The World I Know

I'm about twelve hours behind the schedule I set. But then again were I on my time I'd be getting back to New York from somewhere else, the place where my goddaughter's big sister tried to jack her for my gift that arrived on time and unscathed. But that wasn't where I was supposed to be. Instead, I watched my father's house and let out the dog as they went to spring my big little sister from music camp. I had my Uncle Junie's' classic salad with fruits and nuts and other organic items. I had about three plates of crabs(even though I learned that the catch this season sucks due to runoff from the Purdue and Tyson chicken processing plants on the Chesapeake Bay), my Uncle Tony's burgers and my Mom's wings and baked beans, and I jumped my cousin into USA's Burn Notice, which luckily enough starts it's second season in a few days.

But as the evening of the 4th of July came, my uncle brought out the near four boxes of fireworks they'd picked up out of state. We've developed a rep on Childress Street for having the best shows in the hood. All the kids go over to the playground across the street to set off what they've got and then look on at ours in wonder. We've been doing this since I was still a boy, since my Grandad was still with us, since my cousin was the person we were trying to entertain. But now, even he is 21. Yet we're still alive and kicking. For an hour we all revert to our inner children, excited to play with matches and to see the light show up in the sky. It will go on until we're all gone, or until my cousin and I's children taken the reins.

There's a complete baseball stadium where the raggedy strip of dives and gay clubs used to be near the Bridge to Anacostia. I ate at a restaurant called Lauriol that I'd never heard of even though it's been there for longer than a decade. I've been gone a long time. And it shows more and more with each visit. When I return next week for a Cake reading at Olsson's I will hopefully see many of the new Facebook friends from my increasingly distant past. I'll look forward to it but it will be strange. I still can't get over how fast we all grew up, how my Dad when from black to salt and pepper, from having a chronic problem with authority to his far more gentle and resolved demeanor. I can talk to my mother in a way I couldn't before. All of this is progress. All of this is life.

In a day and a half I'm having a party, not only to celebrate the release of Cake and to preview new work, but because I almost didn't make it here (in the sense of still being a working artist kind of writer) , more times than I could count. I was afraid of inevitable changes, scared of having to do the work all over again. But for me there is no out. I will not let my blood fill with salt. I will not succumb to catering to money instead of the Creator's plan. I will not buy anymore plaid shirts or lumberjacks as they are no longer me. In a life where I've always been either too early or too late, sometimes I just have to wait. Out.