Field Day, media center visits, and other positive memories.

And seeing now what I didn’t see then, 15 years ago. Still, I will practice languages now. Still must do Act I first, follow the order. Please let my potential take shape with our story fully. Amen.

This is a beautiful flag! Me and other students were Kenya. I love Kenya’s flag, coloring it was so much fun. I don’t know if I had a 64 box of crayola like some kids. Image courtesy of Pixabay

I’m invisible still. God, shine your light.

I have a few things to talk about.

I’m reading a 2010 issue from Howard Magazine and I think, wow, I never went to college. Why didn’t I graduate summa cum laude? I didn’t major in anything. I do not have male privilege and suffered a lot of trauma that fucked me up. And made mistakes too.

Majors like finance, political science, chemical engineering — could I do something like this? I never considered anything like this. Relatives who I just get depressed seeing their lack of drive for their own lives, a representation of Black people who were not allowed to read until after the Civil War, continuing that un-tradition of oppression. My father the first to see it for the lie it was. And still not the father who fathered, saved, protected.

My/our girlness. Or boyness of male siblings.

God, heal these wounds and let me accept all I am and not and reach the stratosphere with all of my goals and no precedent generationally or culturally.

Picture Day.

We had picture day when I was six and my mother braided my hair in small braids and beads around my head. Was it cornrows or freeflowing braids. I think freeflowing braids with colorful beads and a pretty smile to match.

The Early 1990s in Georgia.

I remember my older siblings, we would have a radio and we would try to call in to win things. “Father Figure” by George Michael (played today on the Uber ride back). “Hold On” by the Wilson Phillips. Songs I remember from my older siblings. A superlative in one of their yearbooks that said “Wittiest” and I read it as “Whitest” because the girl and boy in that picture were both White. I think in that confusion, someone told me what “witty” meant. My older sister was in “Little Shop of Horrors” as one of the three muses, the singing group, with the 50s outfits to match, Keds-looking shoes and poodle-type skirts. I think this picture was in the 1994 yearbook.

Field Day.

I remember that I and other students were given Kenya to represent. Other students were given Mexico. And one more country, I forget. I liked the Kenyan flag for its beauty and dark tones. I remember coloring several times over the flag printout with a coloring pencil or crayon to deepen the colors. Field Day was at the end of the year and it was usually in May on a warm day.

From the beginning of the morning to the end of the day, we spent the whole school day doing activities and competing against other classes and countries at different stations throughout the school and field play areas. I don’t remember any of the many activities, maybe flag football and other things, running, like a 100-meter dash or something. We would tally up the points for all of the students representing each country and see what country won.

The Library and Book Fairs.

Every week we would go to the library and the librarian would read us a book. We would walk in a line to the media center. It was called a “media center” because it also had tapes and other types of media, not just books I guess.

I think when I was 6, we read The People Could Fly and other books. Maybe in kindergarten it was the Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar. I enjoyed this.

Sometimes there would be a bookfair from Scholastic. Every year or quarter, it would come to the school and parents or your parent would have to give you money so you could go. My parents never gave me money. I remember one year they did and that was when I was nine, and I posted post-it notes everywhere reminding them of the total in cost that I needed for three or four books I’d planned ahead to buy. Like $11 or $13 and change I remember a figure close to this (do I really remember?).

This was the time period when I started developing an interest in calligraphy and drawing, things that we’d been introduced to in school.

Plastic string, not yet I think.

Power Rangers. Full House. Reading Rainbow. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Lamb Chop.

I think the next article will be television shows that I remember during this time.

I saw a video of an African American man who was showing the reality of life for many in Nigeria, slums. I don’t know. Some people got annoyed at him showing the bad parts. I don’t know. African Americans live badly a lot. Africans live badly a lot. I think it’s time to be real about these things. Now if he does not observe the complexity of things, the why, and the potential robbed through colonialism, that is another thing. Especially if he would give nuance to Black American circumstances.

Okay let me go now.

God, please let me rise. Please. With my whole self and story. And seeing my older sister while you protect what needs to also be protected.

And safe, my body safe, life safe, healing, eating right, all of this.

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