Persimmon & Maple: June 2013

My momma grew up on the corner of Persimmon & Maple in Mobile, Alabama and was born in Lucedale, Mississippi. My daddy was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and raised in Baton Rouge. Both, Southern born and raised. Two of my four siblings were born in Mobile and the rest in California: Los Angeles and Upland, I was born in Pomona, California the city which hails as our 'home' on the West. Suffice it to say, "You can take my people out of the South but you can't take the South out of my people." We've been raised with all the values of Southern Folk---values that I am proud of and pass on to the next generation. It is true, "there's no place like home." Though my beingness; my womyness straddles between Pomona, Mobile, and Baton Rouge---I remain quite footed. As a girl I never quite understood or appreciated my Southern roots, as I do now, having some age on me (smile).

HOME is the center of my compass. It is what balances me. I have learned HOME is in me even when I am away. When you are with me on Persimmon & Maple I will gift you a glimpse of my HOME and welcome the sharing of yours. For you see:

I am a descendent of those whose names I will never know.
May God rest there souls in the chill of the Atlantic
and the soil of this land.
I am my great grandmothers & great grandfathers
grandmothers
grandfathers
auntees
uncles
cousins
nieces nephews
siblings momma and daddy
Yes, 'dey is in me. Big and full. So, iz smile.'

Now, of course I know HOME 'ain't all sugar and spice and everything nice.' I know all of us folks who comprise 'home' can also 'cause a hurtin' on one another in ways never, ever, even before conceived. It makes me ask, "How do you understand the Greatest Commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself ?!" And then treat another with such disregard, judgement, hypocritical Christianity and meanness. Like ain't no blood relationship or intimate knowingness* shared. HOME ain't all the times good.

Them kin (blood or not)--like me--still make up HOME.

And, you can't choose your kin.

HOME is HOME.

HOME is
joy and pain, bitter and sweet,
good and bad,
a place of possibility, hope, endings
and beginnings again
it is familiar
it is an anchor
it is laughter, tears, and tickles
it is the smell of sweet potatoes baking
and Sunday dinners
it is fights with brothers and sisters and making up again
it is I'm sorry, forgive me and love--indeed
it is momma doin' hair in the kitchen
daddy grillin' outside
it is uno, double six, and bid whis
it is uncles signifyin'
while auntees hollah', "Sho' nuf!"
it is catfish 'n grits, fried green tomatoes, smothered chicken,
grandma's gingerbread and étouffée
it is where we stretch 10 cents to make a dollar
with enuf to feed us and errbody else!
home is family
by love
by blood & by knowingness
it is peace
it is prayers
it is where
band aids are placed with love
even on wounds
too invisible
for the
eye

H O M E IS

So, WELCOME to a li'l piece of my HOME. Won't you have a sit down and stay a while, as I share the meanderings of my mind? My hope is that my words--poetry, prose, political, spiritual and rant---will ease onto your palette like a cool glass of sweet tea & lemonade on a hot, muggy, southern summer's day. I hope the glasses I serve are not too sweet or too bitter; but life teaches us the bitter does come with the sweet. Can you hear the clanging of the ice in the glass? I can.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

HOME