Ponce and Bonaventure and Slivers of Light

A blue sky can be exceptionally beautiful when it sings in harmony with a bright yellow sun while white clouds dance across its magnificent canvas. This is as true today as it was in 1970 when Brazilian-born jazz pianist Eliane Elias and I had just turned 10 years old. Oh, I should add here, that time and space would keep her and me disconnected by the decades that of necessity, needed to fill both our worlds. One need for this separation is to be found in me, you see, in 1970 I had no idea what jazz music was, where Brazil was located, nor had I developed any concept that her voice, her piano, and her recordings could have moved my 10-year-old heart-filled emotions to witness the grand conspiracy of the sky, sun, and clouds as mentioned in the first sentence. Life, it seems, isn't simple, nor is it simply understood.

Points of Light, I've said in WritingBeautifulLight.com , that when we write for the purpose of finding healthy emotional healing, sometimes we can rewrite our lives in a new and better way. Sometimes, as I have in therapy, we find out that even when our childhood might have been horrible, as children, we were stronger and more resilient than we remember as adults. This story is my attempt to both write my younger life in a new and better way and an attempt to realize just how strong a very young me was all along. More importantly, I hope it might inspire you, to find the inner strength you never realized you had as a child, if you lived with trauma and abuse when you were young. I intend to revisit this attempt later as I'll dig a little deeper. Read more here...

But the funny thing is, on the corner of Bonaventure and Ponce de Leon in 1970's Atlanta (where I lived), while the Clinton House relished lots of sunshine that brightened its overhead azure skies that enjoyed the presence of white clouds, this same little corner of a very big world would regularly experience angry black clouds that rumbled and rolled to ominous sounds of warriors thunder caused by the weapons of fierce lightning bolts. Still, even though darkness invaded my beloved sky, if I just got quiet, breathed in, and slowly blew my breath out, if I listened to my heart; a melody from Eliane would reach through the barrier of time and space to sing to me this simple phrase, "That's All". So, while my childhood experienced some unpleasant darkness, Eliane's matured melodic sound of love somehow calmed my nervous and confused heart. Can I explain how this happened? No. Is it mysterious? In a world that's not simple or simply understood, the simple answer is it's very mysterious.

It also seems that when I'd either walk through or play in the ever-present, ever-expanding kudzu that grew in every direction behind the Clinton House, no matter all the overbearing heat the vines absorbed or the size and scale of the many insects that hopped, climbed, or walked around me, no matter the thick and sticky spider webs that clung to me, Eliane's emotions would press out piano keys in a soft and gentle melody, just for me, and her soft and soothing voice would sing these wonderful words to me, "I can only give you love that lasts forever and promise to be near each time you call" I mean, I'd been both joyful and a little apprehensive in and amongst all these thick green vines that were intricately and tightly woven that seemed to be everywhere my eyes looked. Still, there'd be times as I trekked through their narrow paths walking to school, making sure I'd not trip on kudzu that almost seemed to reach out to grab me, or while I played under the vines when my imagination created a primitive hut underneath their cover, although I'm certain my little heart never literally heard or felt her tender music and words, when I look back and remember who I was, how I felt, and the neighborhood in which I lived, as well as the circumstance I found myself in for being without the choice of independent autonomy or agency, somewhere in a different and better world invisible to me but only separated from me by a thousandth of a degree, she somehow played her beautiful music for me and my heart and emotions were soothed.

During this same time, it seems that after dark, there'd always be those times when I was made to walk down several blocks of sidewalks to the nearest 7/11. This was in a neighborhood that was bereft of well-educated people with well-paying jobs. Atlanta, as was the rest of the country, was amid a drug epidemic that left people in my little part of Atlanta committing crimes to afford drugs and alcohol. Prostitution was committed out in the open, even on my very corner of Ponce and Bonaventure, where the pros were being solicited by Johns parked in the street, some on the same side of the road as the Clinton House. It's interesting that these were all black women being picked up by white men because, without a doubt, most of these white men wouldn't even be seen speaking to blacks in broad daylight. Once solicited, the pros escorted the men up to their rooms in the nostalgic Claremont hotel. This hotel was the Clinton Houses' next-door neighbor. Now, you need to know this, it's very important, the 7/11 I mentioned was a store that had been caught up in the violence of my neighborhood. A milkman, well known to my mother and stepfather, had been shot and killed in a phone booth next to this store when he was making an early morning milk delivery and became caught up in the middle of a robbery. And not to make light of the horror, but I couldn't escape those spider webs I mentioned that infested the kudzu, not even on the sidewalks. Those spiders would build huge ominous, menacing webs that would stretch from a tree or bush nearest the road to a tree or bush on the other side of the sidewalk. So, as I walked down these sidewalks at night, I'd always realize the unearthly stealthiness the spiders used to spin their ungodly webs as I never saw them until I had already walked through them! After it was too late, I noticed the strategy of the spider's plans to capture me as their webs' tensile strength seemed impossible to break. And even when I'd eventually break through them, their stickiness made their webs impossible to wipe completely off. Points of Light, as I walked down those sidewalks, my heart always pounded so fast and so hard, I thought my heart would beat its way out of my chest. Despite this, I can say I always made it to the store, but I still had to return home and face everything I just mentioned once again. So, I faced these things until I was finally able to cross the threshold of my Clinton Houses apartment door. But as I look back at these risky excursions, if I get really quiet, if I take a breath, if I paused to notice my heart, somehow, someway, maybe through some wrinkle of time, Elaine was singing "I can only give you country walks in springtime, And a hand to hold when leaves begin to fall, And a love whose burning light, Will warm the winter's night". Somehow, the warmth of the light in her voice and the meaning behind her words gave me all the color I needed to find a beautiful story that helped me make it safely home every time.

Then there were the many times, maybe a mile down Ponce de Leon from my Clinton House, at a laundromat near the Plaza Drug Store, the Plaza Theater, and next to Briarcliff Bowling Lanes, where I was left alone to do a week's worth of five people's laundry. This would still be at the same time and in the same neighborhood as the previously mentioned 7/11 store. In this part of Poncy/Virginia Highlands area of my little world, was the neighborhood's vagrant and homeless drunk. Now, mind you, my parents were near me. That's if you'd want to say being near me was them being at the next-door bowling alley enjoying their time bowling while I was left with the drudgery of doing their laundry as well as my brothers and mine too. I mean, I was always left to wonder, what had I done not to deserve my parent's love that I didn't get to enjoy at least time to watch them bowl, instead of being left with a complicated mess of ridiculous instructions to do a couple of hours' worth of laundry "correctly". If this seems to not mean anything, this was only one of the many ways I was left to learn that my only worth in life was in what I could do correctly for my parents. Mmmm, seems that that complicated mess of ridiculous instructions always saw to it that I'd always fuck something up with these weeks' worth of laundry, and with that, despite everything I did, I learned that I was only a piece of shit worth nothing to my parents. Hmmm, but remember I mentioned the type of neighborhood I lived in and the local vagabond drunk? During one laundry trip where I was left there alone, he walked into the laundromat, then up to a washing machine, where he preceded to take off all his clothes and put them into the washing machine. Now when he bent over at the machine, what did I see? I saw dingleberries! Okay, as a little boy, I thought this was funny and ran over to the bowling alley to laugh about it as I told everyone the story. It's sadly funny that my own parents didn't seem to be moved in any perceivable way by my story. But the alleys manager, who was always very protective of my two brothers and me, got angry at the situation. He told me to stay inside the bowling alley and called the police. This led to the local cop who still walked "the beat", having the well-known vagrant arrested. He wasn't even blood, but there was such a noticeable difference between how that manager treated me compared to how my parents treated me. Through all of this, in some ethereal way unknown to me at the time, Elaine softly touched her piano's keys and whispered to my heart, "All I have are these arms to enfold you, and a love time can never destroy". Without ever understanding how this thin sliver of light got to me, I discovered the colors I needed to have some beauty during a very difficult time when I actually and even desperately needed that beauty.

Points of Light let's end this here by repeating something I already mentioned to you that she sang to me, it was these two simple words, "That's all". You see, kids only need to hear simple words spoken to derive meaning for their lives. So, it was during those dark and trying times of my young life that were being lived out on the corner of Ponce de Leon and Bonaventure, during those times when I could have easily given up, given out, and given in, that I never did. Instead of that, my heart was mysteriously defying physics to move through time and space to receive the slightest of slight slivers of light which were simple things a beautiful, talented, Brazilian, born the same year as me, would sing years in the future, but felt by me back then, to remain strong and survive when things were hard. This is how, even when terrible thunderstorms blackened the skies above the Clinton House, in my heart, mind, and emotions, I turned all those horrible black clouds and dark skies into azure skies brightened by a bright yellow sun as white clouds danced with supreme happiness.