adventures of a maverick author

The Book of Days X: 21 Things That Nurture My Spirit

2011-12-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Nurturing My Spirit

I read an article by a woman on this topic this past year. It got me thinking about things that nurture my spirit. Not listed in order of importance, here’s what I came up with. It's good, I think, to reflect about what things nurture your spirit as the new year comes in.. . and to resolve to indulge yourself in these things as often as possible.

Think about my list as you read and perhaps you will come up with your own.

1. Ansel Adams’ Photos

2. Walking in Gardens

3. Flowers and Plants

4. Gardening.

5. Dogs

6. Snuggling with/Holding Hands with My Honey

7. Colors

8. Sunlight

9. Native American Flute Music

10. Walking/Hiking Park Trails

11. The Sight of a Full Moon

12. The Sound and Sight of the Ocean’s Ebb and Flow

13. A Hug

14. Listening & Talking to Friends

15. The Sights of Red Rock Country. Looking at The Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Arches, Bryce Canyon,

16. Swimming

17. Yoga

18. Listening to Luther Vandross’ Music

19. The Visual Arts (Photography, Sculpture, Painting, Collages, Pottery, Glassmaking)

20. Writing

21. Reading

Happy New Year!

May 2012 be a year that brings all the positive energy of the universe to you and those you love.

May this be a year that begins and ends with love and connection...

with creativity and with purpose...

with a willingness to save and preserve all the beauty and bounties of our earthworld.

End

The Book of Days IX: Greetings

2011-12-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2011- All rights Reserved

GREETINGS!

May
the spirit of Peace
and
heart warming Joy
touch our lives
today and everyday.

With warm hugs and holiday cheer...
from The Maverick Author... Frankie

In Memoriam: For Reverend Darren McCarroll-Jones

2011-12-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Reverend Darren McCarroll-Jones (May 20, 1963 - November 27, 2011):

Ordained Minister of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church
Pastor of Unity Fellowship Church, Detroit
1st Minister of Music for the Mass Choir of Unity Fellowship Movement
1st Musical Director and Minister of Music for Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, Los Angeles

Reverend Darren-McCarroll-Jones, Minister of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church

Darren McCarroll-Jones first heard about Unity Fellowship of Christ Church (Los Angeles) on Jefferson Boulevard from a friend back in the late 1980’s. Although Darren was directing the choir at his home church on Sundays, he managed to dash over to Unity a Couple of times to find out if what he’d heard about the church service was true.

One Sunday, he came for the entire service and was deeply moved by Archbishop Carl Bean’s healing words, as well as the termination of the small choir performing without musicians or a choral director. For a time thereafter, Darren would come from his church for the last half of service. All the while, he considered whether he should move his membership and offer to serve as Unity’s Musical Director. “It was not an easy decision,’” he admitted. The turning point came in January of 1990 when an associate pastor at his church preached a blistering sermon denouncing homosexuality. Shortly afterwards, Darren met with Archbishop Bean and offered to help with the choir because he had made the decision to move his church membership. Bean, a gospel singer in his own right, eagerly accepted the offer and Unity’s Music Department with Darren as Musical Director was born.

Under McCarroll-Jones’ guiding hand, many talented musicians, singers and choir directors emerged to share their gifts at the Los Angeles church as a part of the voices of Unity each Sunday, during his tenure at the Detroit church, as well as during the Movement’s Annual Fall Convocation. In addition, McCarroll-Jones directed the choir on the first L.I.F.E. Records CD, titled Right Now, recorded by the Los Angeles church, featuring the original music of Archbishop Carl Bean. http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/bean_c.html

In the early nineties in Los Angeles, Reverend McCarroll-Jones was a tireless worker in the field of AIDS at Unity’s Minority AIDS Project and the first to serve as Program Director for MAP’s Treatment Advocacy Program. In later years, in Detroit, he served as Unity, Detroit’s pastor, earned his J.D. degree, served as a consultant in the Detroit mayor’s office, taught as an Adjunct Professor in Paralegal Technology at Wayne County Community College District.

I was fortunate to know and work with Darren at MAP in Los Angeles in the late 1980’s through the early nineties. It was true heaven to sit in the audience of Unity, L.A. and listen on Sundays to the Voices of Unity under his musical talent and direction. He was a smart, dedicated, and talented man.

I will and do miss him.

End

How Flowers Got Their Colors (A 4-Part Myth)

2011-12-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Scene 4:Mother Nature’s Place

Sweet William felt more than a bit nervous clinging to Maggie, the magpie’s feathers as she rode the air currents. He thought about what had happened to keep his mind off the fact that he was perched on the back of a bird flying high in the sky.

It had started with Rufus spotting his homeboy, Melvin, and hailing him. Coincidentally, Melvin and his three friends had just been over to see Mother Nature about an important item of business and were on their way back home. Rufus and Melvin had jived around telling some tall tales, laughing, and wing-slapping, and before anybody knew it, the magpies had volunteered to help the bedraggled little flowers and their three companions. Next thing, Sweet William knew, each of the flowers had mounted on one of the magpies’ backs, and now they were all headed to Mother Nature’s place. He was riding on the back of Maggie, the Magpie.

William looked over his left shoulder at Lavender. She clutched the neck of her magpie, Peter, looking like she was going to faint. “Eeeehh!” She screeched, roiling from one side to the other like some drunken who knows what. She’d been screeching since the magpies had taken wing. Sweet William pursed his delicate lips and grunted in disgust. Some folk just don’t have any dignity, he said to himself.

On the other hand, Tiger Lily, up ahead, appeared to be having the time of her life riding on the back of Melvin. On William’s right, Impatiens was yakking it up to his magpie, Minerva, and to Rufus who was flying close enough to hear him. Bessie Mae and Heather brought up the rear of the strange-looking caravan. It wasn’t long before the magpies began to glide downwards, coming in for a landing.

Below, the tops of trees growing on the sides and at the foot of the mountain appeared to Sweet William to be getting closer and closer. Lavender’s screech had now become an all out scream. Sweet William closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the landing and he wished with all his heart that Lavender would shut up. He took a big breath and held on for dear life.

Suddenly, two things happened: Sweet William felt a jolt and Lavender stopped screaming. He opened his eyes to find that Rufus was hovering inches away from his eyes.

“You okay, little man?” Rufus asked.

“Watch out who you call ‘little,’ mister!” William snapped and climbed, with as much dignity as he could muster, down from his magpie’s back. “Thanks for the ride.”

“My pleasure,” said Maggie the Magpie, and spread her wings, gliding upwards.

The glade they had landed in was thickly forested. The other magpies gently landed and let their flower passengers slide to the ground. Rufus and Melvin said their goodbyes while the flowers looked around. Yards away, there was a laughing, bubbling pond filled with lily pads.

There was a brown-skinned woman robed in a blue standing at the edge of a lilypond. She splashed water on her hair, body and face. Droplets hung from the black thicket of curls framing her face.

“That must be Mother Nature,” said Impatiens. “Let’s go.” He started forward the others fell in behind him.

“I think we might want to wait,” said Heather Honeybee. “She’s busy right now.”

“Forget that. Let’s find out what she can do to help us,” said Rufus.

Bessie Mae added: “I agree with Rufus and Impatiens. We’ve come a very long way. We ought to get on with it.” They started toward the river where the woman was.

A peacock and a multi-colored tree frog rushed up to confront the party as they drew near Mother Nature.

Peacock waddled in front of them and stopped, then spread his feathers to signify that the party was to go no further.“This is private sanctuary for Mother Nature,” he announced. “She does not receive here.”

“It’s time for her spa soak now,” croaked Frog. “Every evening, she takes a spa soak here.”

Peacock threw Frog a nasty look for trying to take over his job. “This is her time to relax and rebalance. Very important for her … maintaining serenity and harmony. It’s in all our best interests that Mother Nature stay balanced and serene, don’t you agree? Nasty things could happen if she doesn’t, you know. Therefore, she must not be interrupted.” Peacock turned his backside to them in dismissal.

“You’ll have to go,” croaked Frog.

“But, but… we’ve come such a long, long way to see her,” cried Lavender in a very shrill and annoying voice.

Mother Nature was listening. “Let them come,” she told Peacock and splashed her way out of the lilypads back to the river bank.

“As you say, Mother,” Peacock said, bowing. “A small group of flowers, a bee, a butterfly, and a hummingbird are here to see you, madam.”

She turned to the peacock. “Stop putting on airs, Peacock. I’m not madam, just plain Moms or Mother to everybody.”

Properly chastised, Peacock stepped back and bowed. On the ground near the bank, there was a long, brown robe of woven grasses decorated with sparkling green vines and red berries. Mother picked up the robe and draped it from her left shoulder; her feet were bare. She sat on a tree stump and beckoned the little party to come closer. “Now, what can I do for you people?”

“We want you to give us colors!” Blurted Tiger Lily.

“They," Lavender pointed to Bessie Mae Butterfly, Rufus Hummingbird, and Heather Honeybee who were standing to one side,"told us flowers are supposed to have colors but we don’t have any.”

Sweet William took up the chorus. “I know that I should be looking better than this. It’s downright embarrassing that we have to be seen like this.”

Heather spoke up: “If they don’t have colors, we can’t do our jobs.”

“What will happen to the earth,” asked Bessie Mae, “if we can’t pollinate the way we’re supposed to?”

“Hmm,” said Mother Nature. “This is very serious indeed. Things are not in balance the way I planned.” She looked at Peacock. “Color assignment is your department. What happened to the flowers' colors when they vibrated in?”

“Frog,” Peacock said, “get me the ledger.”

Frog hopped a few feet away to a tree where a digital notebook was kept, and brought it back. All the records of creation were kept in these digital files. It was there that they could find out when, where, and what happened at the time things came to be in this dimension. Frog watched while repeatedly Peacock tapped the screen. Peacock’s expression kept changing as he read the information on the screen. Curiosity melted into confusion. Confusion became and irritated expression.

“Well,” Mother Nature’s voice rang out, “what happened?”

Peacock looked very annoyed. “Someone dropped the ball, it seems. See that pathway over there?” Everyone’s head swiveled in the direction Peacock was pointing.

“Just over that hill was where the flowers were to line up and receive their colors as they vibrated into existence.”

“Well why didn’t we?” Impatiens chimed in. “How in the world did we get left out?”

Rufus looked over at Sweet William. “Hold your horses, man. They workin on it.”

“As I said, there was a glitch and you didn’t get your colors. I do apologize,” said Peacock, looking embarrassed.

Sweet William was thoroughly exasperated. “Oh, never mind that. Just please fix us quick!”

Mother Nature spoke softly. “It’s not that simple at this point.”

“What?” Exclaimed Bessie Mae Butterfly. “Why not?”

“Because there are certain natural laws that won’t allow it,” she said.

“But you make the laws, don’t you? You’re Mother Nature,” said Heather Honeybee.

She sighed. “It’s very complicated. I can try to explain it but my explanation won’t give you what you want.”

Tiger Lily was shaking with fury. Lavender was swooning in Rufus’ arms. Sweet William was so exasperated that he couldn’t speak—which was a first for him. Heather and Bessie Mae just looked at each other in helpless dismay.

Impatiens threw up his hands. “I can’t believe this! We suffered and struggled to get here to see you and it was all for nothing!”

Peacock said to Mother Nature: “Maybe there’s a loophole we can take advantage of.”

“Tell me what you’ve got in mind,” said Mother Nature and the two of them put their heads together for a serious discussion that lasted for about ten minutes before Mother Nature turned back to the group.

“Understand that I can’t go back and undo what’s done. But I can tinker with it. Tweak it." She looked at each of the members of the group. "What do you think of this plan? When it’s cold during the winter season, you flowers won’t have color; in fact, you won’t be blooming. But in spring and summer and part of the fall, and even winter in some warm places, you’ll be a glorious riot of color! Do you think it might work?”

“Sounds workable to me,” Bessie Mae Butterfly commented.

“Am I going to be glorious?” screeched Lavender.

“Most assuredly,” Peacock answered. “You all will be very pleased, as will Miss Butterfly, Miss Honeybee and Mr. Hummingbird because they’ll be able to do their jobs.”

“They might be pleased, but I’m not sure I am,” said Impatiens.

Sweet William glared at his friend. “Well, it’s better than nothing!”

“And nothing is what we’ve got right now,” growled Tiger Lily.

Impatiens sighed. “Let’s get on with it!”

“When can we make this change?” asked Heather. “I need to get back to the hive; they’ll be wondering where I am.”

Mother Nature nodded. “You’re in luck because we’re at the beginning of the spring season. When we pop you back to your meadow, you’ll be in full colorful bloom. See to it, Peacock. And this time, no mistakes!”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Heather saw the air beginning to shimmer, then vibrating with glowing color, as if the sky had become a huge, endless rainbow. Suddenly, Heather felt a swoosh of air and heard a pop! As she looked about, she saw the meadow where they’d all begun their journey. Only now, it was a riot of color.

“Look at that! Flowers with color everywhere!” Heather said as Bessie Mae and Rufus flew to her side.

“Hot damn! We’re in business!” exclaimed Rufus.

Bessie Mae said: “Thank goodness for Mother Nature!”

And the three began their work of gathering nectar, just as Mother Nature originally intended.

Meanwhile, Sweet William, Tiger Lily, Impatiens, and Lavender excitedly spoke of their own and other flowers who were blooming with so many wondrous colors.

“I can’t get over how beautiful I am!” Purred Tiger Lily, who was no longer in the mood to growl and gnash her teeth.

Lavender, who had calmed down considerably, whispered: “How delightful I look! And how delicious I smell!”

“I have many colors—and they’re all spectacular!” Declared Impatiens.

“Girlfriend, don’t you forget: I’m the star of this show!” Preened Sweet William, examining himself in the mirror.

Back at Mother Nature’s place, Peacock and Frog helped Mother Nature her tiptoe into the stream to finish the spa soak that had been interrupted.

“We did good work today, Peacock. Especially when we gave the flowers the colors they deserved and were meant to have.”

“As you say, Mother,” Peacock agreed.

“In the meantime," she said, "I’m taking time out to relax in my lilypond spa. Give me a half hour before you call me for anything, Peacock.”

“Of course, Mother.” He discreetly turned his back as she disrobed. “Frog, you take Mother’s robe, and put it there on the rock where she’ll be able to reach it.”

Frog did as he was told then hopped to Peacock’s side, for Peacock had opened the ledger again, anticipating tonight’s schedule.

Every hour, he had learned long ago, was a busy one when you worked with Mother Nature.

End
The Meadow of flowers sporting a riot of color.

How Flowers Got Their Colors, Scene 3

2011-10-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

3. Looking for Mother Nature

The party set out after the Council of Flowers decided to send four ambassadors--Sweet William, Tiger Lily, Impatients, and Lavender--to see Mother Nature. Heather Honeybee declared that she would fly a bit ahead as scout and check back at regular intervals to report. Bessie Mae and Rufus stayed with the four ambassadors.

It was midmorning when they started the journey. Over hill and dale, they went for several hours with the sun beaming down. Sweet William felt a bit wilted from the sun, as did Impatients. They wanted to stop and rest but Butterfly urged them on, pointing out that they should want to quickly reach their destination quickly and solve their problems.

Tiger Lily agreed. "This trip is taking longer than we thought. We should keep going."

Soon, the company found themselves in a shady glade with overgrown, tall grasses on either side of them, and creeping vines covering the ground. The dim light and profuse foliage made it hard to judge the lay of the land, so it was tricky going for the little party. Several times, Lavender stumbled, but her companions kept her steady on her feet and they forged ahead.

Bessie Mae Butterfly was circling overhead and Rufus Hummingbird was flying a bit ahead of the Flowers when a piercing shriek cut through the air. At the sound, Rufus zoomed back and Bessie Mae dive bombed down through the thick foliage to see what was wrong. One, two, three…Bessie Mae counted as she circled over head. Where was the fourth Flower? Where was Sweet William?

Lavender continued to shriek while the others stood around her, their eyes following the direction of Lavender’s finger which was pointing at what looked like a large hole under a tree. “He fell down there! Down there! Help him!”

Rufus peeped in through the tree limbs with Bessie Mae hovering near. At the bottom of the hole was Sweet William who was shouting up at Lavender.

“Shut up, Miss Thing and get me out of here!”

“How?” She cried. “You’re too far down there!”

Tiger Lily leaned over the hole as far as she dared. “Can’t you climb up?”

“If I could, I would,” Sweet William snapped. “Get me out of here, now!”

“Anybody got any ideas?” Impatients asked, his voice riddled with frustration.

Nobody had noticed that near the entrance to the hole, Ananzi, the Spider, had spun a beautiful, crystalline web overhead. She rested on its strands, calmly witnessing the commotion. “I can help you,” she called out to Sweet William.

All heads swiveled in her direction. Sweet William gazed up, his eyes mesmerized by her tantalizing voice.

“Please, do,” he responded gratefully. “It seems I’m surrounded by grossly incompetent traveling companions who suffer from a deplorable and utter lack of imagination. Dear lady, being at your mercy, I am yours to command.” Sweet William had turned on the charm. If he could have, he would have bowed and doffed his hat to Ananzi, the Spider.

She smiled at his words. But her smile, Rufus noted, made her look like a bloodsucking vampire.

Rufus scowled and flew close to Bessie Mae, his wings going faster and faster. He had recognized her as Ananzi, the trickster. “I don’t like this. This babe is Ananzi, the trickster. Can’t trust her no kinda way. Remember the old spider and fly story?”

“Yes,” Bessie Mae said. “But what choice do we have? We don’t have a way to get him out.”

Ananzi spoke to Sweet William again. “I’ll send down a strand of my silk. You grab it and I’ll pull you up.”

Rufus whispered to Bessie Mae: “Let’s keep a sharp eye out.”

Ananzi spun a long strand of spider silk and shot it in his direction. Sweet William grabbed it and was swiftly lifted up. Ananzi angled the strand so that Sweet William was being pulled closer and closer to the glistening, beautiful web where she sat on her long, hairy spider legs. Just as he was within her reach, Butterfly and Hummingbird swooped over, took him by his tiny arms, and flew him away from her.

“What are you doing?” Sweet William demanded of them as they set him down beside his three friends.

“Yes,” said Ananzi, “I’d like to know that myself.” She looked peeved, as if she’d just missed out on a good meal.

“Thought we’d lend you a hand,” Bessie Mae explained, as she shooed the party of four on their way.

Rufus flew as close as he dared to Ananzi.“’Preciate cha, m’am, for all you done, but business calls, so we gots to slide.”

“Hmmp!” Ananzi grunted, knowing she’d been outsmarted. “Next time don’t look to me for help.”

“It’s been real,” Rufus said and flew on to join the company.

Hours later, the party had long since reached the end of Meadow and their way turned into a rocky, dusty path which made it harder for the Flowers to walk.

Sun’s heat began to make them wish they’d thought to bring some water for refreshment. They felt tired, but wilted and dry.

The journey had become more of a challenge than anyone had imagined.

To make matters worse, Heather Honeybee, having scouted ahead, flew in and reported that the mountain where Mother Nature lived was still quite a ways off.

Heather, Rufus, and Bessie Mae took a quick conference on the situation. They felt sorry for the brave foursome. Though it was not their fault, they felt guilty that the journey was so hard on the Flowers. Unfortunately, no one had an idea about how to get to their destination quicker. They had no choice but to continue on their way.

It was late afternoon when Tiger Lily looked up at the sky. It had turned the color of charcoal and smoke. Gray bar clouds floated overhead like lost ships on an angry, unpredictable sea. “Look,” she said, “at how the sky has turned dark.”

Bessie Mae, observing the clouds, felt Wind rise. “We’re in for rain, I think.”

"Oh, no!” cried Lavender. “I put on my best frock. Rain will ruin it!”

“At least we’ll get refreshed by it,” Sweet William put in as he moped the sweat from his brow.

“Maybe the clouds will pass,” said Rufus.

As the party trudged on, rain pitter-pattered down. Lightly, at first, then harder. And harder still. Wind pushed the big, fat raindrops this way and that until they gathered into a stream that swirled around their feet, then rose to their ankles and legs. To their horror, the dusty road they had been traveling had quickly become a lake. The Flowers had to make a dash to the side of the road and take shelter under a very tall bush while Rufus, Heather, and Bessie Mae clung to some of its branches. Bush, or no bush, all of them were getting thoroughly soaked.

They hovered together miserably in a steady downpour. Nobody could find a dry spot. Frustration crackled in the air. “Let’s get out of here and go home,” Impatients shouted over the heavy patter of rain.

“Fool, we can’t move til it stops raining,” snapped Sweet William. He pointed to the washed out road where rain water had made a lake. “We can’t get across that. We’re marooned.”

“But I’m all wet!” Lavender whined.

Tiger Lily growled, “You don’t say?”

“Whose idea was this anyway?” Impatients asked. “We should have never left home. This is crazy! As soon as it stops raining, I’m for heading back.”

Sweet William agreed. “This does seem to be a disastrous undertaking. We’re putting ourselves at risk. And we’re not even sure where we’re going! I vote to go back.” The other two nodded their heads as well.

“No! We’ve got to keep going! ” Urged Heather, keenly aware that this was a life or death mission for her and her bee colony. For what would honeybees do without the nectar of flowers?

“Why don’t we wait until the rain stops to make a decision?” suggested Bessie Mae.

“Yeah. Don’t jump the gun, folks just because we’ve run into a few little problems!” Said Rufus.

“Little!!” growled Tiger Lily.

For the next hour, nobody said a word. Finally, the rain stopped. But there was so much water that they would need a boat to move from the spot where they’d been marooned. The three winged companions moved into conference mode.

“We need a change of luck,” Heather declared.

"You think?” asked Rufus in his most sarcastic tone.

Rufus eyed a flock of black and white birds that had flown in and lighted on tree limbs nearby. They were magpies and they were jabbering at each other like nobody’s business. Rufus recognized the voice of one of them.

“Say, man!” said Rufus, beating his tiny wings faster and faster to hover near the four birds. “I ain’t seen you in month of Sundays! How you be?”

Next: Scene 4

photo courtesy of http://www.weforanimals.com/

How Flowers Got Their Colors, scene 2

2011-09-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

2. The Flowers

Honeybee was in a dither. "What do you mean that the Flowers have no colors? How can I got back and tell that to my unit commander? They'll laugh me out of the colony if I tell them a story like that!"

"Word!" Shouted Hummingbird. "You trippin Butterfly. No-color Flowers? That's wack!"

"Yes," Butterfly agreed. "It sounds far-fetched, all right. But, what do you see when you look down there?"

They all looked down, shocked at the sight of the gray, ghostly things from which they were supposed to gather nectar.

If these are Meadow's Flowers, Butterfly thought to herself, the sight of them is altogether depressing. Not one of them attracts. Not one summons us with brilliant, glowing color. How sad!

Aloud, she said "We could stand here all day wondering and debating. the only real way to find out if they're Flowers is to ask them." And she fluttered down with the other two following and landed on a blade of grass.

Hummingbird, wings beating faster than ever, hovered just above Butterfly and spoke to a clump of 'something' on the ground. "Say, can you tell me where the Flowers at round here? We been checking out Meadow, but we can't find the place to play, so to speak. Can you help us out?"

Honeybee elaborated further: "We don't see any colors so we know there can't be Flowers here. Please tell us where to find them!"

There was an audible gasp from all the Flowers. Their petals shook in unified indignation.

But it was Sweet William who spoke first: "How dare you!" He huffed. "I don't believe I've ever been quite so insulted in all my days!"

"Of all the nerve!" Said Impaitents, indignant and angry. "What do you think we are? Weeds!"

Honeybee was flabbergasted. "You mean you really are Flowers?"

"Not too bright are you?" Snapped Impatients, living up to her name. "Of course, we're Flowers. Anyone with a half a brain can see that!"

Butterfly fluttered up and down angrily, then decided to challenge her: "Well if you are, why don't you have colors so you can attract us and we can get the nectar we're supposed to use to pollinate?"

The Flowers, one and all, looked at each other quizzically. "What," bellowed Tiger Lily, "is this thing 'color' you keep referring to?"

Honeybee almost fell over. She couldn't believe her ears."You mean you don't know?"

"Know? What is there to know!?" Cried Lavender, who was very excitable indeed.

"Color," Butterfly broke in, "is what Rainbow over there is made of." She nodded toward the edge of the horizon where Rainbow shimmered blissfully.

Hummingbird, who lacked tactfulness, told them flat out: "Yo! Y'all some dummies! You suppose to have color. Everthang suppose to have it. Specially y'all. When y'all vibed in at the Beginning, that was when you was suppose to take the colors y'all was assigned by Big Momma--I mean, Mama Nature. Like you, Miss Lavender, you suppose to be purple. And Brotha Bill, your petals suppose to be sportin some scarlet or rose. That way--"

Sweet William, fussing with his suit and tie, as he did every morning, bristled at Hummingbird. "Miss Thing, please take note. My name is not Bill. It's William... Sweet Wlliam. And I'll thank you to call me by my proper nom de plume."

"William," said Impatients, "stop throwing French phrases around. It's irritating, especially when you don't know what you're saying. But let's get back to what Hummingbird--"

"Call me Rufus. I'm Rufus Hummingbird, delighted to meet cha." He inclined his head politely and dipped his wings at her.

"Yes," said Impatients. "Delighted. But what were you telling us earlier about these... what did you call them?"

"Colors," said Hummingbird.

"You say we should have gotten assigned colors at the Beginning when we vibrated in?"Asked Impatients.

"And if we had, we'd look like Rainbow, over there." Said Tiger Lily.

"Not exactly like Rainbow," Butterfly put in. "She has many colors, but you should have gotten one color of your own.That's the way Mother Nature planned it, I'm sure. In order for you to fulfill your purpose. And for us to fulfill ours."

"Yes," said Honeybee, "you have your purpose and I, that is, we have ours. And we need each other to carry them out."

"So, what happened to you," asked Hummingbird, "when you vibrated into being?"

"I think the important question is where do we get this color you say we should have?" Cried Lavender, excited by her own question.

"As you say," Hummingbird agreed.

"Well," demanded Tiger Lily, "where can we get it?"

Butterfly said: "Why from Mother Nature, of course."

"And where, might I ask, is she?" growled Tiger Lily.

Sweet William said: "I heard that you can find her over the Mountain in The Cave of Sun and Moon."

"Heard from who?" Hummingbird challenged, his wings beating extra hard and fast.

"Why, from Gravpevine, of course," William said, tossing his dainty head saucily.

They all looked over at Crossroads. Grapevine hung on his sign, twined round and round his arms. It was a good place for her to hear every kind of tale from traveling passersby, going hither and thither.

"Well, do you believe her?" Asked Butterfly.

"She knows her business. Never wrong yet," said Sweet William.

"Hmm," Butterfly said. "I'm thinking we might have an answer to our problems."

"Well, I want to hear it because I really can't go back to the hive telling a wild story like this." Honeybee said, bzzing round and round.

"What you got in mind, lady?" Hummingbird asked Butterfly.

"My name is Bessie Mae Butterfly, Rufus."

Not one to be left out, Honeybee said: "And mine is Heather Honeybee."

Sweet William said with a touch of sarcasm: "Now that we have all that important stuff settled, let's get back to Rufus' question. What do you have in mind, Bessie Mae?"

"We'll all go find Mother Nature and ask her to give Flowers their colors," said Bessie Mae Butterfly triumphantly. "It's the only way."

Next- Scene 3

Original Myths-How Flowers Got Their Colors, Scene 1

2011-09-19T16:08:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

1. Honeybee, Hummingbird, and Butterfly

One morning, shortly after the beginning of things, a spring shower drenched Meadow, after which Rainbow, lustrous with colors, appeared in the sky.

photo credit: http://www.freenaturepictures.com/

At the north end of Meadow, Honeybee looked out of the beehive and said: "What a perfect day for my first time to collect Flower nectar."

Honeybee had spent her childhood inside the colony, learning the ropes. Now she was 21 days old--an adult and ready for her first foraging flights. Today, she was flying to the center of Meadow where, it was rumored you ought to be able to get a really big nectar load from the combine of Flowers there.

Before she left, she was told by the Nectar Gathering Supervisor that finding and gathering nectar from Flowers was just a matter of color cues. That is, a Flower's color would always guide her straight to the nectar pouch. Furthermore, the Supervisor said: "You are expressly instructed to look for blue and violet Flowers because we bees are especially attracted to these hues."

Honeybee was the type who could be relied upon to follow instructions. Sometimes, she could be a little anal about it. Most of the time, however, this trait of hers served her well. When Honeybee flew away from the hive, heading for the center of Meadow, she felt good about having been carefully instructed and she thought she was fully prepared to do her job.

When Honeybee got to the meadow, she noticed Hummingbird beating his wings at light speed as he flew back and forth, inspecting someting pale and ghostly growing amid the green blades of grass.Close by, Butterfly was doing the same, darting to and fro from one gray thing to another.

As Honeybee drew closer, she looked down at the pallid cluster of sickly looking things languishing in the middle of Meadow. She could not tell what they were, not could she see Flowers with colors anywhere.

Round and round, she flew for several minutes, looking for colors to cue her. But she found none. She was confused, so she bzzed over to Hummingbird and asked: "Is this the centerof Meadow? I was told I could find Flowers here, but I don't see any colors like blue and violet to guide me to them."

Hummingbird was just as perplexed as Honeybee. "This the right place, babycakes. Matter a fact, I been lookin m'self for orange or red Flowers to turn me on to the mother load. Been lookin for an hour and I cain't find nuthin," he admitted. "Les ask Butterfly. Them butterflies pretty good at figurin things out."

They zoomed over to Butterfly who had paused and was staring at the gray things below her. "Pardon us,"said Honey bee, "do you know where Meadow's Flowers are? I was told to look for the colors at the center of Meadow, but I can't see any colors at all. There's nothing down there except for the green grass.
So I don't know where to look."

"Same here," said Hummingbird. "It's a problem cause I gotta take in a load a necta so's I can pay the rent, know what I mean?"

"Well, I think I've figured it out," replied Butterfly, stroking her chin. "Those drab, colorless things sticking up between the blades of grass are Flowers. At least, I believe they are."

"Say whaat?!" Hummingbird was so astonished at the very idea that he stopped beating his wings for several seconds.

Honeybee stopped bzzing, and just hung in the air speechless. She couldn't comprehend the idea. It went against everything she had been taught about life and how the world functioned. When she recovered herself, she proclaimed, "Whoever heard of Flowers without colors!"

Butterfly, who was something of a detective, had a very logical mind and she replied: "Whoever is right! But we are at the center of Meadow where Flowers are supposed to be, and, as you said, Honey bee, there's nothing down there except green grass and some pallid looking things that could possibly be Flowers. As a famous detective once said, 'Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of butterfly--or a honeybee--can invent!'"

Next: The Flowers, Scene 2

Original Myths - How Flowers Got Their Colors, Prologue

2011-09-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All rights Reserved

1. Prologue

At the beginning, all things came to be in this dimension by vibrating themselves into being from the engergy of All-Spirits. Each thing, as it came into this dimension was to bring its own particular color with it.

And so, the shining Sky children--Sun, Moon, Rainbow, and Stars, came to be by rippling and shimmering themselves into the heavens.

Then came the Four Sacred Elements: Earth, the Pillar, manifested itself by whirling and spinning faster than the eye can see, while Fire, the Resplendent One, flickered and crackled; Water, the elixir, surged and gushed; and Wind, the Sage, wafted and danced itself into existence.

One by one, other things vibrated themselves into existence, like Mountain, who came to be by quaking and thrusting itself up so that it stood tall and mighty against the sky, and like Valley, who dipped down so that it lay snugly beside Mountain. Plains and Meadow and Trees and Grass blazoned forth by rolling and zigzagging into the spaces where Mountain and Valley could not fit.

Then Flowers wiggled and waggled themselves into being so that they peeked out between blades of Grass sprouting on Meadow. But, alas! Something had happened to them as they vibrated!

This is the story of what (happened). And who (was brave enough to find out). And how (everything was put to right).

Next Time: Part 2- "Honeybee, Hummingbird, and Butterfly"

The Mee St. Chronicles: Order My New ebook Version

2011-08-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

Great News! I'm in ebooks!

   The Mee Street Chronicles


Now available in ebook format for ...

Barnes and Noble's Nook
Apple's Ipod
Amazon's Kindle
Google eBooks

The ebook version has a new book cover and a new photo on the back (which is the same as the one above my profile).

Spread the word, please! Send the links to your friends.

Click on the ebook links below to order.

Nook at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Mee-Street-Chronicles/Frankie-Lennon/e/2940012800527

Kindle at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058ETNK6/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=roninenterprises&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B0058ETNK6

Apple at
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-mee-street-chronicles/id447527106?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Google eBook
http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=g9kndu9sxLsC&dq=The%20Mee%20Street%20Chronicles&as_brr=5&source=webstore_bookcard

HAPPY READING!

The 4 Elements:Water

2011-05-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

in the water
children.

quench
your
thirsty souls.

Descanso Gardens Waterfall

                                                          Stream at Descanso Gardens
Zodiac Water signs
                                  Cancer ruled by the Moon
                                               Pisces ruled by Neptune
                                                           Scorpio ruled by Pluto and Mars

The 4 Elements: Earth

2011-05-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

love
and care
for
the earth

live
in the
bounty,
peace & harmony.
of its
bosom

walk
its
ways
with
reverence & respect. Walking Trail at Kenneth Hahn Park

Walking Trail at Kenneth Hahn Park

Zodiac Earth signs
                                         Capricorn   ruled by Saturn
                                                            Virgo ruled by Mercury
                                                                      Taurus ruled by Venus

The 4 Elements: Fire

2011-05-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Fire...
one of the key elements of the universe.

burn
fire.

heat
day
light
desire

burn fire
with
melting
flame.

fireplace

                                                               sunrise

Zodiac Fire signs
                                       Aries ruled by Mars
                                                        Leo ruled by Sun
                                                                    Sagittarius ruled by Jupiter

The 4 Elements: Air

2011-05-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

take wing

and

fly.

Skylark in flight

Ballonist

Zodiac Air signs
                           Libra ruled by Venus
                                       Aquarius   ruled by Uranus
                                                          Gemini ruled by Mercury

FYI 2: Mother Nature's Cure-All

2011-05-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Feeling down? Blue? Foggy-brained? Feeling like your self-esteem took a permanent hike?

Catch up with your self-esteem, boost your mood, charge up your memory. How? By spending some time outside in Mother Nature. Research shows that ONLY 5 minutes of "green or outside exercise" like fishing, cycling, gardening, or walking will do wonders for you. And the good news is... it's free!

What does the outdoors do for you?
Gives you geater exposure to the sun's health-promoting Vitamin D.
Battles depression.
Boosts your brain's memory, thinking, perception, judgement (cognitive) functions.
Increases your compassion.
Could mean you spend less or no time in the doctor's office.

santa monica's farmer's market

malibu's will rogers beach

Think about this: It's selfish not to take care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Mother Nature fixes what ails you! A parting shot: A walk at the mall isn't going to substitute for walking outside.

Kenneth Hahn State Park

FYI 1: Brain Seasonings

2011-05-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

Brain Seasonings: Spice Up Your Life
Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Here's useful information I'm passing along. According to research, these 5 spices are good for our brains.

Tumeric (associated with curry).
Spice up your brain! Sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of tumeric on/in chicken salad. Researchers think the active ingredient in tumeric, curcumin, may break up the abnormal protein build up that is the hallmark of Alzheimer's. In India where people eat curry almost every day, this disease rate is 1/4 the U.S. rate.

Ginger
Stave off migraine headaches by combining ginger with the herb, feverfew. A recent study found that more than 80% of migraine-prone patients the headache didn't go to full-blown migraine. Spice it Up! Grate 3 teaspoons ginger (get it at the supermarket) into 1 cup of boiling water. Steep 10 minutes, strain and drink.

Saffron
Chase your blues away without an antidepressant. Eat more of this pungent herb. Researchers discovered that twice a day doses work as well as Prozac in mild to moderate depression. Spice it Up! Add 1/2 teaspoon of saffron to boiling water in preparing 2 cups of rice.

Garlic
Besides garlic's heart-healthy benefits, it was noted in a 2007 study that garlic based treatments for brain cancer are a good future possibility. Spice it Up! Use half teaspoon garlic powder or 1 or 2 garlic cloves with basil and tomatoes in your marinara sauce.

Cinnamon
Cinnamon helps regulate blood-sugar levels. This helps you stay focused. Spice it Up! Sprinkle 1 teaspoon on your oatmeal or other breakfast foods--pancakes, waffles. Or make yourself some cinnamon toast. Yum!

Maggie Smith/FreeDigital Photos.net

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid

My Photographic Eye V: Moon Glow

2011-05-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Spellbound by Moon Glow

dance, spellbound,
under
veiled moon madness
under
waxing moon shadow
dance, possessed,
by moon glow lighting the night.

waxing lady moon

                                                                veiled lady moon

Meditations VI: My Gratitude List 5/10/11

2011-05-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

Gratitude

One of the things that we do in Alcoholics Anonymous is meditate on what we are grateful for in our lives and write those things down. Thinking about what you’re grateful for and making a list might sound like a stupid waste of time. But it chases the blues away and gets you off the pity pot. It melts away anxiety.

I looked up the word “grateful” and it means “being appreciative, thankful… feeling or expressing gratitude.” Here’s where the list comes in. It focuses you on the particular. Makes you see or realize what and who what you “appreciate.” Then, it requires you to “express” it or communicate it to yourself.

“Why?” You might ask. “I already know what I appreciate. I don’t need to tell myself that.” Well, maybe that’s the case for you. Most of the time, life runs on such a fast track that everything becomes a blur. First, how can I be grateful for what or who surrounds me if I don’t even see it? If I don’t stop multi-tasking and take the time to look, hear, feel, see, smell? Second, sometimes I forget the things in my life that I am grateful for. Why? Because I’m too busy inviting negative energy because I’m bitching and complaining about something that I wish hadn’t changed, or because I’m feeling resentful that I’m not on the other side of the fence which looks greener than my side. And, third, sometimes, I might not even recognize things I’m grateful for because I take them for granted. All that being said, here’s today’s list. It’s not all-inclusive, I’m sure. But I can always make another tomorrow.

Today’s Gratitude List

I’m grateful that I am still writing… and for still having work that I like to do.

I’m grateful for money enough to shelter, feed me, and put clothes on my back.

I’m grateful for unpolluted water to drink, for food to eat.

I’m grateful to be able to get out of bed, stand up, walk, and move without pain.

I’m grateful to be able to breathe fresh air.

I’m grateful to be able to touch and experience the one I love.

I’m grateful for the love of my spirit-guide dogs.

I’m grateful for the company and compassion of friends.

I’m grateful for my 5 senses working well enough to let me fully experience the earth, people, life.

I’m grateful to be able experience beauty in all forms: see clouds in the sky, hear my favorite songs, smell the fragrance of things of the earth, feel ALL of my feelings.

I’m grateful for sobriety today…

and for ALL of the yesterdays of my journey.

My Photographic Eye IV: Shadow Patterns

2011-04-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

shadow patterns
dark reflections
mated
to
shining sun

I see you
shadow patterns
playing here
and there

hiding
in shadow
making
night moves
in
the light of day.

My Photographic Eye III: Tones (and Textures)

2011-04-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

Copypright 2011-All Rights Reserved


                                                                     Tones

Sky and Sea
    Light and Reflection
       Color and Contrast



         Green Ocean, Streaks of Light, Flotsam

     Golden Glow in West Hollywood



              Lavender Wild Flowers

                               Blue Sky, Clouds, Glowing Sunset

My Photographic Eye III: Textures (and Tones)

2011-04-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

                                                    Textures

Sensations
    Perceptions
        Feelings



Boardwalk, Sand




                       Ocean Inlet


Seagrass, Rocks & Stream



                                Sand, Tide, Seagulls, Rocks

My Photographic Eye II: Benches

2011-03-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved

Benches

make me
a playful bench
to smile
to laugh
to charm
a weary heart

show me
a restful bench
to soothe
a vexed spirit
a mind fatigued

sit me on
a bench
where I might
reflect
where
I might
imagine
dream
without limits

find me
a bench
to while away time
to stop
and replenish
heart
mind
and spirit.

(for bunnie-3/31/11)

santa fe 12/10

atlanta, piedmont park 6/10

atlanta 3/10

los angeles, descanso gardens 5/09

My Photographic Eye I: Steps, Roads, Paths

2011-03-25T23:15:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2011- All Rights Reserved

Steps and Roads and Paths...

the camera's lens records
my endless fascination
with
winding roads
that twist out of sight
with
steps
leading up or down
to somewhere
with
paths that run sightless
into the unknown

road
steps
path
their endings
remain
out of sight...

a mystery
just beyond the camera's frame.
3/25/11

los angeles, kenneth hahn park

atlanta, georgia

los angeles, kenneth hahn park

The Book of Days VIII: Get Ready for Change

2011-01-04T18:08:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2011- All Rights Reserved

Happy 2011 New Year!!! This one’s all about change.

Change—that’s what my astrological forecast says I can expect…

From 2011 Capricorn Forecast, Rick Levine and Jeff Jawer at Tarot. com
“You have already experienced a lot of change in the last couple of years… and yet you still have quite a bit ahead of you. Regenerative Pluto continues to move at a glacial pace through your 1st House of Self for another 12 years, bringing with it many levels of deconstruction and reconstruction to every facet of your life.”

Deconstruction and reconstruction…tearing down and building anew. It could be scary. But when the ride gets bumpy, I’ll try to remember these things…

First:
“The most fundamental choices we have are where we place our attention and how we interpret the information we get about the world. These two choices are the difference between living consciously and living unconsciously. “Martin Rossman, M.D., The Worry Solution

Second:
“The only result of real understanding is change.” Alan Cohen, The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Third:
“Our willingness to change brings fulfillment and satisfaction into our lives. On days when things look bleak, I simply change the blurry lens through which I view the world. We can create a happy life simply by changing our mental outlook.” Bryan E. Robinson, Soothing Moments

Change. It’s gonna come whether I accept it or fight it. The less painful thing for me to do is accept it. And switch out the blurry lens that I’m using to look through.

Sand: Photo Group II

2010-07-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010-All Rights Reserved

sand

specks of time
gritty between my toes

grains of rock and shell
swept on
wind and water

skipping
rough and tumble
across landscapes

piled high
stranded
in
dune castles
ashore.

Clouds Dream: Photo Group I

2010-07-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Mee Street Chronicles: Interview with the Author

2010-07-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Interview with Author, Frankie Lennon, About Her Memoir

1. Briefly, what’s the book about?

The Mee St. Chronicles is a very candid, passionate memoir of my battle to claim my own life and sexual identity. In it, I narrate stories starting with my childhood and take you with me on my turbulent life journey & struggle to find freedom from the many prisons that bind me. How the conflicts in my life play out give my stories page-turning drama that I think readers will enjoy.

2. How did the book come about?

The idea of writing about my life experiences had been at the back of my mind for years. It took my old friend, Nikki Giovanni, to act as catalyst for this. She had planned to edit a book of stories and essays and she asked me to contribute. I did by writing a piece called “The Code.” Although the book never came to fruition, that story ultimately launched me into writing the stories of The Mee St. Chronicles.

3. How is your book like or different from other memoirs?

Well, mine is about my battle to claim my life and my sexual identity. The fact is, “out” Black Lesbians are not crowding the field to write about their struggle to claim their lives with integrity in a world that often appears very homophobic. Of course, there’s Audre Lourde who wrote Zami years ago. And Alice Walker has written a short story or two about living in the life. My book is a different kind of memoir. I put myself out there on several fronts, including my battle with alcoholism. I tell it like it is.

4. Why should people buy your book? What does your book offer the reader?

They should buy because I tell powerful stories, exciting stories, stories that make you think and re-evaluate some issues. They should buy it because I offer the reader the chance to see and experience my naked feelings, conflicts, fears, and struggles. I get down to the nitty-gritty in The Mee St. Chronicles, and you get the chance to experience my trials and tribulations along with me. It will be exciting, funny, and heartbreaking. And it will never be dull.
Page 2 Q&A with Answers

5. Who are you targeting as readers?

There’s something for everybody—young and old, Straight & Gay, Black, Latina, White, people fighting addictions, people with the virus, people who know or don’t know about living Jim Crow in the South. My stories are stories about finding out who you are, about trying to make sense of your life, about learning how to get rid of the shame that binds you.

6. What have you learned about yourself as a result of writing this book?

I’ve learned that understanding who I am and finally not being ashamed of that was worth all the struggle. And I’ve learned that I really am a good writer whose work people like very much.

7. What inspired you to write this book? Why did you take the time and effort to write it not knowing whether you’d be published or not?

First, the act of creating pushed me forward. Writing quenched a lifelong thirst and filled a void because I began to honor and express the creative spirit within. Second, I wanted to preserve my memories by telling my stories. Memories are all about identity for me. And telling you who I am, through my memory stories, set me free. No more secrets to poison my spirit. And third, I thought that my stories might help to set many people free. Or at least put their feet on the road to freedom. Especially those who feel different and think they are cursed by that difference. These stories are to reassure them that they aren’t cursed. To encourage them to keep going no matter how bad things look or what others may say or do. To tell them they aren’t alone, that there’s somebody else who’s survived choosing the wrong road more than once, who’s fallen off the road several times, who’s lost the road completely, but who, in the end, has finally found her way.

8. What has been the greatest delight in your writing career so far?

Getting The Mee Street Chronicles written and published.

9. What writers have inspired you?

James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, Judith Ortiz Cofer, bell hooks, Stephen King.

10. Who has been the greatest influence in your life?

My pastor and friend, Archbishop Carl Bean. His work in and out of the pulpit continues to leave its mark on me.

11. What advice would you give to beginning writers?

Keep writing. Make time to write no matter what. Don’t give it up and don’t let anything or anybody stop you.

(end)

Order my book at Amazon or Borders Bookstores or at my publisher’s website under the book title or under my name, Frankie Lennon, at
www.Amazon.com< www.Borders.com
www.Kerlak.com

Excerpts from The Mee Street Chronicles: "Scotch on the Rocks"

2010-07-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Introduction to "Scotch on the Rocks"

"What’s Goin On?" is a scene from the story, "Scotch on the Rocks" which is in my memoir,The Mee Street Chronicles. This story is about the first time I was confronted by an alcohol counselor about my drinking. Alcoholism is a serious disease. Most people are like I was. They don't know or understand that it is a disease. Before the drinker can get help to treat it, the drinker has to first acknowledge that alcohol is a problem. Then she or he has to be willing to get help. This story is about my attitude toward my drinking at that time of my life. And what happened after I was confronted about it.

"What's Goin On?"

The five o'clock crew at Allen's Lounge was off and running. The place buzzed like a busy hive. What's goin on? I heard Marvin Gaye ask over the chattering hum of the crowd. Home free! That's what's goin on, I answered in my head while situating myself on a barstool. No alcohol counselor and his stupid questions around here! I nodded hello to the regulars lining the bar like pigeons waiting for bread crusts. Behind the bar, Allen, tall as an ostrich and dark as bitter chocolate, counted bills and change to balance the cash register. Jay iced down the beer while Les, looking like a sad-eyed, basset hound, poured up half-dozen drink orders as Katie, the waitress, reeled them off.

I lit a cigarette and glanced up at the huge, lighted mirror in front of me. Scattered at tables, men in blue or gray work uniforms, just getting off from work at Whirlpool or Alcoa, drank quarts of Budweiser or shots of whiskey, smoked cigarettes, traded lies, hawked the women, and speculated on which one might want a just-for-tonight lover. The women, in bright colors, sat in groups of two's and three's, cutting their eyes at each other, whispering behind their hands, or throwing their heads back in noisy laughter. Most of them sipped pretty drinks—the kind I never had much use for—like Tom Collins or Tequila Sunrise, although some toyed with a glass of beer.

I caught Jay's eye and winked. He was a beauty. An x-rated honey-dripper. Cinnamon skin, thick eyelashes, naturally arched eyebrows, sculpted, full lips. And so good in bed that I could pretend my woman-jones didn't exist. Sometimes, all his sexiness and beauty triggered my inferiority complexes. At other times, my ego swelled with the idea that a sugah-lump like him had picked me to be his woman.

"What's up?" I asked as he came toward me

He shrugged, slapping a napkin on the counter. "Gonna be jumpin in here tonight. Allen's got me working the night shift, so I won't get by your place until 2:30. You want your usual? It's on me."

"Yeah, scotch on the—"

He finished it. "Rocks, lemon slice, water back."

"What else?" I smiled.

He grinned at me and started to pour. As he did, a voice hollered out.

"Give her another!" It was Sylvester sitting at the other end of the bar; he slammed two quarters down for Jay. I waved at Syl and nodded my thanks. He, in turn, lifted his shot glass ceremoniously in salute.

Jay put two drinks in front of me, went down the bar to collect for it, rang up the order, and trotted off to the john.

I shifted my sight to the mirror behind the bar. It ran the length of the wall. The bottles, in front of it, artfully arranged in stair-step fashion, caught my eye. Like ladies of the night displaying their wares to the highest bidder, the shimmering liquor winked and promised good times: Scotch in emerald green bottles, whiskey in topaz brown bottles, vodka and gin in diamond-clear bottles. I picked up my glass and sipped. Nothing like the first scotch of the day, I told myself while savoring the bitter, slightly oily taste of J & B.

A good feeling began to settle over me. But before the good feeling could make itself at home, out of nowhere, I heard the counselor ask: Do you want to quit?

Spooked, I glanced over my shoulder, frowning as I scanned the crowd. Was that asshole of an alcohol counselor in here? Did he follow me to Allen's? But, no. There were only Black folks here, getting down to some serious partying. I stared into the golden liquid in my glass. Do you want to quit? He’d asked me. An icy tremor passed through me. How could I give it up? My palms felt clammy and I wiped them together.

There'd been times when I'd thought about it. Especially when I'd come into Allen’s, and somebody at the bar would ask me if I remembered what I'd done the night before. I hated that question. It shamed me. They knew what I'd done, but I didn't. It was unnerving because a big, black hood had dropped down over my brain. What I'd done the night before was gone. Wiped clean. When someone asked me, I'd drop my eyes, afraid that I'd made a fool of myself. Afraid that somebody was going to rib me for it and I wouldn’t be able to, couldn’t play it off. How could I when last night was a bunch of empty pages scrolling in my head?

I pulled on my cigarette. Why couldn't I remember? What was happening? Maybe I should seriously consider quitting. But when that line of thought came to mind, I had to have a drink since thinking about quitting was unnerving. By the time I'd finished drinking and thinking, mother scotch had moved the whole idea to the back burner.

What's goin on? Marvin asked me, his voice fading on the last notes of the song. I took a long swallow of scotch, almost draining the glass as The Isley's kicked "Love the One You With" into high gear. It was then that the door swung open so hard that the hinges squeaked and sang. I turned my head to see who was coming in. There at the entrance stood Jay's wife—a harmless-looking, brown terrier with the soul of a war dog. For a millisecond, she was motionless; then, she swooped in.

Thank God, Jay was in the john. If she had come in a few minutes earlier, she'd have caught me sitting here carrying on with him. But she didn't need to catch me to know I was guilty. When Jay was here, nine times out of ten, I was, too. Marsha knew, like everybody else in Evansville, that I was Jay's sideline woman. It was a common practice. Husbands took lovers; wives looked the other way. Marsha didn't frequent the bars, so ordinarily Allen's Lounge was safe territory for me and Jay. But not, it seemed, today. In the mirror, I watched her double-timing it straight to me, her jaws tighter than Dick's hatband. She stomped up beside me and stopped, hand on her hip, glaring. Without looking at her, I lifted my glass to drink, weighing the threat of danger her presence signaled while cold sweat inched down my stomach.

"What the hell," she addressed me in ringing tones, loud enough for everyone to take notice, "do you think you're doin in here with Jay?"

At the sound of her voice, the bar's noisy crowd suddenly came to attention, slipping into the I-was-a-witness mode, drinks forgotten as eyes turned to watch local drama.

Marsha moved a step closer. "Ain't I tole you bout this shit before?"

Survival instinct screamed for me to get the hell out of the bar, but my feet had turned to concrete. Careful not to look her in the face, I took a drag on my Pell Mell and tapped some ashes off the tip.

She took the drama up a notch, playing to every person in the room. "I hope," she proclaimed, "you don't think I'ma jus sit back in some corner while you fuck around with my husband."

I could feel her breath on my neck. Was she going to jump me? My heart was thumping in time with the record's beat. Since I'd never been a fighter, I had zero confidence about myself when it came to fisty-cuffs, but if she made a move to beat my ass, would I just sit here and let her?

The crowd hung with bated breath on every word. She huffed and puffed for them. "I'ma tell you one more time to leave Jay alone."

I kept silent, gambling that she'd interpret my silence as browbeaten humiliation and leave me be.

She pronounced her final threat with a flourish. "Don't let me have to tell you bout this shit no more!" A dramatic pause, and then: "You hear me?"

The challenge hung in the air. Despite the fact that I was shivering in my boots, the smart-ass in me finally reared its head, ready to deliver me to the hangman's noose. I opened my mouth with the intention of sarcastically assuring Marsha that I had, indeed, heard her. But Jay glided up before I could say a word, and quickly steered her out of the bar.

(end)

Order my book at Amazon or Borders Bookstores or at my publisher’s website under the book title or under my name, Frankie Lennon, at
www.Amazon.com< www.Borders.com
www.Kerlak.com

Excerpts from The Mee Street Chronicles: "Predators"

2010-07-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2007-AllRights Reserved

Introduction to "Predators" from The Mee Street Chronicles

The excerpt below is from the story, “Predators,” in my memoir, The Mee St. Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life. My memoir tells you stories about my battle to claim my own life and sexual identity. This story is about a time when I was living as a closeted Lesbian, masquerading as a heterosexual. The Anita Bryant campaign, which served as catalyst for what happened that day in the bar, was going full throttle in the 1970's. This is a story of how that noxious campaign affected me.

"Predators"

"Homosexuality is not a deviation; it is a variation. And people need to know that."
Peter J. Gomes, Minister

Allen's black and white television sat on a beer cooler in a corner behind the bar, and you couldn't really see it unless you were sitting almost on top of it. From where I usually sat at the bar, I could see it fine if it was on. Today it was, and I was watching Les build my drink when the CBS Evening News came on. The anchor, Walter Cronkite, always distinguished, always credible, opened with the story of the "Save Our Children" campaign. It had started a short while ago, Cronkite said, pausing to glance down at the sheaf of papers in his hand, with Anita Bryant and her organization pushing for Miami to repeal the city ordinance prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals.

As soon as the word homosexual rolled out of Cronkite's mouth in basso tones, everybody seemed to come to instant attention. I shifted my eyes away from Les to the television broadcast, feeling everything inside me go stock still, just like a rabbit that's caught the scent of danger in high grass.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Katie, the waitress, headed for the jukebox, but Cecil, sitting at a table behind me, stopped her.

"Wait up, " he said. "I wanna hear the news." Katie shrugged and backed off.

That was unusual. Watching the news got very low priority even when there were only a handful of us at Allen's, so my nerve endings went on alert. Plus, I'd heard about Bryant's campaign. Which in itself was enough to get anxiety skipping through my veins. The campaign was getting a lot of national play and in Evansville, people were paying attention. At the very least, conversations gave it a passing nod if not full blown commentary. Not long ago, a man that I'd thought was open-minded and liberal had stunned me.

“Anita Bryant is right,” he'd raged after I'd asked him what he thought about her campaign. “That scum should be hunted down and put in a concentration camp somewhere away from normal people.” I particularly remembered his eyes while he'd said it. They'd gone hard and black and lightless. It was his eyes that had frightened me the most. He'd shown me his Mr. Hyde face, a part of him that I didn't know. And that part had drawn a line of separation in the sand with me standing one side and him on the other although he didn't know it. Didn't know about Stacey, about my woman dreams, about the real me I kept chained in secret corners. Nobody here did.

Glancing around, I realized that only a couple of familiar faces, the regulars that made Allen's so comfortable for me, were here today. Clyde, on the barstool in the corner and John, next to him. The rest—Cecil, Sonny, Nance, Gloria, and Betty—came in less often. As always Les was behind the bar and Katie was waiting tables, but there were a few others that I didn't know. For some reason, without the regulars that I knew so well, Allen's felt less cozy, less like home. Was there a chill in the air? I pulled my cardigan sweater closer around my chest.

On camera, Cronkite reminded us that aside from being a Miss America runner-up, Anita Bryant was best known as spokeswoman for Florida orange juice commercials. Bryant had gotten famous for telling the television audience, "A day without Florida orange juice is a day without sunshine."

Now, I thought to myself, she'd switched to selling something else. Something dark. I could hear aggravated murmurs from Cecil and the other guys sitting at his table. I drew in a ragged breath. Keeping up my camouflage was harder with Anita Bryant stirring things up. Where was my drink? I glanced at Les; he was moving in slow motion.

Cronkite went to a film clip of Bryant at a Midwestern news conference. A newsman asked about her motives for the campaign. Surrounded by microphones, the dark-haired, former beauty queen beamed at the camera and opened her mouth to oblige.

"Since homosexuals cannot reproduce," she said, striking a tone of both sincerity and loathing, "they must recruit children to freshen their ranks. We must not allow them to continue."

I clinched my fist, furious, thinking: "How can she get away with saying a pure lie like that?"

Somebody, a woman's voice, growled: "One of them mess wit my baby and he gonna get his ass kicked!"

I blew out a frustrated breath. What Bryant was saying boiled down to a load of crap. You didn’t choose or get recruited like you were joining the army or some kind of club. You were born the way you were born.

I thought about Stacey and rubbed the palm of my hand across my lips. Nobody had recruited me into being attracted to women. Nobody had forced me to love her. That admission woke up The Corners, the place, at the back of my mind, where I'd vaulted my secrets. Like autumn leaves, they began to crackle and rustle. Which served to unnerve me even more than Anita Bryant. Mostly, I could keep them quiet and still as a tomb.

On screen, you could see the reporters scribbling furiously on their pads. Bryant was gabbing away, talking like she'd made some kind of a scientific study and was releasing the results.

It pissed me off that people put the rap on us for what pedophiles did. If you paid attention to your stats, or to what the neighborhood grapevine whispered about the husband down the street, you’d know that damn near all pedophiles were heterosexuals. To cover that up, folks muddied the water so that people would confuse pedophiles with homosexuals. But they weren’t the same at all.

I paid attention to the screen again. Why wasn’t somebody questioning Anita Bryant’s claims? The reporters were just standing there, eating it up like starving animals. That was the scary part. I lit a cigarette and I dragged my hand across my lips again. When Les put my drink down in front of me, I almost knocked it over grabbing for it.

One reporter finally asked Bryant a question. He wanted to know how she chose the name for her campaign. She put one white hand to her neck and looked earnestly into the camera's eye.

"We chose the name because we want to save our children by stopping these homosexuals. They're predators!"

(end)

Order my book at Amazon or Borders Bookstores or at my publisher’s website under the book title or under my name, Frankie Lennon, at
www.Amazon.com< www.Borders.com
www.Kerlak.com

Story Excerpts from The Mee Street Chronicles: From “Fever”

2010-07-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Introduction to "Fever" from The Mee Street Chronicles

The excerpt that you’re reading today is a scene from the story, “Fever,” in my memoir, The Mee St. Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life. My memoir tells you stories about my battle to claim my own life and sexual identity.

“Fever” is about the first woman I fell in love with and our love affair. Although “Fever” is very much a love story—which makes it a universal story— on another, significant level, the conflict and essence of this story is captured by these words: “The greatest struggle is within.”

Long before the whole book was finished, I sent this story to my writer friend, Nikki Giovanni to read; she called and told me that it was very brave of me to write it. But I didn’t write it because I was brave. I wrote it because it’s a story that NEEDED to be told.

“Fever” takes place in while I’m at college. I’ve met and fallen for Stacey. And we have begun an affair. The scene called “Secret Lives” that you’ll be reading takes place shortly after the affair begins.

Enjoy my story!

"Secret Lives" from "Fever" in The Mee Street Chronicles

For a few weeks, our secret life remained securely hidden. Then, there was that close call one afternoon in my room when Lynn, a student in one of my classes, barged in without knocking. Going by looks, nothing out of the ordinary was happening in that room, but if you went by gut feelings, the room was heavy with tingly, I-got-a-itch-for-you vibes. Stacey and I were sitting on the bottom bunk bed, books on our laps. Because my head was turned toward Stacey and away from the door, I didn't see Lynn coming in. But something in Stacey's expression scared me enough to make me jump to my feet, my book landing with a heavy thud on the floor.

It was a weird moment: Lynn at the door, wearing her usual dull-witted, sleepy look; Stacey seated on the bed with a startled, almost terrified expression, and me up and ready to take on whatever unknown bugaboo had darkened my door. When I saw it was only Lynn, my alarm drained away, and I asked her, with more roughness than I intended, what she wanted. As she told me, I noticed her dense expression changing. Into what? Curiosity? Slyness? While I hurriedly dug out my class notes for her, she stared, mouth half-opened, at me and then at Stacey. With guarded wariness, Stacey, I saw, was taking Lynn's measure herself. Everything seemed to be taking a long time, or, at least, it felt like forever before I found the notes and held them out to her. Lynn took them, nodding her thanks, and wearing a kind of smirking grin as she backed out of the room.

The door shut and I realized I couldn't breathe, was, in fact, holding my breath. I sucked in air as Stacey lit a cigarette.

"That," Stacey declared, "was way too close for comfort. We've got to be careful from now on. That girl was like a hound dog smelling a fresh trail."

I wrinkled my nose. "Lynn? She couldn't find her ass if you showed it to her in a mirror." I waved the idea away, moving close to Stacey again. "Does not play with a full deck, that one."

"No, baby!" Stacey snapped. "No. Pay attention. That one smelled our vibe. And we cannot afford to let that happen again." Stacey's voice had turned into an ice storm.

I still didn't see cause for alarm. "I don't think she suspected anything," I said, sitting again, putting my arms around her. "Lynn's too stupid to notice stuff like vibes."

"No!" She shook me off and drew back. "No! Don't do that! We'll get caught doing things like that!"

If the room had been feverish with steamy vibes before, now it was a below-zero blizzard. I backed off and got up, fumbling for my cigarettes. As usual, my hands trembled when I was scared. And Stacey's tone of voice had scared me. She'd never used it with me though I'd heard her use it before when she meant to cut somebody to the quick—slice em, dice em, and serve em up on a platter. She was known for her sharp tongue.

I could see Stacey trying to take a hold of herself and calm down. After a moment, she spoke. "Look, you're my girl, Frankie. But we're not like them. So let's don't act like them."

I was confused. What did she mean, let's don't act like them? Did she mean for me not to put my arms around her? Not to kiss her anymore? What was wrong with showing affection? And just who was them? "Who're you talking about Stacey?" I shot back, knowing the answer all along.

"You know. Them." Her voice was a cold wind. "Those freaks! Bulldaggers!"

The words made me flush with embarrassment; and, at the same time, I felt the sting of insult, of absolute put down. Why did she have to use those names? It was the same as calling us niggers. Or calling girls bitches. Anger rumbled in my chest, the kind that would usually goad me into starting an argument, but I didn't want to fight with Stacey. Besides, I could see she was already fighting, struggling with some invisible thing inside herself. A nerve at her temple moved up and down, throbbing. Her mouth was a tight slash. Whatever this thing was, it was a fearsome opponent. And it made her face ugly. Silence lay hard in the room, and I let it lay. The thing to do right now, I told myself, is keep quiet. Be cool.

Stacey peered at me across the room. "I guess this is our first lover's quarrel, huh?"

I said nothing. Mostly because I didn't know what to say. Doubts about Stacey and me swirled round my head like fireflies. The undertone in Stacey's voice when she'd used the word bulldaggers was poisonous. Hateful. How could she feel that way about herself? About me? Anxiety wrapped its fingers around my heart, forcing me to take a long, hard drag on my cigarette. She was watching me, waiting for a reply. Still, I said nothing.

"Forgive me?"

I didn't want to make her madder, so I nodded, abandoning my feelings, ignoring my unease. I nodded because I was afraid to put my feelings into words. Afraid to pursue the threads of doubt setting up house in my head. Afraid of the doors doubt might open that couldn't be shut again. The meddling voice in my head was shouting a warning from a distance, but I turned the volume down on it. All the while, silently beating myself up for a coward. A chicken-hearted coward.

(End)

Order my book at Amazon or Borders Bookstores or at my publisher’s website under the book title or under my name, Frankie Lennon, at
www.Amazon.com<
www.Borders.com
www.Kerlak.com

Cruise Control: Shipboard, May 23-30, 2010

2010-06-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

NOTE: THERE ARE 7 DIFFERENT BATCHES OF PHOTOS OF MY CRUISE POSTED UNDER THE TITLE "CRUISE CONTROL." THIS IS THE FINAL BATCH #7.

Last Batch #7- Scenes Aboard Ship

Cruise Control: Port of Call-Cozumel, May 2010

2010-06-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Batch 6-Landing, Shore, Beach

Cruise Control: Port of Call-Belize, May 2010

2010-06-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

Batch 5- Landing, Street Scenes

Cruise Control: Port of Call, May-2010, Grand Cayman Island

2010-06-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

Batch 4- Landing & Beach Views

Cruise Control: Ocean Views from the Ship

2010-06-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

Batch 3-Sea & Clouds, Sunrise

Cruise Control: Leaving Miami & Returning (May 23 &30, 2010)

2010-06-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

NOTE: THERE ARE 7 DIFFERENT BATCHES OF PHOTOS OF MY CRUISE POSTED. THIS IS BATCH #1.

Batch 2- Miami, from the Ship

Cruise Control: My Cruise Ship (May 23- 30, 2010)

2010-06-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Photo Batch Number 1: The Ship

The Book of Days VII: Cruising: Looking at Pros & Cons

2010-06-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010-All Rights Reserved

In May, I took my first cruise. The plan was to be aboard for 7 nights, going to ports in the Western Caribbean. It was an experience that fell somewhere between uncomfortable and unpleasant. For various reasons. Thinking about cruising—the experience has made me examine what I expected, wanted, and what I got. Here are some pros and cons from my point of view.

Pros:
The balcony room was a nice, smart choice. The balcony was great. Made me feel like I was in the lap of luxury. Until I went inside to the room. The room could have been a bit LARGER.
Even that wasn’t so bad, but my room’s location was VERY BAD.

Cons:
If your room is located or positioned right over the dance club, you won’t get much rest. I didn’t because, of course, the d.j. had the bass up as high as it could go and it reverberated through the ceiling and into my room every night from 11 pm to 3 am. Even the television set couldn’t distract me from the steady, monotonous BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of the bass. It wasn’t soothing, believe me. Nor was it a rhythmic delight. It was just plain horrible. I got an average of 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. Which is just not enough for me. Especially when I went on the cruise expecting to get some rest in luxurious (NOT!) surroundings.

Pros:
I love the ocean and it’s wonderful just to be able to gaze at it morning, noon, and night. It’s peaceful; it’s beautiful. But…

Cons:
You’re stuck on the ocean. Can’t go anywhere until the boat docks. Well, obviously, you might say. And so what? If you don’t like to feel confined, limited in moving around… if the option to get up and go here and there as you can on dry land is important to you, you better think again before you book passage.

Yes, there are tours, but you have to go and come back at certain times. Shore visits range from 4 hours to 6 hours. We missed the tour we booked because I got sick (but more on that later). You’d be wise to book a tour for certain shore destinations because it’s likely that the places you visit are not American cities where you might drift around safely. The inhabitants and where they live probably will not look like Beverly Hills or the residents of New York’s Central Park West. One place where I disembarked showed me its real face of poverty when I wandered beyond the touristy marketplace. The streets, if you can call them that, and people were so poor that it was scary and depressing.

Yes, there are activities. They keep you busy. But I didn’t really pay attention to the kinds of activities that were offered until I got onboard. Most of the people were there to party. That’s what they were there for. The emphasis seems to be on sound like you’ll have lots to do and they range from…
--- eating and eating and eating from morning to night
--- gambling at the casino whenever you like or playing bingo before the nighttime shows
--- drinking at the pool, in the pool, around the pool, in the lounges, in the halls, in your room—wherever you like morning, noon and night
--- going to the spa for massages or going to exercise on your own or to join fitness classes
--- lounging in one of the 2 Jacuzzis and/or standing in one of the 2 pools (swimming is out because people stand in it and talk)
--- shopping at the three ship stores
--- nighttime partying at the piano bar, karaoke lounge, dance club, or casino
--- going to the nightly comedy or musical shows or to a movie at poolside

If you’re not planning to party the whole time, you might want to rethink the whole idea. From what I could see, that’s what most people were there for.

Pros:
Cruising is a way to go places without having to worry about hotel rooms, food and local transportation. The cruise line will get you where you’re going. Excursions are planned for you. With one room, you don’t have to pack and unpack continuously. On board, no worries about finding a place to eat. Food is plentiful.

Cons:
Expect to shell out for the tour excursions. They ain’t cheap. I didn’t properly budget for them, thinking I could probably pick up a tour on my own once I disembarked. Cozumel was the only place where I saw enterprising cabbies waiting to take you various places at a price under the tours offered by the ship. Didn’t see anyone at Belize or Grand Cayman. Don’t know about Roatan Island. I was sick.

Which brings me to shipboard sickness. On the second day aboard, I came down with a gastrointestinal illness. The symptoms are vomiting, diarrhea, headache, weakness. I had’em all. At first, I thought it was seasickness. It wasn’t, I found out when I went to Medical where they quarantined me for 24 hours, gave me a shot in the behind, and a few pills to get rid of the diarrhea. Medical called it a stomach virus. There’s a more accurate, scientific name for it, I found out later, and it is not uncommon to come down with it onboard ship. Evidently when you’re in a “closed environment” like a ship, it’s easier for the virus to travel from person to person, via hands, water, food, etc. Although I saw many “Clean Your Hands” dispensers onboard, people don’t always do that. Also found out that this particular cruise line is notorious for being getting sick on it. Would that I had known!!! Anyway, there are some things you can do, I learned later on the internet, to possibly prevent catching this cruise-virus. Once I went to Medical and got the medication, it exited my body in twenty four hours. Problem was that my companion came down with it after me. Companion didn’t want to be confined by Medical, so companion toughed it out.

The Bottom Line:
Decide if you really want a cruise. Why are you going? What’s the advantage to you? Is your cruise line the best one for you? What about its reputation? (Ours didn’t have a good reputation with past cruisers I found out AFTER the cruise was over. I kept hearing bad things from people’s conversations, from folks on the street, from the internet.) Where is your room located? (Look up a deck plan for your ship via the ship’s website or thru the internet.) What kind of activities are offered onboard? Will you do shore tour excursions? If so, make sure you’ve allowed enough money for it. What can you do to try not to get sick? (Research the names of over-the-counter medications you can bring and take to keep the nasty virus away.)

Last, know this: The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. Mine did.

Music1: Lena Horne & Black Female Voices of Jazz

2010-05-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010-All Rights Reserved

Another who reigned in the Black pantheon of jazz is gone from us to make music in another sphere. Lena Horne (1917-2010) died Sunday, May 9, 2010. Her death startled me because I thought of her as eternal. I guess because she’s been around all of my life. Somehow, I didn’t think she’d ever leave us.

Voices. Lena’s was one of a kind. She was one of a kind—beautiful, elegant, unforgettable. She was one of those who led the way for her vocal Black female descendants, for other great Black jazz songstresses to carry on the heart sound of jazz—that very special kind of music invented by Black folks.

I’ll miss Lena Horne’s presence, her voice in the world, just as I miss the heavenly voices of other Black female jazz singers, now gone, that I grew up listening to. They gave me, gave all of us, such enchantment when they opened their mouths and sang songs their way.

Nobody, least of all me, will ever forget the inventive scatting of Ella Fitzgerald, the melodic range of Sarah Vaughan, the bluesy-gospel inflections of Dinah Washington, the behind-the-beat phrasing of Carmen McRae, the raw and rough-edged intensity of Nina Simone. No one will forget Lena Horne’s sultry voice that compelled you to listen closely to what she was saying/singing.

All of them gone, but I take heart that Lena’s legacy lives today in these Black women of song: Nancy Wilson, Della Reece, Roberta Flack, Patti Austin, Betty Carter, Oleta Adams, Toni Braxton, Cassandra Wilson, Queen Latifah, Dianne Reeves, Natalie Cole, Regina Bell, Shirley Horn, and Lizz Wright.

The Black musicians and singers of jazz have given us beautiful sounds. And we thank them for it.

L.A. Observations 6: Me, The Dog Lover

2010-05-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010-All Rights Reserved

Dogs are, according to Wikipedia, domesticated forms of the wolf. Did you know that they inherited complex behaviors and social hierarchy from their wolf ancestors? And they communicate non-verbally. Did you know that? Like wolves, dogs are pack animals exhibiting a complex set of behaviors related to determining where a dog is positioned within their social hierarchy. Socially, they’re as sophisticated as people are.

I confess: I’m a dog lover. Growing up on Dandridge Avenue in Knoxville, Tennessee, I had, at one time, 5 dogs and 3 cats. I still have pictures of my dogs and I’ve framed them and put them on one of my walls along with other friends and family.

I live on a street where there are a lot of dogs. For instance, my new neighbors across from me live with Ama and Blue, two Great Danes. Blue is white and Ama is black. They’re puppies—very beautiful, big, big puppies—with very loud barks and mournful howls. Then to my left and one house down, there’s another new neighbor who walks her five white Shih tzus everyday. There’s adorable. And in her same triplex, there’s a man who walks his black and brown miniature Doberman every day. I’d never seen a “miniature” Doberman before.

Most days, I walk my next door neighbor’s dogs. The neighborhood knows me because I do. When I walk, I wave to whoever is sitting out or ambling about. As for the dogs, I fell in love with them and since I walk anyway, I asked if I could walk them. My neighbor was more than happy to have me do it. I nicknamed her dogs The Honeys: Boo (whose name is Guy) and Poo (whose name is Sybil). They’re both found dogs—black with white markings though they’re not related. He looks like he’s mostly Labrador Retriever and she’s in the Terrier family, part Whippet, which is a Greyhound breed. When they’re at home, they look out the window to keep the neighborhood “secure.” If somebody strange stops too near my apartment, they do the crazy sounding “Some stranger is out here that we don’t know” bark. That tells me to go see who or what is lurking outside.

I love my Honeys. Such interesting personalities. In the pictures above, Boo is the one with the blue toy in his mouth and Poo is stretched out on my red rug.

Poo is a firebrand—independent, fierce-hearted, and stubborn. When she was young, just a little cutie pie, she could run like the wind. The first time I saw her do it was at our walking/hiking park between La Cienega and La Brea. I let her loose on a huge green hollow—Janice’s Green Valley, it’s called—to run off leash. And run she did. She astonished me. I’d never seen anything like it. It was like watching a racehorse; her feet hardly touched the ground, all four legs pumping, then leaping to stretch straight out; she went airborne with her legs pumping, leaping, and stretching as if she was being held up by invisible wind currents. I’ll never forget the sight of her… exploding with joy just to be running free like the wind. I thought I’d never get her back, she’d run so far, so fast, but she came when I called her. Turned right away and came back, she ran straight at me as I knelt on the grass with my arms out, and leaped up into my chest.

Now, Boo was a different story. He looks scary to some, but he’s a gentle, playful rascal. When I first began walking Boo, several years ago, he slipped out of his chain. To be truthful, I didn’t put it on correctly. It took him a few seconds to realize he was free as a bird… and then he flew with me chasing behind him yelling for him to Stop! And screaming at him to: Come back here, Boo! He had me chasing him for 45 minutes as he explored new streets and other people’s back yards. One guy saw Boo dash into his back yard which was full of bushes and hiding places. We tried to lure him out, to trap him, to trick him. Nothing worked. Boo finally took off and the guy hollered “Good luck!” as I ran behind, looking like a crazy woman. Finally, having had his jolly fun for the day Boo decided to let me catch him. I bitched at him all the way home. As we trudged back, me fussing, he looked up at me with those big eyes as if to say: Don’t be mad. I’m did what comes naturally.

Yes, The Honeys are a pair. Both of them are very territorial. They didn’t like it when a pair of Chihuahuas, Mimi and Joy, came to live upstairs, over their heads. Although there’s a big back yard, large enough for all four of them. Boo and Poo wouldn’t hear of it. They threw a hissy fit, so now the Chihuahuas get walked twice a day, instead of coming out into the back yard. The white one is aggressive, if you can picture a frail-looking dog bow-wowing in a tiny voice as being aggressive. She tries to be the tough one; I’ll give her that. By contrast, her tan companion is very shy. She keeps creeping up to me as if she’s going to let me pet her this time. Then she chickens out and runs.

I see a lot of cats roaming around and scooting out of sight if there are dogs about, but the only neighbor that has a cat is David. Her name is Blue, too. She’s white with blue eyes. He puts her on a leash and lets her preen and sun herself outside in the yeard as if she’s the queen of hearts. I think she’s the queen of his heart.

I like pets. I wish I could have a pet but my apartment doesn’t allow them. It distresses me to no end when people don’t take care of theirs, or worse let them loose to live or die on the streets. My minister once pointed out that “dog” spelled backwards became the word, “god.” He said dogs love us unconditionally (no matter what we do to them), just as God does, and that they deserved to be loved back the same way.

I couldn’t agree more.

The Book of Days VI: Reality Checks

2010-05-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010-All Rights Reserved

Reality checks are my touchstones for living each moment despite the chattering, tricky monkeys in my head.

1. Be yourself whoever you are… and the hell with it.

2. Social Security benefits will never give me/you/anybody enough money to live on. And The Powers That Be make damn sure it stays that way.

3. Everything that I think is NOT true. Let’s put it another way: Because I think it, doesn’t make it truth. My head often tells me lies.

4. Today: The good news is … I feel my feelings. Today: The bad news is… I feel my feelings. Ride with it. Hi-oh, Silver and Away!!!

5. Being kind and considerate helps to relieve some of the unnecessary suffering we put ourselves and everybody else through.

6. Time and friends are as precious as pearls.

7. Having true faith requires me to take the risk of stepping over the edge, so I can take wing and…fly.

8. You can’t outrun uncertainty, change and choices.

9. You are your greatest teacher.

10. Live in this moment. The next one ain’t guaranteed.

Adventures of a Maverick Author 5: Tribute

2010-05-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010-All Rights Reserved

Tribute to My MSMC Spring 2010 Literature 16 Class

4/30/10. Today was the last meeting for my Mount Saint Mary's College Literature class. The theme for the class was one I chose and have taught before. It's name reflects that theme: “Out of the Closet:” The Literature of African American Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered Authors. It's been an honor and an exciting adventure to teach this subject.It feels as if we had only just begun this journey and I am sorry to see all thirty of the ladies in my class go. They were exceptionally bright and open-minded... willing and ready to read about a new genre and to learn from what they read. They told me that they’ve learned a lot.

So have I... from them.

They have given me courage. To teach. Most of all, to keep writing. Sometimes, most of the time, really, it’s just hard to sit at a computer and put words that make sense on the blank page. Knowing that my words, my experience is of value—motivates others to keep trudging, plowing through in sunshine and in storm—well, this keeps me going at it. Especially on the days when I’m in front of the computer and it all seems way too much because I’m defocused, scattered, exhausted, and afraid that nothing coherent or interesting will ever again make it out of my head and onto paper. That’s when I’ll think of you, ladies.

You have taught me that people are more and better than what they know themselves to be. That they are willing to reach out, ready to empathize—ready and willing to feel what others feel.

You have taught me that people stretch and grow. That they will go through a mysterious door into unfamiliar, even frightening, territory. That they will step through and beyond the door of limitations, beyond taboo stereotyping into a place of enlightenment and freedom.

You have freed me to be who I am even more. To stand straight and tall. To love fully. To live from the center of the page, so to speak, all the way over to the edge of the margins. To trust in myself… in all of who and what I am.
For all of this and more, I acknowledge and thank you. I wish you well on your journey …
Anita Aguilar
Bianca Aldama
Krystal Aquino
Denise Carrera
Elizabeth Chavez
Michellin Dela Rosa
Laura Delgadillo
Denise Garcia
Katherine Garcia
Jasmine Gutierrez
April Hernandez
Jerquisha Jones
Angela Larios
Ariana Lopez
Magdalena Lopez
Vanessa Mateos
Lucia Vasquez
Yesenia Mendoza
Juana Molina
Alma Rosales
Denise Santiago
Viviana Santillan
Amelia Sili
Celeste Soto
Karina Morales
Rauna Landing
Joanna Valenzuela

The Book of Days (A Journal) V: The Tape in My Head

2010-03-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010-All Rights Reserved

It was Rev. Carl Bean who first shined the light on the tape we carry in our heads. He was the one who told us about all it that particular Sunday.

The tape in my head. Everybody has one, I suspect. Some of us know about it and some don’t. After that sermon, I was able to find mine by the slimy trail of toxic shame it leaves inside me. I was especially able to find it through tracking down one overriding voice taped long ago and stored carefully in the crevices of my brain… the Auntie tape.

My tape comes from my past. From my childhood. Yours does, too, I imagine. Whatever the origin of yours, the tape now sits there in the dark of your brain… a nightmare ready to hunt you down and drive you crazy. It sits there waiting the optimum chance to click on automatically. (Or maybe yours is always running, its sound being just below the threshold of hearing.) Whichever it is, when the tape jumps into action, the sound blows into your brain at a screeching volume. It yells horrendous, soul-breaking things at you. Maybe yours doesn’t yell. Perhaps it whispers in a hypnotic tone. Perhaps it lectures you in a rational tone of voice. Whatever. It doesn’t matter, the debilitating, destructive effect on you and your life is the same.

Though I have other voices inside my head—the twelve monkeys being a notable example—these others don’t necessarily originate from one person or time in my past. The Auntie tape does. Whenever it finds an opportunity, the Auntie tape clicks on. The voice on the Auntie tape is ALWAYS unloving, severe, harsh, mocking. It beats me with its cat-o-nine tails, draws blood by reciting its standard list of my failings, shortcomings, and imperfections.

The tape in your head pounds away at you like a hammer determined to break your spirit down into hard little pebbles. It natters at you, telling you that you’re lower than the dust on the ground. That nobody will ever love you and if somebody does, you don’t deserve it. That you couldn’t touch the hem of so and so’s coat. That you’ll never be anything worthwhile. That you’ll never be happy and why bother to try since you don’t deserve to be anyway. That your life is and will always be hell—one long, grim struggle to keep going through a desolate landscape. It goes on and on until you’re ready to dive off a cliff or the nearest tall building to escape.

When I found out what was going on with my tapes, I looked at the effects on me. It had kept me blind and miserable.

Without my knowing or realizing, it had conned me with distorted thinking; it had deluded me into believing lies about myself and other people; it had tricked me into doing self-destructive things. And I had attracted people and things that were the same as I. But there is an antidote to the effects of the tapes, I found. I call them Mirror Affirmations.

I stand in the mirror, look myself in the eyes to fully “see” me and I say things like this:
I love you just as you are, Frankie.
You are a good looking woman: Beautiful inside and out.
It’s okay to be who you are—not perfect, but whole and good.
You’re lovable; I love you and other people do, too.
You deserve all of life’s good things.
You’re a precious and worthwhile human being.
I’m growing and sometimes that’s painful, but it will pass.

Sounds hokey. Sounds way too simple to work. It does though.

I wish I had known about it when I was younger. A lot younger. I think they might have saved me or helped me avoid falling in some nasty ditches and some hurtful quagmires. I never knew, when I was younger, that affirmations could change my reality—the reality that begins (and ends, really) inside me and that manifests itself outside of me. I never knew that I didn’t have to live up to or live out someone else’s evaluation, opinion, or expectations of me. I never knew that I needed to love myself before I could allow you to love me. And that if I didn’t love me, I’d do everything I could to make the tapes in my head become my life’s reality. Which, ultimately, could rob me of living a life of serenity, of joy, of hope, harmony and balance. But, I know now.

So now when the tape clicks on (or the volume goes up to blast-off level) in my brain, I remember what to do. I say one or several of my affirmations. If I have to first shout for the voice on the tape to shut up, I’ll do it. Then I say the affirmations I need. However many times I need to say them. Which shuts the tape off.

Too bad it isn’t permanent. But some ogres you have to vanquish over and over, I’ve learned. That’s just the way it is.

The Book of Days IV (A Journal) : Emotions

2010-03-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2010- All Rights Reserved

Emotions. People don’t like to name emotions. Don’t like to talk directly about them. For example, nowadays, people say things like “She has feelings for him.” When I hear that, I want to ask…which feelings are you talking about? Although I’ve figured out that the word feelings is used as a synonym, most times, for the word love.

It annoys me when people aren’t direct about their feelings. I do understand that when you name them, you become vulnerable in a sense. Still, I have to ask: Are people afraid to name the emotion love? Maybe. Love is powerful, named or unnamed. It is a force to be reckoned with. But it’s a good force, I think. So why are we afraid of the good?

Last night, I read about feelings. A quote from John Bradshaw: “When out E-motions are not mirrored and named, we lose contact with one of our vital human powers.”

Yes. I understand why naming them is important. When you ignore them as if they didn’t exist, it can get you in trouble. They don’t like to be ignored or rendered invisible. The mirroring part of the quote I had to think about for a while. I think when my parents, my mother, to be exact, would not acknowledge ( read “mirror”) certain emotions I had when I was growing up, it did some not-good things. For one, it can make you crazy when your caregiver doesn’t acknowledge/mirror/validate that you have feelings whether those feelings are “approved of” or not.

The point is not to approve of them, I think. The point is to acknowledge. Without shaming or negative judgement. What I remember is being told that certain feelings, like anger or dislike, were “inappropriate.” The message was that I had no right to feel the way I did because my mother didn’t approve of a particular feeling that I was feeling. Situations like that are shaming. What happens is that emotion gets hooked into the shame feeling so you struggle not to feel it because the shame part eats you alive.

I read once that emotions have no label in actuality. That we label them “good” or “bad” and in all the places in between. I read that emotions simply exist and we weigh them down with the baggage of our experiences. The weight that we give them translate into the labels. But those labels are false faces. A mask. Or perhaps a delusion.

Anyway.
I didn’t know that our emotions are vital powers. What a fascinating thing to contemplate. How can emotions be powers? Much less “vital” powers. Power is a force, energy. Synonyms for “vital” are: vibrant, life-supporting, invigorating, alive, indispensable. If emotions give us fuel to act then I suppose they are powerful. This makes me think of emotions as powerful “magic.” Is that possible? I don’t know, but why not?

Also I read that emotions—for instance, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, joy, anger—give us fuel to act.” Power, again. Energy. Fuel. Propulsion. Do we act from the fuel of emotions? Well, it’s easy to point to anger and say that it fueled my actions. But what about guilt? What about shame? What kinds of behaviors do those things fuel in me? In us?

Many people think of feelings, of emotions as things that make you weak, vulnerable, leaving you without defense. Or they think of emotions as things uncontrollable, or things needing to be controlled and tamed… wild things. Things needing to be imprisoned.

But if emotions are powers—vital powers, then they shouldn’t be imprisoned. If emotions are vital powers… life-giving, invigorating powers, then they are gifts, it seems to me.

What do you think?

Love Songs: Twelve Poems

2009-10-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

Table of Contents

Love Song 12: Moon

Love Song 11: Opposites Attract

Love Song 10: Memory Quickens

Love Song 9: La Loba

Love Song 8: Dancin

Love Song 7: Eyes

Love Song 6: Conjurer

Love Song 5: Empath

Love Song 4: Sea Change

Love Song 3: Pied Piper

Love Song 2: Lyric 2

Love Song 1: Play Goodbye

Love Song XII: Moon

2009-10-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Moon

moon
jewel of the night
diviner of
longings unfulfilled
look down

wishing moon
look down
tonight
with tender
mercies
on two lovers
angry and alone

at first sight of you
gentle
their spirits
goddess moon

let fall
from your fair countenance
magic light
full of potions
full of spells
full of
love’s enchantments

whisper
incantations
cast charms
unbridle passion
witching moon

let fall
sorceries
sweet bedevilment
beguile
these two
hearts again

mistress moon
oracle of the sky
and
of the ages
look down
on two lonely
hearts
angry
and afraid

look down
mistress moon
soften their hearts
with the
magic
of your
lustrous glow
and
speak
of
love
to them
once more

speak
lady of the night

speak
and
let fall
shimmering moon dust
let fall
your enchantments
let fall
a golden circle
of love
binding them
together
binding them
forever
in love’s embrace.
9/30/09

Love Song XI: Opposites Attract

2009-10-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

Opposites Attract

opposites attract

you and I
are
zodiac signs
opposing
yet
complementing

we are
capricorn
and cancer
mountain goat
and sea crab

I am earth
you are water

we are
tide and shore
mountain and stream

opposites
drawn
by
star-dusted
constellations

opposites
linked
by
sun
moon
and
planets

opposites attract

we complement
we balance
and complete
each other

we are
opposites attracted
working love spells
making juju
on each other

we are
different
but
much the same
on
a journey
together

uncovering
the invisible
and
the visible

on a journey
uncovering
that
which
we are.
10/2/09

Love Song X: Memory Quickens

2009-10-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Memory Quickens

I know the sound of you
I hear
your
breath
in the rush of waves
your heartbeat
in the silent forest
I hear you
the sound of you
in a bird’s call at dawn
in the chatter of autumn leaves
you
quicken
in memory
echo
in summer thunder
whisper
in spring rain
I know
the sound of you
you
beckon
with the setting sun
and always
in every
golden
moon rise.

memory quickens
and
I see your dreaming face
know the sight of you
in morning light
see
your shining softness
the silhouette of
your soul
see
the length and breadth of you
curled
in sleep’s embrace
lying peacefully here
next to me.

I know the touch of you
remember it
as
memory quickens
and I feel
the summer lightning
of your
fingertips
moving lazily
down
my neck
moving across
the diary
of my palms
moving deliberately
to find
each secret
hollow of me
moving
until
I
catch fire
in a fever
in a
cool
burning
that
consumes.

I know the smell of you
stealing
into my daydreams
riding
the heat of day
like a naked Godiva
riding
hot afternoon breezes
carrying
your exotic woman-smell
like perfumed desert sage
quickening my memories
drawing and pulling
me
ever
to you.

I know the taste of you
your sweet bursts of pleasure
tender
as ripe
pomegranate seeds
quickens
in memory's fire
so that
once more
the spice of you
pungent and honey-laced
bites my lips
like ginger
and
lingers
fragrant
on my tongue.

while
we are apart
memory
of you
draws breath
and

lives
here
in my five senses.

while

we are apart

my memory
quickens
returns

night and day

the sound

and

sight

of you
returns

the smell

and

taste

of you

returns

the memory

your touch

evermore.
9/17/09

Love Song IX: La Loba

2009-10-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

La Loba: Women of the Wolves

passing
like smoke
through
cracks in stars

we glide
as one

from
veiled
underbrush

out
of shadowed
mountain fog

tread softly

gliding
beneath
silver moon beams

see us:
beautiful la loba
women of the wolves

prowling
margins
between worlds

outrunning
the winds of time

riding bareback
together
into the unknown.

see us:
la loba

you and I
moving as one
never apart

women wild
born
to run with wolves

born
one soul-spirit
born
paired and
mated for all time

together
we

guard each other’s soul
we
sleep the same dreams
drink each other’s breath
we
swim in each other’s blood.

shapeshifting
mysterious
la loba

see us:

dancing life
back into
our once-deadened souls

singing love
to ourselves
to each other

transforming
our dried and dusty bones
our strangled selves

see us:

slipping
out of boxes
out of cages

crossing boundaries
crossing worlds

la loba
you and I

women who run with wolves

together
we

step out
of the hidden
the unseen

together
we

stand
at the crossroads

cradling
magic
in our
palms.

5/13/09

Love Song VIII: Dancin

2009-10-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2008 – All Rights Reserved

Dancin
(To Our 1st Party- 1/08)

1.

ages ago

I wished

a secret wish
on sweet sixteen
birthday candles

I wished

I could dance
my sweet sixteen
with you

wished

us two girls
could dance
our rite of passage
together

when
the needle dropped
and the
music played

dance

just dance
like any
natural born lovers
would

all
night
long.

2.

for
so many years

when
the needle dropped
and the
music played

it was
only
your name

I wanted to see
on my
dance card

it was
only
you

forever
you

I’d set
my heart
on

you

I wished
would come

dance
with me

wished
would come

fill
my arms

fill
my life

for always.

3.

instead
when
the needle dropped

time

danced
between us

time

filled
my arms

with
an
eternity

of
undanced
dances

of
hollow
desert
years

without
the music
of
you.

4.

now

after years
lost
and
long
with
waiting

tonight

my wish
of sweet sixteen
comes true

tonight
this night
we dance

when the
needle drops
and the
music plays

we dance
our rite of passage
long denied

dance
our dance

at last

two women
smiling in each other’s eyes
dancin

two women
movin and groovin
dancin

two women
fearless and free
dancin

two women
natural born lovers
together
forever

dancin

all
life
long.

6/15/08

Love Song VII: Eyes

2009-10-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2008 – All Rights Reserved

Eyes

how
youreyes
your
sun-gold eyes
stirred
my blood

that last time
that last moment

stirred something
hungry
parched
something deep

youreyes
that last moment

how
they
seared
into
my brain
my
soul

branding
you
into
the
hidden corners
of me
now
open
like a flower
to
your light
to
your sun

youreyes
forever amber
taking me
branding
me
into the marrow
of
your
bones
aching now
with cold
at
my
leaving you

youreyes
that last moment

so full
with
the what
the when
overflowing
with
the
how
of
me
and you

taking
the measure
saying
the measure

shining
with rivers of goodbye
that last time

eyes
that last moment

telling.

2/23/08

Love Song VI: Conjurer

2009-10-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2007- All Rights Reserved

Conjurer
(To Stacey)

speak
my name
and
let
wind
rise

restless

whipping
slipping
through tops
of trees

summoned

invoked
by
you

say
my name

whisper it
to
the
wind

send it
into
ripples
of
air
to
ride
across
the
sky
like sails
full blown
carrying
precious cargo

conjure
wind

conjure
gods
of air

implore them
entreat them
beseech them
bring
me
to you

stir
bird wings

stir
shadowed mist

stir
old bones

and
bid me
come
to
you
bid me

rise
like smoke
to
crisscross
treetops
peaks
cloud banks

rise
on
filaments
of
your
breath

rise
on
whirl winds
trade winds

rise

fly…

and
come.

9/27/07

Love Song V: Empath

2009-10-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Empath (for N.D.)

gather
the pieces of your wounds
packed neatly in dusty attic boxes
swept carefully under the kitchen rug
dropped haphazardly in bedroom corners
gather the pieces
like hard candies…
wounds
alive
denied
but never
forgotten

gather
the days of your pain
the days
liquid-red
once bloody
and throbbing
now years-hardened
into stiff
brown streaks
lying in bottoms of coffee cups…
gather
the leftover
signs
of hurts
yet denied
but alive
and well

gather
your night terrors
strung together
and hanging
about your neck
like
a noose of pearls
strangling
all breath
cutting off
all life
terrors denied
but still alive
still
well

gather them all now
and
bring them…
wounds, pain, terrors…
press them
etch them
release them
into
onto
me…
for I am your empath

your empath
wounded…
as your scars become mine
your empath
broken…
on the wheel of your pain
your empath
tormented…
by demons of your nights

I am your empath
I am
a balm
to restore
an elixir
to heal

I am your empath
come now
to you
with love
unconditional…
your empath
come
gladly here
with love
for you.

9/9/07

Love Song IV: Sea Change

2009-10-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Sea Change... Summer of 2007

your lodestar

shifted
the angle
of the sun

bent
the radius
of my perspective

folded
linear time
past
present
future
into
triangled planes

while
your
moon power
raised
sublime
possibilities
exponentially

placing them
just
there
above
my horizon…

your force

disturbed
the poles
of
my world

charged
changed
their
magnetic direction

while
like
a riptide
you
pulled
my sea
into
to your
sphere

displacing
my currents

drawing
my tides
skyward
to
arc
upward
evermore
to
you…

your moon

imploded
the mysteries
of you
of me
of us
together

shooting us
like stars
somewhere far…near…

somewhere
into
parallel universes

where
the equation
of us
burst
into fire
and sparks
and
circles
unbroken
without end
or beginning…

circles
spinning
out
beyond
eternity.

9/15/07

Love Song III: Pied Piper

2009-10-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

Pied Piper

ain’t no turnin back now.

you
beckoned
you
summoned
you

compelled me

to

follow you

play my role

in this here

love story
where

there ain’t no script

well
never mind that
since

ain’t no turnin back now

you
set the stage
cued me

you
figured out

how to get me

and here I am
standing center stage
with

no lines
no directions
with

no blocking
for my moves

well
never mind that now

cause

ain’t no turnin back, my love

ain’t no turnin me back
ain’t no turnin me round
ain’t no turnin us off this road we on

cause
the curtain’s already up
and the house lights are down
sho’nuff

rehearsal is over
and

baby, this show
is

already
all the way
ON.

8/3/2007 and 9/5/07

Love Song II: Lyric 2 - To Stacey

2009-10-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

Lyric 2: To Stacey

play goodbye
frankie

drop
a coin or two in the box
and
play
goodbye

listen to
the blues
listen to
the muse
the song
that
tells you
why

you
have to
finally
say
goodbye

go on
say your
last
the cards
are stacked
the die is cast

say it
now
while daylight
fades
play it
now
in twilight’s
shade

play it now
frankie
so you
can
forget
to
remember

the lyric
and melody
of her
spinning round
in your head

drop a coin
for goodbye

because
you never
wanted
to play it

drop a coin
because
you never
wanted
to say it

drop a coin
even though
you will
never
ever
say it

your goodbye.

8/28/07

Love Song I: Play Goodbye, Frankie

2009-10-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

play goodbye frankie

drop a coin or two in the box

play that song

goodbye

listen to the blues

the muse

the song that reminds you

why

you have to say goodbye

you

never

wanted to say it

but play it

this goodbye

play it now

in fading light of dusk

play goodbye and forget

the sound of her

play goodbye

say it now

and soon

(god please make it soon)

I’ll be too old to remember

what used to be

too old to remember

what I can never forget

too old

remember her hello

just say goodbye

frankie

drop

a coin or two

in the box

and

play

the sounds of her

saying

goodbye

8/3/07

Love Songs: Twelve Poems

2009-10-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

Table of Contents

(Order of Appearance)

Love Song XII: Moon

Love Song XI: Opposites Attract

Love Song X: Memory Quickens

Love Song IX: La Loba

Love Song VIII: Dancin

Love Song VII: Eyes

Love SongVI: Conjurer

Love Song V: Empath

Love Song IV: Sea Change

Love Song III: Pied Piper

Love Song II: Lyric 2

Love Song I: Play Goodbye, Frankie

The Book of Days III: Back in the Saddle

2009-09-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2009- All Rights Reserved

No matter if I’ve been out of town or not, transitioning back from summer vacation into teaching the fall semester of college is usually easy. I always have my syllabus copied and ready for each class since the copy machine is subject to break down from last minute overuse by instructors. No hassle. No frazzle. But…this time was different. I had to cope with an unexpected problem that started almost as soon as I landed in L. A.—jet lag. I haven’t really been plagued with jet lag before last week and it took me by surprise. Had I known that it would show up, I’d have made some changes in coming back to town.

Time zone change. Jet lag is born out of crossing time zones. Crossing time zones throws off the biological clock and upsets the body’s natural patterns and rhythms based on day and night, sunrise and sunset. According to what I later found out, a two hour change isn’t too bad but a three hour change is trouble. I had gone through a three hour change coming home from vacationing all summer down south. My watch said that I’d landed at 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon but my body recognized the time as 6 p.m. It was ready to wind down but now that I was home, there was way too much for me to do to give in to that.

My first class was going to be at 9 a.m. the next day and I had to get ready, jet lag or not. In the sixteen hours between my plane landing and walking into the classroom, I greeted my neighbors who’d kept watch on my mail and my apartment, unpacked and put my clothes away, drove to the grocery store for food, put my dinner together and ate, made some telephone calls, put my classroom materials in my pack bag, laid out my clothes, checked a box full of mail accumulated over three months, and, finally, at 10 p.m., I went to bed. I didn’t sleep well—not a good thing; still, I got up at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. Although I was feeling tired, I walked my neighbor’s dogs for 10 minutes (my usual morning exercise routine), fixed and ate my breakfast, bathed, dressed, and left for work.

For three months, my days had started around 10:30 or 11 in the morning and I’d enjoyed living life at a decidedly slower pace. No more. Here I was back to alarm clocks, time schedules, negotiating morning traffic, and setting myself up to do or accomplish entirely too many things in one twenty-four hour period. As I drove to work, I heard on the radio that the weather would be in the upper 90’s. Great. I thought I’d left that kind of weather in Georgia. But here it was again! By the time I got through my classes, I was definitely feeling jet lag symptoms—grogginess, tiredness , mild depression, and disorientation. The heat made things worse and I asked myself a thousand times what I’d been thinking of when I’d booked a plane back without giving myself a day or two to rest before going to work.

I was fading away by Monday evening and I knew I had to find a solution…quick, fast, and in a hurry. Logic and a little internet research helped me come up with a plan. What I decided to do was slow way down for the rest of the week, stay in a cool place more often than not, take afternoon naps and cool baths at night, eat light meals, and put a limit on the kind of exercise I’d do every day for a week. It’s worked pretty well. Next time I travel, though, I’ll find out what other things I can do to minimize jet lag. That includes coming back home a couple of days earlier, not a few hours before I have to go to work.

Jet lag made it a bit harder and longer that first week to shift back into L.A.’s fast lane. I do miss the lazy days of summer, the sound my “Songbird” singing me awake every morning, my leisurely breakfast each morning with my summer hostess. Oh, well. Time to take my sweet memories of summer into fall and the new school year. It’s back in the saddle for me.

Family Album 10

2009-07-14T14:43:00.001-07:00

George Henry Lennon, Jr. (March 31, 1907 – May, 1980)

Note on Photos: Daddy pictured alone, 1970. Group photo, circa 1940's. Mama, Daddy on front row with Austin's coaching staff.

He was Daddy to me. We played cowboys together, shooting it out in the living room. We wrestled and he was my opponent though I mostly lost because he got me in a hammer lock every time. He was my fellow conspirator at night in figuring out ways to get Mama to let me stay up way past my bedtime. He introduced me to two things I loved: the movies and Mr. Brown’s barbeque pork ribs. He was many things, but I want to talk about him here as Austin High School’s beloved Coach Lennon.

When I was growing up, I never really understood the depth of my father’s impact on Knoxville’s Black community—specifically, his impact as a high school coach in a segregated school system and what that meant for competitive athletics during Jim Crow’s reign. I didn’t then. But I do now.

From 1934 to 1968, Daddy was head coach at Austin High for football, basketball, and track, Austin’s sole Physical Education teacher, and its Athletic Director from 1958-68. Ironically, integration killed his career. But while he was coach, he was damn good. Excellent, at what he did and got his players to accomplish. I don’t think, though I could be wrong, that any other high school coach of that time and place—the South—came close to beating the record he set for winning. When his record was spoken of or written about, nobody stuck a qualifying adjective in there to “ghetto-ize” his record, to classify it and him according to race. His record was being compared to everybody…White and Black. Those who followed sports, the media, and people in the sports profession called him “The Winningest Coach in East Tennessee.” This is why.

In football, while he was coach, the Panthers (Austin’s nickname & symbol) were National Champs 3 times, Southern champs 5 times, State Champs 6 times. His teams racked up 221 wins, 7 ties, and only 63 losses. In basketball, they were State Champs 4 times and Runner-up for State Championship 11 times.

He told me that every year he set his goal to win championships. He expected and worked for it and let his players know he expected them to set the same goal. In his player-tryouts, he looked for a boy’s willingness to sacrifice time for practice, to train, and to stay in condition. Mostly, he looked for that burning desire to play and win. As a little girl and then a teenager, I remember watching him during game time pacing on the sidelines all through the game. Daddy didn’t allow his boys to mug it up with the crowd. He expected them to pay attention to what they were doing. If they let themselves get distracted and foul up a play, they’d get chewed out in one of his famous locker room sermons. That’s what the boys told me years later. Which was probably pretty funny on one hand because Daddy was a short man and, as a rule, most of his players were giants by comparison. But shortness of stature didn’t stop Daddy one bit. He was a little man with a big mouth, and he breathed fire and brimstone when it came to the game. Like all great coaches, he regarded the game as sacred. Any player who made it through the cuts to get to first squad had to be of the same mind. He always reminded those who made the team that they were Austin Panthers and that the panthers had a winning tradition…just like the New York Yankees or other professional teams.

I can’t help but be somewhat awed by Daddy’s attitude. What he told those Black boys was that they were just as good, better, really, than any White boy playing sports. What he expected of them was to set high goals and work for them. Forget skin color. That didn’t matter. Social class and money didn’t matter. All that claptrap about Black folks being inferior, or less than the next person didn’t matter. When I think about it, that was pretty radical stuff to put in somebody’s head back then. In fact, it’s still pretty radical stuff.

I asked him once what made a great high school basketball or football coach. He said you had to be a stickler for details, and that you had to have great insight and great foresight, but, most of all, you have to be a stickler for the fundamentals. Makes sense to me that whatever you choose to do—football player, coach, actress, musician, painter, writer—to do it well, you have to cover/know the basics. From there, you can play variations, make your own special pallet of colors, so to speak, on the fundamentals you’ve mastered.

I interviewed Daddy for a booklet I did on him (The Thrill of Victory) a couple of years before he died. His ambition, he said, was always to be a high school coach and teacher even though back in the 1930’s very little Physical Education was taught because there weren’t any gyms. Still one of his Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity brothers encouraged Daddy to apply for the P.E. job at Austin and, in 1934, he was hired. He'd gotten his bachelor's in 1931 at Bluefield State College where he'd picked up the nickname “Dusty” probably because he was, as he said, “pretty short for a football player” (Daddy was 5’4”.) People called Daddy either “Dusty” or “Coach” all his life. I never heard anybody except Aunt Helen and Aunt Claire call him by his given name, “George”—not even Mama.

Though I'm sure he could have coached at a college with the winning record he had and with his professional credentials (he not only had a bachelor's but received a master's in 1942 from the University of Wisconsin, no easy feat back then when teachers generally didn't have a master's degree and certainly not one from a White university in the midwest where Jim Crow was alive as well), interestingly enough, he never wanted to go into college level coaching because those careers were insecure then. Daddy said there was no tenure (permanency) and no long term coaching contracts paying substantial sums at Black Colleges (though there were at White colleges and universities).And he said that pension benefits were much better in a school system, even a Jim Crow one, than those at Black colleges. I wonder how much has changed now.

Were there any advantages to teaching and coaching in a racially segregated school system? Yes, he said. For one thing, you could get some extra motivation from them by appealing to race pride, to community pride. And he and the players were like family and because the Black community was segregated, everybody knew one another. The players and their families knew that he was interested in seeing them do the best job they could and that he expected them to do no less than their best. But he said he wished that Austin could have played the best White teams.

Well. For a while, they did play a White school on the Q.T. (Quiet Time) way up in the Smokey Mountains. But those games never got reported to the media because White and Black teams weren’t allowed to play each other. Somehow, the Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association (TSSAA), which excluded Black teams/schools, got wind of the sneak games and they threatened to drop the White school from membership in TSSAA. The jig was up for that. So Austin continued pull together games with the few and scattered member Black schools for the Tennessee Negro High School Athletic Association (TNHSAA). Ultimately, Austin had to go out of the district, region, and out of state (as far as Roosevelt High in Gary, Indiana on some occasions) to make their game schedules.

I asked Daddy to tell me about three high points in his life that gave him great pleasure. One was when he was in college at Bluefield State. He ran a 60 yard touchdown against Virginia State that won the game for Bluefield. As a coach, he remembered when his football team defeated parker High of Birmingham, a school of 5000 students. Austin had only 600 students. The Panthers upset their lead of 13-0 and came from behind to win14-13. The next day, Daddy and the team got off the train to be greeted with a parade that Knoxvillians had put together. They all rode through Gay Street, downtown, in a victory celebration…something you just didn’t see done in “Jim Crow” Knoxville, Tennessee. The third high point was in 1977, after Daddy retired, when Austin-East High School’s stadium was dedicated to and named after Daddy.

Ultimately Austin High became Austin-East High School because Austin High was phased out in 1968, thanks to integration. Most of the students and teachers were sent to East High which had been all White. Daddy says before the phase-out, he could see the writing on the wall.

Here’s the skinny. Like other Black schools being integrated, Austin was scouted, Daddy said, to take their best players. In this case, East high got them. Plus, to make matters worse, Austin’s junior high feeder schools (Beardsley and Vine Junior) were scouted and their best players bribed and given favors to attend White schools. That left Daddy with very little material, so it was a struggle just to put a team together for those last few years.

Finally, the axe fell in 1968. Daddy wasn’t assigned to a school until a week before school opened that fall. Why? Whatat was going on? No school wanted Daddy, a Black coach on his staff who, for years, had the best coaching record in the city, Black or White. East High was out because the head coach there already had a White coaching staff; plus, they thought that there’d be trouble if they hired Daddy as Assistant Coach with his former players on East’s team now. (He had been Athletic Director and Head Coach for decades, mind you!) At the last minute, Daddy was assigned as Assistant Coach at Fulton High. His duties, I remember, consisted of being in charge of study hall every day. In effect, his coaching career was phased out with Austin High. Not only did they take his positions, they took the money, too. That first year at Fulton, his salary remained the same as before at Austin. But not after the first year. From then on, the pay level for being Head Coach and Athletic Director was revoked and he was paid as a regular teacher until he retired in 1974.

Integration as an idea of leveling the playing field, giving everybody an equally fair chance was thought to be a good idea. In theory. Because White folks were never going to give up the advantages that Jim Crow segregation afforded them, in practical application, integration turned out to be a bad idea, I think. Only because you never force your opponent to come to the bargaining table still able to summon and use all his power. Why wouldn’t he, then, turn the situation to his advantage?

What do I remember about Daddy as a coach? I spent many evenings watching Daddy nervously pick at his dinner before a football or a basketball game and I rejoiced when we won and despaired when we lost. After school, if I didn’t want to walk directly home from Vine Jr. High, I’d sometimes hang around Austin’s practice field or gym watching him relentlessly drive his players at practice. Daddy was a disciplinarian as a coach. If a player was caught drinking or smoking, he was off the team. If Daddy caught a player out late at night during the season, the next day, Daddy would run him around the track until he was ready to drop in exhaustion. I remember the endless traveling that Austin’s teams had to do to compete with other Black teams and fill out the schedule for the season. I remember that there was never any public housing for the teams when they went somewhere overnight. No motels or hotels. There were no places to eat unless somebody’s wife invited them for a meal. There was no money for uniforms either. The school system wasn’t about to provide anything in the city school budget for us Colored folks. Even though we paid taxes just like White folks did. And I remember that players who’d graduated would always come back, come by our house to see Daddy because they respected and admired him. I think he was a man to be respected and admired. It couldn’t have been easy to accomplish what he did in the Jim Crow South. But he did. I know there are those that thank him for it.

Family Album 9

2009-07-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Mary Estelle Smith Lennon (July 25, 1909 – December, 1965)

My mother was a southern girl, born and raised in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Rev. Nathan Tolbert and Sarah Smith raised her until Mama was five when Sarah died. Auntie left her husband and came home to help the reverend raise Mama. He died when Mama was seventeen and I assume Mama and Auntie left Arkansas around thereabouts. I don’t think she went directly to college. How could she without any money? I’m sure she went to work, but doing what I have no idea. I can guess since Jim Crow still reigned supreme and the survival options for Black women at that time—aside from getting married or teaching—would have been doing day work for Whites, or sharecropping White folks’ fields, or working juke joints…something along those lines. Anyway, Mama, wanting a better life, eventually, made her way to Knoxville, Tennessee where she entered Knoxville College.

After college, on to the world of work she went. The story is that there were no openings at the time she applied to teach at Knoxville’s Austin High (which was the one segregated school for Blacks in Knoxville). She was an English major at Knoxville College (Something I didn’t find out until I was in college myself). Nevertheless, somehow, she snagged an offer to teach Physical Education at Austin. She accepted but the job came with the requirement that she coach the girls high school basketball team as well. It was a job offer, and in those days of segregation, you took what you could get. And thanked your lucky stars for it. The trouble was…she didn’t know one thing about coaching. What she’d learned a thing or two about was English…Shakespeare, Dickens, punctuation and grammar, not about winning plays on the basketball court.

At Austin, she and Daddy met. He was the boys Physical Education teacher and coach. Luckily, he had majored in athletics. So he knew a thing or two. And, he told me, he taught her about coaching. Threw in some help on the Physical Education classes, too, I bet. According to Daddy’s good friend, Henry Lenoir, she’d caught his eye, so her predicament was the perfect excuse, I’m sure, to do some courting on the court if you’ll pardon the pun.

At some point, the Board of Education decided that wives and husbands couldn’t teach at the same school so she moved across the way to Vine Junior High, one of the two segregated, Black middle schools you could attend in Knoxville. Which is how I ended up being in her Gym class (and Health class) from grades seven through nine, fumbling around trying to sink basketballs in the hoop, hit volleyballs over the net, and catch softballs zooming out of the blue. But that’s another story that you can find elsewhere in my blog archive under “Sports or The Curse of the Flying Ball, Parts 1-3.”

Most people said things of Mama like… “She was so nice” and “She was such a lady.” I have to agree that she did give you that image. She was definitely a rule-follower who always did the proper, expected thing. Never one to step out of line. To me, she was the iconic Supermother. Super-responsible. With enough of whatever it took to keep it all together at work. With enough hands, energy and smarts to fix it all, to keep it all together at home. On weekdays, before getting dressed for the day, she cooked breakfast from scratch (no McDonald’s or microwaved Eggo waffles), climbed into the car with Daddy and always got to work on time. After putting in a full eight hours, she’d be home by 4:00, put on her apron, cook dinner (no Papa John’s pizza or Kentucky Fried chicken), and have it on the table in time for Walter Cronkite at 5 p.m. On weekends, she’d turn around to do the same in between cleaning the house, washing clothes, writing out the bills, driving uptown or wherever to pay them, shopping for groceries, grading school papers, going to Sunday school and church, and cooking that special Sunday dinner. Yeah. I have to admit that I did put her up there with Superman because she seemed to leap tall buildings in a bound. But I realize now that a lot of other mothers did the same things.

Still… I looked at Mama through lenses that pictured her as idealized, perfect, and not quite in the same league as ordinary human beings. It’s the syndrome that many of us are afflicted with when it comes to how we see our mothers. We tend to put them up there with goddesses and saints. When I was growing up, I never pictured Mama as wanting or needing to have fun. Never as somebody who’d do an impulsive, fanciful thing. One summer she did though. Pulled out my bootskates while I was at Y-Teen camp and decided to use our backyard driveway as a skating rink.

I could see that it might look like a good idea if you had a notion to go skating. The driveway was concrete. Sturdy. Relatively smooth and even. And it was a long driveway. Distance-wise, if you were walking briskly, it could take you thirty or forty seconds to get from the street entrance to the house. About eighty-five feet end to end, I’d say. And wide enough to let the kinds of large cars made before the advent of tiny VW “bugs” or compacts cruise on through with some room to spare on both sides. So. Plenty of room to skate your heart out if you had a mind to. And evidently, Mama did.

The thing was this: She wasn’t a skater. Really did not know how. And besides the balance thing that you need to master to successfully skate, which she had not, there was the risk of bones hitting concrete. Mama was not a spring chicken. By then, she’d have been in her late forties, I’d estimate…though she kept matters like her age close to her vest, under lock and key, you could say. Anyway, putting aside these matters, she set out and did okay at the outset… for a novice. Then something happened. Maybe a telltale bump, or a rise in the driveway concrete. Maybe a distraction. Maybe a case of overconfidence. Who knows? Whatever it was, she fell. And fell wrong. Fell wrong enough and hard enough to break her arm.

When I found out about the accident, I was put out with her. Upset that she’d done something “foolish” that had put her in harm’s way. And there was the other reason. The light bulb had come on over my head as it dawned on me that she could be injured…just like the rest of us…that she was a “real” human being who could bleed, break bones, and puncture organs. This was a realization that was, somehow, “new” to me. It didn’t sit well with me. Not one bit. Which was the reason I asked her, after I came home from camp, to tell me whatever possessed her to try to do such a thing. There was more than a little asperity in my tone as I asked. She heard it and just smiled…a secret kind of smile, I recall.

Then she said, “Sometimes, honey, it’s just fun to step out of character…doesn’t matter that I fell because it was fun.” And she turned on her heel, leaving me to think about that.

Family Album 8

2009-06-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

(Note: Auntie is pictured with Mama embracing her as they stand in the back yard of Auntie’s Alcoa home.)

On my mother’s side of the family, by the time I was born, there was only one relative: Annie E. Reynolds. Mama called her Sister. Daddy called her Mrs. Reynolds. I called her Auntie. Sometimes Auntie would come from Alcoa to babysit me at the Mee Street house, though I can’t imagine how my mother got her to do it since I was told, years later, by one of my no-relation aunts, Teri Lenoir, that Auntie didn’t like me.

According to Mama, Auntie, like Grandmama Lennon, had had two husbands, the second of which, I was given to understand, left her. He left her—Auntie said, repeating this mantra for years—because of my mother-- that is, because Auntie had to raise my mother after pledging that she’d do so to her own dying mother. I don’t know if I believe that he left her because of that. It sounds so extravagantly dramatic, that line. Dramatic and manipulative. It casts Annie Reynolds—a young Auntie—in a circa 1940’s Hollywood movie as an unselfish, sacrificing, noble woman who utters the line: I gave him up to raise you. Music up. Handkerchiefs out. Cut and print! This is just the kind of line that somebody would drop at the just the right time and in just the right situation to work a person. You know? And work Mama it did. On my mother’s lips, the line morphed into: “She gave up her marriage to raise me.” Mama used to repeat it a lot to justify why she went to such exhaustive lengths to please Auntie.

Auntie did not approve of wild things. But, according to my mother, she had been rather wild, as a young woman. Party girl? Auntie? I could never feature her as a party girl. For that matter, I could never feature her as a carefree, young woman. Because as I knew her, Auntie was heavy-duty into the kind of religion that requires you to endure life, rather than rejoice int it. I guess, by then, she had repented her "wayward party-girl life" and was doing penitence for it. She was Baptist, but she seemed more to me like the stricter type of denominations—all straight and narrow, all grim and granite hard. The in-your-face type of religious person that constantly screams: Repent! Or face the everlasting fires of hell!

I remember the first and the last time I went to church with Auntie. It happened because the person who ordinarily took Auntie to church couldn’t pick her up one Sunday. I had my driver's license, so I had to be in high school then, and Mama decided I’d have to drive over to Alcoa and take her to church that Sunday. Auntie was a Baptist. (Before Mama married Daddy, she was a Baptist, too.) That meant Auntie's church was different from mine. Way different, I soon discovered. Their style of worship service wasn’t what I was used to. My church was Methodist…bland and very, very quiet. Auntie’s church had a spicy flavor. And it was noisy by the standards I was used to. People were saying Amen left and right…talking out loud, responding with a happy liveliness to whatever was being said from the pulpit… whether it be the deacon’s announcements or the preacher’s prayer. At my church, you did not do that.

At my church, the choir sang very "White" Methodist anthems—not music to call up the spirit, nor to clap your hands to. Definitely not music to set your feet adancin’ that holy ghost dance. But here, at Auntie’s church, they moved, so to speak, to a different rhythm. Their music was a little "bluesy." Africa had stepped into the mix and changed things… from the vocal arrangements and the minor key of the melodies, right through the beat taken up by tambourines and piano.

That sunday, the music got people Amening, and rocking. I looked around at the sea of Black people moving like rippling ocean waves. I started to feel a little tense. And I wondered what was going to happen next. Just then, Auntie jumped up, screaming: Oh, Jeezus, have mercymercymercy!

Astonished, I looked over at this little old, white-haired, wild woman jerking and throwing her arms. My mouth, I’m sure, dropped open. For I’d never seen Auntie lose control. I’d never seen emotion sweep her up like a tornado and throw her about like a puppet. Women with nurse’s caps on their heads ran to her with fans and handkerchiefs in their hands. I scrambled out of the way, not wanting to be rolled over and mashed flat. Her shouting set it off. The whole church began to get the spirit and folks started shouting, moaning, screaming, and falling out in the aisles. Because I had no reference point for this kind of church service, for the meaning and history of this ritual in Black culture, the whole thing simply scared me to death. It was not until years and years later that I began to learn, to understand, and not be frightened by something that we Black folks brought across the ocean and cultivated, like precious seed, to see us through on our hard, soul-testing journey in the Americas.

Family Album 7

2009-05-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

Claire Marguerite Lovejoy Lennon (Sept. 24, 1902 – Aug. 18, 1992)

Aunt Claire and Uncle Matt couldn’t have children, but she was the kind of woman that kids and teenagers automatically fell in love with. A listener who always had time for you. Someone who explained things. Soft-spoken. Empathetic. Understanding. She was the kind you wished, when you were a teenager, that you could have as a mother when you’d messed up with your own for the third time and knew you were going down for it. In a time when folks were making Ma Bell rich with their long distance calling, Aunt Claire was an old-fashioned letter-writer. And a very good one. In another time—a later era, she might have tried her hand at writing as a profession. She used to write me very long letters when I was in high school and college. They got shorter as I got older, but letter writing was something she did all her life.

Aunt Claire was born in Warm Springs, Georgia. Her obituary says that she was one of four children and that her parents began their children’s education at home. Apparently they did so well that when Aunt Claire entered school at 6 ½, she was placed in the third grade. She started teaching when she was seventeen.

Like everybody else who taught school then, she was a product of “the normal school” which was set up specifically for public teacher education. After finishing it, you could teach right away. This kind of school is not to be confused with the colleges that existed in the late nineteen and early twentieth century for the upper classes (code words for rich White people); those colleges, by the way, looked down on normal schools as “poor relations”, so to speak, that educated teachers for the “common” or public schools which were for the “unrich” masses. Later Aunt Claire went on to college—Georgia State, Tuskeegee, and Atlanta University—because we all know Black folks have to do double or triple the amount White folks do, just to qualify.

By the time I was born, she was Superintendent at Allen High, a private school for girls. Later, she worked as an administrator at Palmer School, and later, still, she worked with the YWCA. Eventually, she went to Spelman College with Uncle Matt and served for a time as First Lady of the College since the President, at the time, had no wife to fill that role for the college.

I once saw a picture of Aunt Claire as a young girl and I have to say I didn’t recognize her at all. She looked like a White girl—a gorgeous White girl. That means, of course, that she could’ve passed if she’d wanted to. Obviously, she—like a whole lot of others who could’ve passed—didn’t want to. She told me about the time after Uncle Matt had died when she shared a cab with some White women also living at the same large retirement complex as she. They were all going to a concert in Asheville. Some of the women in the cab knew each other, but none of them knew her. On the way, a couple of them began talking about Black folks, making observations that were, to say the least, unflattering—and demeaning. Thinking they were all “one of a kind”, the silver-haired duennas pulled out all the stops, holding nothing back in their conversation, showing—in a manner of speaking—their true colors. Then, one of the old ladies turned and asked Aunt Claire what she thought. Aunt Claire opined that since she was Black, she thought…. Well, you can see where that went. They turned red and clamed up, mumbling some inane excuses and half-hearted apologies. She smiled to herself and proceeded to have herself a good ole time at the concert.

I tell you this story to show you that ladies of her day either decided to pass as White or they declared for Black. No half-stepping code words like “Biracial” to set themselves apart and tell the world they were light-skinned folks who could pass if they had the nerve to do it. No, sir. They didn’t live in the world of gray, being neither this, nor that. They were Colored folks—and damned proud of it.

Family Album 6

2009-05-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

Madison C. Benjamin Lennon (March 26, 1909 – Spring, 1976)

Uncle Matt held a distinctly romantic aura for me and I fell completely under his spell. I had heard from bits and pieces of grown-up conversation that he had been a road musician, that he had traveled “all over” as a member of a jazz band. I wonder now how a p.k.—preacher’s kid got away with that. It wasn’t a respectable occupation for Black folks in the 1920’s, 30’s, or 40’s.

Uncle Matt was born in Savannah, Georgia and grew up there as well as in Daytona Beach, Florida where he attended Bethune-Cookman High School which was later named Bethune-Cookman College (one of the historic Black colleges). His junior college years were at Morristown Junior College in Tennessee. Then came his discovery of his feel for music during the years at Wilberforce. He said that his major was Political Science and had planned to go into Law, but he got deeply involved with a band on campus and a love affair with the music muse was born. Uncle Matt told me that from 1930 to 1932, he was on the road with various jazz bands—the Chocolate Drops, for one, and Zack White’s Beau Brummels, for another. Later, I found out he was on the road for about three years immediately following his graduation from Ohio’s Wilberforce University. Marriage to Aunt Claire in 1933 soon put an end to musician’s road life.

He got his Master’s in music at Ohio State University and did further work at Columbia, U. of Wisconsin, U. of North Carolina. So he was well-rounded, variously experienced and definitely qualified to step into the classroom. His teaching life started in LaGrange, Georgia and eventually took him to Asheville, North Carolina in 1941. It was there that as Director of Bands, his bands at segregated Stephens-Lee High consistently made their mark as the state’s best marching-concert bands, often walking off with first place honors in competitions.

Asheville was a 3-hour drive from Knoxville over the Smokey Mountains so going over there was a treat that we did only so often. When we did go to visit Uncle Matt and Aunt Claire, my favorite aunt and uncle, I could see how the students loved him. They called him “Doc” Lennon there. He got a lot of respect, as did his band. Though I only got to watch his band a few times, a blind person could see that they were A-Number One; they could even beat Austin’s band with their unique marching style—which was a definite crowd pleaser. I remember that the drum line set a wicked beat and the drum major and majorettes behind him gave us a performance that had you clapping and hollering. I heard people often compare his band to the revered Florida A & M State (another historic Black college) that routinely turned out the very best in college marching bands—White or Black. After integration closed the doors of Stephens-Lee, Uncle Matt went to Atlanta to teach at Spellman College (yet another historic Black college) as Director of Instrumental Music from 1966 until he retired in 1973. After he retired, he organized and directed a rhythm band with Asheville Senior Citizens until he died. I think it was Asheville High School that established a music scholarship in his memory for deserving young musicians planning to go to college.

Uncle Madison was my music man. My Jazzy Boo. He was so cool. I do miss him.

Family Album 5

2009-05-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Avice Evans Lennon (December 4, 1905 – September 30, 1998)

Aunt Avice was Uncle Frank’s second wife, and he was her second husband. A year or two after he divorced Aunt Helen, which was around 1960, he and Avice got married. Aunt Avice was a professional woman in her own right—a pharmacist and business woman who owned College Drug Store on the West side of Knoxville, in Mechanicsville, just down the street a piece from Knoxville College, a Black college that dates from 1876. Actually, she was the first Black female pharmacist in Knoxville, having gotten her degree as a registered pharmacist from Xavier University in 1950.

I think Uncle Frank wanted to marry Aunt Avice because she was a I’ll-stand-by-you kind of woman. I don’t believe he was well and was probably looking for someone who’d see him through. Aunt Avice, unlike her predecessor, was an honorable woman who did just that with much compassion and love. After everybody in my family had died, the only relative I had left was Aunt Avice, who was living with her sister, Aunt Teenie (Armentine Pickett, one of my “no-relation aunts” from years back). I loved “The Aunts,” who, in their golden years, were good-looking women with snow white hair and a hearty sense of humor; they also happened to be super-sized, die-hard Laker fans. Once, I had baseball caps made up for them with sequined letters showing each of their names on the backside, and inscribed on the front with the words: “Laker Fan”. They wore the caps while they watched the games, yelling at the players, screaming in joy when one of them made a basket, and generally having such a good time that you’d have they were ringside at all the games.

Aunt Avice was the relative I came out to back in 1990. The others were dead by then. Most people who’ve read my book, The Mee Street Chronicles, want to know what she said once I phoned and told her the truth about my sexuality. In a syrupy southern accent, she said something like: “Why, honey, I don’t care about that.” During the same conversation, I told her I was getting married at my church in Los Angeles to a woman, and she replied in typical Knoxville fashion: “Is she a nice girl? If she is, then that’s all right.” They don’t make ‘em like Aunt Avice anymore. She was one of those Black Knoxville women with true grit. And true heart. She laid down to rest a bit at age 93. I hope she’s restin’ good.

Family Album 4

2009-05-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

Helen Mae White Lennon ( ? – 1970’s)

Aunt Helen was Uncle Frank’s first wife. She herself said that she was a great beauty when she married my uncle Frank. She dropped that bit of history, along with other tidbits one summer afternoon when she did an uncharacteristic thing by coming from her house next door to our house, sit outside and talk awhile with Daddy while he barbequed. I stayed still as a mouse so as to not miss a word as Aunt Helen recounted her escapades with Uncle Frank before they got married. Seems that there was some hanky-panky going on with Uncle Frank visiting her dorm room (she was a nursing student and he a doctoring student). That blew me away. I just couldn’t picture them together—roly-poly Aunt Helen and staid, passive Uncle Frank. Later on, I saw a photo (not the one posted here) picturing a very young Aunt Helen and she was, indeed, beautiful. The way Aunt Helen told it, she seduced Uncle Frank into marriage. She wasn’t preggers or anything, just made herself so irresistible that Uncle Frank was bound and determined to have her.

Aunt Helen was a drama queen, and an alcoholic. While she was alive, I really, really disliked her. Not because she was an alcoholic—or a drama queen. Really, it was because she always had a sneer about her. As if looking at you down her nose. As if you didn’t measure up. And worse, because you didn’t measure up, you became fair game for her to make fun of. Somebody for her to point at and laugh about. You know the kind that titters behind her hands with the others in her group. For sure, she liked to read you…up close and personal. But she had nerve, I’ll give her that. And she never lost it. Not even when Uncle Frank—tiring of her drinking, the endless parties in her kitchen, and her amorous escapades—finally threw her out. After which, the story goes, she found another man to marry that she thought had some money. Which she didn’t. And he thought she had some money. Well, turned out neither one had a crying dime. When Aunt Helen found out the truth, she divorced him faster than a New York minute. This, of course, was Aunt Helen’s version of what happened as she narrated it to me and Daddy the last time I ever saw her. She ended up living out her days in very modest circumstances, compared to the way she’d lived before. It didn’t humble her. She was a hellcat to the very end.

Family Album 3

2009-05-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

Edgar Frank Lennon (March 1, 1888 – 1966)

My mother named me after Uncle Frank who, being the family doctor, helped bring me into the world at Knoxville General Hospital. Uncle Frank was the firstborn of the three Lennon brothers, all born in March.

Uncle Frank was born in Bladenboro, North Carolina. He graduated from Morristown College in Morristown, Tennessee and finished Meharry Medical University in 1917 as a trained doctor. That was quite a feat for the times and the place where he lived. People forget that a college education was not generally available to the everyday person back then and for a Black man to find a way to become a doctor was a significant achievement. I say this not to brag but to pinch myself about what I’ve read about the times, the general lack of opportunities, the hard-ass road that Black people struggled to trudge in those times. The same year he graduated, Uncle Frank opened his office at 1011/2 West Vine Ave. in Knoxville.

Uncle Frank was a man who did good things. Remember that Black people could not go to the same hospitals or clinics as Whites and so, unless Black doctors had the resources to do so, Black people went without hospital medical care. In 1922, Uncle Frank bought a building, remodeled it, and opened, on Clinch Street, The Helen M. Lennon Hospital and nurse training school with twenty-five beds. I’m sure there’s a story in that. Unfortunately, I don’t know it. I have to wonder: Where did he get the money? How did he manage to buy property in Knoxville? White people would not, did not, sell property to Blacks back then. Which means a White man must have bought it for him on the Q.T. (quiet time). Who was he and what was their relationship? Why did he do that for Uncle Frank? After all, it would have been a risk for him to do that for a Black man. His community would have branded him a “nigger-lover” and made his life hell. Anyway.

When Knoxville General Hospital was built, Jim Crow was making the rules in the South about what Blacks could and could not do. One of the rules was that Black doctors were not permitted to treat and operate on their own patients who were admitted there, so Uncle Frank and other Black doctors led the legal fight that ultimately gave Black doctors the right to practice and operate in KGH’s Negro Unit. Finding that out about him shocked me because his demeanor was not that of a boat-rocker or freedom-fighter. He seemed to be a mild-mannered, quiet man. More of a traditionalist. You just never know about your relatives. When you’re a kid, you come up with these half-baked assumptions based on appearances, your feelings, on a bunch of who knows what.

Of the two sisters-in-law, Mama seemed to be his favorite. They appeared to be good friends—at least, she seemed to be his confidante. I remember many Sundays that, after he divorced Aunt Helen, he came to dinner at our house, and he and Mama would have long conversations while I was in the kitchen doing the dishes. Personally, I found Uncle Frank hard to know. Very reserved. Unlike Daddy or Uncle Matt, he didn’t seem approachable though he couldn’t have been more thoughtful of me… always giving me elaborate presents. But I never could really feel him. Even now, as I look at his picture, my impression is of a carefully shielded man. Or a man shut-down and unemotional. In the picture, Uncle Frank is expressionless. And that’s the way I remember his face. Never animated; just sort of flat, or impassive. And always unreadable. He looks perfectly respectable in the picture—middle-aged, wearing rimless spectacles, a white shirt with thin dark lines, a dark tie, and dark pin-striped suit. His skin is lighter than that of his two brothers…more like his mother’s, and he has her lips. It’s his eyes that are arresting. He’s looking away from the camera, seeing something in the distance, and his eyes tell you about sadness and loneliness. Did Aunt Helen’s partying do that? Or their son’s early and untimely death? I wonder.

Family Album 2

2009-04-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Paternal Grandparents

Martha J. Samuel Hunt Lennon (1869 - 1948)

My paternal grandmother was born in Georgia and became a teacher. This was no everyday feat for her time. Getting an education was a big accomplishment for Black people. We were just out of slavery, after all. The Klan was on the horizon; White Supremacy (the mother of racism) still beat in the bosom of White America, and the American South’s economic shambles (due to the Civil War) screamed for cheap (or free) labor. The threat of bondage (of one kind or another) loomed over the heads of many, if not all, Black people at the time of my grandparents. For a woman to get an education was gigantic achievement. Other factors aside, Black women—women in general didn’t strike out in the world to be independent and be self-supporting… do whatever they wanted, whatever fulfilled them. That time was yet to come. In the mid-1960’s to be exact.

I was told that she was married twice. My uncle Frank, the oldest of her three children, was the child by her first marriage and my father and my uncle Madison were her children by her second marriage. The second marriage was to George Henry Lennon, Sr. in 1906. They stayed married until he died in 1926. Grandmama outlived him by 22 years. But I only knew her for a too-short four.

Grandmama, I remember, was the color of macaroon cookies. I have a couple of pictures of her. One as a young woman, standing with my grandfather. When I look at the young woman picture, I can see a woman with Native American features. With piercing eyes and smooth, flawless skin. She has on no jewelry at all. But she is a beauty, no doubt, stylish with her long hair swept up into a pompadour, wearing a duster coat over a blouse with a high, lace neck. But mostly, I see I can see myself in her. I inherited her mouth, the full lower lip, via Daddy, her son. The other picture is Grandmama as I knew her. As an old woman. She stands, short, fragile-looking, in the yard of her house. She has on a print dress. She holds her hands, clasped together, in front of her. She is wearing glasses. When I look at that picture, I remember that she steadied me, calmed me. And I still feel her love.

Sometimes, I think I remember that my parents and I lived at Grandmama’s house before we moved into the Meet Street house. Her house, like an old-fashioned, Victorian gingerbread home, seemed to be clutching for dear life at the face of a steep hill. The street itself, either Church or Temple Street, was hilly like others in Knoxville, Tennessee. To reach the front door of her house, you had to climb endless, concrete steps that shot upward at what I thought was a vertical angle. I was afraid of those steps and I climbed them carefully, holding my mother’s hand, making sure not to look back and down, else I would surely fall and fall and fall down into the mouth of the earth.

The rooms weren’t big inside her home. And I remember the house being dark. Probably because light fixtures and lamps weren’t strategically placed as a regular part of a home’s floor plans like today. In the dining room, which had a fireplace like the parlor did, there were sparkling lead crystal objects and do-dads that teased my eyes; there was red and pink hand-painted china, and an all-glass china cabinet which Mama and Daddy inherited after Grandmama’s death. The tiny parlor had furniture that was dark cherry or black walnut. And there was a bay window, I remember, which faced the street. I loved that window, in fact, still love bay windows today simply because I associate them with Grandmama. There was no central heating then, so you had fire places in every room or pot-bellied stoves where you built a wood or a coal fire. In Grandmama’s house, the pot-bellied stove was in the kitchen. I remember her stoking the fire, shoving in kindling (wood sticks) and cautioning me to stay well clear of it. A few years ago, when I was awarded a writing fellowship to Hedgebrook Writer’s Residence, I had a pot-bellied stove in my cabin. Learning how to build and keep a fire going was a new, a fascinating experience for me. It reminded me of Grandmama’s house.

Two strong memories of Grandmama stand out in my mind. That I played in her kitchen though she never complained about me being under foot. If I close my eyes, I can see the pot-bellied, black stove in the middle of the floor and I can see, standing against one wall, her old-fashioned, white enamel stove…one that cooked food, not with gas or electricity, but with coal or was it wood? I can see her washing dishes at the sink by the back door. I associate her kitchen—and always will—with the smell of yeast that came from her homemade rolls baking in the oven. The other memory is seeing her at Sunday morning church services. That was when our church was East Vine Methodist Church. She always sat four rows from the front on the right side. I’d ask Mama if I could go sit with her. And having got permission, I’d run down the aisle from the back where Mama and I sat to scoot in and plop myself down next to her. She’d hug me, squeeze me. And I’d be content then. Just to be near her. She made me know I was someone very special and very precious to her. It is a feeling I have never forgotten.

George Henry Lennon, Sr. (1866-1926)

Born a year after the Civil War, my grandfather, Grandmama’s second husband, came into the world in Bladenboro, North Carolina. He was a Methodist minister. This meant that the family moved a lot because Methodist preachers traditionally never stayed very long at one church. I didn’t know my grandfather. He died well before I was born… before my parents’ marriage even.

I don’t know anything about him but there is a picture. It’s the one with Grandmama. They are young and looking straight into the camera’s eye. Neither is smiling, but they aren’t frowning either—rather they look intense and serious. Granddaddy’s is a dark-skinned man, sporting a moustache and wearing a dark, Edwardian style coat over a neat, white shirt and dark bow tie.

He holds his head just slightly titled to the right in posing for the camera… just the same as Daddy did when he posed for a photo… and as I do now. I have to consciously stop myself from doing the tilting thing when I pose for a picture. I always wondered where I got that habit from. Now, I know. I’ve got some of Grandaddy’s features, too. My eyelids, my hairy eye brows, my oval-shaped face, and my African broad nose. Looking at the picture gives me a sense of belonging to a tribe. I have some folks…some peeps!And I wonder what nations, what tribes of Africa birthed him…birthed us.

Family Album 1

2009-04-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Frankie E. Lennon

I came squalling into the world on a Tuesday, January 11, at 11:55 p.m. According to my godmother, Edna Arter, I was the only baby in the nursery who kept up a continuous, ungodly howling all night. I weighed in at 8 pounds and measured 18 ½ inches, had copper-colored hair, black-brown eyes, and yellow-brown skin. I didn’t wait long to discover my hands; maybe that’s the reason that I laughed aloud at the end of two months. Who knows? By the third month, I was holding my feet; and the next month, I turned over to check the lay of the land. At 9 months, I took step number one; and by 10 months, I was strolling right along with no help.

Before long, I found out that I was the only offspring of George H. and Mary Estelle Lennon. That my mother’s only living relative was her sister, Annie E. Reynolds. That I had two paternal uncles: Edgar Frank, (whom I was named for) married to Helen, and Madison C.B., married to Claire. And that I was the only evidence of family continuity. My only cousin, Uncle Frank’s son, had died before I was born. Nobody else had any children.

Growing up, I was in perpetual conflict with my last name. I never quite understood or accepted the depth of impact my father’s spectacular career as a high school coach had on Black people all over the south. For that day, time, and place, everybody knew my Daddy and Mama—even White people. It didn’t help any that Uncle Frank was high up on the visibility radar too as one of a handful of Black doctors in Knoxville. I found out early on that this last name I had inherited I was astonishingly well-known. This was not the kind of information that I greeted with relish because I could see I was going to have a hard row to hoe with that name branded on my forehead: No bubble gum chewing, no playing pranks, no cutting school, no fighting, no sassing teachers, no talking in church. I thought I was going to be condemned to a dull and boring life all because of my last name. What a pain!

The Book of Days II: Words Worth Heeding

2009-04-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

We only have the present moment. Here's how to make the most of 24 hours, according to an article in Bottom Line magazine.

1. Don't carry your "to-do" list in your head. Write it down. You can't remember everything.

2. Don't multi-task. It's stressful. Stress does not make for doing things well. It's really not efficient. As Confucius said, "A man who chases 2 rabbits, catches neither."

3. Slow down. Focus on 1 high priority at a time. Take your time. Your best thinking comes when you're focused and relaxed.

4. Get enough sleep. Research shows that productivity, clarity, alertness, judgment, creativity, memory, motivation, cheerfulness, relaxation all thrive on adequate sleep. All suffer when you don't get enough.

5. Do what you love. Make time for it. Even better, do it full time if you can. You deserve it.

The Retrospective Series- 3: Banging Our Own Drum, An Excerpt from "Banging Our Own Drum"

2009-04-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

Copyright 1978-All Rights Reserved

Author's Note: This is an excerpt from my first published writing. The editor asked me to write it for a community magazine when I was living in Evansville, Indiana. All the pieces published on my blog under "The Retrospective Series" are pieces I wrote years ago. You'll be able to tell when by the copyright dates.

Banging Our Own Drum

John W. Vandercook, in his book, Tom-Tom, said: "A race is like a man; until it uses its own talents, takes pride in its own history, loves its own memories, it can never fulfill itself completely."

Black people must explore and keep alive our own cultural heritage. This heritage must be passed on to our children so they, in turn, can pass it on to their children. It's been said that Culture is nothing if it's not communicated. By handing down our cultural traditions, we understand our common desires, values, strengths, fears, and hopes. We discover how much we share--our views about good and evil, what is just and what is unjust, what is sensible and what is ridiculous, what is valuable and must be guarded with care, what is vain or pompous and needs discarding...what moves us to joy or to grief, to laughter, to rage...what leaves us cold and unmoved... what fires us up.

Through our traditions, our cultural legacy, we find the key to our common identity and our humanity. We must pass our heritage on...because it is there that we find the image and reflection of ourselves. It is there that we find our history, our memories--which can lead us to self-love, rather than self-hate. It is there that we can find something denied and lost for so long: pride in being Black.

Writing Series: Fear of Creating/Writing

2009-04-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Fear of Writing/Creating: Finding Your Footing

"Walking in the dark is like writing. When I first came to Hedgebrook, I was afraid to go out after dark. I feared many things--bogeymen, monsters, some psycho with a grudge against women writers, even the other women who I thought might be psychos in disguise--but mostly, it was just not being able to see that bothered me.

"I wanted to confront my fear so after a while, I ventured out at night, first in a group and then by myself, wielding my flashlight as a weapon against the dark. I didn't go far from my cottage-- to the bathhouse and back again. One night I got very brave and turned off my flashlight. I stumbled at first, but then found my footing. I felt the gravel beneath me and I knew I was on the path. I followed it to the bend by the pond. Then I felt for the softness of grass. If I stepped on a bush, I knew I'd gone wrong, or, I was about to forge a new route home. I realized I'd become too reliant on seeing and less reliant on feeling.

"When I quit panicking, I knew the way. Just like when I'm writing, I have some instinctive sense of where I'm going even if I can't see beyond the blank screen. I've walked this path before. My imagination has gone ahead of me and charted the way. If I pause and listen, i can hear her footsteps on front, guiding me. If I listen even closer, I can hear other footstpes of the writers who have come before me and the writers, like you, who are still to come.

"We are not alone in the woods groping in the dark. We are wlking on paths that have been walked on a thousand times before. We are saying things for the first time that have been said a thousand times before."

from Hedgebrook Waterfall Journal #5, Lynn Dixon