So it's been an interesting week. The tic-tocking of my own imagination making the moment slow to a crawl. I've been trying to get some "packing" done...or at least some thorough throwing away(ing?)... This is usually my favorite part of moving. An excuse to traipse through my taped-up boxes and flip through old journals. I read an entry from my 99-03 journal about the day I met Valentine. Fittingly, the very next entry (a week later) was about our first argument. Old photos, old birthday cards, old notes I used to pass back and forth with Hoody in science class. Neatly packed again, shipped again, unpacked again.
I'm beginning to hope this time will be the last of the moves. The nomad is reformed. She seeks a place to lay her shit, let the dust settle around it and create grooves on the floor. She's said this before...but maybe it's within reach now.
I sat nervously in the salon chair waiting to be helped. I seemed to be reading every other word of my book, looking away every few seconds to check and see nothing in particular. I could still back out...nothing had been done yet. But I rationalized that after combing through my thick mess of kinky curls that morning in the shower, seeing the hair appointment through was the least I could do. Besides..I was bored. Bored with my hair and ready for a change. Yes, natural hair is the best hair-choice, yes it looks hot (on me at least), yes I received hoards of compliments from women who said they didn't have the ovaries to do the big chop and go nappy...but I had seen and sufficiently conquered. I missed headbands. I missed fedoras. I missed having fingers run through my hair and wind for that matter. So when Deborah, the stylist walked over and stuck her thick fingers into my jungle coif and asked me if I was sure I wanted to relax it...I said yes with all the fake determination I could muster. Like so many good decisions I've made in my life...this one was made with shaky hands.
There is something about hair that holds so much power over your spirit. A new hair cut to me is as transforming as moving a few pieces of furniture around or trying a new concealer. The smallest detail and suddenly your a whole new you. We humans are simple, I suppose. Although the power of change is within us whenever we choose to summon it, we seem to prefer visual starting points and ending points. We have a thousand first days of the rest of our lives.
In that sense, the "press n curl" came at just the right moment. I had (once again) made a decision no one expected. I decided to stay in Houston...at least for a little while longer. Long enough to get enough air in my lungs to breathe and enough space around my head to let my congested thoughts spread out a bit. Space was the common theme. After it was all over, I looked in the mirror so closely, it was as if I was trying to look directly into my own head. I just wanted to see my roots again, now smooth and shiny. I ran my fingers through my hair and let it fall back around my face. My hair breathed, then I breathed and I felt justified in my little crime.
Every time I talk to Phil, my future room mate in Brooklyn, I start to get excited all over again. Re-discovering the city through someone else's eyes, since he has never been to New York, is something I really look forward to. More than that, however, it's that sigh of relief I plan to have when everything is really said and done.
When I was a kid and we had to move again; another temporary place until...or somewhere to be "for now", my mother would always describe this perfect moment as motivation. When everything is unpacked and we'd all be sitting down to dinner in a new place. Fresh paint, clean slates, a new neighborhood with sparkling possibilities. That was the moment I'd picture in my mind as I packed up the stupid things kids pack when they can't see past the end of the week and insignificant things hold the greatest value.
I may have grown up quite a bit since then, but I still imagine that moment in my mind to keep me from going insane right now. Just looking forward doesn't' cut it. I have to look far enough not to see the dust storm I've kicked up around myself for the moment. Juuuust far enough to see the other side of it all, between the end of the last chapter and the middle of the next.
I told Oz today while balancing my cell between my face and shoulder, and grabbing bags of supplies from the front seat of the car, that I had woke up this morning thinking about making some awesome vegetarian nachos.
"You must be an empty-headed person..." he said.
Touche.
The reality of it is I woke up this morning with SO MUCH more than just making nachos on my mind. Between my family, school, work, moving, D, my friends, my money, my writing and the intense pain I've had in my back for weeks now, I was completely drowning in thought. The sun was blazing through my window but the air had been on all night and the temperature was perfect. My bed felt inviting and soft and it tempted me to sleep in even later than I already had (11:30 am). Instead, I decided to push all those nasty "grown up" thoughts out of my head, wake the hell up and just make some awesome nachos.
The problem is whenever you get nachos your left at the mercy of the venue. Limited to their ideals and preference. Some people consider nachos to be some crusty tortilla chips smothered in melted American cheese (you'll find this strain mostly in bowling alleys and ballparks). Some places make awesome nachos....cheese, jalapenos, guacamole...the works. However in my experience, the people who make the best nachos usually top it all of with chicken, pig or cow. Three things I don't consume. So today instead of sitting and write angrily in my journal about the desperation I feel inside or the admission I made last night which I swore I'd never tell anyone or the fact that I have to move (again) although it's dreaded and sometimes feels like a bad decision; I simply made nachos. I made them with a big goofy smile on my face. And I made them with soy beef.
They were so delicious that D, who had already eaten decided to help me finish them off. They were so good, that I forgot to snap a picture of them before they were completely devoured.
So I was getting started on the undesirable task of packing up my shit last night when I paused for a moment to read through one of my old journals. It was the 96-98 journal and I was 11-13 years old. It was the journal written during my parents divorce and my family's demise. A lot went down. Surprisingly, the topic I wrote about most was boys.
Which ones I liked, who had asked me out, who called me, who left notes in my locker. I started to wonder if I was just a healthy young teenager back then or something of a little whore in the making. I decided against the latter. I was a cutie and often the token black girl, so of course I was the flavor. Duh.
Aside from reminiscing about the times when my facebook friends were still my "face-to-face" friends, I started to realize something...
My mother gave me my first diary when I was 6 years old, and I haven't been able to stop writing about myself since.
25 years old, and my favorite thing to do is learn. I'm finishing my degree in education in hopes to pass that trait on. I'm working on my first book, and on my way back to Brooklyn, NY to focus on my own creations.
Other forums with my contributions:
www.burnoutny.com
www.blambloozers.wordpress.com
www.blogcatalog.com
And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see - or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.- Alice Walker
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