-
SPOTTED ON CHARTRES
TFW the tourists ask you to walk BACK through the picture 💗
📷: Sweet Florida mystery woman
where i wandered:
-
ST. JOSEPH’S DAY PEACOCKING
If I smile any bigger, my whole face might fall off. Happy St. Joseph’s Night from me, Big Queen Rukiya, and the CREOLE WILD WEST!!
where i wandered:
-
LOUNGING WITH LISETTE
What if I told you that one of my favorite people I’ve met through my travels is someone I’ve never met at all?
When I started this road tripping journey back in September of 2020, a dear friend of mine kept tagging one of hers on my IG posts. Us mutuals eventually followed each other, but it wasn’t until we found a common grief that we actually connected and discovered so much more we shared. Our bond was immediate and true.
Since then and despite the global pandemic, life’s taken Lisette & I many places, constantly giving us more to share with each other.
Including, a conversation over her podcast, The Globetrotter Lounge!
I could not have been more delighted to spend a bit of my time on the road last year swapping stories with such a brilliant traveler, dazzling woman, fellow modern-day griot, and most especially, my friend.
I hope you’ll enjoy our talk about solo road tripping, discovering beauty & history in adventure, and being true to your heart along the way as much as we did.
(Doubt it, but… I’m polite anyway.)
Kiki with me & Lisette on the Globetrotter Lounge!
where i wandered:
-
BONNE AVENTURE
-
DESTINATION UNKNOWN
In the past 2 years, I’ve probably shared more pictures of myself than I did in the last 20.
Maybe it’s because all this time in isolation has made it too easy to slip into the background.
Maybe I’d relied on seeing sights and being seen by folks who for too many reasons weren’t around anymore.
Maybe it was to prove that after all of the heartbreak, loss and devastation, I was still here.
Maybe all of the above.
But it all started last September with a print of Frida Kahlo and what was going to be a joke picture. I’d brought her illustrated diary along for my road trip through the southwest, and when I arrived in El Paso, I decided to have a laugh by posing with my book and the print of her I found hanging on the rental wall.
I was almost immediately struck by how corny/weird/unfunny it was and how much Frida, whose most prolific subject was herself, probably would have hated every. thing. about it. It was like I could hear her voice in my head, “Who am I? This is your journey. See yourself and show yourself.”
So I did, and didn’t stop. The journey, or showing myself.
Since then, I’ve driven ~10,200 miles through West Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee—just me, myself, and I. (And a couple of Mazda CX-5s.)
And when I go, no matter what else I see, I always, always make time to see myself there too.
I don’t know what lies ahead in #2022. But I do know I won’t be a passenger, and there’s so much more of the world and me to see. 🌏💖✨
where i wandered:
-
MY BRAND NEW BFF
Something in my spirit tends to attract the most unique characters—especially when I’m traveling—but none quite like a precocious 4-year-old I had the pleasure of meeting one late afternoon in a Memphis dive bar.
I parked right in front of Westy’s with such ease that I expected a quiet dinner, accompanied by musical Memphis accents and maybe a chat with a bartender. I was still perusing their sprawling menu over an old fashioned when little H arrived, pad and pen in hand to “take my order,” then climbed onto the bar stool next to me where she stayed for the next hour, dazzling everyone who walked in.
(I have never heard “Whose child is that?” asked so earnestly & repeatedly in. my. life.)
While her mom waited tables and H waited for her dad to come pick her up, she chatted with me about everything from what was good on the menu to big girl panties before she brought the conversation to an abrupt halt for a v serious question:
“Are you a stranger?”
I cleared my throat to both swallow an impending belly laugh and keep from choking to death in the presence of a child.
That’s when we officially made our introduction, and H gave me the really personal details about how Sonic the Hedgehog was her favorite video game character (same, girl, same) and blue was her favorite color (naturally). She insisted that I draw something for her, take a selfie, and share her orange slices before finally presenting another v important query:
“Can we be friends?”
Geez, I thought she’d never ask.
EDITED TO ADD:
Here’s a brief selection of H’s conversations with others in the bar:
◦ She very matter-of-factly informed an MPD officer in full uniform that he had “crazy eyes.” (For the record, being very blue & surrounded by crow’s feet was what made his eyes so “crazy”.)
◦ As a woman in a royal blue dress that was so stunning against her light brown skin left, H gasped that her dress made her look “beautiful like a princess!” (The woman replied, “Thank ya, baybee!” and the whole exchange made me melt.)
◦ H demanded to know why some poor regular just trying to enjoy a beer at the very edge of the bar was being so quiet. (Then looked to me to explain why it’s OK to just sit quietly.)
◦ When one of the line cooks came up to tease her and ask if she wasn’t speaking to him today, she cheerily replied “NOPE!” and went back to drawing on her order pad.
where i wandered:
-
THE HEART OF MEMPHIS
One last big gallery drop from the Great Birthday Road Trip of 2021 and the soul of the Mississippi: Memphis, TN.
I told y’all about the gracious invitations in Savannah, but in Memphis, those invitations are more along the lines of “Well, you comin’?” The locals treat you like they’ve known you a million years, and talk to you that way too. It’s a city where everybody can feel at home, and it shows. Everything in Memphis bleeds into itself. Where most cities I’ve traveled have distinct neighborhoods, with hard lines defining the borders of each one’s personality, Memphis feels more like a pumping heart with different chambers of the same whole, all moving to the same beat.
History, music, people and their stories, past and present are all inseparable there, and though it was only temporarily my last stop, it came as no surprise that so many people make their stay in Blues City permanent. A perfect place to close the show.
where i wandered:
-
HOME TRAINING
You don’t enter someone’s home without speaking.
So before I went horseback riding, rum-seeking and disturbing the peace all over Daufuskie Island, I greeted my hosts at Cooper River Cemetery.
If it wasn’t for the map marker at the entrance, you might not even realize it was a cemetery. Cooper River is a tiny culdesac at the end of a clearing that opens onto the water. Aside from the occasional chatter drifting from elsewhere up the coast, the atmosphere is so sacred and secluded that even the waves maintain a whisper.
It’s among 7 cemeteries on Daufuskie Island, all but one dedicated to the Gullah, whose burial practices demand interment near the water so their souls can return to Africa by the same route from which they came.
Until the mid-20th century, almost all of the inhabitants of Daufuskie Island were Gullah, a people descended from the original West Africans enslaved on the lowcountry’s indigo, rice and Sea Island cotton plantations. And yet, despite establishing this insulated, Black coastal paradise, the Gullah knew in their bones that this land was not their final glory.
I left them with only a few words, regretting making Cooper River my first stop after all, as I had come with nothing else to leave in tribute.
About an hour before my ferry departed Daufuskie Island, I glanced to the passenger seat of my golf cart, and my fully extended, 5-foot tripod was gone, lost to the rough, gravel roads or some sand dune abyss, I suppose. I couldn’t help but chuckle over my unintentional (and wholly unconventional) offering, counting it as a small sacrifice in exchange for the abundance which I received.
where i wandered:
-
POSITIVELY CHARMED BY SAVANNAH
And then came the scenery in sweet Savannah, where southern gentility is a whole lifestyle. Folks just leave their houses at all hours with cocktails in hand to walk dogs down streets where history was made, or sit under iconic fountains in colonial squares, bellyaching about the Georgia game. If they leave the house all. There’s a whole lotta porch sitting/sipping going on in Savannah. It’s the kind of place where rather than recommending a bar or brunch spot, perfect strangers invite you along, which happened to me on at least two separate occasions. The humidity is famous, but it’s the Spanish moss draped everywhere that gives the air its character, especially at night when the coastal winds sift through the trees, lifting those ringlets at random like a mischievous spirit. The city’s terribly romantic, the tea is sweet by default, and even if you’ve never been, Savannah is indeed the place you picture when people speak of southern charm & hospitality.
where i wandered:
-
MEMORIES FROM MONTGOMERY
More moments in time from Montgomery, the heart of historic Alabama.
Nearly every street there has a story to tell, with even more history unfolding just an hour or so away in Selma, Tuskegee, and Cahawba. If I had one more day to add to my journey through the Deep South, I would probably spend it there, where a historic fountain and cobblestoned square mark the city’s colonial founding, a former slave market, orders to fire on Fort Sumpter, and Rosa Parks’ personal stand; where a few tiny flames cast light on injustice; where hair salons and small businesses past and present are short-hand for Black excellence; and where there is so much pride and power in the persistence to overcome.
where i wandered:
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
where joy wanders 