Etched continues - The Journey to Lineage

The journey to Lineage

A few months ago I wrote, “…and so, for now, just the nearness of my own tropical garden, my garden of Eden/Paradise or whatever name I choose will be there for me when I look up. When my mind wonders, or when my eyes need a little break from staring at the screen of my lap top I’ll take my mini vacations in my miniature garden of paradise. I will do my mental and spiritual strolling among the healthy green leaves and with the back-drop of sheer cream voile and satin-trimmed curtains I’ll be at peace.  The curtains are sheer enough to let the light (wisdom) in and just thick enough to keep out prying eyes.

And so the journey continues…Lineage.

An Etched heart cannot be fully satisfied until all its desires are met.  Will the Etched hearts of the Ancestors be fully satisfied when Lineage is complete? 

Time; God’s time will reveal.”

When I wrote that I was basking in the satisfaction of having completed Etched. Since I wrote that so much has happened.  A few seasons have come and passed.  I’ve embarked on one of the most exciting adventures of my life. It has given me days and moments of almost indescribable happiness and joy. And yet, through all of those Etched moments I found time to write. Not as I wanted to but enough to remind myself that a writer lives and dwells within me. 

Now however a new season is fast approaching its time I dig my heels in, settle into my oasis (with all my wonderful memories) and do what gives me the greatest joy…write.

Lineage has been in my soul since I finished Etched.  I’ve been waiting until the moment was right but I also knew deep in my heart that I couldn’t force it, I couldn’t make it happen.  I had to wait until the call came.  The call came but I, because I had another agenda said, “Can you wait for a moment?  There’s this other project that I would like to see through to fruition and I promise you as soon as it’s done I’ll give myself over to you—undivided.”

The Ancestors gave me some time but alas they can't wait for ever.  They are ready.  The other project isn’t completed but it’s at a stage where it can and will stay incubated for a while.  Lineage and the Ancestors whispered in my ears again.  This time they allowed me to know that they've waited long enough.  Lineage has stayed incubated as long as it can and now…it’s time.

I know now I don’t have to force the writing or ‘create’ the right time. The whispering of my name is in the air.  I'm being called, my eyes feel misty, my heart has a certain exciting tug and my spirit is rejoicing.  Its saying, "Daughter of the Diaspora it's time."  It's not my time but Lineage’s time.  The early stages of “writing” labor has started.  I will go through this amazing labor. And with this renewed energy surging through my veins I will endure every brain numbing contraction, ever breath stopping push.  I will labor and ‘go through’ until the birthing process is completed.

I will trust the Ancestors to guide me.  I will give myself up totally, as with Etched, to this journey.  If this journey is anything like Etched I will, along the way, converse with the Ancestors, we will talk, laugh, cry and I will listen as the greatest Griots whispers the stories of my our past into my ears.  I will pour all that is in me into the telling of their story.  I am ready.  Its time!

Journey to Lineage

A Time For Everything

 Sometimes, well most times, we don’t know when will be the right time for something or even someone.  We can plan a thousand times how we’ll do something or what we’ll say and do when we meet that special someone.  We may even struggle to get that thing going because it just seems to be taking too long to happen and then one day, seemingly out of the blue it all falls into place; that out of reach thing happens and that special someone - more special than anyone you’ve ever met before - comes along and just like that it all falls into place and as Aunt Bess said in Etched, “There is a time for everything and all things are done in God’s time not ours.” 

Thank you God for your impeccable timing.

Today is one such day. This is God’s time and I feel blessed to be in it. I’ve started to work on my second novel—Lineage. Lineage is the continuation of Etched.  In Lineage the stories of eight more generations will unfold.  I have more than a vague idea how these stories will unfold since Lineage is a part of the original 900 page single-spaced manuscript that was Etched. In Etched we had Aunt Bess our Griot who told us the story of: Cornbread, Molasses, Milkweed, Harold Joe, Neela, Tember, Beauford, Fields, Litchfield, Matthew and Hamilton. In Lineage there will be a new Griot, a new antagonist and of course every good drama needs a protagonist. Our history had and has its share of both so in Lineage, undoubtedly, both will surface; they must—it’s our history.

This journey, I know will be different.  Like any other experience I’ve gone through I’ve learned.  Some of the lessons I didn’t get the first time because I was unaware or pretended that they weren’t lessons and therefore I failed to get the lesson the first time. I’ve had to repeat many of life lessons over and over to the point where I’ve earned an advanced degree in Life Lessons.  God was kind to me and He stopped me before I earned a PhD in stupid.  I now try very quickly to recognize that what I’m experiencing is a Life Lesson and try to grasp the lesson quickly so I won’t have to do a repeat. Along the way though I’ve learned that sometimes you don’t get a repeat. That lesson is presented only one time and if you screw it up you’ve screwed it up and you must go on.  Sometimes people are taken away before you can ‘fix’ what you screwed up and there’s no way (other than with much prayer) to say you are sorry or I’m sorry I (or you as is sometimes the case) screwed things up when you were here.  However difficult those lessons have been (or are) you go on…the alternative is not an option; well not for me anyway.
On my journey to becoming a published writer I learned many lessons. There were times when this Etched journey was an emotional roller coaster with no visible Fairground Operator at the control.  My ride was bumpy and at times it looked as if a derailment was imminent but Grace and Mercy stepped in and gently guided my out of control roller coaster to cruise and then stop.  I got off with an amazing book that I’m so very proud that I clung to the proverbial rail of that roller coaster.

Thank you God for Grace and Mercy!

The lessons I learned as I screamed, hollered and cried for assistance (very little to none came) have stayed with me.  I now know that if no human assistance comes I just have to hold on.  That God, in His perfect wisdom and timing is working it out and as He said in Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you.”  He did not say that He would share them with me.  He said, “For I know…”  That knowledge that He knows what plans He has for me sustains me.

I’m ready and now I’m prepared.

I am so ready that I’ll also be returning to school to finish my MBA as I unfold Lineage. Yes, I’m brave like that.  I’m half-way through my program and it is my hope that by the time I’m holding a copy of Lineage (book or nook) that I’ll also hold my degree in my other hand…for He knows the plans He has for me.

Etched started the journey and as Etched unfolded they were many questions unanswered I must once again become a knowledge seeker.  I will not take this new journey lightly.  I will welcome each ancestor who chooses to be a spirit guide for me.  Etched was a gift and so as the journey continues in Lineage, so too, I believe, will the guiding spirits of my ancestors.  I will ask of them all the questions I need to ask just as I did when I embarked on my Etched journey.  

I will take nothing for granted.  I will refrain from approaching this story as though it were mine to tell.  It is not. The ancestors have chosen me to be the vessel by which this story gets told and so I will ask. I will wait. I will be receptive and I will be graciously humble for each gift that is imparted to me.

And so, once again I’ve returned to the very place where I wrote Etched.

I am sitting at my dining room table facing my own garden oasis where enough of the sky can be seen through my three windows to allow me to see the unfolding of the days and as I embrace this Lineage journey, I’m sure, eventually, I’ll see the seasons change too.  I am comfortable with that.  There is no need to rush. They ancestors have waited all this time until I was ready to hear, obey and write.  They are not going to rush me now and not have it be told properly.

I and they will wait.

I've gotten used to fresh cut flowers on my table.  They satisfy my soul.

The view when I look up and over the lap top.

The whole view.  My books with my notes to my left, pen and paper to my right and in the middle...

And so, for now, just the nearness of my own tropical garden, my garden of Eden/Paradise or whatever name I choose it will be there for me I look up, when my mind wonders, or when my eyes need a little break from staring at the screen of my lap top.  I’ll take my mini vacations in my miniature paradise, do my mental and spiritual strolling among the healthy green leaves and with the back-drop of sheer cream voile and satin-trimmed curtains I’ll be at peace.  The curtains are sheer enough to let the light (wisdom) in and just thick enough to keep out prying eyes.

And so the journey continues…Lineage.

An Etched heart cannot be fully satisfied until all its desires are met.  Will the Etched hearts of the ancestors be fully satisfied when Lineage is complete? 

Time; God’s time will reveal.

...and we danced

A few months ago I met someone and I was moved to write some poetry.  Until that day I hadn’t written anything for almost a year.  But there was something about this individual that moved the poet in me and so I wrote.  That individual, time and moment have all passed but the poem remained.  It was beautiful.  I took that beautiful poem and I tucked it away deeply in my Etched heart and went back to the journey I was on being glad that I had not detoured too far off my path.

With that poem tucked away I remained focused on Etched and with my eyes firmly fixed on the prized—Etched was not affected.  Thank God.  Now Etched, no longer a fledgling, is well on her way to being…whatever has been ordained for her/it to be.  I, being the vessel to bring her forth, have no control over this matter but even with that in mind I will do what I can to see that she stays on the path that is best for her.

My mind is now a bit freer and so not one to be idle I heard something that pricked at my poetic side.  I jotted the words down and a few moments ago, remembering them, I birthed them into the poem below.  It is still a work in progress; or it might just remain as it but either way, for now, I’m done.

It is my hope that it will be Etched in your heart as it is mine.

….and We Danced

Yesterday in your human form you…

Passed by me hurriedly, yet slowly

Your look, though fleeting

Shouted disgust because to you I was

Negro, nigger, Black, Colored…not like you

Your shouting silent look said

Inferior, ugly, too fat, too short, too tall, too thin

Breast too big, round, full...yet your hungry eyes

You couldn’t avert

As they journeyed from breast,

to belly

—the incubator and birthplace of nations

To my full round real woman hips

With their knowing sensual gait and sway

So you forced them away…stopped your heart from yearning

So you looked at my mouth

With its all telling lips and your eyes said...

Too thin, too fat, too wide, too thick

Yet your mind…wondered and wandered over, around and in…

So you cursed my nose

Said it was too broad, too wide

The strong ancestral flair—offended you

Made me inferior—in heart but your eyes…

Which only moments ago hungered

Said, “Why don’t you just….die!”

Free me of my guilt, my shame, my ignorance,

My insatiable hunger for you

And so

As you wished I died

Not to please you

But from knowledge birthed into my soul

I died

To you, your ignorance, bigotry and hate

Your hunger and your lust

But so then did you…not that second

Later/after

And then we met again….

Spirits

Stripped and free of the burden of flesh and color

Hate, ignorance and bigotry

Forgot what it used to be

And—you not recognizing mine as the one

You’d yearned for yet rejected

Because I was: Black, Negro, nigger, Colored…woman

Came to me rejoicing…spirit to spirit

...and we danced

Because while I was human

I was love, joy, peace, laughter…spirit with a forgiving soul

So…I welcomed you

…and we danced…

Annette I. Smith©

March 21, 2011

Book Launch and Reception at the Barbados Consulate - March 11, 2011

It has been several months since I’ve blogged and rather than spend or expend energy explaining why I haven’t I’ll start from where I am.  Where I am now is an exciting if not, exhilarating place. It is that place I wrote about in Etched at the end of Chapter one where the narrator says, “And a time for peace (There’s no moment like when you realize that you’ve found it. It’s like walking in warm summer rain).
 

That place…that walking in the warm summer’s rain place is where I am.  It’s the kind of place where you can, for me, untie my locs, shake my head from side to side and let my tresses flow/cascade down my shoulders and not ‘fix’ them.  It’s closing my eyes and welcoming the darkness.  It’s knowing that in this darkness there’s nothing to fear.  Its feeling the weight of my hair/locs/tresses on my shoulders and thanking God that its only hair/tresses/locs and not burdens on my shoulders.  Its knowing that behind my closed lids there are no images to fear.  That I’ve let go and now that I’ve let go God is doing an amazing thing.  Those things I feared which kept my eyes open even passed the point of tired are gone.  I no longer have to worry about birthing my book child: Etched.  She has been birthed.  The labor and delivery were both rough and at times the pain (emotional) was excruciating but it’s over and as with a real child birth my brain has been anesthetized; I don’t really (well ok, a little) remember.

I remember because of some of the human spirits I encountered along my Etched journey.  Some, because they have not been able to get to the place where their dreams are yet realized, are angry and a tad (OK some more than a tad) bitter.  These ‘spirits’ have been the hardest ones to deal with on this journey.  I, because I’m sensitive (yes I am) couldn’t understand why they couldn’t do what I would have done—embrace them on the success of their journey and celebrate with them and hope that when my turn came they would join me in my celebration.  I can now say, that, as with all things that are painful, I’ve confronted these angry ‘spirits’ and because they can’t compare to the feel of walking in a warm summer’s rain I’ve had to learn to love them ‘differently’.  Loving ‘differently’ is just what is says.  You love them but not the way you do those persons that embrace you and thank God for you that you’ve seen a dream come to fruition.

In loving ‘differently’ you don’t allow your heart to hurt when they are less than loving.  You pray for them and love them as you do the person on the other side of the world.  You don’t wish them hurt, harm or danger but you also don’t bring them into your most trusted or sacred circle because you already know the energy they are going to bring.  You also know that your precious sacred circle goin’ be a square, triangle, hexagon or something other than what you started out with when they get done.  Not one to keep reshaping my circle I’ve accepted that there are some persons that just aren’t to be gathered close to my bosom.

However that was not the case on Friday, March 11, 2011 when I was granted a major honor. The Barbados Government Offices here in New York City sponsored a book launch/reading/signing and reception in my honor for my debut novel Etched.  On that night almost 100 friends, family and colleagues (those I can trust to let my circle remain a circle) gathered to help me celebrate. 

There aren’t enough words to adequately convey the depth of gratitude and love that I felt then and am still feeling now.  Ms. Linda Watson-Lorde, Cultural and Community Affairs Officer, Consulate General of Barbados, the Honorable Consulate General, Lennox Price and the staff of the Barbados Government Office at New York  welcomed my family, friends, and colleagues with great Bajan aplomb.

My Bajan heart is still rejoicing (actually its really jumping up and down) whenever a memory crosses my mind of that evening.  Many people (Hollywood, celebrities and regular everyday folk; like you and I) give credence and reverence to an event by the color of the carpet that’s rolled out to meet the arriving guest at premiers and special events.  That carpet is usually red and is the mark/symbol of wealth, elegance and sophistication.

Well I must say that there was no red carpet at this affair. We, Bajans, did better than that.  We took it up another notch. We searched the color palette and knew there were but a few colors that would or could suffice.  The carpet for this event would be the best and with the boldest colors.  It would be blue and gold with the interspersing of a black broken trident (The colors of the Barbadian flag with its broken trident). Blue symbolizes the sea and sky of Barbados; Gold symbolizes the sands of Barbados and the broken trident – the trident of the mythical sea god: Neptune.  The trident is broken to represent Barbados’ break from Britain…what better colors for to welcome guest and Bajans alike.

I’m also proud to add that this amazing flag was designed by my brother’s Godfather the Late Mr. Grantley Prescod—a great and humble Barbadian.  I can’t mention his name and not mention that he was also a teacher at Parkinson Memorial Secondary School where and both the Honorable Consulate General, Lennox Price and I went to school.

The evening was a resounding success and that’s not just my humble opinion.  For those of you in attendance thank you from the bottom of my heart.  For those of you whom life threw unexpected curve balls and you were unable to make it…you were missed. 

Excerpt read at the book launch:

I looks at Orpah, dat be she name, and she not smiling no more. I suh, “Orpah, yuh not be happy fer meh and ‘Lasses?”

She suh, “I be mighty happy fer yuh, but I nots be happy fer meh. Massa Livingston him suh dat I gots to cabin wid de nigger Tember dat dem bring from Beaufort.”

“Tember? Beaufort? Yuh nots want to be wid him?”

“I wants muh own mans.”

“But yuh suh him solt way a long time. So who be Tember?”

“Tember him be big big nigger from Beaufort in the Low Country.”

“So wat dat mek him… not good nigger mans?”

“Him nigger mans and mayhaps him is a good nigger mans, but him been solt and solt so many times dat him not have skin left on him fer brand?”

“Brand?”

“Yuh sure yuh nigger? Yuh not know’ds ‘bout branding?”

“I be nigger plenty, but I only been on Beauford Plantation and all him slave be on him plantation since ‘fore I be born. So I not know’ds ‘bout no branding.”

Orpah she look at meh and she suh, “Dem dat know’d Tember from long time suh dat him suh ‘fore dem solt him to Massa Litchfield, dat him be on plenty different plantation and ‘fore dat him come from a place call Barbados, and it be thar dat dem furst season him to be fine plantation nigger. Tember him suh dat him be in Barbados fer almost two years. I not know’d way Barbados be but him not born thar. Him be born in Africa. Him tolt dem dat him be from Gambia. I not know’d way that be either but to mek him good slave dem tek him to dis Barbados place furst so dem can mek him know’d how to be a good nigger and wuk on a plantation. Him suh dat de white mans call wat dem to do to niggers dem bring from Africa and tek to Barbados ‘seasoning’.

“It be thar way dem furst brand him. Wen dem brand nigger, de mark suh dat nigger ‘long to de one dat brand dem. Massa Litchfield him got brand. Him brand him new niggers so dat be why dem look fer skin on Tember dat not be got brand and dem brand him. Massa Litchfield him brand be big mark like stick standing and stick laying down. Dem got name fer it but I not know’d wat de name be. Brand be mek from iron and dem put it in de fire ‘till it turn red and wen it be red, den dem put it on nigger. Nigger be brand den.”

“But, Orpah, nun of dat be him fault. Him jis’t nigger and slave like we be.”

“Dat be true but dem bruk him spirit. Tember be nigger man widout spirit. Him jis’t do. Him never ever tink dat someday tings be different. Dem dun season him good. Tember be de best ‘sample of seasoning a nigger. Tember him wid him talking different-self be dead inside. Him rut wen dem suh rut, and him do him best to mek pickney. Dem suh dat wen him mek de pickney, him be like white mans.”

“How dat be? Him be nigger.”

“Him be like white mans dat mek pickney wid nigger womans ‘cause him never look at de pickney. It be like de pickney not be him own. I not wants to mek pickney fer no mans and him not tek one look at de pickney. It be him pickney and him ought to look at de lil’ pickney dat be him own.”

I not know’d wat to suh to Orpah so I jis’t bends muh head and I go back to muh cotton picking. Orpah she stop talking and she go back to picking de cotton too. I not no more talk or try to mek she talk ‘cause she start back crying wen she dun talk ‘bout Tember, and now she crying she stay ‘crying. Wen it be time fer we to go to de yard, she try to mek herself not cry no more and suh, “I nots want to cabin wid Tember.”

I nots know’d wat to suh so I suh, “Mayhaps it nots be so bad. Mayhaps Tember not want to cabin wid yuh and so de two of yuh be happy ‘cause yuh not like one another and so yuh jis’t gots to get through night to morning.”

“It not be dat way. Massa Livingston put meh to cabin wid Tember so Tember can mek pickney wid meh. Dem suh dat Tember good fer mek pickney. Bruk spirit man not be able to mek good pickney. Good pickney need whole spirit and him spirit it bruk.”

It has been said that a picture speaks a thousand words so I’ll stop here and let these pictures do the rest of the talking.

Book cake by: Temika Johnson - http://www.bakersreality.com/ or 646 667 8310 or  Orders@BakersReality.com

The Honorable Lennox Price, Consulate General receiving his signed copy of Etched

The Author: Annette I. Smith and Linda Watson Lorde

Family: Daughter: Noebie, Daughter-in-law: Anika, Me and son: Richard

A rose by any other name....

Some of the guest listening to reading

Standing room only - guest satisfied to stand in the over-flow

Family: Sister-in-Law:Angela, nephew: Isaiah, me, grand nephew: Clayton and his mom: Tassaja

At Home with son and daughter

Signing and loving it...

Can't sign these or pick the pen up.  These are CAKES!!!!

Etched The Cake - Red Velvet
(done by Temika Johnson - 1 646 667 8310)

Cake books or Book cakes

Still signing and still loving it

Guest waiting in line to get their books sign.