Aug 06

Should you stick with the devil you know?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
  Years ago, when my father was still alive, I remember my mother complaining about his activities. She’d discovered he was buying international lottery tickets and sweepstakes tickets. She kept finding stubs from money orders where he’d purchased sweepstakes or lottery tickets. My parents lived across the street from a shopping mall, so while my father no longer drove, it wasn’t impossible for him to walk across the street and find a place to buy money orders. At the time, my mother was venting about wasting money on a foolish expense. “Nobody ever wins these,” she ranted. “How much money was he wasting?” she fussed. “He could use that money for something else. He could put it in the bank and let it draw interest. Or just give it to me and I’ll find a use for it,” my mother promised. As daughters sometimes do, I listened without too much comment. My mother needed to vent. And I let her. While she was complaining, I was busy congratulating myself on my goodness. Although I hung out with folks who did, I never played numbers. I didn’t place bets on the horses or sports teams. I never bought lottery tickets or […]
Jul 22

WHY I WROTE: THE DOCTOR IS IN

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
  I had a dream about a Black female doctor driving through a small all-Black and Brown town, almost from another age when folks didn’t lock their doors. When folks all knew each other. What affected one resident in the town affected the entire town. Folks knew each other’s “business.” Folks knew each other’s children and didn’t need parental permission to discipline them because folks trusted their neighbors’ judgment. I decided I’d write a book about an old-fashioned town. I’d make the town full of Black and Brown folks. Typically, quaint towns as described above are portrayed as all-white or mostly white. I wanted my imaginary town to be folks of color. I wanted the folks to be sexually diverse as well. I wanted most of the main characters to be female. I didn’t want the town to only be filled with women either. My town needed its men too. As I thought about my town, I wondered what it would look like. Who would occupy it? What was the main industry? How would the town be discovered? The more I researched, I decided River’s Bank could be a small farm town with milk cows as the main product. The […]
Jul 15

HISTORY & WHO TELLS IT

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above was taken in 2015 around Thanksgiving. The shadows you see are my mother and me. We’re watching what’s left of our home being torn down. It’s a complete surprise to us. We both thought when she sold it to a nice young white couple for a great deal less than she imagined, the house … our house would be there forever. It just wouldn’t belong to us any longer. Two other unique houses built by the first Black families to live in this township, just outside of Akron, Ohio, were gone too. My home and my history as well as the homes and histories of the two other Black doctors had been torn down and buried in the in the grassy earth. Permit me to explain by going a bit backwards. My mother sold our home eight years ago in 2010. She’d been trying to sell the ranch-style home for years. She couldn’t get the asking price for it. Since the area my mother lived in had been zoned for commercial as well as residential use, she thought it would be easier to sell her house. Unfortunately for my mother, Ohio was one of those states that […]
Jul 08

THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
When I was still working for city government, I formed a great friendship with a female co-worker. We used to talk about everything. She knew I was gay and accepted that fact. She also knew years ago that I’d been through a nasty divorce just as she was going through one currently. We exchanged notes about how bad my ex-husband or her soon-to-be former husband were. We spoke about our husbands’ idiocy about misusing our children’s affections or playing games with child support, hoping if things were bad enough for us, we’d come running back to them. We shared the difficulties of raising children as single working mothers. On the job, we also wondered why this unqualified, lazy so and so was promoted or given a raise when we had more qualifications and better service records, but we were not considered promotable. We had typical girl talks. While I liked all the things I had in common with my good friend, what really fascinated me was our weekly discussions about televisions programs we watched, which sometimes led to political discussions. My friend convinced me to watch Sleepy Hollow. I truly loved idea of a young Black as a romantic interest […]
Jun 25

WHY I WROTE: FOREVER WOMEN IN LOVE & LUST

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Have you ever been afraid to live alone? Have you ever been worried that you’ll never find that special one … the person you want to spend the rest of your life with? And you keep thinking positive. You’re in your late teens. You think she’s out there waiting for you to find her. You’re confident as many teenagers are, that you two will bump into each other like in the movies. Time will stop. Birds will sing. Flowers will bloom because you found her. You just know she’s the one for you. But it’s just a dream and you’re alone. Then you’re in your twenties. You notice everyone around you is a couple. You keep looking for her because you don’t want to be the only single one in your group of friends. Time flies. Boom, bam. You’re in your thirties. Friends are married. Friends have kids— and you? Well, you’re still alone. You’re still searching for that special lady. Now you’re starting to worry. Maybe she was that last woman you dated for a couple of months and dumped. Or was she that blind date your friends arranged. You cancelled that one at the last minute. Now you’re […]
Jun 18

LOSS

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above is a view of the Hudson River during a stormy day. The fog is partly covering the New Jersey shoreline near the Palisades. The road with the cars on it is the West Side Highway. It’s one of the major highways in Manhattan that runs along a body of water called the Hudson. The other roadway that runs alongside a river is the FDR Drive on the eastside, running along the East River. The bridge located over the West Side Highway is one of the entrances to Riverbank State Park. When I look at this picture, I think that’s how I feel. Sometimes, I’m sunless and kind of foggy, as if my brain is on permanent default. I get lost in the fog. There are no lights to help guide me to the light or a better day. My sister died six months ago. She was two years older than I. We didn’t speak daily. I’m not much of a caller. I never have been one to call first. If you call me and I’m in the mood, I will talk your ear off. My sister and I would talk on birthdays and winter holidays like Thanksgiving […]
Jun 11

SUCCESS MEANS LEARNING TO FAIL

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above is a view of the Riverside Drive’s Park between West 144th Street and West 142nd Street. The strip park run along Riverside Drive and follows the Hudson River. Parts of the drive mingle with the West Side Highway and so the park overlooks the highway or 12th Avenue. Other parts of the park disappear and reappear further uptown and end somewhere in Inwood. The park still has uniquely antique elements. Note the water fountain, the cobblestone made of bricks, and the old-fashioned street lamps that work. What’s most interesting to me is the way one main road separates into two paths. It reminds me of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. For the past six months, my niece and I have grown particularly close. One reason is that my sister, who was also her mother, died six months ago. I’ve always considered my niece like a daughter and so this was a natural progression of things. Another reason we’ve grown close, I’ve been giving her some advice about jobs. Lately, my suggestions have been geared towards her new promotion. A little more than a year ago, she took a job as an entry level employee with a […]
May 28

MORE REASONS WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wondered if there was a way to write an interesting book about Black lesbians who lived during the 1920’ and 30s. I also wanted to tell the story of the first great migration of Black folks from an agricultural south to the industrial north. What must that like for Black women with elementary school educations and very little skills. Which states did these Black women relocate? What would make them leave home and go into the unknown north? How did these women fair in their newly adopted homes. I debated if this book I wanted to write should be an official history book or a fictional account. I’d read a couple of fictional books who did a good job of teaching a bit of actual history by blending in personal accounts. I wanted to write a similar book. I was curious what Black lesbian life was like in the Harlem of the 20s and 30s. I decided to do some research before I started writing “TYSON” a bittersweet tale of loyalty, murder and romance during Harlem’s Renaissance. My purpose was to write a fictional murder mystery that takes place during that time. What I discovered was nothing. There were […]
May 21

WHY I CHOOSE TO WRITE WHAT I WRITE

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I have always been a curious sort of person. I don’t mean curious as in odd or strange. Hmm, maybe I’m that too. But this time, I mean I’m a people-watcher. I can and have gone to a shopping center or sat on a wrought-iron park bench or settled on a concrete seat in a playground and watched pedestrians do whatever they do on the street all day. I’ve been known to spend a lunch hour or longer people-watching. Time just seems to fly by when I do it. I’m imagining what their lives might be like away from the shopping malls, parks, playgrounds, and lunchrooms, where I first see them. If I’m not close enough to hear their conversations, I make them up. I see a kid being disciplined by his nanny for jumping mid-way from the metal slide instead riding all the way down to the end. His jump barely misses hitting another kid’s head as she kneels next to the slide fixing a loose sneaker. I wonder what his mother and father do? They probably have a nice income to be able to afford a nanny. Then I wonder if the nanny is being paid under the […]
May 14

CAN I USE YOUR RESTROOM?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I love my adopted city of New York. I believe that I always will. I do have one pet peeve, though. Actually, I have many peeves against the city living, but this one still bugs me whenever I see it happening on the street in public view. What I’m talking about is public exposure to the male genitalia. Years ago, when I first moved to New York, I couldn’t count the number of times I’d be returning from work late and I’d be walking up the street to my room. In the distance, I’d see a man leaning his forehead against the side of a building, his shoulders slightly hunched. Or he’d be leaning against a car with an arm resting on the car’s roof. I’d keep walking the same path because I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I’m from the country. Back home, men didn’t urinate in the street in full view of anybody using the street to go somewhere. Men kept their private parts private. In the 18 years I lived in Ohio, I can’t remember ever seeing a man or a boy urinating in full view of anybody. I’m sure we didn’t have more men’s rooms […]
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