Month: March 2024

“My mom instilled self-confidence and self-worth in me. She was the first person in her immediate family to graduate from high school, despite having to take jobs as a babysitter and working in the field. Every evening, after leaving the field, she would take the time to make sure her schoolwork was prepared for the next day. I remember her once telling me that she was working in the field when President Kennedy was assassinated. Despite only having a high school diploma, she was still fiercely confident and carried herself with pride, even if others saw her as bougie or stuck-up. She believed in her worth, and she passed that resilience on to me. I grew up in that same small town, and as a matter of fact, I was called some of those same names like bougie, stuck-up, sadity, and others. Mind you, I grew up economically challenged, but I didn’t know it at the time. My mom is a true black queen; that’s where my royal blood comes from.”

Even though I grew up economically challenged at certain times in my childhood, I was always taught to hold my head up high and be proud and self-confident in who I am. I was also taught that once my foot crosses a threshold, I am where I am supposed to be and I belong in that space, and not to let anyone make me feel ashamed of myself for being there. That I belong there just as much as the next person. My mother instilled a sense of self-worth in me; she also taught me that no man or woman is better than me, that I am equal to everyone else, and I should feel comfortable from the outhouse to the White House.

And speaking of the White House, one summer we took a vacation to visit our cousin in Washington, D.C. She happened to work at the White House, so as a young kid, I actually got to bowl on the President’s bowling alley. It was one of the highlights of the trip. Now, there aren’t too many people alive who can say that they have actually gone bowling on the President’s bowling alley, inside the White House in Washington, D.C. as I have.

As a young kid in a rural small town in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina, I always knew I wanted to travel. To Paris—Paris, France, that is, not Paris, Texas— Paris captured my imagination. Despite people constantly telling me, “You might go to Paris, Texas, but you’ll never go to Paris, France,” my mother always reassured me: “You’re going to Paris, France. You’re going to see the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triomphe.”

The first time I saw them on the Mona Lisa was back in 1989. It wasn’t in a special room; it was in a hallway with a little lady sitting beside it. I was standing there by myself right in front of her, all alone. We were staring at each other. I’ve been back to Paris many times and seen her several times since, but it’s never the same. Now, it’s with hordes of people with long queues just to get into the Louvre Museum. Everyone shuffling for a position just to try to get that perfect shot. How I wish for the good old days.