operation save my life -- phase 4: CHATTAHOOCHIE BRIDGE

I have arrived. I’m here. But my arrival at this destination is the beginning of another journey. Cuz there is no destination … there’s only more arriving and leaving … driving people to the train … and picking em up from the airport. Maybe I’ll call it operation … LIVE … nah no more titles for the chapters of my life … for now.

There is a bridge in Atlanta that you might miss if you’re speeding towards 285 because it’s not much of a bridge … can’t ever see the entrance and there are no cars on it … it’s a mythical place … named chattahoochie. I just like that name. it reminds me of magic and silliness and spirit. It reminds me of hoochie words that I like to use. It’s so southern, so far from Brooklyn … it reminds me how far I’ve come. And what I’ve come for. How I got to be here and the hoochie-ness of my soul.

i am here cuz I know I been driving a lot. I love to drive and see things that God made. Like that chattahoochie bridge. Or trees that my ex-mother-in-law calls boogar bears. Or clouds in the sky. I like to know I’m part of something larger as I’m headed out into the small-minded world. I never had that in Brooklyn. In NY you mostly transport yourself underground on the nasty train.

I know I’ve arrived cuz I got this new job where I stand on my feet and I never sit behind a desk. they started training me yesterday and i love it!!! My dreams are all coming true … in that weird way that God works … I had faith I could do this … and because it’s his will I am doing it. I’ma do it so good … I’ma have fat tips … pray for me, please.

I BELIEVED that if I arrived in Atlanta and I put my artistic work schedule in place that the script I was working on would finish itself. And what do you know … CHATTAHOOCHIE … it is unfolding in front of my very eyes. I do the hard part okay … I sit in front of the computer for a specific time for at least 5 days a week. And the magic comes … ideas strike me in the brain, my fingers push out words and dialogue I didn’t know was there. I am so thankful … this is a 4-year-prayer answered … here … and I know the destination is the journey. I am learning to divorce my labor from its fruits. The joy is in the process. In each day I create something new. Each day it’s not finished but it is its own finished creation. I have a long way to go but I’m trying not to focus on that. I know that my script will be more beautiful the more I love it everyday. And I’m not concerned with the end but with my daily tasks. Besides it’s god’s fruit … totally. I can only wonder that I’m his servant who he chose to write this.

I am watching my daughter unfold. I am focusing on each day we have … we no longer see each other EVERY day so I know I’m here … at this new place … and it’s hard but it’s for a good purpose and she needs to be with her other parents and family who love her in unique ways … so I’ve distilled time down to her essence …and I drink her in sips … and my daughter … I feel her flavors as they are growing and changing … and tickling me. My spirit is more at peace, I’m happier and she feels that too … in this new place … we are a little brand new. And falling in love with each other again every day.

I couldn’t be here driving and looking at the world from the highway if God hadn’t blessed me with a car … it’s all his money I play with anyway … he brings it and he taketh it away … he gave me the skills and body to work so I can always make more change … he blessed me with work ethic and drive … I don’t know jackshit about cars really except how they drive and if I like the way they feel so I prayed and I asked God to make possible what was good, right, and best for me …he led me to a dealer, and a car I liked arrived … so I love my car and I named her dimples.

all this to say that operation save my life is over and the living is still going on … I met all of my goals and MORE … than I ever imagined …my spirit is finally at ease … that godforsaken job is behind me, nyc is behind me … my art is percolating and the journey is fulfilling ery ery day. Here … looking at chattahoochie bridge.

fact check: chattahoochie is really spelled chattahoochee and it's also a river that runs through georgia, alabama, tennessee, and florida ... i think :)

phase 2 -- operation save my life: the long hard winter

sometimes you just got to put your nose to the grindstone. and keep chugging. wake up everyday (late) round 7 am .... if lucky. take the baby to school. go to work. work at work (or not). pick the baby up. walk half a mile home in 7 year old legs. make/buy/fake some dinner. check baby's homework. tickle baby. give the baby a bath. put the baby to bed. take a shower. fall out.

wake up and do it all over again.

from december to july it was the hardest part of my plan: the sucking it up and being patient part.

in the little free time i had i looked up stuff about atlanta on the internet. i put all my furniture in storage. i prayed a lot ... i fell asleep around 10 pm a lot. i lived on credit when my salary couldn't cover all the bills. i humbled myself and allowed myself to accept gifts and assistance from my family and friends.

i still gave like i had money in the bank. i sent books to a lot of friends that winter ... i still had some ridiculously expensive work lunches. i did not worry and i did not stress about money or moving or getting a job or getting a car. i spoke with the Lord and i said "Lord, if you want me to do this and this is part of your plan for me then i know you will make a way. i will trust you to send me to the right restaurant. I will expect that you will provide me and my daughter with adequate housing. I will lean on your timing. i will have faith that what money is not here today will be there one day when i really truly need it. i will know i am going the right way because there will be little or no resistance to my plans."

i had a lot of folks to pay ... the fed hit me up for thousands, the price of oil made the price of heating gas skyrocket, back taxes popped up, the price of tea in china ... and despite all these unexpected expenditures i met my saving targets. i had more money in the bank than ... ever? i also had more credit card debt but ... i had accomplished a major goal. at many points during that winter i wasn't sure how or if i would save enough but i did my best and GOD did the rest.

i had never in my adult life been without a job except when i was in grad school. i wasn't worried but many around me were ... and at times the questions would hit me: what if it takes me two months to find a restaurant job? what if the fact that i have limited restaurant experience gets in the way? where are you going to live? what if baby daddy flips the script?

and i would answer myself: then, that means it's not to be and you will go look for a job somewhere else; and if worse comes to worse my generous friends have opened their homes to me; as for baby daddy i can only pray. but damn, did my brain sound braver than i felt. i still aint worry. what would be the point? i was as excited to FAIL as i was to SUCCEED. have you ever felt like that?

now that the hardest part of my plan is over ... i can't even remember what it was like to be cold that winter ... i am just glad i made it through.

and as winter melted into summer i made plans to visit atlanta on june 27th to scout out restaurants, find an apartment, and get the lay of the land. i gave notice at my job on july 4th.

you will have to read the next installment of 'operation save my life' to find out what happened when i visited atlanta in june ...

what it do

this blog do what it do.

which means ... whatever feels like coming through me is gon come through me.

ahhh but the source will always be love. you don't have to believe me - just watch me. of course, this is our first blog together, so you don't really trust me yet. i just had to state the premise: LOVE.

and why love? oh, ya know, it's this new new shit i'm on.

i want to testify to the universe about my journey towards LOVE.

not a journey towards a boyfriend or a husband, mind you. i have neither. the journey towards loving myself and being totally, completely happy - every day.

i am still on the journey. i am still healing myself. but i like to share. i will be sharing my innards and my struggle towards joy. i believe (along with Paulo Coehlo) that joy is a conquest. that happiness is a choice (along with my pastor Reverend Anthony Trufant). that God loves me and lives inside me. and that love is real.

real love ... is where i have no expectations of you, blog reader. a space where i am not trying to control you, your mind, or your thoughts. it is a place where i do not have to receive anything from you in return. that's real love.

it might seem that some of my blogs are not directly about love ... and that's cool with me. if it aint cool with you well, that's cool with me too. that's the beauty of love --- forgiveness & acceptance. and what little i know of love right now is that expressing who i am and following my dreams and passions is a reflection of how much i love myself.

i love myself enough to let my poems, my writings, my scribble scrabble, my random thoughts flow right out of me.

i have not mastered love and do not claim to be any kind of expert ... well, you'll see.