थिस लैंड

I am writing from the library in Woodbury, Tennessee. It's easy to miss because the library almost blends in with the tidy clapboard homes on this residential street. Rocking chairs wait patiently on porches. The stoplights dangling from wires at the intersections sway when it's too windy. When I asked a woman if there was any place good to eat in town, she directed me to a Chinese restaurant. I think she must have thought I was homesick.

I've experienced a lot this last week or so. I've tried thinking about how I would break down my postings and I've decided that I'm just going to do it bit by bit. I won't have my computer for another week or so and I'm only allowed an hour a day on the computer here in Woodbury.

Today, I'm going to write about the land I've found myself in. I wish that I could post photos, but that, too, will have to wait until I get my computer back. For now, imagine if you can:

Two-lane highways that wind past green pastures, wooded hillsides and creeks that run parallel to the road or through farmlands where a herd of cows roam free or a few horses munch grass. A tribe of goats scamper across fields, a red robin darts across the road. Lone, ancient barns sit like great buddhas watching over the land.

The two-lane highways become one-lane roads. The roads snake through the woods and past remote homes where people live in quiet and solitude. Two dogs play in the street and chase after my car as it drives around a bend. Butterflies--some flecked with yellow and orange, others with blue--flutter through the air. One got caught in my windshield wiper as I was driving and I had to stop to help free it.

One-lane roads become gravel and dirt paths. The paths meander through densely packed woods. All you can see for miles and miles are trees--small trees, big trees, skinny trees, little trees. What you don't see are ancient trees. Ragmar tells me that the trees are logged every forty years or so. I feel grateful to have experienced the woods. To walk through the woods as the wind rustles through the canopy of leaves, as dappled sunlight dances off branches, as the blue of sky pokes through the treetops. Last week, I had to walk home through the woods in the pitch, pitch blackness of night. Thankfully, I had an intrepid guide--a blue-haired boy from San Francisco who led me down the road. We couldn't see within a foot around us. It was both terrifying and soothing, but we made it home, completely exhilarated!

Technical Difficulties

Please excuse the prolonged delay in updating my blog! I have sooooooo much to write about, but my computer crashed and I have to wait for it to be repaired. In the meantime, I'm writing from the Apple store (on a new iPad, no less... Can't decide whether I like it or not) and will probably have to find a library or somewhere like that to continue writing about my adventures.

Let's just say, in the last week, I experienced a little bit of heartbreak, walked home in the pitch dark in the woods with a blue-haired faery as my guide, swam against the current of a river flush with water from the recent rains, jumped off a 20-foot cliff into the river, milked a goat, lost my mind and then found it again, lost some weight, did some drawing, and continue to absorb this wondrous place I've found myself in.

Liberty is not a place; it's a state of mind. And I am still on the right path to find it.

Day 7 - Memphis (con't/Pt.2): The Civil Rights Museum

Memphis is Beale Street--all neon and tourists, sweet, soulful blues, a photograph of two women in the 1920s or 1930s--one in furs, the other in white--dressed up to have their portrait taken. Memphis is Jacqueline Smith, a beautiful Black woman cloaked in a black scarf that adorns her dreadlocks. She checks herself in a mirror after I ask if I can take her photograph. Ms. Smith is the first person I encounter when I walk up to the Civil Rights Museum. She is sitting at a table in front of the Lorraine Motel, the sign draped across her table reads in big, orange lettering: "Gentrification is an Abuse of Civil Liberties." She is asking for people--for tourists--to boycott the Civil Rights Museum. I stop and talk to her for a bit, ask her why she is against gentrification of the neighborhood.

"Don't you think it provides more opportunities for people in the area?" I ask.
"Not when it forces out all the people who used to live here. This is for all the rich, Yuppie folk. The Civil Rights Museum doesn't care what happens to the people who used to live here. They don't represent what Dr. King stood for. They just want to commemorate his death--not his life, not what he stood for."
"I'm surprised that they don't have some kind of foundation or allotment of funds for people in the area."
She laughs, "No funds. No nothing. They forced people out of their homes."

She directs me to several pamphlets on her table, an article written about her in the local newspaper, a sign that records how many years and days she has been in protest. I read some of the article and pamphlets. Ms. Smith was one of the original residents of the Lorraine Motel after Dr. King was assassinated and before it was bought by the Civil Rights Museum. She and many other residents of the motel were forced out of their homes--the rooms in the motel--so that the museum could be built, so that I and the many other tourists who visit would have a museum to go to.

I ask her to please forgive me, but that I am going to visit the museum and thank her for doing what she is doing.
"Everyone needs to do what they need to do," she answers, giving me neither judgment or mercy.

I acknowledge her with some grace and gratitude as I bid farewell, take a few photos of her and the 1950s or 60s sign that reads "Lorraine Motel." I am thankful to have met her because it gives me some insight into the plight of the people and to what is happening immediately, locally in the neighborhood despite the refurbished signs and polished facades of stores and restaurants, coffee shops, motels and loft buildings. I am a little bewildered, though, because I did not expect to meet her and I am bracing myself with anticipation for the journey through the Civil Rights Museum. As I walk toward the familiar balcony, I am filled with trepidation and fear--this is sacred ground. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, died, on that balcony before me.

I take a few photos of the memorial. I notice a few tourists on the second floor, grazing the inside of the window--307; there are two vintage cars from the era parked below; a fresh wreath hangs at the corner where 306 juts from 307; a marble epitaph states that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., died here. I am sad. I feel forlorn, quiet, and respectful.

I go into the museum. A proud, older Black woman (hair did, make-up done, her voice easy and friendly) dressed in an usher's uniform welcomes me. I take note of it because the same thing happened to me when I visited the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock--only it was and older White woman dressed and welcoming in a similar way. Southern hospitality, I think. Ushers--people at museums--don't welcome visitors in the same way in Los Angeles... or any other big city, for that matter. Visitors are not usually welcomed by women in large cosmopolitan cities, usually they are welcomed, if that, by large men in uniform, sometimes with friendliness and hospitality, other times with a quick pat-down and order to go through the security check-point. Although, when I think about it, I did have to go through a security check-point at the Clinton Presidential Library. However, all the same, the security guard there, in Little Rock, was friendly and hospitable, not bored or distracted as so many other security guards at check-points can be.

Once I pay the fee ($13) and give the other usher or attendant my ticket, I begin to journey. I notice that all the people who work there are attentive and helpful, kind and courteous. They thank me, help to direct me, show me the way, and do it with a smile and a true feeling of generosity and spirit. I opt out of the narrated, pre-recorded tour; instead choosing to go through the exhibition myself (and also because I am cheap and trying to save money), and I am glad I did so. Narratives from the museum might give you a guided tour or insight into parts of the museum that you might know or would have known had you not heard that part of the story, but if you go on your own then you are able to have the full experience of your own insights and recollections.

For me, it was this: a broadened view, a deeper understanding, reading the fine print--the quotes from slaves and early Black politicians; examining the faces and dress of these early truth-seekers and doers, learning, trying to process and understand this history before me. Going through this time period, getting a Coke from the vending machine as I listened to a conversation between an older, White Southern woman fat in comfortable walking clothing talking to an older, White Southern gentleman thin in comfortable walking clothing:

"Oh Elvis..."
"Did you see him in those early films?"
"Oh yes, I just completely loved him in 'Love Me Tender'...."

I get my Coke, check Facebook, my email....listen, wait, the ushers announce that the film, "The Witness," is about to start. I turn my phone off, go into the theater and wait with the others as I quietly open my Coke, sip on it and wait for the movie to begin.

"The Witness" is something everyone must experience. Reverend Samuel "Billy" Kyles, probably after so many years of grappling for why he was "there," why he did not die when he came so close to sudden death, why he lasted and stayed on this Earth after experiencing such a horrendous, troubled moment in time. He bore witness. He was there. He was there for a reason; he was there to tell us--so many years later, so many generations after--to say what had happened. He, Mr. Abernathy and Dr. King sat in Room 306 talking "what preachers talk," getting ready in an expected, but natural, unknowing ritual for dinner at his house as Dr. King talked buoyant and happy with men in the parking lot after "The Mountaintop" speech almost didn't happen (bad weather, Dr. King traveling back to Memphis after the first attempt at a peaceful boycott for the Sanitation Workers Strike erupted in violence, determined to show and model what non-violence protest is all about ). Reverend Kyles stood on the balcony with Dr. King, turned for a moment, and then the shot rang out. The shot that stopped a moment in time--for ever after.

The photo of the men pointing in the distance. The image of that balcony of the Lorraine Motel. The sight of that balcony, the motel, the men pointing in the distance--There! Over there!! That's where the shot in time came from!!! Time stops. I stand later, in that same place that I saw the tourists in 307, but inside now and just feet away from the spot where Martin Luther King, Jr. died. Died. He died there. He died right at that spot, a few feet away from me, and I am filled with grief and respect, gratitude and a quiet I have not known. I can only stand there and gaze at the spot---taking it all in and just feeling the moment of being there. He died for us. He died for the sanitation workers. He died so that we could have the freedom that we all enjoy now. Barack Obama would not be in office if not for Martin Luther King, Jr. I would not be able to take this trip as I have for the last week as a single, Asian American woman. My parents--quirky and Japanese American--and then later, divorcing in the 80s and marrying a Mexican American woman and West Indian man, respectively, could have done so many years later, with such little protest or judgment. These privileges and decent, everyday experiences would not be possible if not for the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A light dies and then something opens for the others that are meant to come after them... the pathway is illuminated.

With all due respect to Ms. Jacqueline Smith, I learned more that day, going through the Civil Rights Museum and reading all the fine print, standing on hallowed ground, meeting her and listening to all the voices that came before me, than any or all of the textbooks I read or books and articles I may have come across. That land is sacred. For the people who lived in the Lorraine Motel after Dr. King was assassinated, for the people (like me) who visit from out-of-town, for the many who will come to experience and understand why they are there or what is happening or had taken place on that land, the Lorraine Motel is sacred ground. It is ground to be tread across, to be experienced, to be understood and acknowledged and shared with any or all who might be open to knowing what our history is all about. We are the Civil Rights Movement--it is still happening today and we must not forget to understand or acknowledge the arduous, sometimes horrific and at times victorious journey that our American ancestors fought for and died for.

After going through the museum, I sat for a good fifteen or twenty minutes on the curb, across from the motel, just staring, simply staring, at the place where Martin Luther King, Jr., died. That is all I could do.

Do not forget him. Please watch "The Witness" if you can. Please visit the Civil Rights Museum (I think for any good American, it could be considered a Mecca or necessary pilgrimage for someone who values our history), Please speak with and talk to Ms, Jacqueline Smith... please, maybe, do more than I was able to do during my visit there.

There is still so much to do. Please don't get comfortable yet...

Day 7 - Memphis (Pt 1)

It's taken me some time to write about Day 7, about the time I spent in Memphis, because I experienced so much there and I've been trying to get settled and adjusted to Ragmar's Kingdom. And what a lovely kingdom it is. After sleeping deeply for a full 8-9 hours (the best sleep I've had in weeks!), I awoke this morning to Ragmar's voice in the kitchen, telling me that I should join him and his friends at the Gathering. I climbed out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen. Ragmar chuckled as I appeared sleepy-eyed and hair askew in my pjs and offered me some tea. A young, fresh-skinned White boy named Atlas said good morning to me and gave me a hug. We had some fresh goat cheese and honey on Texas toast for breakfast and visited while I put the dishes away.

So, now, Memphis...

Memphis is not just Graceland. In fact, I didn't even bother to go. I drove by it when I entered the city because I had booked a room close to it, thinking that I would visit. The idea of Graceland was exciting when I was in LA, but after being inundated with Elvis memorabilia at the overpriced motel I stayed at, viewing the imposing white Colonial Revival mansion on the hill festooned with garish colored lights and debating whether I should pay the $30 entrance fee that the locals joke "support Priscilla and Lisa Marie," I decided not to. I had seen enough of Graceland. Maybe I'll go if I visit Memphis another time.


Instead, I wanted to see other parts of Memphis, thinking that I might only have less than a day there. The night I arrived, I made my way to Beale Street--the home of the Memphis Blues. I called ahead to B.B. King's Blues Club to ask if they were still open. It was Sunday and nearly 11:00pm. I spoke to very helpful woman who called me "Ma'am" in every sentence she uttered and I told her I was a single woman traveling alone and would it be safe for me to go to Beale Street by myself.

"Oh yes, ma'am."
"I won't have any trouble?"
"Oh no, ma'am, there's policemen at every corner. And it's Sunday, ma'am, there's probably eleven people or so on the street right now."

I felt safer after speaking with her and drove the fifteen or twenty minutes in a light shower to Beale Street. A surge of excitement built in me as I drove past the Mississippi River and turned into the neon lights and music blaring into the streets. A one-block area is closed off to motorists and throbs with the energy from the lights and loud music. I found parking in a structure not far away and wandered around, looking for a good juke joint. Although the streets were empty, many places were still open and filled with people: a large, high-ceilinged pub-like place was doing a karaoke night, another club that looked two or three stories high blasted mainstream hip hop, a tiny little local watering hole that the B.B. King waitress recommended I go to was littered with tough-looking pierced and tattooed guys. I wandered into a smaller bar where a live blues band was playing--a trio of three older Black men playing some hard, dirty blues. The lead singer's deep, hearty voice poured into the mike and filled the bar, eliciting screeches and shouts from the drunk tourists who were shoulder to shoulder and barstool to barstool. I ordered a pint of Blue Moon (which they gave me in a huge 32 oz plastic cup) and found a table by myself after a group left. After a few minutes of taking lots of pictures and finding my shoulders and neck loosening to the sounds of The Dr. Feelgood Potts Band, two clean-cut White men approached the table and asked if they could sit with me. They seemed nice, one of them was very good-looking, and the good-looking guy pulled up the chair next to me. We discovered we were all from California and talked about out travels to Memphis. They were finance brokers on a boys outing for the NASCAR race in Taladega. I talked a little about stocks and finances (the little that I know!) with the other guy and about food and the beauty of Northern Cali with the cute one. They bought me a drink. We talked some more, then the bar closed down and the bouncer said I could take my drink with me, so we toddled around for a bit and then they walked me to my car and we said goodbye.

The next day I went to the Civil Rights Museum and spent the afternoon wandering the exhibition and sitting on the curb across from the motel room where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. I sat there and could only stare at the balcony, sobered by the weight and legacy of history before me. My time there was well spent, but it deserves its own blog entry. For now, I'm needing a walk and some company. I'm going to walk the two miles to the Gathering and join Ragmar and his friends.

Day 8 - Finding Liberty

I arrived in Liberty tonight at nightfall as a full moon rose in the Tennessee sky. The 40 East wound into a smaller highway which turned into an even narrower two-lane highway. I entered into farmland and rolling hills and nearly passed the road to the area my friend lives in. My friend, Ragmar, and I spoke on the phone as I drove slowly around curves, a mist curled around the lights from my car, a few dogs moved out of my way as my car rolled past them. Ragmar came to meet me in his car and led me down the graveled one-lane road to his farm.

It was dark by the time we arrived--a short distance from the highway. Suddenly I was among tall trees and emerged from my car into the deep silence of night. I instinctively pushed the button on my keychain to set the alarm on my car and Ragmar laughed. "You won't have to do that for days... maybe months."

We visited for awhile and he showed me around the house. We walked out onto an enclosed sleeping porch adjacent to my room and he picked up a conch shell. "I'm going to sound your arrival..." and he blew on the horn several times as it let out a sounding that echoed through the hills.

He left me to settle in and went back to the Gathering being held a few miles away. I, again, instinctively went for my phone and called my stepdad and my beaufriend. Neither of them answered or texted me back for awhile. As I waited for them to call me back I thought, "Oh my god. I'm lost in the hills. I won't be able to get through to anyone!" Panic set in for a moment and I tried writing a blog entry to occupy my time, but nothing would come out. Another friend called and I texted with another and then felt more at ease, knowing I was still within human contact. Finally, Indigo Boy called me back and we talked for an hour or so as I sat on the porch outside and smoked cigarettes. I think I might be quitting soon, though, because I've entered into a staunch non-smoking, vegetarian household and I do want to honor their lifestyle. I don't think smoking is going to be conducive to this world that I've landed in. As we sat on either ends of the country, I could hear the muffled sound of music in his apartment, the distant beat of drums from the hills beyond, wind rustling through the trees and nothing else.

I am about to shift gears. Down down down. Is there another gear lower than first? I'm still wound up from the last two days spent in Memphis (of which I MUST write about... will do in the next day or so) and a week spent in my car driving east east east. And now I'm here. I haven't found "liberty" yet... that is to be found still. But I made it safe and sound to my destination and feel very good about it. I feel like I'm on the right path. I feel like I may, after all, find liberty because I am here.

Day 6 - One Day in Four Different States

All right... if you don't have a lot of time, then don't bother to read this post. I have a lot to write about. I've just spent two days in five different states and clocked in about 13+ hours of driving time. Lots on my mind and lots that I've experienced!

Yesterday I spent the day in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Weird, right?... to say that I spent the day in four different states? Being able to say that, however, makes me realize how easy it is to traverse time, space and distance if only we make the decision to do so. Some people travel all the time and surely get a sense of that if flying. I met some people tonight from California who flew to Memphis and it took them 3-1/2 hours. Not bad. But when you are driving... or walking (I wonder what that might be like...), you really get a sense of the land you are traveling across and the people who inhabit it.

So, yesterday (Day 5 of my journey to Liberty), I left Tucumcari, New Mexico Tucumcari is the Historic Route 66 Motel--Mike and Kathy, transplants from Philadelphia who sold their belongings in PA and moved to NM, bought this motel, renovated it, and now spend their days tending to it like a child: waking up everyday to clean and make sure its visitors have enjoyed their stay, paid, are safe, know what they need to know to go on their way, then have maybe a few hours to themselves before the next round of needy travelers park themselves at their spot and ask them where they should go or what they should do; Tucumcari is also a windswept, dusty town--time stands still, it is bygone days of 50s Chevrolets passing through, 60s Plymouths and 70s Fords, neon signs and pretty, leather-faced waitresses, slow cowboys, and bright mornings.

I left the Land of Enchantment and embarked to my final destination for that day: Fort Smith, Arkansas. I swept through New Mexico, entered Texas and was immediately struck by the change in landscape . The flat lands and plateaus of red mesas gave way to flatter plains and open vistas--save for God. God was resplendent in Texas and he showed himself, plainly, to me there, almost as soon as I entered the state. I was full of fear and warning for the tornadoes and hail storms that were forecasted for the weekend. According to CNN and the Weather Channel, this would be the worst storm to hit the Southeast this year... and I was on alert. Indeed, Mother Nature hit the Southeast with a gailstorm of weather--terrible tornadoes and unforgiving weather on Saturday (and I lie prostrate to those who suffered because of the terrible storm that hit on Saturday--those, especially, in Mississippi and Alabama--I hope you are okay and that you will overcome...).

Then I managed to drive through Texas with nary a bad sign from Mother Nature and entered into Oklahoma. I didn't mean to stop there because I was looking forward to having pho in Fort Smith--at a place that I had read about on Yelp, but my daylight hours were dwindling and I knew that I would probably be hungry by dinnertime because the last time I had eaten that day was a scrappy meal I put together before I left: Trader Joe's instant maple and brown sugar oatmeal and yogurt. By the time I got to Fort Smith--the longest hours I'd clocked in yewt driving (8 hrs straight), I was famished. I stopped in Oklahoma City at Pho Lien Hoa, yet another place I read about on Yelp. I was not disappointed, Actually (and how crazy is this?), I think it was the best pho I've ever had(!!): clear, rich beef broth. Most of the time I order seafood pho, occasionally beef with rare steak and "beef balls", but I had had too much beef recently and was needing something different to mix it up. Not only did I get the best "crab" (which I usually don't eat because the imitiation crab is too watery and bland for my tastebuds), but they gave me real, authentic fresh mussels in my pho,! Fresh mussels, shrimp, flavorful "imitation crab' (just fishstuff for anyone who doesn't know), and fish balls (like "beef balls"... you don't know exactly what it is, but it just tastes good!).

The clientele was a decent mix of White natives, Asian immigrants or natives, and one black man! I almost took a picture of him, but I didn't want to offend his normalcy. I was stopped twice during my excursion to Pho Lien Hoa: both because of the book I carried--Anne LaMott's "Bird by Bird." The first time from an older White man who simply acknowledged, "That's a good book." The second time by another younger White man who asked, "Are you into ornithology?'

I managed to capture a mesmerizing sunset as I traversed the Oklahoma/Arkansas state line and found my way to my final destination: Fort Smith, but was then waylaid by a glitch in my reservation. I had booked it online and the motelkeeper wasn't able to access my reservation. It took a half and hour to figure the whole mess out and even though I was tired and feeling ornery as fuck my threshold must be way lower than most because I had to endure the irritating come-ons from this toothless fuck from Wisconsin who had moved to Fort Smith because the "girl he took care of" (what the eff does that mean??) was born there. He was a mess. Unable to figure out the computer system his motel had, answering the hotel line on one ear while the other ear waited for the Experian representative to get on the line, apologizing to me and asking me where I was from, getting mad and angry at the Experian people on my behalf (although I calmly managed to get a $100 voucher and $25 refund to my credit card for the inconvenience), and trying to flirt with me here and there. I wasn't having it. I was tired and irritated and he made me feel unsafe and uncomfortable. I had to go back to the front desk after he finally checked me in because the room he checked me into smelled like cat piss. He glibly said, "Ah, you're back! I was hoping you'd come back to see me...". Then he called me after I settled into the new room he gave me and said, "Is everything okay? Please come see me if you ever come back into town...". All right. I had just enough of this guy. I complained to my mother about it and she advised me to bar the door, which I did before I slept. The, I talked to Indigo Boy for an unsettling and finally settling hour before I could go to sleep...

I awoke fine the next day... (although intermittently throughout the night and then finally at 5:30am that morning). I managed to get a little more sleep and then got myself and my stuff together to leave by check-out. Got on the road finally by 11:45am (had to get gas, make sure my car was good for the next leg of the trip) and was highwaybound for Little Rock and the Clinton Presidential Library...

I hope I have more time to write tomorrow, although it's going to be another busy day. I'm going to the Civil Rights Museum and then have a 5 hour trek ahead of me to Liberty. I'm bummed, though, because I wasn't able to write about my night tonight in Memphis on Beale Street and the friends I made tonight (two guys from Cali who asked to sit at my table... one very cute from Marin, the other from LA--both finance brokers enjoying a boys excursion to NASCAR in Talladega)... I don't know if my thoughts will ever catch up to the time I have to write... xo

Day 5 - Tired and Annoyed by Stupid Men

I don't have time for a detailed blog entry tonight. I'm too shitass tired as fuckin all hell goddam. 8 hrs straight drivin on the road is not the biz... and dealing with creepy ass motel keepers hitting on you when you just want to check into your room and go to sleep is NOT cool!!!

Feel a lil better after bringing my stuff up, getting some fresh air and pacing the parking lot while I talk to Indigo Boy to wind down and try to settle down enough to sleep. My mom tells me to bar the door--to put a chair up next to it, which I think I will do.

I'm all about budget lux, but not this kind of crap. This is budget, but defintely not lux.

Little Rock and the Clinton Presidential Library awaits me tomorrow! then a night in Memphis. I managed to avoid the the tornadoes and hail... everything else is good. And I think Liberty is just around the corner! :-)