At 5:30 AM this morning, my cell phoned blasted an Emergency Alert flash flood warning loud enough to wake up the dead. Unable to go back to sleep, I got up, walked to the window, and opened the blinds. Rain was pouring like Niagara Falls. Considering the wicked state of the world, I expected to see Noah’s ark floating down the street any minute.
Leaving the window, I walk to the table in the other room and open my laptop. As I pass the bookcase, I glimpse one of the books facing forward on the shelf. It is James Baldwin’s. I smile at the irony because the cover suggests I should not worry about the rain; the prophecy is for the fire next time.
It is predawn, the best time to sit down, do some writing, and introspection.
I think about one of my favorite Langston Hughes’ poems titled Harlem. Written in 1951, it begins with the line “What happens to a dream deferred?” Six years after he wrote that Lorraine Hansberry would parlay Hughes’ words into a prize-winning play titled A Raisin in the Sun. Although it has been decades since I first encountered the question raised in the poem, I think about it a lot. I suppose that a dream differed could wither on a vine, but it doesn’t have to.
I’ve read that Hansberry sometimes wrote during her free time while working as a waitress. I’ve never been a waitress, but the jobs I held, initially as a switchboard operator at the Pentagon and later in administrative positions, albeit some with creative titles, took priority over my dream since childhood to be a writer. The demands of a full-time job and the responsibility of singly raising two children after a divorce left little free time to pursue my dream. Throughout the years and to this day, I’ve often wondered what if my circumstances had been different? What if writing had been my primary profession instead of a sidebar? I’ll never know the answer to those questions, but I did the best with the time and resources I had, like Hansberry and numerous other resourceful souls.
Retirement has given me ample time to write but realistically speaking time is not unlimited. When I was still in the workforce, I seized every opportunity to compose everything from essays, letters to the editor, Op-ed pieces, poems, anything that inspired me, and that I thought I could get published. My perseverance paid off. I was fortunate to have some of my pieces published in The Washington Post, The Afro-American, The City Paper, and elsewhere. For three years, I supplemented my income writing as a contributor to the Metro Chronicle. That weekly newspaper stopped publishing decades ago, but I will forever be grateful to the editor, LaVerne Gill, for allowing me to swim in the journalism pool. Sometimes even the most unlikely angels arrive to help us along our way. In my now leisure time, I’ve published a book, and am working on another. I’m also a successful blogger with 12 years and nearly 400 posts to my credit. How blessed am I?
When I hear people say, I would have done this or that if I had had the time, but I had to work, I encourage them and try to convince them that it is never too late to pursue an obtainable dream. I say obtainable because an 80-year old whose lifelong ambition is to be a gymnast like Simone Biles might be a bit too ambitious. But then, you never know. Far be it for me to rain on anybody’s parade.
My cousin Akintunde Kenyatta was in his late 60s or early 70s when (like Ex-President George H.W. Bush, Wesley Snipes, and other over 50 brave hearts) he decided to jump out of a plane. Akintunde fulfilled his dream and proudly crossed skydiving off his bucket list a few years before going home to glory. I am still impressed.
Second to my passion for writing is exercising. Before the pandemic shut things down, I was an enthusiastic gym member for seven consistent years, usually attending three days a week. Before that, I was devoted to walking for exercise.
For over a dozen years, my neighbor and friend, Hazel Williams, and I regularly walked on most Saturdays. My treks started after she encouraged me to join her, walking inside the PG Plaza Mall. However, after a few years of strolling past storefront windows got boring, we opted for a change of scenery. That’s when we began walking outside, 5-miles round trip from our home to City Place (as it was then called) in Silver Spring and back.
Concurrently, we also began participating in walk-a-thons that raised money to support charities and causes like Osteoporosis, breast cancer, etc. Most frequently, we joined in the annual Fannie Mae Homeless Walk downtown on the National Mall. That walk took place every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Hazel and I participated for about 12 to 15 years during the 24 years that the annual walk was held. Unfortunately, Fannie Mae ended the fundraising walks in November 2011.
If I could go back to my younger self and deliver a message to her when she was feeling discouraged and stuck in a rut, I’d tell her, “Girl, don’t you give up. A dream deferred does not die unless you let it. Don’t let naysayers, dire circumstances, or self-doubt stop you. You’ve got this!”