A LITTLE TRIP TO FRESNO, CALIFORNIA

A couple of weeks ago, I took a little trip to Fresno, California. Why Fresno?  Well, I had never been there before, and, given who is running the FAA, the current administration, gas prices, and the fact that Fresno was only a couple of hundred miles from Victorville, off to Fresno we went. The trip was one I took with two other women whom I met decades ago while working for the Los Angeles Superior Court. We are all retired now; they are retired court reporters, while I’m a retired judicial assistant. I met Penny close to thirty years ago when she floated into my courtroom as the court reporter that day. Penny physically walked into the courtroom with her steno machine; however, the term "float" is customarily used to describe someone who doesn’t have an assigned courtroom and is therefore assigned to a courtroom as needed. I myself had been a floater, floating for years within the court system. Such was the career of a judicial assistant in search of a judge.

I met Linda through Penny when we somehow discovered that we both loved to quilt. For years, we gathered at Linda’s home in Burbank to quilt on a Saturday afternoon until the sun went down. When Linda bought a second home in Boise, Idaho, we would take girls’ trips there and set up our machines and quilt into the night. Back then, there was one more court reporter named Rona who came along for the ride. Linda, Penny, Rona, and I were a motley crew. Linda is white, Penny is African American, who later in life discovered that she is also Puerto Rican, Rona is Japanese American, and I’m African American whose ancestors were both free people of color and enslaved. The love of quilting brought us together, but little things like texting and calling each other keep us connected. Our friend Rona stopped calling and getting together years ago, but if she were to call, she would be welcomed back as if she had never left. I wasn’t as close to her as Linda was, but I miss her.

They say that nothing stays the same, and I know that to be true, but there were moments in Fresno when I felt young, carefree, and happy again. I was with my girls on a quilting trip. I was in a thrift store when I realized I was singing and swaying my hips to the music playing. In that moment, I could have been transported back in time before all the things that broke my heart happened, because in that moment, there was joy. I’m smiling now as I look at the silly glass pig-dog I brought from that store. It’s a silly memento of our trip and how happy it made me.

Penny and Linda, if you’re reading this, you better be because I sent you the link. I love you guys. I had a great time in Fresno. Next year… Bakersfield???

GRANDMA....!?

Grandma, Grandma, Grandma…. I have heard my grandson call me "grandma" so many times that I can tell by the inflection of his voice whether he truly wants to speak with me, or if his mother or father has put him on the phone to say hello to his grandmother. However, on a Tuesday (a few weeks ago), my grandson was lying in the emergency room bed when I heard his voice over the phone say, “Grandma….”

There was an unspoken fear that reverberated through the phone seventy-plus miles away to me. Grandma was usually uttered without a thought; the only cause for concern was his own making when he knew he had gotten caught doing something he had no business doing. But this time he was saying my name and asking me, without asking, if I could make everything alright, as I (in his eyes) had always done. His words were laced with anxiety, just steps away from panic. His appendix was inflamed and would need to be removed. The week prior, he had fallen at school playing basketball and received a concussion, and now he needed surgery!

I told him he would be fine, hoping he couldn't hear the concern in my voice. Prayers were immediately sent up on his behalf, and in that moment, the knowledge that we are not in control threatened to overwhelm me. Before I was mature in Christ, I would have bargained with God in a situation like this, but instead, I made my request known and hoped that it and God’s plan were the same.

My Grandson's surgery went well, and his recovery is complete. The sound of his voice when he said, “Grandma…!?” still echoes in my mind, landing on a memory hundreds of years old. I’m on a plantation in Louisiana in Red River Parish, where my people were enslaved. An old woman in her late sixties stood with the rest of the field hands a few feet from the front veranda of the Big House. Miss Abigail was there with her two sons, her daughter, and two other white men. The overseer was by the steps, chewing tobacco, spitting, and pacing restlessly. The group clustered in the yard knew what was about to happen; they just didn’t know who it would happen to. Parents tightened their grip on their children and held their breath, while Mother Nature seemed to do the same. Birds stopped chirping, and even the pesty flies stopped buzzing for a few brief moments. The air was still, and the world had gone silent until the stranger on the porch began to descend the steps, and McDougal, the overseer, jotted up to a young woman clutching a boy around seven years old. The ear-slitting screams of the young mother brought Mother Nature out of her stupor, and the earth became alive again. A flock of birds flew out of the nearby tree, and the wind blew a mighty gust, causing a small cloud of dust to dance in the air. The Spanish moss curtains were drawn back as the mighty oaks witnessed yet another atrocity of this peculiar institution.

Sally, the young woman’s mother and the boy’s grandmother, joined in on the wailing. She begged the stranger to buy her and her grandson. After they had tied her daughter, along with the two other unfortunate souls, to the wagon, Sally pulled her grandson from his mother, tucking him under her arm. As they watched the wagon and the people bound to it disappear, Sally heard her grandson say, “Grandma…!?” She heard him asking, just as I heard my grandson asking, without asking if everything would be okay.

Being a parent or parenting a child, we know that we are not in control. However, we strive to control what we can. We try to protect them for as long as we can from all manner of harm. This world is wicked and dangerous, but it is also beautiful. There will come a time when our children learn that we are not the superheroes that they thought we were. They will know that we can’t make everything alright, but when you’re confronted with that moment, that sound, that knowledge is imprinted on your soul. My helplessness in the moment when my grandson called out to me made me think of how my ancestors must have felt, knowing that every day of their lives they were subjected to the capricious whims of others. I do believe their trauma has been imprinted on their descendants’ DNA because I think of them often. I marvel at their resilience and the fact that I’m here, still standing after everything that this country has done to make existing here in this land harder.

To all the grandmothers in my lineage, I want to say “Grandma…!? Thank you for making everything alright.

FRESH TAKES ON "ROLLING IN THE DEEP."

I spent the morning at a high school in Hesperia, California, reading and discussing my book, Rolling In The Deep, by Evelyn C. Fortson. Although the book was written for an older audience, the high schoolers could relate to the multigenerational family drama. I think that was in large part because of the well-layered character-driven narrative about love, personhood, resilience, grace, and redemption. We spoke about the generational and racial differences in the places we call home, and how they are addressed in the book. They shared with me who helped shape them into the person they are today, and whether they have told that person how important they are.

In the end, I told them that "Rolling In The Deep" was a love letter to the neighborhood where I grew up and to the people who meant so much to me. I told them that I intentionally put in historical events that documented African Americans’ collective history. The Watts riot, the mention of a Sundown town, the Great Migration, and white flight (along with other events and places) were mentioned to spark the readers' curiosity. They could see the correlation between the Watts Riot, the Rodney King Riot, Black Lives Matter, and the killing of George Floyd.

It was a joy to be around young people who are at the crossroads of their lives. I hope they make the most of this time in their lives. I was impressed by their teacher, Honey Obeng. The concern she showed for her students’ development and for the expression of their ideas will serve them well in their future endeavors. They are lucky to have her!

The time I spent with them was brief, but before I left, I wanted them to ponder the two questions the book asks the readers. What is required of love, and what does love cost?

Love is not only a feeling, but it’s also an action. Love requires work, sacrifice, commitment, compromise, … The cost of love involves an emotional investment, which includes the risk of heartache.