Adventures of a Maverick Author 4: Teaching Mee Street

Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved

One of the advantages for a writer who is also a college professor is using your own book as text for a class. I’ve done that in my Sociology class and English classes several times since my book, The Mee Street Chronicles came out in February of 2007. It’s always an advantage and an adventure to find out what your reader-students have to say about your work. An adventure—a journey both scary and exhilarating. An advantage—a chance to learn things as a writer about my readers. What I’ve learned, thus far, on this journey with my book, is that I can never assume or predict anything about people. People are full of surprises. They are curious. They’ll ask all kinds of questions once they feel comfortable enough with me to do it. They tell me things about myself that I never realized consciously before. They love my stories. They respond to them with warmth, empathy, and good humor. With respect and with love.

The subtitle for my memoir is Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life. I think that it’s apt because the stories are straightforward, pull no punches, and truthfully tell it like it is—or was. The stories are “straight up”—no chaser. No mixer to dilute them. No cherries or fruity add-ons to soften the taste; no umbrellas or gimmicky decorations to pretty them up. You get what you get. Or, rather, you get what I lived.

I wrote these stories for those who are lost, who think they aren’t good enough, who are stymied by shame about who they are, who are struggling just to keep their heads up every day. I wrote my book for you—because I was lost. Because I was riddled with toxic shame about who I am. Because I never, ever thought I was good enough. Because I kept drowning in alcohol, in shame, in those voice-tapes that play on and on in my head. I wrote my book to tell you not to give up, to show you that lost or not you can find your path—that you can find your way. Apparently, my Freshmen English students got the message. And liked it enough to wax eloquent about my book. -end-

Erika Alatriste said:
“The Mee Street Chronicles is a great book. There are three parts to the book and they are all great in their own way. This book leaves you wanting more details, more stories, and more memories. My favorite story is “Fever.” It is full of passion, emotion, and is very descriptive. I really enjoyed it because everyone is aware of how men and women are in a relationship and how they first connect, but no one ever talks about same sex relationships. The narrator is very descriptive when it comes to the love of her life. The way the narrator described her love would make anyone fall in love. It is so romantic and leaves the reader wanting more. I would recommend anyone to read this book because it is one of those books that once you start reading you don’t want it to end.”

Marilyn Mata said:
“In my opinion, it is unusual for an author to write about her sexual orientation because society always pushes a heterosexual agenda. The author of The Mee Street Chronicles is truly an admirable woman who writes with honesty and bravery about her struggle with her sexual orientation, alcoholism, racism, social pressure and her working experiences in the field of AIDS. Mee Street has been the best book I have read in a long time. One of the things this book describes is how sexual identity discrimination was practiced a few decades ago in this society. In the story, “Predators,” a woman named Anita Bryant announced on national television that people who are homosexuals are recruiting children to become gay or lesbian. People are always searching for reasons to discriminate against homosexuality. Today, we also hear hateful comments against homosexuality. One of my classmates made an ignorant comment saying gay people should be forbidden to get married because homosexuality causes AIDS and that access to health care will decrease while insurance rates will increase. This, of course, is incorrect. AIDS is not a “homosexual disease.” Anyone can get it. This book opens people’s eyes about sexual orientation. It helps you realize that coming out of the closet is not easy, and how heterosexuals leave a mark on homosexuals.”

Grace Cha said:
“The unique quality of this book is that the events feel so tangible. After reading the story, one can almost say he or she experienced what the author had in the past. The book isn’t filled with superficial comments or ideas in order to put an image in front of the audience; it only gives you the honest truth about an individual. Before I opened up the book and began to read, I wondered what I could possibly learn from this book. Having read it, I believe that this book has taught me many things. This book is written by an incredible author who took that bold step and told her life story. I never knew anyone who is lesbian or gay and although I was never really against it, I also never knew the difficulties they faced or the hardships they have in life or all the hatred and pain caused merely because they are seen to be different. This book changed my life. It changed my views about everything in life. For example, I ask myself this question now when I catch myself judging others: Who are we to judge what the norm is and what goes against the norm? Because of reading about this individual’s life, I have become more aware of the issues that are in the world around me and I am less scared to come out and express my feelings. I can stand in a room full of people who disagree with my opinions and I won’t feel little or intimidated. Now, I’m not scared to be different or worried that I’m different from others.”


The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman's Life is available from http://www.amazon.com/ or from the publisher http://www.kerlak.com/

From the Evansville Notebooks: In the Boot Heel of Indiana

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Indiana, in the heart of the Midwest, is shaped like a boot. Bloomington, which is home to Indiana University, is up the road a piece from Evansville, which is at the southwestern quarter of the state: In its boot heel. Remembering Evansville is remembering summer. Summer and banana-cream sunrises. Summer gathering her oven-fired skirts around her as the heat begins to bake you even before morning barely begins. In my memory, Evansville will always be Willie Taylor’s barbeque, Bill’s homemade Chow Chow, Allen’s Lounge, The Paradise, Lincoln and Kentucky Avenues, the University of Evansville (first named Evansville College), Posey County melons, biting into a home-grown tomato, eating fresh-caught blue gills, stopping to watch barges and motor boats plow across the bosom of the Ohio River. Evansville will always be summer. Summer and cornfields roasting under August flame. Summer and vermillion sunsets. I landed in Evansville, which sits on a bend of the meandering Ohio River, after undergrad and grad school at Indiana University. Back then, in 1967, it was a retiring, mid-sized city where ten percent of the 200,000 population was Black. I remember there being one building that might have passed muster as a skyscraper—the Old National Bank, approximately twenty stories high. And there were three newspapers (I wrote a feature column for The Evansville Courier), one four-year college, an Indiana State University extension campus, one modest-sized museum, two exterior shopping centers, one small airport, one bus station, and no passenger train depot. You could drive in a couple of hours on two-lane highways to Louisville, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, Ohio, or to St. Louis, Missouri. If you wanted to go to Indianapolis, which is in the middle of the state, it would take a bit more drive time. The thing I remember right off about Evansville is that the streets there had German names that I couldn’t pronounce. (The spelling and pronunciation were quite foreign to me, being from the South and all where the names are quite vanilla-plain.) The original settlers that turned Evansville into more than just a river landing for trade goods were, I found out later, German, Irish, Jewish, and British immigrants. And that included, according to the history books, people on the run from war or famine or the law, people kicked out of Europe for being who they were, and poor folk trudging west to find a home.


When I first visited Evansville, in the mid sixties, I’d been invited for the weekend by a fellow student who’d lived there all of her life. As we drove into town that afternoon, I almost ran over Ron Glass (the actor) who leaped out into Lincoln Avenue (which was the main drag in the Black part of town) as if he had bumpers on his behind. He flagged us down and bounded over to the driver’s side of my car. He asked whose car we were riding in. Ron, a student himself at Evansville College, stared at me while I was being introduced, nodded his recognition of me, then proceeded to chatter away. At the time, I thought he was fiercely handsome, brash and a little overbearing. (When it comes to being brash and overbearing, I’d have to say it takes one to know one.) God only knows what he thought of me though we soon got to be friends. Of course that was before he graduated and left Evansville for the actor's life in New York and, eventually, in Los Angeles where he landed a starring role in the television series, “Barney Miller.”

Eventually, I ended up living in Evansville. The how and why of that is a tale for a winter’s eve around the fire. Suffice to say, for the moment, that the circumstances were messy. Full of high drama…which, for me, during those days, most likely meant I was running from something. I was. In fact, I was running from several things. All at the same time. And Evansville looked like a convenient hideout.

(I’ll let you in on just a few tidbits to keep you interested and tempt you to read more in Mee Street II when that book comes out in the future.)

By the time I got around to living in Evansville, I was out of graduate school, carrying a torch for a woman named Stacey, trying to find my balance, bewildered and lost because Mama had died and Daddy had remarried. (His new wife and I never saw eye to eye though that didn’t keep me from going home from time to time.)

I mention all this to say that by the time I stumbled out of graduate school, I was broken-hearted, grieving, rudderless, and entirely without focus or direction. My mother was no longer around to point me in a direction she thought I ought to go. Which meant that I was without the navigator I’d always depended on. The love of my life…the woman whom I had desperately wished to skip down the road of life with was now traveling a path that I could not follow. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I had gotten the requisite degrees. Now, something was supposed to happen. Something like living my life. Something like living happily ever after.

Something like getting a job. But what kind? Where? And how? While I was in my last semester of graduate school, somebody said something about a job referral bank on campus. I checked it out. There was a teaching position in Ohio at Wilberforce College and I had experience with teaching in college. I was teaching, while getting my Master's, as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the English Department at I.U.

So. Okay, I said to myself. I’ll apply. But I needed a resume. A soror helped me piece one together. We didn’t exactly know what we were doing and we didn’t know anybody to ask about these things but we muddled through. WE put it together and I mailed it off. Then, I waited. And waited. And waited. And started to panic. School was ending in sixty days and I didn’t have any place to go. Didn’t have a job.

My brain had gone into meltdown mode and I couldn’t figure out what to do. All I could think was that everyone I had loved had gone away from me. I didn’t know how to handle the emotions…the grief. They were raging inside me. Mama was dead. Stacey had kicked me to the curb. Daddy had married a woman who was…well, let’s just say he deserved better. (But I don't think he knew that.)

So I couldn’t go home. Wouldn’t.

Then, I visited Evansville. And while visiting that first time, I saw Evansville College. It was a nice little campus. Postage stamp small compared to the leviathan, Indiana University. It was suggested that I apply there for a teaching position. I did. They had absolutely no faculty or staff of color. And the pressure was on, by the late sixties, to hire a Black face. They hired mine. I became the first Black, full-time (but not tenure track) instructor there. They gave me a year to year contract. No security in the contract but I didn’t understand the ins and outs of all that anyway. I grabbed the offer.

And so began my deep, long sleep in a cave called Evansville, Indiana. A sleep that was full shadows and specters pale as death. A sleep always haunted by nightmares. A sleep that went on for fourteen-years.

(end)

Retrospective Series 2: Anthem

Copyright 1980- All Rights Reserved

Note: This piece was originally written and published in September 1980.

There is an ancient Greek myth about a monster called Medusa—who had snakes instead of hair growing from her head and whose face was so horrible, so terrifying, so repulsive that anyone who dared look upon it was instantly turned to stone.

That legend captures the way I used to feel about death. I’d always backed away in terror and dread from the Reaper. Thinking it an abomination. Thinking it a jeering, pitiless specter that mocked the very essence of life. I thought of death that way until the time that fast, black train boarded someone dearest to me in all the world.

When that happened, the ground under my feet shook and slid away…the bottom fell out. And I knew I had to confront the enigma of death, look it full in the face—because my life depended on it.

It has been said that death and life are twins born of yet unfathomed mysteries in the womb of time. Death and life, two sides of the same coin, bound together like beginnings and endings, a continuum whose parts cannot be separated.

A beginning for me was in 1967 when I came to Evansville, Indiana. At 23, I hardly knew anything of Black pain, Black survival, the Black streets. I understood nothing, then, of the Black, smiling faces masking festering wounds. Understood nothing of standing in unemployment lines stretching around the block; of dodging the rent man ‘cause you got laid off last week and the rent’s due today; of kissing up to Miss Ann at the Welfare Office for food stamps; of the ritual of last hired and first fired. Understood nothing of smashed hopes struggling to live anyway in back alley crap games; of the eternal dream of hitting the numbers for two thousand; of sudden violence waiting at the next corner; of Blue Monday at the joints—laughing to keep from crying, or fighting cause you’re too damn mean to cry; of searching for someone on Saturday night to please, God, give you hard loving and make the night sweet as blackberry wine. Understood nothing of what did I do to be so Black and Blue?

I had yet to taste, in those days, the bittersweet juices of living the Black life—and surviving. For I had not yet found myself trapped. I had yet to hear the underbelly of the blues whispering to me about the bitchiness of a lady called life and the odds of getting over with her. I had yet to come eyeball to eyeball with the truth: You live for today ‘cause tomorrow ain’t promised.

I understood none of these things when I came to Evansville. Nor had I found the precious legacy of Black folk which had been hidden away behind Hollywood mirrors, at the bottom of politicians’ trunks filled with smoky illusions, in the dusty, spider-webbed basements where historians had, fearfully, buried it. The paradox and genius—the essence, the spirit and legacy of ordinary, everyday Black folk had not been my teacher. And at 23, I did not understand it. Not then.

While he lived, Ronald Lee Johnson was, in a very real way, my mentor. Was a man who taught me, by his example, about the Black life. And now his death, though it seems a useless and wasteful one, is teaching me even more. Now, as I try to tally up the things, the events, the people who have influenced my life most deeply, changed it most profoundly—now, in all honesty, I have to admit that what has caused me pain and what has nurtured me must be given equal weight. Both are intertwined. Both are father and mother to the person that I am. For you cannot grow without pain and joy, without setbacks and encouragements, without endings—which are, in themselves, beginnings.

In the thirteen years I’ve lived in Evansville, I’ve seen the complexity, the toughness, the brilliance of the Black spirit. I’ve witnessed the courage, the laughter, and the tears—the resiliency that makes Black folks who they are. I understand, now, that the blues and the spirituals are not divorced from each other, but are one and the same: songs celebrating life. And I have finally seen that nothing is constant. Everything is risk. And perhaps our only hope in this life is sharing and giving love.

Sudden death is no stranger to Black folk, and my anthem is not the first written for a man who was gentle of spirit and who died before he could grow old. From the beginning, Black people learn to live on the cutting edge—with death lurking just beyond the shadows, with promise and despair hovering just above the head and heart. Our lives smolder with the possibilities of hope and despair. Our lives—like a splendid, but tattered cloth—are weaved of light and dark. Of dreams, needs, and disappointments. Of blemishes and of perfections. Our lives are shot through with gold and dross, with midnight tears and noonday laughter, with the copper taste of blood-pounding rage, and the sweet, night-smell of jasmine. Our lives are a testament to the circle of life, affirming its balance, its unity—recognizing no separation in the contradictions of life, recognizing that there are no beginnings without endings, no loving without hurting, no up without down, no life without death.

And so, now, I write a testament, an anthem to my friend who was a Black man. My friend who was of the light and dark. My friend who was a human being—indefinable, unpredictable, ambiguous, paradoxical—a man of tremendous complexity, just as we are. And like us, he was something of a mystery: bewildering, frightening, magical. A delightful tease. A salty pirate. An old-fashioned romantic. A man who tilted at windmills. A human being who saw his own shortcomings and who doubted himself.

Yet, perhaps one can fathom the mystery of a man through those who loved him through those who walked the lifelong miles beside him. Through those to whom he told his dreams. Through those to whom he gave the gift of himself.

For, in the end, it is not a man’s weaknesses, his transgressions, or his faltering steps that he is judged by. A man is judged by those whose lives he touched… and who grew because of it.
(end)

Love Song V: Conjurer

Conjurer

Copyright 2007- All Rights Reserved

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: IV - Sea Change: Summer of 2007

Sea Change: Summer of 2007
Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

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: Empath (for ND)

Love Song III: Empath (for N.D.)

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

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 II: Pied Piper

Copyright 2007 – All Rights Reserved



ain’t no turnin back now.

you
beckoned

you
summoned

you compelled me

to follow you...to 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

you
cued me

you
figured out how to get me

and here I am
standing center stage
with no lines
with 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 I: Lyric 2 (To Stacey)

Copyright 2007 – All Rights Reserved


Lyric 2
(To Stacey)


play goodbye
frankie

drop
a coin or two in the box
and

say
goodbye

play it now
frankie

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

you
have to

say
play
goodbye

no
you never
wanted
to say it
but

play it
now

while evening dusk
fades
into
night
so lonely so blue


play it
now

while she haunts
the heart
the soul
of
you

play your last
frankie

the die is cast
frankie

go on
say

your
last goodbye

and soon

god please
make it soon

soon

you won’t
remember

soon

you won’t
forget

soon

you won’t
hear
the sounds
of
her
spinning
round in your head
the sounds of her
spinning
round


go on
drop a coin
frankie

then
you can
forget

the lyric

yes
drop a coin
so you can
forget

the melody

drop a coin
so you won’t
forget

the song of her

say it
say
goodbye

because
you will never
ever
play it

because
you could never
ever
say

never
tell her

goodbye.


8/28/07

Meditations IV: Why I Have to/Want to Go to A.A. Meetings

The meetings are a gathering…a place I go to see and hear and talk to people like me. That they are like me connects us because we all suffer from an illness that’s about brokenness, not being whole and healthy. It’s an illness that’s physical (the craving that starts when you practice whatever the addiction because you put the thing you’re “allergic” to into your body); it’s mental (your mind is obsessed with the desire to change your mood with whatever substance or means you use to get the mood change) and it’s spiritual (because you haven’t or don’t know how to connect to something greater than you and so there’s a void/emptiness that you try to fill with the addiction). This illness, ironically, connects us. We all have the disease that can make you well, so to speak.

If you are in recovery and working the program, the illness can put you on a path to wellness. That path requires that I do certain things: work the steps, go to meetings which is the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, be “of service” to others, find someone to talk to that I can trust and respect (a friend or friends in the program or a sponsor who have ethical standards and healthy moral values; for newcomers that person is your sponsor who takes you through the steps and listens to your craziness with a sense of empathy and helps you find balance).

Going to a meeting is putting yourself in a gathering (around a campfire, so to speak) where you hear stories (from the podium or around the table and after the meeting) that keep you courageous enough to live your life without picking up. Where you hear stories that give you hope and faith because you see others living a changed life, approaching life in a different way w/o alcohol (doing things like…. letting go of the need/urge to control and letting God do things in God’s time, or like…relying on a power greater than ourselves to get us through whatever the trouble is or the problem might be). Where you hear stories that teach you, by example, that you can use different ways/coping skills or “tools of the program” (the steps are the basic tools) to keep going w/o drinking …whether times are good (because we drank when times were good) or whether times are bad (and for sure we drank over the bad times).

Going to meetings reminds us that we are bonded…a family of sorts, ragtag as we may be. We are bonded because sobriety is a journey, a process, something never ending. Something that all of us walk in/toward/through every day. When we go and feel that bonding taking place through the stories we hear, we stop wanting to hide, to be secretive, to isolate, to listen to and follow the ideas that come from the craziness of our disease (the committee, the monkeys, etc.). When we go, we feel safe and secure. We know we’re in a place where we are not judged. Where there are others who’ve done the same things or worse than we’ve done (and still do them sometimes). So we don’t feel that debilitating sense of shame anymore that sent us right back to the bottle and that drunk/drinking cycle.

AA is much more, at bottom, than staying stopped from drinking; it’s really about change. Which boils down to a shift in your values, attitudes and behaviors…how you do it differently, that is, approach the bumps in life’s road, the obstacles, the disappointments, the happy times, successes, all of the things life throws at you. And because I want to embrace change and not run from it anymore, I go because I can find out from other people sharing how to do that. I go there and I hear people like me talk about how to grow up, how to live without a crutch, how to make peace with who I am, how to be a better me. We help each other learn how to live. We’re not alone and struggling or suffering anymore.

And so, I go to learn how to live. I go to learn how to put away my old coping skills that are of no use now and are, in fact, toxic. I go to learn how to use new coping tools (the steps) in my every day life. I go to learn how to change for a happier, healthy, better life. I go there because I’ve earned my seat and nobody can put me out. It’s my place. It’s where I belong. And all my life I’ve looked for a place to belong, for a sense of belonging. A place where I’m accepted with all my flaws—because of my flaws, in fact. I go there because it’s a sanctuary. A respite from a crazed world that seeks to make me as crazy and confused as it is.

I go because God gave me back my life and since I have been graced with recovery, I go and tell my stories to I give back.

L.A. Observations Series -2 : Gardens

Copyright 2007- All Rights Reserved


I just finished watering my garden. That’s one of the things I love doing. Besides the delight of getting to stare at the greens, reds, and purples that make the primary colors of my garden, when I water, I get an added bonus. The water releases the oxygen stored in the flowers and plants so that when I get a whiff of it, I get put into this mellowed out, peacefully happy frame of mind. Which was a state of mind I tried to find when I was drinking and never could.

Today, while I was out there, an orange and black butterfly of intricate design and delicacy came by for a visit. I was glad to see it. Besides being lovely to look at, butterflies pollinate plants. We need them to do their job to get our food and to keep the plants and flowers going. Problem is, they’re not coming out in numbers anymore. Because of climate changes and the effects of global warming, they say the butterfly population is decreasing. Dying out, they mean. And I’ve been worried about that. So I was fascinated to see the lone butterfly today. I don’t see them often at all anymore.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1981, the first thing I noticed was the beautiful gardens everywhere. A rainbow of flowers lavishly landscaped in the yards, oleander shrubs waving pink and rose and white blossoms at you as you drove the freeways, the white yucca blossoms of the desert, or the huge beaver tail cacti sprouting yellow or pink spikey flowers…it was all so lush to me. So beautiful against the background of Santa Monica mountains tipped with snow. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

People in Los Angeles love to garden, I think. My neighbor is a container gardener; she has a jillion plants in pots of every hue and shape. Down the street, there's another neighbor whose front yard is devoted to herbal plants grown hugely gorgeous; their exotic smell draws me every time I pass. I can never resist poking my nose into their fragrant branches. Several blocks away from my apartment, at the residence apartment building for seniors, I see pots and pots of flowers and shrubs on the small patios outside of their living rooms. And I stop by to peek at the flourishing garden some of the seniors keep outside the building. It overflows every summer with yellow squash vines running here and there, green onions, red lettuces, green beans, cherry tomatoes, and a whole lot more plants that I can’t name. I envy the gardeners their green thumbs.

Some would say I have one, too…a green thumb, I mean. Maybe, I do. I never knew one way or another until I got sober and started putting that energy and time into planting and digging that I used to put into drinking. (I had to do something. My engine was revving like mad when I was newly sober. Nature abhors a void, you know.) I think I put in about 8 gardens or more in various spots in the yard where I used to live. Suffice to say, I was forever digging. I had white and red and lavender and pink roses. I had white jasmine trailing through the branches of a pine tree. I had lemon trees, walnut trees, fig trees, apple trees, blackberry vines. In containers, I had red, rose, peach impatiens, geranium angel winged pink begonia, purple lobelia, and whatever other gorgeously-colored flower I could find.

Color, you see, is my weakness. Something about how my eyes are drawn to the light. Something about how my eyes love how light reflects from some objects and absorbs from others to illuminate and paint a palate of primary, secondary, and complementary colors…what we call the color spectrum of reds, greens, blues, yellows, and magentas. Gardens show me a color spectrum so gorgeous that sometimes I just get filled up. They do something really, really good for my soul.

I saw two particularly beautiful public gardens just lately at the Fullerton Arboretum (http://www.arboretum.fullerton.edu/), a most relaxing and beautiful place where they have desert and water-wise plants, ducks waddling and wading all over the place. The other was the South Coast Botanic Garden where they have gardens specifically devoted to titillating our sense of smell and our touch sense, and where you can buy the most lusciously beautiful plants for little or nothing (http://www.southcoastbotanicgarden.org/). Do yourself a favor and find a garden to meander through. You won’t regret it.

Original Myths I- Clouds

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Clouds- An Original Myth

1. No Rain



Long ago—before the White Man came to North America—before we told the stories of The People around campfires—before we made our way down from the snow-capped mountains and green forests to make our home here on the plains in the Shining Sun Place—long, long ago—before remembering time, a ragtag band of disgruntled and unhappy animals, birds, insects, and fish gathered at the Mohave Desert in council to talk of their desperate situation.

It was very hot. Hotter than it had ever been to everyone’s recollection. The sun beat down relentlessly, burning everyone’s skin, fur, scales, and feathers. It felt like an furnace; waves of incandescent heat rose in the air.

“This,” Turtle said, “will not do. It’s too hot….”

“And dry!” interrupted Spider who was attempting to weave a web that kept breaking for lack of moisture.

“It’s dusty! I need water!” moaned Walrus, who liked sand, but needed surf as well.

“Where is the water? We need water!” shouted Frog, hopping about in a fury.

“We have no water because there is no rain,” groaned Panda. As he shook his big, white furry head, he blinked sad-looking eyes encircled with black fur. Panda was worried because he lives in the rain forest. But there was no forest because there was no rain.

“Without rain, no trees will grow and sprout branches for me to land on when I’m tired of flying,” said Robin with a fair amount of alarm.

“Without water, there will be no flowers to pollinate,” exclaimed Butterfly. “What is the Red Goddess thinking? I cannot be expected to do miracles. That is her department!” She was a bit of a diva—very fussy and pompous.

“Oh, my! Without rain, no lakes will form for me to bathe in,” squeaked Hippopotamus in a frightened voice. She needed water for her health and to relieve her from the heat.

“This is a disaster! Without rain, there won’t be rivers and oceans for me to swim in,” cried Fish, who had panicked because she had to use her fins to walk around on and they were pretty bruised and swollen since fins are not made for walking.

“But why isn’t there any rain?” roared Lion, “I demand to know right now!”

Everyone fell quiet, some thinking about the question, but most just quaking with fear at Lion’s roaring. No one wanted to cross Lion. If he were in a snit, he would just as soon eat you as not. And nobody wanted to be eaten just because Lion was in a bad mood. Everyone stayed quiet while the sun shined like a gold coin in a sky of pure, unadulterated blue. No clouds floated across this bluest of blue skies, only the sun was there, a ball of fire endlessly scorching the earth.

Monkey kept staring up at the blue sky, shading his eyes with his paws. Finally, he broke the silence. “There’s no rain because there are no clouds,” announced Monkey with a flourish. Monkey was proud of his ability to reason things out and he liked to show off his intellectual skills to his peers so they would know that he was far from being an idiot even though some of them assumed he was.

“You’re right, of course,” agreed Mistress Falcon, one of the wisest of the council. “Raindrops form in clouds and there aren’t any for that to happen.”

A general murmuring went round the group. This was the fault of the Red Goddess. She had created the land. It was too hot and she should be the one to change it. But the Red Goddess was quite proud of her handiwork. And her temper was legendary. Nobody wanted to offend her.

“Who will tell the Red Goddess?” asked Falcon.

“You, Mistress Falcon,” said Turtle.

The crowd agreed. Lion took the floor. “You must go and speak to Red Earth Woman, the Red Goddess, of this immediately.”

“You must do it delicately, without offending her,” offered Turtle, ever the diplomat.

Butterfly was not to be outdone by Turtle or by Lion ordering folks around. She didn’t care if Lion was claiming to be the king of the jungle. Her pollinating job was more important. Everybody knew that. Besides that, there was no jungle. At least not yet. Of course, there weren’t any flowers to pollinate yet either, but Butterfly chose to ignore that. “The Red Goddess is at her sister’s sky lodge. You must fly there right away,” insisted Butterfly.

“I will be the one to speak for us,” Falcon said, “if everyone agrees that I should.”

When the council affirmed Falcon as their choice with shouts and cries, she flapped her wings and took off, gliding up, up, up on the air currents, intent on carrying out the council's urgent mission.




2. Two Goddesses




Sacred Sky and Red Earth Woman were sister goddesses. Each sister looked different but both were regal: Red Earth, striking in her flame-colored buckskin threaded with gold, her black hair woven into elaborate braids; Sky, the ebony-skinned Blue Goddess with soft, corkscrew, graying curls, was magnificent in blue buckskin threaded with silver. Both goddesses carried out certain important duties.


Sky tended Sun’s eternal fire all day, throwing cedar onto the logs from her buffalo pouch, fanning the fire with a huge fan of eagle tail feathers. Sometimes, when Sun became tired and out of sorts from endlessly traveling east to west every day, Sacred Sky would entertain him by beating the sacred ceremonial drum and singing Sun’s favorite songs.


Her younger sister, the copper-skinned Red Earth Woman, had an equally important but, perhaps, more creative job. As the earth goddess, it was she who created earth’s magnificent landscapes. With her fingertips, she’d stirred the magma beneath earth’s mantle to bring forth temperamental, hot-spirited volcanoes in the Ring of Fire, like Lassen Peak and Mt. St. Helen’s. With her red shield, she’d uplifted the majestic La Sal Mountains and its sister peaks, the Colorado Rockies. Later, the goddess walked around, stomping her feet here and there, crushing the red earth into the Coral Pink, the Rainbow, and The Great Sand Dunes. In some places, because it pleased her to do so, she’d used the arrowhead to sculpt and chisel the red rock land, on various continents, into wondrous-looking rock formations—mountains, buttes, arches, cylinders, hoodoos, and pinnacles—that pointed at the sky.


The Red Goddess was quite proud of her work and she liked to brag about it, from time to time, to her sister when she went to visit Sky. Today, as the two sisters sat chatting in the lodge of Sacred Sky, they were smoking the sacred pipe of universal peace, harmony, and balance; smoke rings escaped from the top of the tipi as they visited with each other.


Mistress Falcon, now on her urgent mission, flew higher and higher into the sky. She looked down at the council, but could hardly see them as she went up and up. Soon they disappeared, along with the red earth. Falcon had never seen the lodge of Sacred Sky, but she’d heard of it from her sisters, the eagles and hawks; she knew it stood in a high and remote part of the sky where only the mighty birds whose wings could carry them higher than high might find it.


Falcon was a bit worried about her mission. She had to be very careful about how she would present the problem of no rain, and the need for clouds to Red Earth Woman. Falcon would have to present herself and the council as her subjects who needed the wisdom and power of the mighty Red Goddess. Falcon could not afford to let slip a hint of slander of against the Goddess’ handiwork. If she did, all would be lost.


Falcon remembered the famous story of what had happened because of the goddess’ anger at being defamed. Once, at a banquet for the gods and goddesses, Moon, the Silver Goddess, had pulled aside one of the astral goddesses that drifted in Moon's wake to say, in a loud whisper: “My dear, those Ring of Fire volcanoes created by Red Earth Woman are verrry dangerous and sooo unnecessary. Their fiery creation represents the kind of monumental vanity that only lesser goddesses need to indulge in, don’t you agree?”


The Red Goddess had been infuriated by the comment. To keep her from hurling herself at Moon in a fit of rage, Sun had to step in and calm the situation. Furious, the Red Goddess stomped out of the banquet. Overwhelmed by anger at Moon, Red Earth Woman had slammed her fist into the red earth of the North American continent, gouging out a gorge so huge, so deep, so wide that it was known by all as the legendary Grand Canyon.


Yes, Mistress Falcon would be very careful with her words in speaking to the Goddess. Flapping her wings, Falcon went further and further up into the blue, looking for the lodge of Sacred Sky. Finally, her sharp eyes spotted a wondrous-looking tipi made of white buffalo hides, sewn with threads of silver, and decorated with quillwork, blue-green turquoise, and white abalone shells. Smoke rings floated from the top of it. That magnificent lodge, Falcon concluded, could only belong to the Blue Goddess. Following the trail of smoke rings, she flew directly toward it.





3. An Urgent Mission



Inside the tipi, Sacred Sky was smoking the sacred pipe while Red Goddess fanned the fire’s embers. Just as they finished, they heard wings flapping outside the lodge.


“If you please, Red Goddess,” said Falcon a bit nervously, “I have come on an urgent mission. Please, a moment of your time.”


The Red Goddess stepped out of the tipi and extended her arm; Falcon landed on the goddess’ arm gracefully, dipping her white feathered head in supplication. Falcon folded her beautiful brown-tipped wings and began her petition. “My Goddess, it is without question that your creations on earth are magnificent to behold. Every creature is awestruck by your wondrous inventions. We speak of them every day. What imagination! What talent!”


The Red Goddesss smiled broadly, enjoying the flattery she felt she so richly deserved. Her subjects appreciated her but some of her peers were woefully short of compliments when it came to praising what she had done for earth’s beauty.


Falcon continued. “There is one thing, however. Your subjects beg you to consider adorning the earth with luscious flowers of every hue and green plants that would grow into trees with branches for birds to nest and rest in. And if, my goddess, you could create water in streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans—”


Falcon broke off her litany because could see that, as she spoke, Red Earth Woman had begun to smolder. Her black hair had turned a deep auburn shade, like embers in a fire. Her copper skin had become as red as a cardinal’s feathers. And her eyes had turned into deep pits of golden flame. “Are you criticizing my work, Mistress Falcon?” The goddess asked in a dangerous tone of voice. “Do you dare to tell me how to create, what to include, and why I should alter a caliber of artistic work that has no equal in the universe?”


Aware that she had stumbled onto shaky ground so to speak, Falcon back pedaled to clean up any statements that had offended Red Earth Woman. “Of course not, my goddess. Nothing could be further from my mind. Your work is beauty beyond compare. I only meant that Moon and the other goddesses would be green with envy if you created some brilliant additions with water.”


Falcon peered at the goddess to see if her diplomacy was working. It was. Red Earth Woman had boiled down to a simmer. And she seemed to be listening to Falcon’s words. Falcon said: “The goddess, Moon, would be quite outdone if you created a restless, surging ocean. Certainly, it would be sweet revenge if you made sure Moon would not be able to resist the ocean’s tide…that she would be attracted to it and it to her, like lovers drawn by each other but unable to fulfill their longings.” Falcon glanced at the goddess. Her interest had perked up considerably.


Thinking it over, Red Earth said, “Yes, I can see your point, but how could I keep replenishing the water in the oceans?”


Falcon whispered one word into the goddess’ ear. “Rain.” “Rain? But where do I get this…this thing you call rain?” She asked, a frown creasing her brow. “You must create it,” Falcon prompted. Still puzzled, but not wanting to show it, the goddess murmured, “Ah, yes, but how do I do that?”


“Clouds,” Falcon said. “You’ll need to create clouds that make rain.”


Red Goddess smiled brightly, the red aura around her head pulsating with excitement. “Of course. So simple. I will use my creative powers once more to design these clouds.” She quickly stuck her head inside the tipi and told her sister, “I must get back to work. I have to create clouds so I can get rain for my earth.” Before Sky could reply, Red Earth Woman was gone in a wink.


Back on earth, Red Earth Woman contemplated the desert landscape of black, red, yellow, and pink sand dunes rising up around her. The council members gathered at a respectful distance. The goddess didn’t mind; she liked to show off her talents before a crowd. Falcon swooped down and landed on her shoulder.


Red Earth Woman had begun to rely on Falcon’s advice although she would never admit it. “Now, where shall I put these clouds, Mistress Falcon, in the middle of The Rockies, at the bottom of The Grand Canyon, or ---?”


“In the sky, my goddess. They should be above the earth, not on it.”


Red Earth Woman frowned. “Are you sure? The sky is really my sister’s specialty, but… all right, I’ll begin right away.” Tapping her index finger on her lips, she mused, “I think I’ll use sand from the dunes. There’s more than enough here to make clouds for the sky.”


And so saying, she pursed her lips and blew. The goddess’ breath lifted up a veil of sand that rose up into the sky. Her breath became blowing wind gales and the sand twisted and turned, rose higher, and got thicker, blocking out all sunlight. The council members standing at a distance were blown about. Lion was almost buried by the whirling sand; Panda and Hippopotamus were tossed about like leaves—that is, if there had been trees with leaves to toss about. Soon, a ferocious sandstorm swept over the land, but it did not stay up in the sky to become clouds, Red Earth Woman noted.


After thirty minutes or so, the goddess stopped the storm, having surmised that her plan was not working. Though she said nothing, Falcon observed that she did not look pleased. She obviously was not used to failure. “Perhaps I took the wrong approach; this time,” she announced, “I will use the earth’s minerals to make clouds.” So saying, she strode off to the La Sal Mountains and used her red shield to dig deep into the earth’s crust where she brought forth red sandstone encrusted with turquoise and pyrite, shiny chunks of quartz, and clusters of sparkling diamonds.


She scooped them up and tossed them into the sky, expecting that they would stay there. Of course, they did not, for they were too heavy. As fast as she threw them up, they all dropped back to earth, thudding down on the heads of the council members who tried their best to scramble out of the way. Turtle, the slowest of the group, was struck several times before he could take cover.


This plan was not succeeding either, it appeared and, finally, Red Earth Woman stopped, concluding with more than a little annoyance that the diamonds and other minerals would not stay put in the sky. “Mistress Falcon!” Red Earth Woman shouted. “This is not going well!” The goddess was out of sorts because of the two failures; obviously, her temper was getting the better of her. Having shouted her angry displeasure, she stomped away, her feet hewing out gorges and valleys as she went. At the entrance to her tipi, she turned and gave Falcon a nasty look.



4. The Quest




Falcon dropped her head, taking the blame and brunt of the goddess’ temper. After the goddess disappeared inside the tipi, Falcon considered the situation. She could not give up. Her mission was too important. The goddess had to continue her quest. But how to get her to do that? Falcon thought about what she knew of Red Earth Woman. The goddess was the most brilliant and creative of all the goddesses. Falcon thought of the ferociously awesome volcanoes in the Ring of Fire that Red Earth Woman had created, the shining beauty of the La Sal Mountains, the curiously compelling hoodoos, arches, and pinnacles that dotted the landscape of Red Rock Country. It was said that earth was a most wondrous place because of her sense of originality, symmetry, composition, and convergence.


Yes, Falcon thought, Red Earth Woman was a resplendent goddess with awesome powers. Proud of what she had created… and, some might say, vain. Quite susceptible, if rumor was to be believed, to adulation. If one could believe goddesses had weaknesses, one might surmise that The Red Goddess’ weakness was to be found in flattery. It might be the key, Falcon concluded, to getting the goddess to come back and try again.


Falcon flew near the tipi’s entrance, careful not to invade the goddess’ privacy. Then she spoke, “My goddess, I beg you to listen to me. Your designs are so splendid. So unique. No one can match your sense of originality, beauty, harmony.” Falcon paused, but the goddess did not stir, nor did she say a word.


Still pouting, Falcon thought. She hovered closer, studying Red Earth Woman’s tipi. It was made of soft brown deer hides, sewn together with copper threads; the hides were studded with chunks of amber, rubies, and gold. White-tipped eagle feathers strung with cascading diamonds hung down the sides of the tipi. Falcon decided to take another approach. “My goddess, no one can come close to achieving what you can by design. Just look at your lodge. It is far more beautiful than that of your sister. And what you’ve done with our earth’s landscape! Splendid! Such genius! Why, it’s so obvious that your talent and creativity are boundless. For the sake of your subjects, please, put your ingenuity to work and bestow this new gift to the creatures of earth.”


As she stepped outside her tipi, the goddess was glowing with pleasure at Falcon’s words. “Your words are too kind, Mistress Falcon. I will do it. I will give the poor creatures of earth this precious gift. To achieve it, to make these clouds which will bring rain, I will use one of my volcanoes.”


So saying, she strode off to Lassen Peak to tackle the task of cloud-making once more. Some of the council members followed; others, like Panda, Walrus, Hippo, Lion and Turtle, stayed behind, leery of the goddess’ plan to use volcanoes. After all, her other ideas had backfired on the heads of the bystanders.


With Falcon on her shoulder as she stood in the midst of black cinders, at the edge of a volcano crater, Red Earth Woman began. First, she slowly lifted her arm which caused a row of lava fountains to erupt along a fissure, creating a curtain of fire rising up from the crater in dangerous majesty; then she took her finger and punched an eruptive vent on the side of the volcanic cone. At once, molten lava, gases, large rocks, and minerals spurted up and out of the vent. While the goddess was working, Falcon noticed that the sky had turned crimson in the glow of fiery, liquid, molten rock bubbling and arching upward.


In the midst of ash, steam and smoke billowing to the sky from spewing fire fountains, Butterfly and Robin flew away as fast as their wings would carry them, fearful of being burned to death. The goddess watched the volcanic explosions expectantly. Out of all the things being thrown up into the sky, she was sure that one of them—rock, lava, steam, or ash—would stay up to become clouds. But alas, none did.


By this time, Falcon could see the whole enterprise was hopeless. Red Earth Woman’s concept of clouds was all wrong. Of course, she could not say that to the goddess. What to do? Falcon wondered, watching the steamy clouds rise.


Meanwhile, Red Earth Woman was thoroughly frustrated and angry. She had never, ever failed at anything. The thought of failure made her livid. It was inappropriate for a goddess to fail. Unheard of. Whoever heard of a goddess failing? She looked around for something or someone to blame. Her eyes glowed dangerously as she remembered that this had been Falcon’s idea. She shook Falcon from her shoulder. “What is the meaning of this, Mistress Falcon?” Her eyes were fiery sparks. “Nothing I do works to make clouds. I am the earth’s creator! How can it be that I am not succeeding? Is this a trick you have set to embarrass me?”


Falcon knew that she was in trouble with the goddess, but watching the clouds of steam had given her the germ of an idea. With luck, it would do. Now she had to convince the goddess.



5. Rain at Last


“How clever of you, my goddess!” said Mistress Falcon. “What a master stroke! To experiment with the steam clouds from the volcano. You have seen that these steam clouds are quite like the clouds of smoke that float from the top of Sacred Sky’s lodge.” Falcon clapped her hands. “So very ingenious, my clever goddess!”

“Of course,” the goddess assented though she hadn’t the faintest idea what Falcon was getting at.

Falcon knew the goddess didn’t have a clue and so she prompted the goddess by saying: “I am guessing that your plan somehow involves smoking the sacred pipe and the clouds of smoke that will come from it. So you must leave for your sister’s lodge, right away. Am I correct?”

“You are, but you must come with me, Mistress Falcon. The plan requires your presence. You will explain it to my sister, Sacred Sky.”

Consenting, Falcon bowed her head. “As you wish, my goddess.” And in the blink of an eye, they were inside Sacred Sky’s lodge where the Red Goddess had Falcon explain the problem and solution to her sister. In her explanation, Falcon was careful to give Red Earth Woman the credit for the final solution for making clouds.

“But I am not sure,” began the Blue Goddess, “that it is proper to use the sacred pipe to make clouds. What will Sun say about this?”

“How can it not be proper,” responded her sister, “when these clouds will take their place in your sky along with Sun? If you and I decide it should be done to bring balance and harmony to the earth, then this is a good thing, and, surely, Sun will not disagree.”

Blue Goddess nodded, listening, while she fanned the fire. “I have been wondering about how to give Sun a day off. He becomes very weary, having to work every day. He could rest when the sky water—what did you call it?” She looked at her sister.

“Rain, Sky,” said the Red Goddess.

“Yes, rain. When it falls, Sun will have a day off to rest,” she reasoned, “and that will be an excellent ’s good you say that clouds will make it come about?” This time Sacred Sky looked at Mistress Falcon.

Falcon only nodded, knowing it was wise to let the two goddesses do all the talking.

“Then we will do it.” Sacred Sky said, taking up the sacred pipe and an ember from the fire. “Come let’s go outside.” Once outside of the lodge, the Blue Goddess offered the pipe. “Take it, my sister.”

Red Earth Woman demurred. “No, I believe you should smoke the pipe, Sister. I have other important things to do.”

Sacred Sky nodded, put her lips to the pipe, and used the burning ember to light it. As she puffed gently, a string of smoke rings glided into the air. Meanwhile, the smoke rings change their One by one, their shapes changed—some formed small, fat balls and others elongated into thin, wispy filaments. As the began changing, the Red Goddess pursed her lips and blew at the feathery thin filaments so that little by little, they linked together and became a soft, milky quilt of clouds gliding in the azure blue sky.

Above Sacred Sky’s head, circles of smoke rings floated away to form white clouds with scalloped shapes, fluffy shapes, and plump, round shapes. The wind breath of the Red Goddess carried some of theses cloud shapes to the blue-gray La Sal Mountains where they kissed the peaks and turned into swiftly moving, dark scud clouds. Now, the sky was no longer clear blue, but had become a patchwork of white, downy fluffs and dark, gray thunderheads full of water droplets.

All at once, Red Earth Woman reached inside Sky’s lodge and pulled out another large, burning ember, which she threw far across the horizon into the dark blue, thunderhead clouds that tickled the mountaintops. As the ember fell into the thunderheads, it became a blanket of brilliant lightning that sinking into the clouds that now quilted the sky. When lightning flashed, embroidering a zigzagging line across the darkening sky, the Red Goddess reached once more, inside the lodge. She drew out the sacred ceremonial drum and struck it hard three times. The sound became thunder growling and rumbling down the peaks of the La Sal Mountain. Lightning streaked the sky. Thunder rolled loudly. The two goddesses nodded to each other, stopped what they were doing, and clapped their hands together three times.

Then, at last, water droplets formed in the clouds and fell to the earth, first, in a gentle mist, then in a steady shower, and finally the rain became a heavy downpour. Falcon gave a huge sigh of relief. She had accomplished her mission. As for Red Earth Woman, she was almost beside herself with happiness. She had done it! She had created clouds, which gave birth to rain, which showered a very parched, and dry red earth. Rain! How clever she was to have thought of it! Sacred Sky was delighted with the results. Already, she could see that the weary Sun was making its way toward her, glad of a time to rest. He would have no objection to the newcomers—clouds, rain, wind, thunder, and lightning—for they were going to provide him with a day off for the first time ever. Now, he would not have to shine and shine and shine each and every day.

When rain hit the ground, the council members, who had been worried that Mistress Falcon and the goddess might not succeed, raised a heartfelt cheer. The ragtag band of disgruntled and unhappy animals, birds, insects, and fish had cause to celebrate, for their situation in the Mohave Desert was desperate no more. Panda, Lion, and Monkey made off for South America where a lush, green rain forest would soon rise from a dusty plain. So did Spider who would have moisture now to weave her beautiful webs. Butterfly, such a fussy diva, was quite happy that, now, clouds of rain would bring forth flowers for her to pollinate. Walrus wasted no time either. He rushed off to a dry gulch in the west, which was rapidly filling with rainwater that would soon become the Pacific Ocean. Hippo and Turtle quickly followed him. Now, there would be sand as well as surf for them. With rivers, lakes, and oceans to swim in, Fish could finally use her poor bruised fins for swimming, not walking. In the sky, you could see that Mistress Falcon, who had flown back to earth, had joined Robin and Butterfly to soar, loop, and glide joyfully high above the earth. They knew that, soon, the rain would bring the trees and branches they needed for roosting and resting to their hearts’ content.

Everyone was happy. For now, up above earth, in the blue, blue sky, floated the thing that everyone needed: Clouds.

The End

Storyteller I: Stories

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

When I was a little girl, I fell in love with two things: The movies and fairy tales. In other words…stories. My fascination with stories led me to make up my own in my head. I had a sixth grade teacher who would let me tell my stories to our sixth grade class sometimes when he had to leave the room for some reason or another. Later, in junior high, I wrote stories down and somehow convinced my friends, Judy, Charlene, and Bea, to act them out with me. In high school, I recognized the kick I got out of writing, so I went to college with the intention of becoming a journalist—trying to kill two birds with one stone: Write and make a living at it. But that didn’t work out because I hated the core/prerequisite journalism class at Indiana University.

What was happening, at the same time that I was getting turned off by journalism, was that I had fallen hard for my literature classes where I'd been introduced to all those the Greek myths, The Odyssey, in particular, the short stories like “The Lottery,” Chaucer’s tales, the unforgettable character, Lady Macbeth, and all that just knocked me over. The story thing, again. So since I hated journalism and loved literature, I decided to change my major to English which really meant literature. And I did a double minor in Creative Writing and Comparative Literature.

Stories. What good are they, you ask?

Well, among other things, they tell us and others about our history (our past), our sociology (our connections with the group), our geography (our physical points of origin), our cultural anthropology (our art, clothing, music, dance, food, rituals, and literature), our philosophy/cosmology/religion (our view of life, ourselves, the earth, and that which is greater than us), our psychology (that which drives us/motivates us).

Stories tell us who we are, where we came from, what we desire, where we’re going, and what we think of ourselves. In our stories, we reveal our identity. We find our identity. We confirm our identity. We confirm our common humanity.

In stories, we connect to each other. At a very basic level. No matter what the race, nation, era, culture, or geographic location that they hail from, stories bring us together around the campfire. Stories are a life line. A link. A bridge to the past, present, and future. Stories give us hope. Give us courage. Bring us through the bad. Help us celebrate the good.

The kind of stories we tell ourselves tell us and others how much we love ourselves, hate ourselves, or are indifferent to ourselves and all living things that inhabit this earth (the peoples of the air, the peoples of the water, the peoples of the earth as some Native Americans put it). Stories teach, reinforce, pass down, to each generation, what we love and prize. What we value.
They are our truest and finest legacy… the most important things we give each other, the most precious things we pass on to succeeding generations.

I love stories. I love to tell them, watch them, listen to them, see them acted out. And write them.

Are you a storyteller? I am.

Retrospective Series-1: Random Poems

Copyright 1982-All Rights Reserved

Note: These are old poems. You can tell by the dates.

Relocating to L.A.


for the sake of health

birds migrate to warm, hospitable climates.

I took a lesson

and flew.



A Dose of Advice



When I announced:

I'm easin on down the road


They warned me:

chile, you better not go to L.A.

them folks there just TOO cold in that hot climate.


They scoffed:

going where? for what?

nothin there but country folks thinkin they city-slick.


They chided:

city of angels? you think you goin to heaven or somethin?

lemme tell you ain't no angels crazy enough to fly out there

onliest thing flyin is them people high on coke

best to keep your feet on this here ground

Sides, I don't see no wings sproutin from your back.


Finally, I took my own advice

went out and bought some earplugs.

L.A.Observations 1: Swimming at Bally's

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Bally’s, the gym I used to belong to, has a pool at its facility on the west side of Los Angeles. I started going there regularly in 2000. It was a long drive from where I lived, but I like to swim better than I like using the treadmill or the cross trainer. At this point in my life, I had/have to do the aerobics, you know. Get the heart rate up. Keep the muscles from going on strike. Chase away the cholesterol blues. Get rid of couch potato-ism, stress, and too many other risk factors that I don’t want to know about. But, forgive me, I’m obsessing. Which I tend to do at times.

When I was going to Bally’s, there was always an interesting show at the pool. Covertly, I watched the old White men in swimming trunks roaming about as I swam my laps. And that’s all they seemed to be doing—roaming, not exercising. Why were they here? I would wonder. Doctor’s orders? To get away from the wife? To meet and greet? To recapture youth? To score … catch … fake it til you make it? Who knows? Some would bunch together at the benches near the swimming pool; others would drift over to the whirlpool. It’s the bellies that drew my attention straightaway. Rotund bellies—fully packed after years of gobbling down thick steaks, potatoes swimming in sour cream, and hard crust breads.

Some of them looked like pears, ripe for the plucking; others reminded me of pregnant women about to break water. More than a few sported handlebars of fat clinging to their sides like inner tubes. None of those golden boys had waists anymore; their behinds had gone bye-bye too.

Since they didn’t have the de rigueur L.A. buff bodies to show off, they put their jewelry on parade. A couple of them flashed big, pinky diamond rings. Others adorned their sunken chests with huge gold chains—some with medallions studded with diamonds. This affectation told me, one more time, that almost every popular fashion trend in America nowadays comes out of the Black neighborhood. Somehow, though, I was rather surprised that the golden boys had taken to this kind of jewelry. It’s tacky looking. Way too wannabe pretentious, if you ask me. Could it be that these old Beverly Hills-Brentwood boys still needed validation that they’d made it?

One day, one of the gang was dressed in drop-dead, orange trunks. Both of his big, drooping, womanly breasts displayed blue tattoos. The designs ran down both his arms—covering and smothering the front of his chest like Ray Bradbury’s “Illustrated Man.” His face reminded me of the guy on the old Smith Brothers Cough Drops box. Some might say he was more of a bald Santa Claus type: Bushy, long, white beard with a moustache decorating his top lip. It was a strange look, a combination of a 19th century face sitting on top of a twenty-first century body adorned with tattoos—tattoos being a fad straight out of the ghetto and the barrio.

Beside the tattooed Santa Claus was a white-haired poseur with long, Elvis-style sideburns. He had on white, almost see-through trunks, pulled down below his waist in hip-hop, gangsta style. I could see the crack of his ass just peeping above the elastic. Between his “walking” laps in the water, he strutted and posed, laughing with great animation at some remark that Santa Claus made from time to time. There were a couple of women lolling nearby the two old men. One was an older woman, in fairly good shape, smiling hugely at something one of the old boys had said. Another was young, sleek looking, an athlete by the look of her. Santa Claus leered from time to time. Elvis took great pains to loudly explain the benefits of “walking” laps as opposed to “swimming” them. Santa Claus kept leering and nodding his head. The women politely listened though their attention was plainly wandering after five minutes of Santa’s lecture.

Elvis suddenly hoisted himself up out of the pool and did a half-assed dive, despite the posted big “No Diving” signs all around. Apparently, some people think the rules aren’t for them. As Elvis came up for air, sputtering, I took note of the lane they were in—the sign said: “Loafers and Slow Walkers.”


Some of the Slow Walker men wore their gold-rimmed glasses. Water splashed on one old man’s specs. He didn’t bother to try to wipe them. Droplets ran down the lens and he just stood there looking at himself in the mirrors on the far wall. I find it very, very strange that you would get into a swimming pool with your eye glasses on. I wear glasses too, but not in the pool. Another old codger made his way down the lane, clinging to the lane’s marker. His eyes fascinated me. Nothing was behind them. No sign of life at all. They were light blue, so light that they were almost silver gray. His face, too, was void of expression. As though he was in shock. Maybe he was. Maybe. Because one fine morning he woke up and found himself a senior citizen…an old man, a has-been…spent, worn out, no longer useful…disrespected. Found himself an old codger who still leers at young blondes, brunettes, and redheads on the street. Found himself an old man whose reflex habit of a lifetime is still to stare, lick his lips, and wonder about how good the ride might be on that young thing. Maybe he was in shock because he woke up one fine morning and finally found himself a man—old…bitter … blue.

And that’s how life goes. But not in Los Angeles. In L.A., aging is taboo. Here one is supposed to be eternally young. Eternally. These old men were clearly chasing Youth as it receded into the distant horizon. I wondered what their reactions would be when they woke up one fine morning and realized that Youth had left them in the dust. Would they still come to the pool and pose? Still come to fake it, floss, and strut?

I turned away from them and focused on doing my laps. Youth was not what I was after. But I understood the bewilderment you feel when you wake up one day and look in the mirror only to find that the face staring back has changed. That time has changed it. And that you can’t call time back because it’s doing a double-quick march on down the road. Aging is a shock, I grant you. But it ain’t fatal. It’s only another rise in the road with more adventures out of sight beyond the hill. And I look forward to them.

Meditations III: Sappho's Daughter

Copyright 2007

I can’t say that my being aware of my Lesbianism was the sole cause of my drinking…that being a Lesbian propelled me into alcoholism. I cannot because it wouldn’t be entirely accurate. There are no simple answers here.

I am Sappho’s daughter. And I knew it early on. Inside me, for years, a fierce struggle between fear, desire, and shame had bound me. Had strangled me. Their ceaseless struggle for domination tortured me. Tasked me. I was their prisoner.

Then came alcohol, holding out a promise, a false promise, but a promise, nevertheless: If I would drink of its soothing liquid, I could have peace. If I would but drink, relief from this anguished struggle would cease. And, perhaps, I could forget who I was. My fears had made me a traitor to who I was. My fears had helped drive me into alcohol’s velvet arms.

But soon, I began a new and different kind of struggle: to break free of alcohol’s treacherous currents. For it had betrayed me, finally…had trapped yet another of Sappho’s daughters. Trapped this daughter for twenty-seven years.

In my book, The Mee Street Chronicles, you'll find stories of me and my struggles with alcohol, as well as stories of recovery. Order it from amazon.com, barnes & noble.com, or borders.com.

Meditations II: College & the Bottle

Copyright 2007

My freshman year was pivotal in starting me on the road to alcoholism. I began because I wanted to belong. Because I wanted to be seen as a sophisticate. Not a neophyte, a little southern girl from “the sticks” who really was not hip, slick and cool. I lied when an important date asked me if I drank. I didn’t. But after that night, I did. Rum and coke did me in that night and I ended up passed out in the john with my arms wrapped around the base of the toilet stool. At some point during the week that followed, I vowed to myself that I would “learn” how to drink without passing out. Which, eventually, I did. It took a while before I could get high without getting sick and passing out, but I managed to do it, thanks to those college weekends when my college buddies and I spent our Saturday nights devoted to rum and coke, seven and seven, boiler makers, and the like.


Cut to my sophomore year. The second semester I started drinking during the week on a regular basis. I cut classes, too, so my grades dropped way down from the three-point, B average, that I’d worked so hard to get during my freshman year. Up til then, I’d confined my partying to weekends and ONLY after I’d done all my studying and class assignments. Until that semester, I’d been solicitous of my grades and grade point average. But all that changed. I knew what I was doing when I began to drink like that. I knew I was screwing up, but I couldn’t pull out of screwing up.


When the semester was over and I went home for the summer, I was mortified to face my parents who were sacrificing to send me to a Big Ten college, Indiana University, so far away from home (Knoxville, Tennessee). They didn’t fuss at me or punish me and that made me feel that the two D’s and two C’s on my record were pasted on my forehead like some shameful brand for all the world to see. One of the D’s was in a class that was an introduction to what I thought would be my major, Journalism. What a disaster that semester was!


I think back now and remember a little bit of what was going on inside of me: the conflicts and pain and terror that I was choking back over my same sex attraction. I was trying to use alcohol to cover them, drown them, kill them off.


Anyway, I was so horrified and ashamed about my grades and that I’d let my parents down in their expectations for me to succeed that, from my junior year through my senior year, I rigorously disciplined myself to only drink to excess—“party”—on the weekends or during holidays away from school. I did drink a little bit sometimes during the week, but I never let myself go over the top because I had set a goal to get my grade point average back up to a three-point. Though I succeeded with my disciplined drinking, it only left me yearning for the weekends, for holidays, so I could drink all I wanted. My grades did go up, but the bottle was getting the better of me. Of course, that was a red flag, but I chose to ignore it. Besides, though I didn’t know it, I was already at the point that I couldn’t stop. Will power, I would learn later, was no match for alcohol.


By the time I was a senior, I had my grades way up. My last semester as an undergrad, I scored straight A’s in all my courses. I remember that Joann and some other girls in my dorm marveled at how I could make such good grades and “party” (read “drink to excess”) as much as I did. I was a functioning alcoholic already. But they didn’t know it and neither did I. After graduation, I went right into grad school. One of the benefits of having a single room was the privacy to stash my drink in the closet. The bottle was a fifth. And I never let it go below one-third empty before I dashed out to buy another. That was axiomatic.
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Meditations 1

Copyright 2007


I have an Alcoholics Anonymous birthday coming soon. It’s a birthday celebration because I stopped drinking June 14, 1988. By my count, that means as of June 14, I will have lived in sweet sobriety for 19 years.


My journals say that I’d got a Driving Under the Influence ticket on the last Friday in April of 1988 and had to appear in a Los Angeles court to answer for it the following month, on May 26. The whole ordeal was shaming and before I appeared in court, I had moments of seriously considering running away. I fantasized about just taking off for parts unknown, working as a waitress, or whatever half-assed job I could get, living a nomadic life on the run from the law. Just disappearing off the radar of all family and friends. A blip that no longer blips on the satellite camera. My shame was driving those fantasies. And that’s all they were because I was way too chicken to do something like that.


Though I didn’t think so at the time, I was lucky I got arrested. Lucky because I hadn’t killed or injured anybody, or myself. Lucky because I was sentenced, among other things, to go to 12 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I had anticipated that part of the sentencing because I’d consulted with a lawyer and she told me to expect it. I was also sentenced to do 300 hours of community service and to complete a fee-based Alcohol and Drug program for 12 very long and boring weeks.


I didn’t know what to expect from the AA meetings and I was nervous about having to go. The only information I had about it was a hazy memory of a scene at an AA meeting in the old movie, “Days of Wine and Roses.” Still, with all those conflicting feelings churning in my gut—shame, guilt, fear, desperation, hope—I saw AA as a remote chance for me—just maybe. For even before I’d been sentenced, I’d said to a friend that I was glad I was going to have to go because I hoped it would help me. That remark came from a revelation I’d had earlier which I’d confided to a friend from high school, one that had known me through all the twenty-eight years of drinking I’d done.


“I hope it does me some good to go to AA,” I’d said, “because I don’t know how to control it. I can’t stop. I’ve tried but I don’t know how.”


That was the first time I’d said to myself and to another person, aloud and with utter certainty, that there was something terribly wrong with me and alcohol. Aloud is the key word here. Because years prior, I’d know deep inside that there was something wrong. I just wouldn’t admit it. Couldn’t face it. I figured that if I didn’t say it aloud, everything would turn out okay.


But, years later, at the AA meetings, when I said aloud that I was and am an alcoholic, when I admitted to it, and believed that admission, I laid the foundation that I’ve built my sobriety on for all of these years. How ironic. Once I admitted aloud that alcohol had the power over me, it was the beginning of a new life, of things really turning out okay for me.

The shame, guilt, fear, desperation melted away. They were replaced with hope, with faith. And with the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am grateful.


You can read stories about me and the bottle in Parts 2 and 3 of The Mee Street Chronicles. Go to www.amazon.com or www.kerlak.com or www.barnes&noble.com to order your copy now.

Adventures of a Maverick Author 3: Scrambled Eggs

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Writing The Mee Street Chronicles has been something like making scrambled eggs. I had to break the eggs into the bowl (remember people, places and things), beat the eggs up with milk and seasoning (put the memories in story telling form), then dump the whole thing in a skillet (get the stories organized and edited to publish in a book). I didn’t know how the whole concoction would turn out. Would my storytelling turn out to be a brown-edged, overcooked mess? (My eggs often are.) A runny, undercooked goo? (I have trouble trying to scramble “soft” rather than “hard.”) Or would it be a fluffy, tasty treat? I didn’t know, couldn’t know unless I tried. Unless I took the risk. Made the jump. Broke the eggs and scrambled them.

I grew up a dreamer, and I had imagined, back when I was a kid, that my life would go like the ending of a fairy tale: That I’d live “happily ever after.” That it would all be so perfect. No need to break eggs. No need to take risks. The future was, I thought, an unclouded, golden horizon waiting to serve me up all my dreams. But it didn’t go that way. Nobody’s life does.

I found out that life mostly serves you up raw eggs, and it’s up to you to choose how you’ll eat them. Raw or cooked. If you go with raw, you just suck it up and slurp it down, I suppose. If you go with cooked, though, you can choose an omelet, poached, sunny side up, over easy, or scrambled. You make the choices. And what you choose becomes the story of what you’ve done (or are doing) with your life. I didn’t know, when I was growing up, that I really could choose. I didn’t know that my choices didn’t have to match up with what you deemed as acceptable and desirable. I didn’t know that I didn’t have to fall in line and choose what you wanted me to choose. So I spent a lot of time people-pleasing rather than living my life.

I do wish I hadn’t done that. But…. no sense in crying over spilt milk or mistakes long ago made. No sense in it because that very spilt milk—those mistakes and my people-pleasing choices—that’s what I put into my scrambled eggs to make my stories. Actually, its seasoning made the stories in Mee Street tastier, I think. Gave them an extra kick.

You tell me what you think. Go to www.amazon.com and order The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life; after you read the stories, log on to Amazon and write a Customer Review if you’ve a mind to.

Adventures of a Maverick Author 2: The Plot Thickens

Copyright 2007 – All Rights Reserved

The other day, I read a story excerpt from “Woman Dreams: Going Against the Grain” which appears in Part I of “The Mee Street Chronicles.” I’ve gotten so I read that story first off because people always ask me THE QUESTION—When did you know you were a Lesbian? “Woman Dreams” answers that question though I find that some still feel the need to ask even after I’ve read it. Maybe they just don’t believe what they hear.

Questions and Answers is my favorite part now. Because I never know what people will ask me. That keeps me on my toes. I watch myself bobbing and weaving like Muhammed Ali did in the ring to keep from getting pounded by the punches thrown by Joe Frazier.

My audience is part of a college where the student body pulls no punches. These folk are street savvy challengers. Typically, after they’ve heard my story excerpt, they’re amazed at my shameLESS, straightforward audacity in stepping out of the closet and into the light. Typically, they’re chafing at the bit to expose me with their questions. As a phony? A wimp? A repentant sinner looking for redemption at their hands? Who knows? What I do know is that these college students are definitely a Joe Frazier audience—big fisted and willing to knock you silly if you’re not ready for the punches they throw.

This time as I finish, close my book, and step away from the podium signaling that I don’t use it as a shield between me and my audience, I point to the first person I see with a raised hand.

“Who would you say is responsible for your being …uh…same sex attracted, as you call it?” The question was from a woman of color.

“God,” I said without pause. I was stone serious and I wanted them to know it. Stone serious, but not hostile. “God made me. God is responsible. I was born this way.”

She nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face.

We were off and running. I figured they’d be going in the same direction as the last class of students I’d presented for a couple of weeks ago. There’d been some sharks in that class. And they’d been hungry. But they didn’t get a bite of me because my answers wouldn’t allow them to get their teeth into my behind.

More hands shot up. I nodded at a young man, Black, sitting near the front. He said, “We can assume that God considers you an abomination, right? So….”

I cut him off at the pass. “No,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “I don’t know assume that God considers me that.” I moved closer to where he was sitting. “If I were an abomination I don’t think I’d be standing here. Why would God create an abomination and let it walk around? If I’m an abomination, I’d be dead. Don’t you think?”

He simply looked at me, confounded.

I glanced again at the forest of hands lifted. I pointed to another woman. “Was it hard coming out back then? I mean, as opposed to right now.”

“Well, I didn’t come out back when I was a kid. As for now, you need to know it’s always hard to come out,” I said. “Always. You don’t know what might happen because homophobia and heterosexism is everywhere. It ain’t gone by a long shot. We’re killing our world with hate and bigotry. That can change if we talk to each other. Like now.”

The woman gave me a tentative smile. Some other heads in the room were nodding at what I’d said.

The confounded guy raised his hand again for another go. “After you die and when you stand before God, what’re you going to say about the choice you made to be a Lesbian?”

Several students turned around to glare at him. I noted their reaction. That was something new and interesting.

“First of all,” I began, “it’s not a choice. Why would anybody choose to be stigmatized and hated? Read “Predators” in Part Two of my book for more on that. And as for the afterlife issue, I won’t get drawn into a discussion about religious beliefs because that’s not what my book is about. Suffice to say, my beliefs are not yours.” I paused to see if he was getting it before I went on. “Besides, I’m not here to persuade you about anything; I’m here to share my life experiences with you.”

He was a dog with a bone. And he didn’t know how to let go. “But the Christian Bible says you’re wrong—”

A Black woman sitting in front of him cut him off and barked: “You can’t push your beliefs off on somebody else!”

From the back of the room, another Black woman hollered: “You can’t judge her! Don’t judge her!”

That surprised me. Before I could respond, the professor intervened. He reminded his class that college is about learning new things and expanding your base of knowledge. That open-mindedness is the hallmark of an educated person. That it’s part of a college’s mission to show people that broad diversity exists in the universe regardless of whether we fear it or disapprove. And he reminded the Black students that none of us would be in a classroom three hundred years ago because teaching slaves and free Blacks was generally outlawed and disapproved of.

I listened, surprised at what had happened: That the students had jumped in to defend me although it was clear that I could take care of myself, and that the professor had stepped in. He never had before. But I think he was a bit put-off by the narrow-minded reactions that he’d heard in the past several days from some faculty and students about my open, guilt-free sexual identity—a journey narrated in the stories of my book.

Just when you think that homophobia and heterosexism is taking over every heart and mind, blitzing through the land at terrifying speed like Hitler’s Lightening War, blasting away all hope for respect and good will among all people—just when you give up on that, something appears on the horizon that rescues hope and gives water to its roots: Unforeseeable, unpredictable incidents.

Those are the kinds of things I love in a story. Yeah, it’s the end of Act Two and the beginning of Act Three; everything looks grimmer than grim because the Evil Empire is winning. And that’s when the unforeseeable happens, bringing you a ray of hope, all warm and shiny, enough so you can smear it all over your face. Enough to catch a whiff as it rides in clean and fresh like an ocean breeze. Enough so you can just see its head peeking out, like pink calla lilies rising up, in spring, out of winter’s melting snow.

And I am reminded that the plot always thickens with unexpected twists and turns.

The Mee Street Chronicles will tell you more about me and my maverick ways. Buy it online at www.amazon.com and read the stories for yourself. If your church, organization, book club, or class would like to engage me to do a Book Read, contact me at either flennon@ peoplepc.com or frankie.lennon@gmail.com

Adventures of a Maverick Author 1: A Maverick's Tale

All Rights Reserved - Copyright 2007

Since my book, The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman's Life came out, to promote and market my book, I've been doing Book Readings for churches, college classes, and organizations with a Question & Answer period afterwards. Mee Street is a memoir, a collection of stories about my journey to freedom from the many prisons that bind me, about my battle to claim my own life and sexual identity.

Although my book reveals a life that was filled with conflicts over a number of problems—alcoholism and recovery, Jim Crow and racism, my work in the field of AIDS and how I had to come to terms with death, the pressures to conform all of my life to all kinds of social conventions, internalized self-hate as a result of heterosexism and homophobia —out of all of those subjects, the "hot topic" for the audience is my same sex attraction. Because that's topic they're interested in the most, I've taken to revealing it right at the top of the presentation.

What's interesting to me is the reaction of the audiences I've run into. After I read my book excerpts, I find myself answering questions like:
When did you know? Was your father present in your home when you were growing up? If you have children, what did they say when you told them? What did your parents…what did your friends…say when you told them? What church or religion or religious denomination were you raised in? When did you make the choice to be same sex attracted? How do you feel with everybody knowing you're same sex attracted now that you've written the book? Are you happy today about your life and being open about who you are? Homophobia isn't present in today's society, like before, is it?

To me, the questions I get reveal so much about what people are curious about and want to know, what they've been misinformed about, the assumptions they've been led to make, and the stereotypical ideas they've absorbed about Lesbians and Gays, about the whole LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community. The questions I get say so much about what kind of society I live in. We live in. Say so much about how little we know of each other. About the assumptions we make about each other. About how afraid we are to talk to one another...afraid to share who we really are because of fears.

As they ask and I answer, it's fascinating to watch the audience, to take note of their assumptions about me, to realize that many expect me to hang my head in shame and feel guilty about who I am... to realize that some think I've come to ask their forgiveness for being a Lesbian... to realize that others expect me to try to persuade them to accept me and solicit, however indirectly, their permission to openly be who I am.

When I don't conform to these assumptions or expectations, when I don't act timorous, or feel shame or guilt, when I tell them I no longer ask anybody's permission to feel good about and be who I am, some are rather appalled at my attitude and words. I have to admit I get a kick out of watching their shock at my boat-rocker attitude. Others in the audience seem thirsty for and drink in the straight-from-the-shoulder answers I give based on my life, probably because I'm sharing information they've always wanted to know and were too afraid to seek out for whatever reason. Many of the audience members seem to be pleased with the whole thing. They smile, nod their heads, listen intently. I figure they're the open-minded empathizers in the crowd. But the most interesting ones, to me, are the angry or confrontational ones who seem compelled to raise their hands. Compelled to throw stones, contradict, or dismiss my opinions, my values and attitudes, my reflections on my own life experiences. They have no idea that I know just who they are and what's really bothering them. They reveal themselves by the stressed-out, edgy tone of voice, the stony facial expression, the anxious "fight or flight" body language, and, finally, by the questions—which are really comments rather than questions—that tell me all about the cramped, shrouded, boxed-in place that they live in. I know about that place. I used to live there myself. Suffocating, for years, in the dark.

It's all a lesson for me—a course in Psychology and Sociology and The Humanities all rolled up in one. It's proof for me that memoirs provide us with a bridge to connect with each other. It's a reminder that people are always curious about each other, especially those who, at first glance, appear to be different. And, it tells me that my friend, Dr. McClaine, who asked me to come speak to his Sociology classes, has a valid point: Attitudes change, things change, when somebody rocks the boat, when a maverick steps up and refuses to stay silent.

Today, one woman asked me if I considered myself a maverick because of all I'd revealed and my forthright attitude.

I looked her straight in the eye. "You better believe it," I said in my best boat-rocker tone of voice.

And she smiled.

The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman's Life will tell you more about me and my maverick ways. Buy it online at www.amazon.com and read the stories for yourself. If your church, organization, book club, or class would like to engage me to do a Book Reading, contact me at frankie.lennon@gmail.com Related links: www.myspace.com/maryestelle and www.famnation.com/flennon