Ms. Johnson says each day holds its own memory – its own moments that we can write about later. She says we should always look for the moments and some of them might be perfect, filled with light and hope and laughter. Moments that stay with us forever and ever.
We knew Down South. Everyone had one. Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico.
Stories can be windows, but also mirrors.
Every since he was a little boy, his father had always warned him about running in white neighborhoods. Once, when he was about ten, he had torn away from his father and taken off down Madison Avenue. When his father caught up to him, he grabbed Miah’s shoulder. Don’t you ever run in a white neighborhood, he’d whispered fiercely, tears in his eyes. Then he had pulled Miah toward him and held him. Ever.
I didn’t just appear one day. I didn’t just wake up and know how to write my name. I keep writing, knowing now that I was a long time coming.
We were four girls together, amazingly beautiful and terrifyingly alone.
When you’re 15, pain skips over reason, aims right for the marrow.
He would give his own life to see Melody able to stay this young, to see her live her teenage life – all the years. He wanted to pull her to him now. Say, Hold on to yourself, Melody. Don’t get lost. He wanted to say again what he’d said to her so many times before. You’re loved, baby, you’re loved.
Something about memory. It takes you back to where you were and lets you just be there for a time.
At night, every living thing competes for a chance to be heard. The crickets and frogs call out. Sometimes, there’s the soft who-whoo of an owl lost amid the pines. Even the dogs won’t rest until they’ve howled at the moon. But the crickets always win, long after the frogs stop croaking and the owl has found its way home. Long after the dogs have lain down losing the battle against sleep, the crickets keep going as though they know their song is our lullaby.
When I used to dream about that somebody they never had a face. It was more like a feeling.
Guess that’s where the tears came from, knowing that there’s so much in this great big world that you don’t have a single ounce of control over. Guess the sooner you learn that, the sooner you’ll have one less heartbreak in your life. Oh Lord. Some evenings I don’t know where the old pains end and the new ones begin. Fells like the older you get the more they run into one long, deep aching.
And it’s not even strange that it feels the way it’s always felt like the place we belong to. Like home.
My whole family knows I can’t sing. My voice, my sister says, is just left of the key. Just right of the tune. But I sing anyway, whenever I can.
But we do not know yet who we are fighting and what we are fighting for.
I watched my brother watch the world, his sharp, too-serious brow furrowing down in both angst and wonder. Everywhere we looked, we saw the people trying to dream themselves out. As though there was someplace other than this place. As though there was another Brooklyn.
Imagine, my brother signed. Imagine if somebody built a bridge right outside our window and we could just walk across the highway and be on the other side.
I want to write this down, that the revolution is like a merry-go-round, history always being made somewhere. And maybe for a short time, we’re a part of that history. And then the ride stops and our turn is over.
My sister’s clear soft voice opens up the world to me. I lean in so hungry for it.
Nobody ever calls with good news this early in the morning.