Friday, November 25, 2011

Re:Placing

Tonight I sat down to have thanksgiving dinner at a table of women. Two generations and dozens of stories apart. The one next to me is Haitian and asks whether I am going to remain in America after school, and I never think about it when people ask me this question. There is no hesitation to my 'No', and she recounts to me that she said she would come here for five years. She is now well beyond forty years of living in New York.

A friend had asked me the same question last night, told him I didn't see the point in having to exert myself for survival here when I could live comfortably with house and land on a quiet-enough island where the ocean doesn't freeze over in the loaf-end months. I can see the enticement of the opportunity here, but if you step back far enough, it's always a carrot-bait type of situation, and I'm just not that kind of horse. I understand it though. I understand the West Indian obsession with Brooklyn, we always move, waves at a time.

Two of my sisters (God bless the hearts of these women) tonight asked where I wanted to live eventually, and whether I would stay in New York. At this point I feel like the universe is asking me to shape a clearer definition of myself and prodding me in the direction of a work I started this week. In creating a performance for a class project, I am beginning to form my first one-woman show, on the questions of destiny and identity and trusting dreams.

More doors have been opening than I had keys to. God has been remarkably gracious to me in the last few months, and this year has been one of so much growth for me as a person. I am trying to expand beyond the US as of next year, I need to get hold of some scholarships and grants, but these things have already been surfacing. I have some key people at this point in my life that I am drawing experience from, and this is definitely a time of growth for me. I have been more grateful for life in this last week than I have ever been in my life.

Building.