Little Homies

Subria and Shiloh are the main characters in my novel, and they meet when they're in second grade. Kids are usually around seven-years-old in second grade. Dishon and I have been so blessed with Serena and Cairo. Watching their very special friendship develop over the past 14 years has been such a sweet journey, so when I'm writing about young Shiloh and Subria, these two are who I have in mind.

Dishon and I are both youngest children with a significant age gap between us and our older siblings, so we didn't have what these two have - ready made best friends. Until about five years ago, they shared a room, and even the rooms they're in now are connected by a crawl space. They were together in school for so long! First at Kindercare and then at Academic Fun Day Care Preschool when we still lived in Boston. Then they went on to Playgroup Plus when we moved to Randolph before transitioning to Thacher Montessori School (we were crushed when that financial aid ended. Their Montessori days were the best). They were together at Parkside Christian Academy in Boston and then started attending public school in Randolph when Dishon and I were no longer working in the city. When Serena went to middle school a few years later,  and Cairo stayed in elementary school in fifth grade, I think it may have been more traumatic for me because I was so used to them always being together.

They were back together for a couple of years in middle school, and this past year Serena has been at the high school, and Cairo is finishing middle school this year. They've even been kind of together this year since they're both in the Academy of Global Studies and Leadership, and that means that Cairo finishes his days at the high school for advanced classes. In the fall, we'll have two high schoolers, and they'll be together again for another two years until Serena leaves for college. It's crazy to think that this time is passing so quickly!

Before Serena and Cairo became teens, so many people cautioned us to enjoy them because, according to them, they'd turn into different people in a few years. This has been true, but not in the ways they meant. They have become different people - sweeter, funnier, more insightful, generous, thoughtful, spiritually mature and wise. Because of them, I continue to have a deep well of beautiful experiences from which to draw on for my own nostalgic purposes, and as inspiration for Subria and Shiloh. Being a mom is absolutely one of the best parts of who I am.

Exploring Characters: Shiloh

Shiloh looked in the brown paper bag that his mom left on the kitchen table and wasn't surprised to see that she had packed him a lunch filled with all of his favorite things - A sandwich (probably turkey with mayo, and not Miracle Whip like his dad liked to put on his sandwiches. What even was that?), a bag of Bon Ton potato chips, an apple, and one of those new Capri Sun fruit punch juice pouches. Shiloh hoped that she hadn't forgotten about the special treat he had asked for. He knew she was confused by his request, and hoped that she didn't think he was being greedy since she always packed his lunch for field trips so generously. At the bottom of the bag, he found a note that read, "Have a great day on top of the world, my sweet boy!" surrounded by smiley faces and hearts and a pack of watermelon Now and Laters, even though his flavor was Tropical Punch. 

The jingle of his dad's belt from his parents' bedroom told him that his dad was almost finished getting dressed. Shiloh would have gone and thanked his mom right away, except she had already left for work before he woke up. 

"You ready, Little Man?" Tony asked as he came out of the room and grabbed his keys from the hook near the door. Shiloh was the spitting image of his father - dark brown curly hair with ends that transitioned into a caramel color that matched his skin, dimpled cheeks, and a freckled nose. When Shiloh was older, they were sure to be mistaken as brothers instead of father and son.

"Yep," Shiloh said, grinning up at his dad, showing that the Tooth Fairy must've been a recent guest in their home. 

When it was time to get on the school bus to go to the World Trade Center with the other second graders, Shiloh was too nervous to sit next to her, even though the seat next to her was empty. 

He wasn't too scared to sit behind her while she was looking out of the window on the observation deck. Primus was his best friend, but he wanted to kill him. He couldn't believe that he called him a chicken in front of her. She didn't seem to care, though. 

Shiloh worked up the courage to sit next to her on the bus on the way back to school. She wasn't crying anymore, and he felt proud that he was able to help her feel better.  Thankfully Primus sat next to someone else and didn't bother them. They got back to school after all the other kids were gone, and he could see his father in front of the school waiting for him through the window as the bus approached the school. 

Just before the bus pulled up to the building, Shiloh took a deep breath, reached into his pocket and pulled out the pack of watermelon Now and Laters. 

"Here," he said, putting them in her hand. 

She looked up at him and smiled. "These are my favorite!"

"I know," he said. He grabbed his bag and yelled, "See you tomorrow!" over his shoulder as he ran off of the bus. Primus looked over at him, and Shiloh gave him a quick wave. He knew Primus had questions for him, but they'd have to wait until tomorrow.

"How was the trip, Little Man?" Shiloh's dad asked.

"Great!" he said, looking back to watch as she climbed down the bus stairs. It didn't look like anyone was there waiting for her, and his chest tightened a bit.

Shiloh liked to draw before going to sleep each night, but that night he wanted to write. Not much. One thing, just to see if it looked as pretty as it sounded. Typically, he rushed when he wrote, but this time he took his time with every letter. He didn't want to mistakenly write a "d" instead of a "b" as he sometimes did. S-u-b-r-i-a. He said it out loud - Soo-BREE-ah - and it sounded beautiful.

 

Happy Birthday, Afrika!

It's almost time for my birthday! April 18th. Sometimes I'm tempted to feel sad as my birthday approaches because of all the tragic things that have happened around this time of year.

April 15, 1912 - The Titanic Sank
April 4, 1968 - MLK Assassinated
April 19, 1993 - The Waco Siege
April 19, 1995 - The Oklahoma City Bombing
April 7, 1994 - The Rwandan Genocide Began
April 20, 1999 - Columbine Massacre
April 16, 2007 - Virginia Tech Mass Shooting
April 15, 2013 - The Boston Marathon Bombing

There's that, plus the fact that for several years, from the time I was 12 until I was 16, my birthday wasn't celebrated because my family belonged to a religious organization that believed it was vain to celebrate birthdays. I didn't have what other kids had. No bat-mitzvah, no rite of passage, no quinceanera. Even when there was a doctrinal shift, and birthdays weren't as frowned upon, my birthday sometimes fell during the Days of Unleavened Bread where we had to remove all leavening agents from our homes. That made having a birthday cake a challenge.

Before all of that happened, though, one of my favorite memories was my 9th birthday party. It was a slumber party where all my favorite friends and cousins came over to spend the night. My mom made me a Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man birthday cake, and a ton of homemade french fries - one of my favorite things to this day.  We had a grab bag for the guests, we listened to scary stories from Alfred Hitchcock and stories my dad told that caused so much delightful terror.  Nothing like a bunch of 9-year-old girls screaming and laughing.  I remember the Strawberry Shortcake dolls I got and the Vectrex game system my sister bought me (I still have that Vectrex, it still works, and I can still rock it!).

Why any religious group, despite all the Biblical and experiential evidence to the contrary, would choose to believe that God would be against us celebrating the day He blessed us with life in this world - the day we began our journey here - is beyond me. So with Serena and Cairo, we go out of our way to make every birthday special, and when Dishon turned 40, I threw him a massive surprise party beyond what I even thought I was capable of. Our presence in the world matters, and is worth all the confetti canons, songs, balloons, fireworks, joy and laughter we can imagine.

That's how I feel about my birthday. I have decided to take my birthday off from work each year if it falls on a week day. No matter what day of the week it falls on, though, I try my best to fill it with all the things I want to do. What I want to eat, drink, watch, where I want to go, or not go . . . it's my special day. In fact, all throughout the year, I yell out 4:18 when I see that time on the clock, because it reminds me that my presence in this world changed things for the better and it matters. I caught a Pokemon the other day with a CP of 418 (I think it's Bulbasaur), and I won't transfer it, power it up, or evolve it. I like that number. 

When I'm revising my novel, I want to think about what birthdays mean to the characters. Do they celebrate? Not celebrate? Look forward to it? Dread it? No matter how people perceive their birthdays, there is a passage of time that we can't avoid. We only live this earthly life once, and it's a precious gift. We should party like it's worth something big. Our unique journey around the sun. April18th, I hope you're ready for me, because I'm definitely ready for you 🎉🎁🎈🎆😉🎉. 

Where You're Not Supposed To Go

My dad tells me that one day he found me sitting in the window with my legs dangling outside. I think I was three. This was when we lived in the projects in Brownsville/East New York before moving to 201 Linden Boulevard in Flatbush. No one knows who opened the window. I was too small. My little hands couldn't manage it. Daddy crept up behind me slowly so he didn't startle me into falling. He grabbed me. Kept me safe. I shouldn't have been sitting there, but I was. I wonder what had captured my mind that day and called me to the window?


I guess all kids are drawn to the things they're not supposed to do, and the places they're not supposed to go. The signs say Keep Out!, and my mind wants to know Why? What don't you want me to see? What don't you want me to do? What don't you want me to know? Is that Adam and Eve's curiosity about the wrong tree pulling on me? Maybe. But what if it's not?

Imagine little eyes looking outside, wondering. Little hands up against windows curious about that space behind the buildings. The space I could see from the hallway window and my brother's bedroom, but couldn't get to because of the big, black, ornate locked gates. Back there where there were fire escapes. Back there where I could see my friend's window on the fourth floor of the B building from our apartment on the second floor of the C building. What was that back there? A handball wall? Seemed like a place to play, but why was the gate locked? Hmm. Little watching eyes figured out that it wasn't always locked. Sometimes they forgot and I'd go back there and run! Run the whole length of the block and hope there was another way out so I didn't have to go back where I came from. I saw the back of 179 and 221 Linden Boulevard, and even the apartment buildings on Lenox Road. I felt free and wild and scared and breathless. Lots of broken glass and trash, true, but man it was fun. Sometimes I was with other neighborhood kids. Sometimes it was just me. Just Afrika, as if the whole continent that is me could be "just" anything.

Always curious.

Always jumping over fences, even in Kaisha's building on Fenimore.

Going into Downstate Medical Center's student lounge, playing video games, throwing rocks, walking that road behind King's County Hospital, passing the J building where they kept the scary people. Buying Now and Laters, Swedish fish, lemon and chocolate chip cookies from the jar, Lemonheads, Alexander the Grape, Big Bol candy gum, candy cigarettes, Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies and that weird wax candy with the juice in the middle.

Saying goodbye to Fiona as she made the left turn on Nostrand Avenue toward where she stayed.  Wondering what new adventure the next day would bring. 

I love watching movies like Crooklyn and shows like The Get Down because they capture that New York City before gentrification changed everything. It'll always be like that in my mind even if it's not like that anymore. 

As I'm creating my characters, I'm wondering where are the places they'll end up because they wouldn't let anyone keep them boxed in? Most of the time when I write, my characters go to places I wish I had allowed myself to explore if I hadn't let other people draw borders in my mind - not let other people colonize Afrika. There's been far too much of that for far too long.

Festivals Like Home To Me

On this snowy first day of April, 2017, I find comfort in reminiscing about festivals in New York City - events that served as bookends to my summers for so many years.

Dance Africa - takes place during the Memorial Day weekend in the streets around the Brooklyn Academy of Music near the Atlantic Avenue train station. So much good food, Afrocentric books, kente and mud cloth, cowrie shells, incense, so many oils - Night Queen, Egyptian Musk, Coco Mango . . .

There have been so many times in my life that I've gone to stores and felt invisible - not enough books telling stories like mine, so many products designed for hair not like mine, clothes that didn't feel at home on my skin, smells that don't remind me of anyone close to me . . . but not at Dance Africa. The event carries my name and makes me want to move. The drums speak a language that is completely familiar to me.

Grant's Tomb

A little over a month later around July 4th, there was the African Street Festival at Boys and Girls
High School in Bed-Stuy, and a month after that was the festival at Grant's Tomb in Harlem. Harlem - where my parents come from. Same music, same laughter, same drums, same smells, same belonging.

Naturally, my novel takes places in Brooklyn. When I'm creating and recreating scenes, nostalgia will help me to transform the colors, sounds and smells that these wonderful memories give birth to into words.