It’s 5 am and I await the chants from the loudspeakers to come from Jamaat Ibad Ar Rahman Islamic Mosque and Education Center which shares a parking lot with the Faith Assembly (praise and worship) Christian Center, across the street on the other side other side Food Lion (my favorite place to shop). Just on the other side the Durham Resident Hall for Women (where I live), there is Fayetteville Elementary School which is two blocks from my place of worship St Joseph AME Church. I walk to church every Sunday and Wednesday and sometimes I walk this same street as I walk to Durham Technical Community College where I attend classes and I arrive before the bus does which takes an hour (on two buses).
This route to school and church takes me past a diverse community of homeowners and renters and there is beauty to be seen everywhere I look. Directly outside my window I see Parkview Mini Mart where I love to go and banter with the men of diversity and “foreign lands” as I purchase my favorite beer and play my lottery tickets. Behind me is a nature trail which snakes through the city. I begin to smell the succulent aromas from the Chickenn Hut as it too begins to awake for the day, and is directly across form Food Lion.
The Chicken Hut shares a building with Trice's Wigs and Hats Salon which is adjacent to the garage where black men of all ages sit every day, all day, as they repair lawnmowers while telling tall tales of chasing women and fast cars
The garage is next to the ______ center for men (across the street from the Mosque and Worship Center) and is next door to C & J’s Neighborhood Barber and Beauty salon (separate entrances for Kings and Queens, thank you very much) Fayetteville Street - Durham North Carolina -the place where I live. I have been asked by many - why I would want to live in (what one vendor at Food Lion described while talking on his cell phone as ) “the HOOD”
Quite simply: These are my people.
I catch the bus every day where I see ___________ collecting cans, or ____ and ____ who re collecting money for wine, but need someone to go into the store for them because they cant go in as a result of acting the fool. And then there is Adrian who sells CD’s and cigarettes and has become my adopted little brother as I attempt to get him a job in a music store.
There is the little sister who is on drugs and hangs with her friend who sets up his music stand like a hot dog kiosk and jams all day. He too has an enterprise (transportation) which I will not go into. And no it is NOT drugs!
The little sister become my project (if you will) for even though she is on the street, and can cuss like a sailor, is always, always respectful and says hello how are you every day to me with her head held high. Last week I asked her when was she going to leave the street. This beautiful sister with a dark glorious hue looked down at her nails and said “One day soon Mamn” and then she held her head up high again and won my damn heart.
Fayetteville Street - Durham North Carolina -the place where I live.
In 2008 I had an epiphany, those who know me know the details, but I would just like to say that I have come to realize God’s whisper. I am where I need to be. I share a life with 30- 40 other women, of different ages, races, sexual preferences, and classes. We have our drama, we pray together, we argue, we get mad, we give support, we hang together, we avoid one another. I would not change it for the world. We don’t have much in the way of material things, but in spirit we are abundant. We are like the jars of clay, being enlightened and molded into fabulous women and we do it together.
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