One Defining Moment

While Clayton isn’t the land of my birth, it is the town in which I came of age. The town of my firsts

.

First friend.

First shared secret.

First drink.

First enemy.

First frenemy.

First experience with racism.

First kiss.

First sexual encounter.

First rejection.

First betrayal.

First loss.

Clayton defined me, oriented my life’s existence. It taught me “othering” – classism, division and boundaries. Clayton had two faces. We were two worlds separated by train tracks. On our side I learned, we only have each other. Clayton taught me to fear the Confederate flag, that “friends” in class by day could very well be the children of men in white hoods who threatened to terrorize our side of town by night. Clayton taught me to know my place and to always be invisible. In Clayton, I learned the art of code switching. Clayton taught me that every black person is your cousin and to be careful doing it with your cousin ‘cause your baby could be retarded or deformed.

Clayton handed me everything bad that I wanted to escape. Heart ache. Heart break. Family drama. Abuse. In Clayton, I saw the best and the worst of people. Too young to know how to hold the tension, I didn’t understand how family members could talk about each other like a dog the minute a person walked out their grandmother’s door and hug each other and laugh and joke the next time they were together. This happened too amongst peers, and my black and white makeup didn’t know how to hold the gray. Too often I tipped the cup— spilling the secrets, exposing the whispered gossip—because I didn’t realize there was some code of behavior that we were to actualize. I am no saint. I made tons of messes, tons.

It wasn’t until I was grown that I realized I too was not safe. If they were talking about other folk to you, you can best believe they were talking about you to others. No one was exempt – not your momma, your auntie, or the person you call sister or best friend. Clayton is a town where everyone talked about everyone. You too were free game.

There is no love loss in my heart for Clayton. It symbolizes every bad thing about my life that I want to forget. And yet, until my momma joins my dad, I will keep coming back. But that’s actually NOT a bad thing.

Today, while riding through the town of Clayton, I noticed some brilliant city manager had launched a pride campaign. Banners in vibrant, primary colors hang on street poles that say: Think Clayton. Think Living; Think Clayton. Think Dining; Think Clayton. Think Night Life. My initial gut response to those banners was to snicker. Why would anyone want to move to Clayton? I thought. And what, besides fast food or BBQ could one possibly find to eat in Clayton? I derided. Night life? Don’t even get me started. This little po’ dunk town closes up like Fort Knox at 10pm. That quick. Within the span of two seconds, my entire being had seized and closed up, all while driving through the town. And there…there in the pit of cynicism, my pain that is my Clayton(noticed I said my because perception does not equal truth), I had an epiphany.

For decades now, I have been holding Clayton hostage to my pain and my judgment. Even though Clayton has undergone its own reformation without my permission, in my mind, Clayton would always be some small, rural po’ dunk town. My past experience clouded my perception and prevented me from accepting Clayton’s evolution. And today, in that moment of derision, I saw so clearly the brokenhearted, betrayed, rejected little girl and her Clayton chained together and stuck in a time warp from the 70s and the 80s. Clayton is my America that I do not want to make great again. At least the Clayton as I knew and experienced it. But today, I realized my lens was so cloudy with the past that I could not see the truth of today. And there, stuck in time, cemented in my pain and hellish memories, how I chose to interpret what I was seeing led to me not honoring or celebrating Clayton’s progress. And in the pause I had to wonder, if I can admit that the town has grown and changed and developed, how much more have the people in it evolved as well?

How often do we chain people to the perception of our last encounter with them? How often do we wrongly perceive others based on how they showed up when they were at their worst? How often do we not celebrate and honor change in people? What is it about a person’s evolution that frightens us? Or are we afraid of letting go of what we once believed to be true?  How challenging is it to let go of the past and allow something or someone to move on? Sit in that for a moment.

I will forever be a truth teller. I refuse to hide the ugly, messy places of my past. They are as much a part of me as the good. And I want to own them all. But I don’t want to be trapped there nor do I want to define anyone or anything by where they were in life when our past intersected.

Think about that town or that person. Hold them in your heart and offer a blessing to the Universe on their behalf. You go, ____, may you grow beyond my worst perception of you. ___, may you shatter every fallacy I’ve contrived in my mind about you. ___, may you glow as you grow.

You go, Clayton. You grow beyond my worst perception of you. I bless you to shatter every fallacy I’ve contrived in my mind about you. Here’s to letting go of my negative image and embracing you where you are today. Namaste.