Let's see, how to start. I guess I should say Hey Yall and welcome to my Blog! As long as blogs have been in existence and this is my very first foray into this area. Go figure. I've been a writer most of my life but have (up until recently) shied away from this kind of public writing. But, after all these years I finally decided, why not? Actually, it was at the behest of one of my friends, and a few others. Blogs always seemed like diaries, which let's face it, they kind of are. And I've never been good at keeping a diary. Something about having to write random thoughts down everyday. I remember my first diary. It was typically girly and frilly, and had the dates pre-printed at the top of the page for the entire year. I kept up with it for awhile, but soon I started to resent that some unknown person was guilting me into writing snipets of my life down on paper every single day. What if nothing happened? Or what if I just plain didn't feel like writing? The page was wasted then cause I couldn't write down things that happened on May 10, 1987 on the page designated for March 13, 1987. It just wouldn't seem right. How dare this random person dictate when and where I write about the daily ins and outs of my life? Who the hell are you? Thus ended my diary days. What I found much more liberating was journaling. Endless (not really but it sounds nicer that way) pages, devoid of dates and expectations. Write when the hell you're so inclined to do so. And I would. For years to come. I'd average five years per journal. All of college confined to one beautifully decorated Borders journal. So, if this is how I feel, why start a blog now you ask? Good question. Clearly, I flatter myself to think anyone other than myself and two friends will actually read this blog, but I digress. I guess I should take you back to the place where all things start. The beginning.
It all started October 15, 2009. In all honesty, it started long before then. Before January 2009. Somewhere in the early Spring of 2008, only no one knew it then. What it was, was a collection of cells that mutated and grew within the lining of a lung. And those mutated cells grew and grew inside this lung--this lung that twenty plus years before inhaled two and a half packs of cigarettes a week. This lung that had been free of those carcinogens for over twenty years. This lung that lived inside the body of my mother. She was diagnosed with Stage 3 Lung Cancer in January 2009, and those cells continued to fight her and she fought them. Though she was clearly seriously ill, she didn't look it for a long time. We still went to the movies, out to parties. As a matter of fact, just a month after her diagnosis, we went to my aunt and uncle's 50th Wedding Anniversary, and Mommy looked great. The only thing that really bothered her was that she couldn't drink--and if you knew my mother, you knew that was saying something. She loved to party even though she'd slowed down in her old age. At 61, she was the true embodiment of her generation. For whatever reason, Baby Boomers are bound and determined to fight the onslaught of old age, and will be the ones who don't "go gently into that good night". And she was no exception. Mommy was fun and vibrant, and full of life. Side bar--let's talk about that phrase "full of life" for a moment. I always found that to be a laughable saying. As you will discover the more I write and the more you read of me, I have a fascination, some may even say an obsession, with the news magazine show Dateline. I live by it. It's some damn good investigative journalism. I miss the days of Jane Pauly and Stone Phillips. I miss the Dateline Timeline where they would mention notable moments in history and give the audience a multiple choice of years to figure out when the incident occurred. Loved it. Got 'em right most of the time. I'm sort of an idiot savant when it comes to random entertainment information. But getting back to the phrase and Dateline--whenever they do a show about some unfortunate person being murdered or dying "before their time" (another phrase I find peculiar. If you die, isn't it your time?) their family and friends always say the person was "full of life". And I'd always wonder what the hell a person devoid of life looks like. Of course they're full of life, who the hell isn't? But when thinking of my mother, I understand the description better. There was just an enjoyment she had about her life. Sure she had her regrets and things could have been better for her in some respects. Did she wish her life had been different? In some ways, yeah. But she was also about enjoying the life she had. Loving my brother and me, and my grandparents, who were now her sole responsibility, being the only child of five left, and loving her niece and nephews--her sister's children. And Mommy was a fighter. If she was gonna go down, it wouldn't be without a fight. No matter what the situation. But cancer is a beast, and lung cancer is one of the biggest beasts in the room. I'm sure the subject will come up again as I continue to post, but for now, I'll skim this part. I will say that watching my mother go through this journey was very different from the way it's portrayed in movies and on television; in most aspects save one. That I'll keep to myself for now cause it's private. Just between us. Her journey came to an end on October 15, 2009, and though I didn't know it, mine was just beginning.
I've spent the intervening months between then and now spiraling down a drain of such deep emotional pain that I can't find the words to truly explain it. And even if I could, it wouldn't do the feeling justice. Mommy and I were incredibly close and her loss is a brutalizing shock to my system. Like being thrown suddenly into subzero arctic water. Or being plunged into eternal darkness where there once was glistening light and warmth. I imagine my life from this point forward as surviving a nuclear winter. Eventually, I determined it to be more like trying to eat food with a head cold. You know you're eating steak, but because you can't smell it, you can't adequately taste it either. Your mind tells you what it is and you think you can remember how it should taste, but your buds are muted and no matter what you do, steak just doesn't taste like steak.
I took a month off from my boring job and spent some time away from my home in New Jersey. I visited friends in Atlanta and family in Tennessee. I spent my first holiday, Thanksgiving, with my cousins in Nashville. And it was harder than I expected. I expected Christmas to be the holiday to mess me up. But Mommy once told me (if I'm remembering correctly, God I hope so) that Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday cause she liked being with family (and there weren't any gifts for her to wrap). She loved her family, even when, hell in spite of the fact that they also drove her up the freakin' wall. She loved all our crazy cousins, aunts and uncles. And it was there, sitting at my cousin's dining room table, that I realized I'd never taste her cooking again. Never taste my favorite dish of hers--candied sweet potatoes. And that I'd never gotten her recipe for them. So when I was in the guest room, I cried myself to sleep. But a month later, as I prepared to cook Christmas dinner for my brother and myself (my grandparents had been invited and accepted a dinner invitation to a friend's house) that I realized I already knew that recipe by heart, having watched her make it several times over the years. So I made her candied sweet potatoes, and you know what? They tasted just like hers--but hers were better.
So what does all this all have to do with the title ON THE ROAD? You (and by you I really mean me, cause let's face it, I'm probably the only one reading this) ask that at just the right moment. Months later, I found myself unemployed due to our new Republican governor and the massive budget cuts he made to the non-profit organization I worked for. Honestly, I asked to be laid off. My boss was going back and forth telling me one day she was gonna have to lay me off, and the next day that she would be able to keep me, and the day after that, that she wasn't sure of anything now and on and on. I was tired of the yo-yo and after talking it over with my friends and two more white people, I decided to ask her for the lay off, which she granted. I mention the thing about white people because as a black woman, I am not that comfortable with collecting a check and not working for it. Since the stigma exists that all of us are lazy anyway, and I wasn't raised that way, the perception of me being that way made and still makes me uncomfortable. But as my friends pointed out to me (one having done the very same thing before--both actually) my boss would probably be relieved to do this cause it would help her save some money she was desperately trying to hold onto. And hell, I paid for it anyway. Plus, even if I hadn't been laid off I was still going to have to move out of the townhouse I shared with Mommy and her deadbeat boyfriend, because without her income I couldn't afford the rent. So why struggle to hold onto a job that couldn't even meet my basic needs? And it was just a job, not a career. So I took the lay off and collected unemployment and felt freer than I'd ever felt. It wasn't until then that I realized I'd been holding my breath all of 2009. From start to finish that was the worst year of my life and I hadn't slept since January. Now unencumbered, I realized I went from being trapped with no options, to having an overabundance in a matter of days. Do I wish it had come at a much cheaper cost? Of course. But in a way, I think that was Mommy's last gift to me. A way of cutting me loose and helping me start my life. I only wish...well, yall know what I wish. I don't need to say.
So it hit me at 3am, as most of my brilliant ideas do...that I should take a road trip to investigate cities I wanna live in and check out the job markets there. Right away I honed in on the South, purely due to economics. My thought was, if I wind up with another underpaid job, I can stretch my pennies much further down there than in Jersey. And as I focused on the South, I zeroed in on my old stomping ground...Atlanta. Afterall, I lived there for seven years--four in college and three after. When I left, I always felt deep down that I would return. It's important for me to explain my affinity for Atlanta here cause some folks just don't get it and don't like it. I guess I understand that. But Atlanta's not just a series of buildings for me. The moment I stepped off the plane in 1994 as a prospective student set to tour the campus, it felt like home. I fell in love for the first time. And as I spent my college years there, I came into my own. Atlanta is the place where I got my shit together. I became a woman there. I became independent there, financially and otherwise. And in my mind's eye, Atlanta will always be that to me. And so at this time in my life as I struggle daily to keep it together, Atlanta called out to me like a beacon in a storm, and my homing device responded.
So here I am. I packed up my car the other day and have started on my Great American Southern Road Trip. Although I've planned on a place to call home, I still feel the need to travel to these other cities and explore all options. You never know. It'll be a combination vacation, job hunt all in one. Cause before I settle in someplace I need to know the essentials: where do the black folks live (being in the south I gotta know), where's the hood (you always need to know that), where can I get my hair done, where's the arts and culture side of town, and what does the job situation look like? I of course have an idea of what I wanna do. I want to put my two degrees to work. It's time they start earning me some money so that the money I pay Uncle Sam for his generous loans to me will make sense.
So, that's it. I don't know how exciting this trip will be, probably not very. Although, some yahoo set off the fire alarm in my hotel cause they were cooking steak and burned it. The fire department had to come out here to shut the damn thing off. Interestingly enough, no one other than myself looked alarmed. It could have been that I was caught off guard due to the fact that I was shaving my bikini area when it happened. I've never put pants on that quickly in my life! Naturally I grabbed the essentials before fleeing my room: my computer, computer cord, iPod, cell phone, sunglasses, purse, and car keys. Scoff if you must, but I tell you, I can't live without any of those things and if you're honest with yourself, you can't either. Till next time, lovers!
