Chalk and Charcoal

I began this blog not as a photography blog, per-se, but as a place to share memories of my life that I wouldn't want erased forever if something were to happen to me. My best friend at my church was killed in a tragic accident two years ago. I never got to say goodbye, and I still had things I wanted to tell him. He probably didn't even know that he was my best friend, but I still have the last text he sent me in my phone, and I can still hear the last words he ever said to me. He had stories too, and maybe he has them written down somewhere.

I miss you Ronney. <><

My wife has told me that I have the strangest set of file cabinets in my mind, and she never knows when a random drawer will open and a weird file pop out. It usually occurs when I have had too much coffee, or at rare times, a glass of wine. The other day, one of those very stories popped out, and it wasn't wine or coffee that brought it to the surface. It was because a new friend of ours had visited, and it reminded me of something that happened a long time ago.

Before I get into that though, I want to show you this photo. A Facebook friend posted it today, and it gave me such pause.

I've seen this picture before, of course. I took Sociology in high school and our teacher talked with us about Ruby Bridges, and we hashed that hot button out for the class' hour. What it made me think about though, was how different it was back then.

Of course, my high school years were nothing like what it was like when schools were first racially integrated. I'm glad I didn't live in the times where not only the OPINIONS of many reeked of racial bigotry, but the very freedoms we hold dear in the USA were compromised by division of color lines that went from public restrooms to seats on the bus.

I'm not going to lie to you. I grew up in a part of town where the lines were clearly drawn. I don't mean to say that we didn't coexist, I mean simply that white was white and black was black. I remember a little old man that lived up the road from us (he must have been 80 years old, at least) who ACTUALLY believed that black people were cursed by God.

My mother and father didn't believe any of that garbage, of course, but in our house it was clear that black was black and white was white.

My high school days brought even more of this to forefront. I won't go so far as to say that we were drawing a line right down the middle of the school, but in many many ways, that line existed. If any of my classmates read this, they will know what I mean by "The Invisible Line". It was there, and only the brave dared to TRULY cross it.

Here's how it worked...at least from my perspective:

If you were a white guy, you could hang out with the black crowd if you were a jock, or if you were raised in a black neighborhood so that you were "accepted" from the beginning.

If you were a white girl, you could hang out with the black crowd if you were a white girl who preferred black guys.

If you were a black guy, you could hang out with the white crowd if you were a jock, or if you were a total geek. (Think Steve Urkel)

If you were a black girl, you could hang out with the white crowd as long as you were comfortable in your skin.

This is NOT to say that there weren't those who broke the dividing lines and made our school less black and white. There were. Plenty. But there was always that invisible line there. It was like a chess game. All the pieces move about the board, but the colors are clearly defined.

One line that was NEVER crossed was the romantic line. If you were a white girl who dated a black guy, you were never going to have a white boyfriend again. It was as if the very relationship you shared with this person of deeper color had tainted your own body...a drizzle of chocolate forever on your lips. And a black girl dating a white guy? Oh snap...your own race isn't good enough for you? Consider yourself "white-listed".

I knew where those lines were drawn too, and while I did have black friends, I knew that one wrong move could have me on a precarious perch if I was not careful and respected those unwritten guidelines.

So here I am in high school, and I have found my "clique" that I hang out with..."The Weird Folks". I was a headbanger kid, and had longer hair, ripped jeans, and a denim jacket with Ozzy Osbourne on the back. I was also a social outcast, because I wasn't "cool", good-looking, witty, popular, rich, sexy, or any number of things that are required to make it into one of the "in-crowds".

I was just me.

Now, if you were confident in being "just you", that made you awesome. If you had no idea who you were, and were screaming inside for validation, that made you a loser, no matter who was on the back of your denim jacket. In many ways, I suppose I envisioned myself like Ozzy himself appears in many of his performances: Dark. Troubled. Mysterious. Yearning. Maybe a lot like this:

Scary? Yep. A lot of my life was, and I just didn't tell anyone. You can read about that in a previous blog entry. You'll know the one.

So on one particular day at school, I was in one of the biggest "blue funks" I had ever been in. My girlfriend had just broken up with me. Of course, she already had another guy, and here I was an ENTIRE WEEK later, and still pining over her! I look back on that now and think "Dude, get over it! She wasn't who you needed anyway, and vice versa!" At the time though, my life was absolutely in the tank. I had my sketchbook in front of me, and I was drawing pictures of dark angels and black widow spiders.

As I sat there, all alone on the back steps of Longstreet Hall, a pair of white Keds sneakers appeared in my peripheral vision. I looked up, expecting to see one of my few little "outcast-ish" friends coming over to me, but I was taken aback by who it was instead.

Her name was Shanice (pronounced "Sha-neese") and she was a year behind me. She was one of those girls who was comfortable in her skin, and wasn't afraid to skirt the lines. She was also beautiful, and had a laugh and a smile that could win you over in two seconds. I don't have a photo of Shanice, but this girl reminds me a lot of her:

She squatted down in the dirt with me and said "Why are you sittin' out here with your head in the mud?" I told her about the breakup, and she listened to me whine about all my problems, bless her heart. That must have been like reading Kafka! After I was done with my rant, she said "Well, you need to get over that. Life's too short."

We talked for a little bit, and she finally decided to grab the bull by the horns. She leaned up on her elbow and said "So what will you miss the most about this girl?" I told her all the usual things a guy would miss. Her eyes. Her smile. Her laugh. I chuckled and said "Oh, and that girl could kiss!"

Shanice sat bold upright, and gave me a look like I had just told her that Whitney Houston was a man. "Honey..." she said "White girls can't kiss."

I laughed HARD and told her that I begged to differ on that point. She smiled and said "Well you know, being that you are a free agent and all, I'd prove that point to you right here and now, except for one problem."

I thought she was messing with me, but I said "Yeah well, we know how that goes, if anyone saw us..."

"Oh NO!" she exclaimed. There's nobody here. I ain't talking, You ain't talking. I'm just saying it'd be cruel. I'd ruin you for every white girl, ever."

She stood up, and reached down to offer me a hand. I stood, her hand in mine, and with a moment that could only be defined by a flash of understanding in our eyes, she laid one on me. BIG time. For the next thirty seconds or so, she took my breath and left me floating somewhere on cloud 13.

When my vision returned to normal, she straightened my jacket collar, and said with a grin "I'm sorry...really...I just hope that next girl on your list can follow that, right there."

~~~~~~~

In life, there are defining moments. Some of them define who you are, some define who you are going to be, and some define things you never knew existed.

What Shanice awakened in me that afternoon was not bawdy, adolescent, or romantic in any way. Yes, it was a great kiss, but it was something much more than that. It was a shift in the way that I saw the world. I was raised in a house that laid the dividing lines out quite clearly. There was white, and there was black.

Shanice, in one fluid movement, took that sketchbook out of my hand, and showed me the human equivalent of placing fingertips to charcoal. What was once a dark line was now a soft gradient of the one thing color can't touch...the soul. I'm thankful for that today. Who knows where I might be if I hadn't had that awakening?

Have things changed? I think to a point, yes. The lines are still there sadly, and they are more real than ever. It's up to us. We have to experience a change in our hearts. Only then can we can open our eyes and blend the colors into something beautiful.