Following my dreams

Here you will find, a portion of my book that I have been writing for what seems to be the better part of a 15 years. As I begin to organize my life I realize that, I have lived many lives in this life and a lot to offer the world. Most of the information here is raw un-edited data. I hope to start really writing this book with-in the next 3 years. I don't care if it is published I just know that I need to write the book. Maferefun Ochun, Maferefun Yemonja, Maferefun Obatala


Enjoy:

Children grow up with out all of that hesitation, there un-marked by society just absolutely free. A freedom! We try to seek out, as adults and seem to miss the point because we are too afraid of the answer. It is a trip when you think about it, you have the answers to all of life’s little question in bedded in your soul. Think about that! All the answers that you seek are in your soul, but you are too afraid of the answer so you don’t question! I am not sure what life lesson I was raised with but I know I got something out of it, I felt it then and I know it now. I just knew I was raised different from everybody else. Not just our families’ religious background but also the connection between family and how you interact with the world.

I was raised in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, lower to upper middle class working folks. Everybody worked on our block from the Gardner that came twice a week on Monday night and Friday morning to do our front yard, to the guy down the street with the fur-less dog that would bark at al hours of the night and keep everyone awake
Our family lived on 60th and 4th Ave. in Los Angeles CA. Where my grandmother (smart business women that she is) brought the house where I was born a raised. I loved that house and the things that came with it and this is my story:

Here comes baby:

… I remember when I was a child I would love to stare at my mother doing her hair, her hair was always a lot of colors, and different styles not the same thing all the time there was variety, which is what helped me in my adult years, to not be afraid of difference and originality.
…I liked that style a lot on her it was called a “natural”, but then it was just my mother’s hair. Something I was used to, seeing and being around I never thought of us as different just like everybody else just plain ole’ black folks…

I remember it like it was yesterday: My mother was maybe 35 and I was 5 or 6 and I went out side of our house in LA, to talk to the next door neighbor Mr. MacDonald, like McDonald…but there’s no relation, well he was an older white man* who was so sweet despite the way white Americans were being treated by the black Americans in our neighborhood. Not everyone was mean or cruel but there were some. I guess I was raised to do unto your neighbor, as you would have them do unto you.
His wife made ice cream and the sweetest cookies. All kinds of cookies everything from: chocolate chip to mint butter, and shortbread cookies. He was used to her baking, my tummy wasn’t. Mr. MacDonald was not an ugly man he was actually real pretty in that, I was in the military during the Andrew sister days. (He introduced me to that song) they had been married for over 30 years. Which nowadays is a long time, I reckon ‘cause most folks don’t stay married that long. I did not find out till later that his wife, who’s name I never knew was his High School sweet heart. That is so romantic, to know that he found his true love early in life and they stayed together for 30 years.

Well anyway I went out side to talk to Mr. MacDonald, and he gave me a scoop of ice cream from batch his wife had just made. I sat on the front porch with my two ponytails and barrettes hanging in the wind. Mr. MacDonald said to me Perri, you know you are a real nice girl, I was not sure what he was talking about, I was too involved in my ice cream, I said huh? What do you mean? He said you have a good heart, you don’t allow people to tell you what you want to do and or not to do? I was five at the time so it was not too important the ice cream was however. Little did I know that his words would stay with me for the rest of my life, but he went on to say that I had always been nice to him and that I should remember that if anything would ever happen to him. I remember giving him this really strange look because, I knew he was old but not as old as my great grandmother that had passed just a few years prior to our talk. I knew that one-day I would not see him anymore, and that he was a friend of mine.

Mr. MacDonald die soon there after that day, I believe I had a birthday before he passed, because he gave me this bowl with blue edging, that was my bowl, they kept it at there house for me to use when I had ice cream. I remember it because when ever I go in my cabinet now for ice cream I see the bowl with the blue edging that he gave me ice cream in that day on his front porch. His wife died soon there after, she was a frail women not too strong in her stature. She rarely spoke and when she did her voice was real soft. I guess it is true what they say about love it is what holds you together. Once I got to the stage in my life where I would ask question all the time I finally asked my mother about Mr. MacDonald. She told me he was the one who called the ambulance to get her to the hospital, when she was about to give birth to me ‘cause my Grandmother and Great-Grandmother where not around so he called and waited with my mom.

My mother was turning 30 when she had me, she was excited to be having a child and she knew that I was the thing that saved her life. I don’t think she was ready to have children when she met my soon to be father. I did the math on when I was conceived and it was September 19th 1979, which is approx nine months and two weeks long. And I was born pretty much on time I was six hours late. I was born Perri. L. Williams to Mother Rhonda L. Williams and Father: Tommy Lee Williams (no they where never married). I weighed ten pounds nine ounces and I was twenty-two and one half inches long. I was born a breech baby. My mother stayed in the hospital for one week after I was born. She was split from her vaginal opening to her rectum, from me forcing my way out. Something I have literally been doing all my life