silver-bladed boots
made for flying.
And there, flashes of
sipping hot cocoa
on the sidelines,
inaugurating my
lifelong tenure
as spectator—
so many moments
tucked away
in the crevices
of my mind.
All. That. Time.
Yes.
This is the mystery
of memory.
SUNDAY MOURNING
I sat in the meticulously
polished pew, waiting for
I don’t know what.
The church service
had long ended, yet
there I sat, discovering
the meaning of lethargy,
gazing listlessly
at the pipe organ,
which stared back, offering
no answer.
Why’d my father,
the one parent
who knew my heart,
have to die?
Debra slid in next to me,
laid her head on my shoulder,
and shared the silence.
Or did I imagine it?
Either way, my best friend
was a comfort
who never once demanded
I hurry my grieving
and move on,
which is why
I didn’t mind
her seeing
my tears.
FELONY ON FALLOW GROUND
Back home from a neighborhood
basketball game, I ran to my room
to rip off my sweaty shirt and change into
something dry, but first I stopped
to jot down a few thoughts
in my spiral notebook, which was
nowhere to be found. I checked my desk,
my dresser drawer, the floor,
even underneath the bed, just in case.
Anything was possible, right?
And where were my other notebooks?
The ones that usually lined the small shelf
attached to my headboard?
I’d filled pages and pages over the years,
half of them smudged with tears,
fingerprints, Kool-Aid stains, and jelly
from sandwiches I stuffed down while writing.
Where’d they go? And where was my medal,
the copper one from junior high?
I went to find my mother to see if she knew,
found her in the kitchen, weaving drunkenly—
a familiar sight since my father’s funeral.
“Mom, have you seen my notebooks?” I asked.
Was that a smile on her face?
“Yes,” she said. “They’re in the trash
along with all the other garbage
cluttering this house. I’m sick of it.”
I stood stock still, forced myself
to go on breathing, felt the blood rush
from my head, down through my arms,
on out to my fingers as they clenched.
I felt my arm draw back, muscles taut
and ready to pound that sick, smiling face
until every tooth went flying, but
a single thought caught me in time.
She’s not well. Just look at her.
My arm dropped and I ran.
I checked the wastebasket in my mother’s room,
the trash can under the kitchen sink,
the bin in the bathroom, my room—everywhere.
I tore out the front door,
ran to the street praying,
Please, God. Please!
Let the garbage truck be late,
just this once.
But—no.
I dragged myself back in,
took a few puffs from my inhaler,
then whirled round my room
yanking open dresser drawers,
and tossing handfuls of clothes
on my bed.
I added shoes to the pile,
then schoolbooks
and the novels from Mrs. Wexler—
everything I’d need
to leave.
A voice inside
whispered urgently:
You cannot blossom
in this soil.
I knew it was true.
I dove into the closet,
hunted for my duffel bag,
stuffed it with
everything that mattered,
then—
Where am I going?
Where the hell am I going?
I dropped to the bed,
clawed the cover,
and clenched my teeth.
Jesus! Get me out of here!
I closed my eyes,
waiting.
Praying.
Behind my lids,
an answer finally appeared:
Carol.
Tears were a nuisance
I couldn’t be bothered with,
so I wiped them away
with a back hand,
finished packing,
and phoned Sis to tell her
I was moving in.
Notebook
I dropped by Mrs. Wexler’s office after lunch. It was great to see her after the summer. Mom’s back in the hospital, which I told her. I also told her about moving in with my sister, and how Carol always let me wake her up in the middle of the night so I could read her a poem. Mrs. Wexler smiled. “You’re on your way,” she said. Then she asked me a question she’d asked before. “What do you want to do with your life?
What kind of books do you want to write?”
I thought about Demon, the darkness of that closet;
I thought about Clark, his sleazy black heart;
I thought about those girls in the park,
who scarred me for life, and the gang on the street,
who branded me with that cigarette;
I thought about the giant hole in my mother’s soul
when alcohol and her mental illness took over;
I also thought about Carol, who took care of me
the best she could, whenever she could;
I thought about Daddy, who poured into me
the history of our people, and encouraged me to explore
all that the world of art had to offer;
I thought about the Buchanans, who made me part of their family;
about Debra, who loved me like a sister; about Willie Mae and Doll,
who embraced me like their own;
I thought about Mrs. Wexler, the hardest teacher ever—
the best, too. That’s when I knew.
“I want to write books about
some of the darkness I’ve seen,
real stories about real people, you know?
But I also want to write about the light,
because I’ve seen that, too.
That place of light—it’s not always easy
to get to, but it’s there.
It’s there.”
EPILOGUE
Time unwinds faster than a slipknot
when the string is pulled.
It’s one year since moving in
with my sister,
two since Malcolm X
was shoved into eternity.
I attend a celebration of his life
at a school in Harlem.
Debra offers to join me,
but I’m on a solo mission.
I settle in the front row
&nb
sp; just as the program begins.
The first speaker
takes the stage, has his say,
then exits the auditorium early.
“Mr. Baldwin! Mr. Baldwin!”
I call, sprinting after him,
“Can I see you for a minute?”
I wave my spiral notebook as I run.
He pauses outside a classroom,
cocks his head in that familiar way
I’ve seen him do on TV.
“Mr. Baldwin!” I manage, breathless,
“I’m a writer, too.
Could you look at my work
and tell me what you think?”
He nods, ignores my crossed-out words,
and missing commas,
reads my rough poetry,
cover to cover,
then writes his name and number
on the back.
He looks me in the eye,
one serious writer to another.
“You call me,” he says.
And I do.
Photo ©: David Flores
This photo was taken at the Langston Hughes House in Harlem, marking for me a triumphant return to the first place I called home.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
A memoir is a tricky business. Unlike an autobiography, a memoir’s focus is on truth, not fact. For example, two or more people can share the exact same experience, and yet come away with radically different memories of that experience. Is one person’s memory right and the other wrong? No. The memory of each person is true for him or her. A memoir, then, is a very personal, inherently subjective story recalling incidents that have shaped and impacted one person’s life. Even at that, a memoir, again unlike an autobiography, tells the story of a fragment of a life, not the whole of it. Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir is a snippet of my story, and it is my story, alone.
It’s also important to add that memories rarely come with dates attached, so in some cases, I’ve simply had to guess the week, month, year, or season a particular event occurred. This, of course, is the downside to waiting until most of the members of your family die before you write your memoir. There are too few people left to consult on these particulars.
Ordinary Hazards was especially challenging as, largely thanks to trauma, I have lost chunks of my childhood memories. There are whole periods of time marked by gaps in memory, and in order to tell my story, I had to figure out a way to bridge them. The notebook entries sprinkled throughout were my way of doing so. The entries also helped me create a sense of sequence. It is often the nature of memoir to jump from one story fragment to another, without attention to strict chronology. But I did my best to create a semblance of chronology here for the benefit of the reader.
The notebook entries were a work combining memory and imagination. Remember, my mother threw away the original notebooks I kept from the earliest years of my writing life. Without the actual notebooks to refer to, I had to use my imagination to construct specific entries filled with the kinds of thoughts and poems my real notebooks included.
During the process of writing this book, I often became frustrated when I was unable to answer some of my editor’s most basic questions about the past, so fragmented is my memory. No single person in my narrative, alive or dead, shared my entire journey. I could not even go to my sister to fill in lost memories, as we were separated when I was little more than five years old.
“ ‘I don’t remember’ is still an answer,” my editor told me. “When you don’t have a definitive answer to a question, simply say so, and explain the reasons why to the reader,” she suggested. This advice was enormously freeing, and I followed it throughout, as needed.
I hope my story helps you to live more fully into your own.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Visual remnants of a childhood,
a meager offering
as photographs go,
but precious nonetheless,
these scattered proofs
that I existed
when few were taking time
to record
the fact
of me.
The beginning of my Ossining years. I would’ve been five or six years old in this shot. Someone caught me smiling, something I rarely did in those days. I wonder what was on my mind?
With Kendall and baby Brad Buchanan, who I proudly called brothers. I really shot up those first two or three years, didn’t I? Kendall provided these precious images. If not for his careful digging, I wouldn’t have them. Kendall is still part of my life. Brad passed away long before he should have.
Alone on the streets of Harlem. Maybe this was during one of my visits to see Mom in the city when I was seven or eight. I look lost. A lot of the time, I felt that way, too. I think I came across this after Aunt Edna died, and my sister ended up with an assortment of photos from her estate. I made a copy.
Photo ©: Gary Brewer
Posing in the park at fourteen going on forty! Gail’s boyfriend was a budding photographer, building his portfolio. We got a few photos out of the deal! Gary Brewer went on to a career in photography and film.
Photo ©: Gary Brewer
With best friends on the NYC subway, before I chopped off all my straightened hair and went natural. To the left, in her fashionable brim, is Debra Jackson, my friend for life. Gail Broadnax is in the center, the most gifted young writer I’d ever met. I remember being jealous of her enormous talent, and expected her to claim a place in the literary firmament. If only. Gail is gone, now, but Debra held onto this visual record of our threesome. So glad she was able to share it with me for this book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As with every book, there are people to thank for their various contributions to the making of Ordinary Hazards.
Many of the people portrayed in this memoir have long since passed away, so I am especially grateful for the input of the few who have not. Chief among these is my sister, Carol Norwood, who generously made time for my questions and confirmed specifics of some memories.
Thanks to my dear friend Debra Jackson-Whyte who shared key reminiscences that triggered significant memories. Thanks, also, to Debra and my foster brother, Kendall Buchanan, for providing childhood photographs and long-forgotten details. You guys rock!
Thanks to my sister from another mother, Amy Malskeit, for reading an early draft and, more importantly, for helping me grieve the loss of so many childhood memories.
Thanks to my good friend Ed Spicer for your insightful reading of a later draft of this work. Your suggestions were spot-on.
Thanks to my agent and friend, Elizabeth Harding, for boundless support and care of me throughout.
Finally, the lion’s share of my gratitude goes to Rebecca Davis, my editor. I cannot imagine having gone on this treacherous and emotional journey without your compassion and gentle guidance. Your meticulous care of this manuscript, down to every word, every metaphor, every comma, contributed mightily to the making of this book. Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nikki Grimes received the 2017 Children’s Literature Legacy Award for substantial and lasting contributions to literature for children. Her books include the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award–winning Words with Wings; the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book One Last Word; the groundbreaking best seller Bronx Masquerade; and Garvey’s Choice. She lives in Corona, California. nikkigrimes.com
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