Every time someone says it, they have to take a shot.
Drinking. My father was an alcoholic who smoke and as a result, followed numerous people down the chemotherapy path of throat cancer. It was not pretty, but in order to survive, he had to stop drinking. I remember thinking that I would never be like him.
My first taste of alcohol came as quite a surprise. Imagine a seven year old amidst the cast offs of her parents party. Finally able to come out of her room because the adults are gone, she goes in search of something to drink. Seeing a half full glass (to this day, she only sees half full) of clear liquid, she greedily grabs it and takes a big gulp. To her very unpleasant surprise, it was not the water she was expecting.
I never thought I would like gin after that. After that taste, I explored every bottle of alcohol until I smelled the bottle from which that monstrous drink had come. Seagrams Extra Dry Gin. I remember the small, heavy glass and the gleaming gold label to this day. I remembered because I wanted to avoid it. I never thought I would like gin, ever, until I was on the second leg of my flight, from London to Barcelona, and our British seatmate suggested a gin and tonic. We, wooed by her accent, ordered and our drinking life has not been the same since.
I know coffee. I savour coffee. I like trying to learn the tastes of beans from different regions. I have a friend who is not a coffee fan who is slowly learning the merits of coffee. In return, he is teaching me to appreciate liqour, which in many ways, I still don't. He poured a finger of Jameson's for me to taste and I could not think of any other way to describe it except olive oil. He was very disappointed.
Gin is the closest I've come to actually enjoying straight alcohol. For all my non-girl like tendencies, none of them extend to my drink. Yes, I like to taste the alcohol a bit - there is something about the flavour that other sweeter, more palatable liquids bring out - but for the most part, make my drink taste like anything but alcohol.
Which is why I like Amarula. I thought I'd seen it in the stores before going to Southern Africa, but I didn't know what it was and I'd already tried my fair share of Irish Creams liqeour, so I skipped it. However, as a pre dinner drink, it far exceeded my expectations on first taste. Silky, sweet, with just the right amount of bite. Mmmmmm.
I abstained from alcohol for many years past when I could have gotten some because of my father. He was an mean drunk or a self pitying drunk, neither of which is pretty on a Friday night. I won't ever become what he was, but I have to keep tabs on myself so that won't happen. It's not a matter of feeling I am better than him. It's a matter of being vigilant. I won't ever become what he was.
The party tonight will be interesting. If there is Amarula and the host has fallen under my persuasion powers, I will be able to enjoy amarula followed by a few gin and tonics. Just like in Africa.
Nice!
I've been telling tales of Africa since I got back, but really, it's to hold on to it for just a little bit longer.
You know how you'll have a fabulous dream, one that you wake from in complete pleasure and as you become more fully awake, your mind tries to hold to the leaking tendrils of the dream - but it escapes. It always escapes and by the time you've showered and gotten ready for work, all that remains is that feeling you had when you woke.
That's what it's been like for me. At 6pm, I have a vague notion that I should be looking to go to bed and when it is getting close to 11:00pm, my body doesn't want me to go to sleep because there is, once again, a vague notion that I need to be getting up. Even though I would like to sleep through the night, I let myself wake up at those odd wake up hours because I want to cling to Africa.
We have the BBC Planet Earth series at the house. The first full night I was home, I watched the disk that contained the Okavango Delta flooding. Our guide, Ian, told us about the slow flooding and it was interesting watching it happen. I'm taking bets on how many times I watch that video as the weeks go on.
Unfortunately, time has a funny way of blurring memories and eventually, all of my memories will be only notions of that time I was in Africa. I will stave it off as much as I can, but if the time comes where I can barely remember I had gone, I will be well on my way to that place once again.
25.5 hours in planes, 4 major cities and stepping in a box of disinfecting solution so you don't carry foot and mouth disease into the wilds, and we are in Botswana, ready to hop an 8 seater to Camp Xakanaxa. We don't know what to expect. We were just told to step into a box and by doing that, we had eradicated every bit of a disease I'm not even sure we had. And since I wanted the co-pilot seat, I had special instructions: If something happens to the pilot, push him out so that Ian can fly the plane.
I wonder if I shouldn't just let Ian ride shotgun now.
Ian is our photographer guide - or at least that is what we thought as we got onto the plane. We didn't know that in 5 days, we were going to miss him like we missed our own families. We didn't know what fun we were in for as he helped us take better pictures AND became part of one of the best guide duos I've ever seen.
But then again, every other guide I'd seen was showing me where war had taken place. Civil War, The Battle of I812, The French and Indian War, etc. American History is a bloody, fascinating thing.
When we land at the camp, we were greeted by our guide, Water, as baboons and impala watched us from the edge of the airstrip. He asked if we wanted to go straight to camp or if we wanted to drive around. Being the adventurous lot, we decided a drive sounded nice. So at 5:20pm on a Saturday evening - although it did feel more like a Tuesday - we set out on our first ever safari.
We were realistic. We were not in a zoo. Animals were not guaranteed. If we just saw nature, we would be happy. We were in fucking Africa for God's sake! There is no other way to say that, no other way to feel than that. We were in fucking Africa. The wind was crisp, it was still winter, and the air around us sang - starlings crying out, franklins and their chicks peeping, the low, hollow sound of the calling doves. And then we came upon the impala. Though they are a common sight, to us, that day, they were magnificent. We had questions: horns or antlers, why so many males, how do herds operate, what kind of bird is that, what, how, why? Every question was answered.
Then we are sitting, staring at a herd of elephants. It is a picture waiting to happen, baby elephants, the reflection in such clear water, the herd circling to protect the young from the approaching vehicle they drink, they watch, their ears flapping. They decide we are mostly harmless and then they move on.
I was not going to cry, but it was beautiful.
For me, that is it. What more can we see today, I think. And we saw more. Waterbuck, red lechwe, more birds, more impala and then, in a little hole away from it all, a leopard.
I am by no means a vegetarian, but I can be a bit of a softie (when I'm not being a bit of a bitch) and I mourn for dead things. Not trees. I like dead trees. But anything else, it is almost automatic. But one of the most beautiful sights was nature being nature, a leopard gnawing at the bones of an impala, a fresh kill, looking for the marrow. I've made stock, little leopard. I understand.
And we sit there for what feels like hours, watching him as he watched us. And a giraffe walked by, heedless of the leopard, feeding on the leaves overhead. Which picture should we take now?
I was in fucking Africa. She sends her love.
All I’ve seen is Airport – gleaming silver and various shades of grey and blue. It would have been depressing, more than a day of flying and sitting in airports, if Southern Africa wasn’t on the other end. Doing that kind of extensive traveling is almost a trial by fire as you’re at the mercy of airlines and the consideration and, most often, the inconsideration of other travelers.
There is almost no reward for doing good these days. Even that feeling of self satisfaction that once was abundant has become elusive. I think we all grudgingly do good because we know that the reward we once got for it, externally and internally, is elusive at best. And even when you help out a fellow traveler, it is often to your own detriment. For example, a couple with a child wanted our seats because the airline had bassinets that could hang from the wall. But it offered us leg room. We could fit in the seats with okay leg room, until the people in front of us lean their seats back. Then we are cramped tall people with knee problems sitting on a plane for 8 hours in pain because we wanted to be nice to a couple with a baby.
I did see two beautiful things. The sun rising over the horizon as we flew to Dubai (the end of a 12 hour straight flight after being on planes for 3 hours total and waiting in airports for 3 hours. The other beautiful thing were the mountains in Africa as we flew to Johannesburg.
Getting to Johannesburg is the beginning of our vacation. A day and a half in Josie before getting 7 days, 6 nights in Botswana divided between two camps and then a day and a half at Victoria Falls on the Zambia side.
The Southern Africa Series - as I'm going to call the next few posts - took place from July 24-August 3, 2008. I started this blog a bit early because I knew this trip would change me. Now I'm slowly adding my thoughts during the journey to this blog. Some will be straight from my journey journal, some will be understanding I came to as I thought on my travels later. Enjoy.
The plane from Houston was filled to capacity. We were on the very last row, the only time in my 14 year of flying that I have ever been at the very back. At the worse, I'm a few seats up from the bathroom, which isn't a bad place to be.
The seats in the back are small, even for small airplanes. I am 5ft11. A smaller guy gets to my seat and points to the window. We both hope (I know I did and I'm sure he did too) that no one sits with us.
Then we see him. He must be 6ft3 or 4 inches tall and he was healthy. He wasn't fat, but he was a big dude. We could see his face drop as he realized he had the middle seat in the smallest seats on the plane.
For a while, we exist in some sort of seat limbo, where we know we will be fine as long as we don't have to move. My entire shoulder is sticking out and I have to juke and jive like I'm playing some sort of plane sport - dodge the butts. But then, of course, the guy by the window breaks the limbo. Window seat needs to use the restroom. We try to get up without disrupting those around us trying to sleep, but that's impossible because the only handrails we could use were the backs of the seats used by sleeping passengers.
They loved us.
So there was no effing way we would sit down until after he comes back from the bathroom so me and big dude strike up a conversation - a conversation that lasted for the remaining hour or so it took to get home. We mainly talked about travel. I'm telling everyone I'm going to South Africa as if the telling will make it come quicker, with the hope that the person I tell may be from there and can tell me something that will make my visit there a different kind of poignant, that will make it hit close to home for me. In many ways, just being on the continent hits home. We'll see how it will be for me.
It's weird that when you are in such close proximity to someone you can either completely ignore them or become the best of friends. Though I had to sit sideways for nearly two hours, killing my back, this was one of the most enjoyable plane trips I've taken. (I can still complain, even when something makes me happy - now that's talent).
Or not.
A few years ago, I wanted to leave my hometown. The only thing holding me here was nothing, so I thought, why not. I'll move. Everyone thought I should be afraid to do something like that, but my job wasn't all that lucrative (though it handled my needs at the time) and I figured I could have at least the same quality of living (lateral move) in a different place (which would be like getting a promotion).
I considered going back to Boston, but the quality of living would drop (Boston being more expensive than my poor little medium sized town) although going back has always been a dream. I thought about going down to Miami and hanging out with my college roommate. I'm pretty sure that Miami would have been the same as Boston as far as expense goes, but it would have been a bit better because I would have had someone that could help me out a bit. I thought about moving to Seattle. One word: Coffee. I mean, how could I not want to go to the home of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and coffee? Fuck the rain. I would get braid or 'locks if I had to.
Another place I looked at was Austin, Texas. At the time, I read that if you wanted to be around artists, Austin was the place to go. It looked like a good fit. Cost of living was similar and artists being starving and whatnot seemed to make this place very open to having someone like me in their midst.
In the end, I went to Los Angeles. There are many things I liked about Los Angeles. The church I was going to at the time, the weather (oh GOD, how I loved the weather), the beaches and the mountains right there, the people I became friends with. There were many things I disliked about Los Angeles: how fake it was, how much of your soul the city took from you, how hard it was to find a job, everything except what was named above. I admit that I was not ready to be there and in so many ways, I would not be ready to go back now.
This week, I am in Austin, Texas, the place I once considered going to. In so many ways, it is like my hometown - except it's a city and it wants to be. The fact that you can walk to so many of its places just makes it better.
I really like Austin. It is one of the places I would love to live. Jeremy, the Java Jive guy moved to Austin from Houston and belittled me for moving to Los Angeles instead. I understand. This is the first place where I don't feel weird. I was such a dogmatic Christian when I was in Los Angeles that I know I stood out for that. My weirdness was on my sleeve and no one else could match it. But here in Austin, my weirdness is on my sleeves and my shoes and my clothes and everybody loves it. It makes me feel that much more comfortable. I hope I have the chance to live here. I think that, in itself, will be interesting.
South Africa - So full of controversy and beauty, it is no wonder people want to visit and tourism is so big. The country has everything that someone traveling to another country could want: its own wildlife, its own wine, and its own coffee. I wish I could go there for all of the above, but I am going with a few friends on a safari.
I get the wildlife.
Which isn't so bad when you understand just how much I love elephants. I had never seen an elephant in person. When I got married, my husband surprised me with circus tickets. I'd never been to the circus, so I was really excited.
(What kind of childhood did I have that I didn't go to the circus???)
I was excited about the clowns, though I find them creepy up close. From a distance, they can be mildly humourous. This one had a dog, and the dog was really funny. I saw acrobatics, I saw contortionists, I saw beautiful ladies and muscular men and then finally, I saw the elephants.
My fascination with elephants started in the 3rd grade. It was my first trip ever to a library. I didn't even know such a thing existed. But there we were, in amongst the stacks. Except I towered over the stacks for 3rd grade readers. I wanted to be with the books on shelves that were taller than me. So I wandered away from my group and walked towards the books that had more words than pictures.
I didn't know what I was doing or how to tell if one book was better than another so I decided I would read whatever I found interesting. Yes, I was judging books by their covers and ended up picking out three books. One book had the most beautiful prints of knights in armour, one book was a book of Native American mythology, and the other book had the most beautifully painted men and women and these men and women rode elephants. I devoured the stories and as the years progressed, I forgot what I read, but I never forgot the image of the people on elephants and how majestic and huge the animals were, but how gentle and kind they seemed. How could I tell?
It was in the elephant's eyes.
Of course, it wasn't until I was in college, reading a book of verse that seemed vaguely familiar, that I connected one of my first read books to the actual words. The Bhagavad Gita will always hold a special place in my heart.
So, the circus elephant has come out and at first I am excited. But I watch how tired the elephant looks as it walks around, lead by his trainer. I see the elephant's eyes and it looks as if it has finally given up hope. Suddenly, I am sad for the elephant, ashamed that we tolerate this treatment for our entertainment, and angry that there is nothing I can do. My husband, who had hoped to be my knight in shining armour for bringing me to see the elephants is now upset because I'm upset.
This is not an elephant, but someone's very large animal, it's elephant soul trained out of it.
But I relish the little things because though this elephant was beaten down, it was not broken. It did its tricks, but with such a mean spirit, it made me laugh. "You did your mean laugh. What's happening?" my husband asked. I pointed out the things I imagined showed that the elephant was simply biding its time until the right time came. We laughed as the elephant refused to stand on the ball, or when it threw the ball, threw it just a little too far. The impatience of the trainer was evident and we knew that the elephant was going to pay for it later on that day.
At least, that's what we imagined.
So when I get to Africa, I want to see elephants. Herds of them. And baby ones too. Because I want to see what an elephant looks like when it has its soul.
I was originally going to name this blog Little Black Girl, but this girl beat me to it.
I took a job in Monroe County to help pay for my trip to Europe last March. It was to clean the house of a friend, get it ready for sale, do some touch up work, etc.
While I worked, I had two visitors. One was a concerned woman who came to the door. She'd been neighbors with my friends for years and knew they'd moved out nearly 4 years ago. She wanted to make sure things were okay with their home. She knew me by face and was relieved to see that no one was breaking into their home. The other was also a neighbor for years, but they appeared in the driveway, poking around the house before I got there. The woman's face was so unfriendly, I found myself gripping the paint roller and watching for ambush. And when she questioned me, it felt more like an interrogation and one where I couldn't be my normal self and ignore her (I had the right to be on the property, she didn't), but where I felt that not answering may cost me the harassment I was trying to avoid. Her son was with her asking questions that were truly none of his beeswax yet I still found myself answering because of the particularly unpleasant, sour look on his mother's face. Even when he remembered me because he had also met me very briefly once, the look never left his mother's face. I was very glad to make it in the house.
After that I never wanted to go alone. It's weird. I am surrounded at all times by diversity. I add to the diversity of my surroundings and I am used to being the only black person in a place now. I don't even think about it anymore and because they are used to me, neither do my friends. But in this instance, I was hyper aware of my skin colour. Even more aware than the time someone came into Sears (where I used to work) and refused to buy a phone from me because I'm black. I don't care about that. That is borderline hilarious. Yes, take the box and pay for it at the nearest white station. Us blackards will sit over here out of your way. It was borderline hilarious in the bright lights of a busy mall. But deep in the woods of Monroe County*, that kind of sentiment does not bode well.
I told my father about working in Monroe County and he told me never to go alone again. I'd already made that decision. He described a situation where some guys came to harass him and a friend while they worked on a house (my dad used to do construction). If they wouldn't fear approaching two grown men, he said, what makes me think they will leave one little black girl alone.
I have come far, have many places to go as I find my place in this very big world. It just sucks, that after all that's happened in history, after everything I feel I've accomplished personally, after the safety that I've found in a group of friends that would have to think for a few seconds before they could even begin to name the ethnicity of everyone in the group, that in the eyes of some, I'm still just a little black girl.
*Not everyone in Monroe County is a racist. Maybe the mother just didn't like the cut of my jib.
In 2001, I turned 25. To some of you reading this, that doesn't seem old, but in reality, it was the oldest I'd ever been and I felt it. I felt that carefree feeling of early twenties slipping away from me and in my fear and loathing, I declared 2001 to be All About Me.
As I stood on the threshold of 30, only 5 years out - I looked back on the last five years and saw them slipping eagerly from me and knew the next 5 would do the same - I made a promise to myself: I would go to Europe for my 30th birthday.
Little did I know that I would be getting married. For some reason, I had this idea in my head that I would be in my early to mid 30s before someone found me attractive. Maybe after I'd traveled the globe and the air of having seen the world would surround me, I would be more attractive, more sought after, more worthy of love. But 3 short years after I felt my first flush of age I was walking down the aisle and forgetting about my dream to travel.
Well, not exactly forgetting, but postponing. In early 2008, at the age of 32, I saw my chance and I grabbed it. What I saw... well, let me put it this way. It was like that shot in movies and television when you get closer to the person, but everything around them pulls out - the way they do it is zoom in on the face will pulling the camera back at the same time. That is what the world did when I stepped out of the plane onto Spanish soil for the first time. As I walked around Barcelona, saw the Colosseum in Rome for the first time with my own eyes, walked under La Tour Eiffel in Paris, I saw all the world expand and close as I connected these beautiful cities with the ones I loved in the States.
And here is the necessary introduction: as I prepare to go to South Africa, in doing my homework, the heartbreaking beauty and the disagreeable past scar this land. Horrible atrocities were committed and great forgiveness was given and that makes me feel both big and small. As I walk that country, see it's beautiful animals, and breathtaking scenery, I will also become a part of it's history and gain respect for a country I only know through images of pride, hate, poverty and rage. In all of this, I'm just a little southern girl. Yes, I'm nearly 6ft and there is not much little about me, but when it comes to this world, it's bigger than I ever knew.
