I am proud to claim Lyndsey Ellis, my former student from the MFA program at California College of the Arts, who was determined to complete and have a novel published, and who, after many hurdles, has succeeded. Congrats Lyndsey on completing your novel.  Here is what she says about the novel and her writing journey thus far.

“BONE BROTH is about Justine Holmes, a widow, former activist, and funeral thief, mourning her husband’s death during the aftermath of the Ferguson unrest in St. Louis, Missouri.

“As family tensions deepen between Justine and her three grown children, –an unemployed former Bay Area activist at odds with her hometown’s customs, a social climbing realtor stifled by the loss of her only child, and a disillusioned politician struggling with his sexual identity–the matriarch is forced to face her grief head-on. By reconciling a past tied to her secret involvement in civil rights activism during the early 1970’s in St. Louis, Justine quickly learns the more she attempts to make peace with her history, the more skeletons continue to rise to the surface.”

Scheduled to be released, May 2021, Lyndsey talks about the process of writing Bone Broth, an engaging title, forth with mystery
OPA: How long has it taken you to write this novel?

LE: I’ve been developing this novel (dare I say it?!) for 12 years.

OPA: Why is this novel important to you and why would it appeal to others?

LE: Bone Broth represents the human side of activists that you don’t hear or read about too much these days. I’ve always wondered what happens –what the frontrunners of civil rights movements do after they have been on the frontlines and then go home. That’s what compelled me to write this…to show that activists are human beings with personal, complicated lives.

OPA: Is this a common story in the Black experience or what is unique about it, your perspective?

LE: This is both a common story and a unique experience in the Black community. It’s common in that it speaks to intergenerational trauma and resilience that resonate in any Black community. It’s unique in that this is a story that sheds lights on Black lives and experiences in the Midwest, which aren’t usually at the forefront of mainstream media. Many persons still believe the Midwest is synonymous with white people and rural life, and this couldn’t be  further from the truth. There are cities here, and communities where people of color exist.

OPA: As a writer living under Covid 19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, how have these two very different social realities impacted you, your writing?

LE: As with most people, COVID-19 has made me take a long, hard look at what actually matters and what’s important in my life and my community, as well as examine the craft of writing more closely. COVID 19 is further complicated by the injustices that many Black individuals are subjected to at the hands of police and other authority figures who abuse their power. This saddens me, but it also propels me want to stand up for Black lives even more and portray these experiences in my writing because words do matter and particularly now in these time, marginalized voices really need to be heard.

OPA: Do you think more people will be interested in black stories/novels now?

LE: I definitely think more people are interested in deepening their understanding of the Black experience by way of Black literature now. Recently, I read somewhere that Black-owned bookstores have been selling out of their merchandise due to the high demands for Black stories. This is great and so necessary, and I hope our stories continue to resonate with people.

OPA: What are your hopes/dreams as a writer?

LE: I want my stories to be seen and heard; I write about the experiences of those who are marginalized or voiceless in mainstream media –working class Black people in the Midwest. I want to uplift the voices/stories  so others come to know them and respect their humanity and struggle. We all have a place and all of our experiences/stories matter.

OPA: Have you begun your 2nd novel?

LE: I have begun on a short story collection that I’m looking forward to sharing soon. An idea for a longer work—possibly a novel—is also been in the works. I’m looking forward to continuing both those journeys.

OPA: Finally, what has writing taught you about yourself thus far?

Writing has taught me how to channel my emotions—particularly anger and sorrow—in constructive ways. It’s shown me how to remain open and curious about life. Most of all, I think it’s helped me learn how to be patient with myself, as well as others. It may sometimes take a while but the journey—trusting the process—is totally worth it.

Lyndsey Ellis is a fiction writer and essayist. She earned her MFA in writing from California College of the Arts. Ellis was a recipient of the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award in 2016 and the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund in 2018 for her fiction. A Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, her writing appears in The Offing, Joyland, Entropy, Shondaland, and elsewhere. She lives in St. Louis, MO. Her debut novel, Bone Broth, will be published by Hidden Timber Books in spring 2021.

Read my essay on contemporary Caribbean Identity and Resilience.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latestnews/ONLINE_READERS%26%238217;_COMMENT:_An_open_letter_to_minister_Delroy_Chuck?profile=1228&fbclid=IwAR07tR0VAC3TS2U6ZP0JcgYVBfYm-aDWp9i2vdF9nxf21KgGcyOGJmF3LfA

They Will Not Take You
by Opal Palmer Adisa

April  29 – May 4,1992 marks the LA’s riot as a result of the acquittal of 4 LAPD officers recorded beating  and using excessive force on Walter Rodney.  My son was almost one year old, and police brutality and the lynching and abuse of Blacks, but specifically African American men, had been institutionalized and normalized. I decided that my son would not be a victim to this system. I wrote, “I Will Not Let then Take You,” then as a pledge to him, but now with the wave of protest over the killing of George Floyd, and other African American men and women with deadly force by the police, I’ve upgraded the poem by reaffirming my commitment to my son who is now thirty one years old and living in LA.  I have also changed the title.

Tell them

Tell them loud and clear

your mother is a crazy Jamaican woman

who will wage war for you

who refuses to sacrifice you

to racism

You will breathe

You will breathe

your ancestors breathed for you

to live with dignity

unafraid that your life-breath

will be kneed-out

Tell them

Tell them

I will not surrender you to distressed streets

I will not leave you for dope dealers

I will not abandon you to the police

who  targets you –a black man

You will breathe

You will breathe

We all breathe for you

What is the language of tomorrow

that we mothers and sisters

and lovers and wives must speak

words seeped in future years

words that raise you

to soar beyond the heavens

to dance in the lap of life

and sleep in the belly of laughter

Tell them

Tell them

you have a mother

who remembers

she endured

in getting you here

and she will not give you up

will not give you up

to no one

Your breath is filtered

through rosemary water

and eucalyptus oil

so you can leap

you are heir to the next generation

whose path has been cleared

by the blood of your forefathers

who were silenced

humiliated

whose present were usurped

from them

but still they insisted

on being men so you

could leap

You will breathe

You will live

for all those

massacred

You will live

Tell them

Tell them

Your mother

will not give you  up

but to love of

your own dreams

Tell them

your mother

insists you breathe

In this photograph I am not yet 2 years old. My mother’s bicycle is leaned next to the bench where I am sitting.

My mother doesn’t remember the occasion or circumstance under which the photo was taken or where my sister and other siblings were.

I often try to imagine what this little girl –me– was thinking.

I am not smiling, rather it seems my attention is focused keenly, else where, rather than at the person taking the photo. Yet, I seem very  intense. I don’t have a memory of myself at this age, but I see myself, much younger in my crib, very self-absorbed and feeling as if I don’t need anyone. My imagination is active and I love being alive in that moment.

How do we connect to who we were when we were born, to who we have become?

How do we know or remember which dreams were important to us and when we let them go, or why we let them go or do they still live somewhere else?

How do we know if we have realised more than we had hoped for as a child or less?

How connected or disconnected are we to our little person self?  I feel strongly that I am connected to little Opal, that we walk side by side, that she nudges me and says good going, that she is so proud that I have not abandoned her or our dreams.

In this photograph I am not yet 2 years old. My mother’s bicycle is leaned next to the bench where I am sitting.

My mother doesn’t remember the occasion or circumstance under which the photo was taken or where my sister and other siblings were.

I often try to imagine what this little girl, me was thinking.

I am not smiling, rather it seems my attention is focused keenly, else where, rather than at the person taking the photo. Yet, I seem very  intense. I don’t have a memory of myself at this age, but I see myself, much younger in my crib, very self-absorbed and feeling as if I don’t need anyone. My imagination is active and I love being alive in that moment.

I believe I have always honoured  my child self, perhaps sometimes to the determent of  missing opportunities, but I love this child that is me.  All the stories my mother and other relatives told me about my child-self indicate that I was happy, loved to laugh and always had a mouth, a rejoiner for everything anyone said to me.  Perhaps I knew I would become a a writer.

I do see myself as a little girl being very curious about the environment, and wanting to know everything.  I was called a Tom-boy because I enjoyed the outdoors and doing things that supposedly boys did –go off on my own in the woods, climbing tree, scrambling through barbed-wire fences, shooting birds with my sling shot, and lighting and tossing fire-crackers even after a few times they busted in my palm, swelling  and staining them with the sulphurous gun-powder.

This little girl is still alive, still curious, still planning adventures and still looking intently at life… I love and celebrate her

I am not new to growing.  As far back as I can remember to my childhood all the people around me grew things.

My mother comes from Flemstead a rural village in St James, and her people were farmers.  Although my mother left there and was reared in Kingston from the age of 10, she also grew things.  It was not unusual for people of my mother’s generation to grow things.

I tend a garden of flowers and herbs and vegetables from watching my mother. I have introduced my children to growing, and am happy to say my daughters have taken this on even though they don’t have a yard. I am always thrilled when I go to my garden and see what I have produced.  I am even more thrilled when I eat it as I know it is free from pesticide and it is healthy. Here I have Bak Choy that I have grown.  Red callalloo, yes red the first for me; I’ve also planted green, and kale, herbs, beans and peas, pineapples, cane and banana…each day I learn more and expand for myself and my relatives and friends.

It is said the eyes are the window to the soul, but what is the face?

I love my face. I guess being told I was pretty when I was a child has helped me to feel good about my features. But I also know that I wear different faces depending on how I am feeling and the circumstances in which I find myself. During meetings I try to wear a professional face, meaning I try to not let my emotions show openly on my face.

When I am reading  or performing my work, my face is very expressive and I try to display the specific emotion of the work I am sharing.

When I am with friends, just having a good time, my face is open and I do not try to conceal or project anything but myself and what I am feeling at the moment.

I try to imagine what my face looks like  during labor and child-birth.  I think  about how my face feels when I am making love.  Does it emit a different smell when I am cooking?  When I take a shower and soap my face or my eyes sting from the salt of the sea or the chlorine in the pool, how do these elements change my face? What is my sad face, when my mother died and I was flying from Jamaica to California to see her before she issued her last breath.  I did not want to see my mother’s death face.

This is my COVID 19 face.  I don’t think it shows that there is a pandemic? It is a selfie and I only wanted to capture part of my face, and the words reflect who I am and who I always want to show up as — I want my face to announce this creative resilience.

What does someone mean when they declare, “Say it to my face.” ? Often it is when something negative is said behind one’s back, and the person saying whatever they are saying  is being called out as a coward. “Say it to my face, damn it!”

Maybe it is akin to what Eleanor Roosevelt means in this quotes: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”  How does one look fear in the face?  What does that mean really? To be brave? To push through?

I like face-to-face events. I love the intimacy that these opportunities afford us. This way I get to hear and see, and therefore feel more apt to evaluate the merit of what’s being said. I suppose face-to-face is like eye-ball to eye-ball, although this latter term seems more aggressive as id a dual is taking place — who can out stare whom?

Some people refer to their face as their  mug, this usually suggests a criminal element.

This is my profile indicates a pose, a decided presentation. What about your features? Here again, it tends to be an assessment of supposedly one’s best `side.’

“Keep your face always towards the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you,” says the poet Walt Whitman.  Do we really know what he means seeing that the quotes is lifted out of context. This is what I think happens when the sun is out, and one faces the sun, but I suspect Whitman is speaking in poetic terms, metaphorically.

J.D. Salinger’s quote is clear, and we don’t have to second guess what he means  when he says, “She was not one for emptying her face of expression. ” Here is a woman who does not attempt to hide what she is feeling –joy or contempt or anger or livid disdain. But look at how the writer puts it, `emptying’…can one also say filling up?

The Roman orator, statesman and writer, Marcus Tullius Cicero, offers a quote which I find to be profound and accurate to a point;  he says “The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.” Let’s ponder this for a moment — the face reflecting the mind and the eyes interpreting.  How accurate is this?  What about a seeing impaired or blind person?

How about this, “Every face, every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned–in search of what? It is the same with books…”
from Virginia Woolf.  What is it that you face is seeking?  Where is it looking?  What is it telling others?  What is it concealing? How open or close is your face?  When is it most vulnerable?

Finally, think about this term, “Blackface” popularised  in the United States as a form  of theatrical make-up used predominantly by mostly white performers to represent a caricature of a black person. Imagine that, to blacken the face to poke fun or misinterpret that actions and/or mannerism of a Black person. A racist act.

Side Bar 1: Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), a humanist,  and an American poet, essayist, and journalist work incorporates transcendentalism and realism; Leaves of Grass, his major work, he self-published in 1855

Side bar 2: J. D. Salinger is best known for  his novel, The Catcher in the Rye.  He ended up being a recluse after this success, and published very little upon till his death, novel The Catcher in the Rye

Side Bar 3: Did you know that Virginia Woolf is considered to be “one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device?”

There is something to be said about a people who have nationalized a poisonous fruit —our resourcefulness at transformation.

Brought from West Africa, Ackee also known as Akan, if eaten before it ripens and opens its pods naturally  produces toxins– hypoglycin A  and B, that when converted into the body are lethal, and can result in what Jamaicans call vomiting sickness.

How Jamaicans came to figure out when to eat the ackee, to wait until it ripens naturally, and how it came to be made our national dish beats me.  I think it is one of the most beautiful plants, its pear-shaped red colour, shiny black seeds and three pods fruit in each pot, with a menstrual red membrane that must be removed before cooking.

As Jamaica’s national disk, ackee is steamed with salt-fish and eaten with breadfruit, or boiled green banana, fried plantain, or cooked with rice commonly called seasoned rice as a one-pot meal, or now made into patties, or quiche or done in a variety of ways. I recently learned that it can be eaten raw or chopped and tossed into a salad.  Like any fruit, the numerous ways ackee can be prepared is yet to be discovered.

Its pods and seeds are tossed into compose, but the dried ackee pod is elegant, and its decorative abilities  has to be explored; I have long believed its seeds would make beautiful jewelry.

Jamaican are one of the most resourceful and creative people that I know, and I readily admit my bias as a fellow Jamaican.  But truly our creativity and ingenuity are limitless. What we lack is discipline and a spirit of Ujamaa, collective and cooperative economics.

I believe in us.  I believe that African Jamaicans will yet acknowledge and come together in the spirit of fraternity, and create a bright future for the African population. I await all the positives ackee vibes we will unleash as a result of COVID 19.

Stay safe and blessed.  Asè