What Road Is This: One Black Woman's Journey To Herself

By Sabrina McCrae

Waking up, working, paying the bills, taking care of family and getting by, is the road most Americans follow until the day they die. Reaching for impossible dreams and risking all dignity to get the life they deserve, makes for good movies and powerful speeches by life coaches on TV. It’s not a real and plausible way to live. But to her, it’s the only way to live. She cannot walk down the same streets of her life for another year. Going against the counsel of erudite family members, she makes her own self-made path to freedom. She leaves her steady 9 to 5 in Alabama, and follows her shaky writing career to Maine. A new house, a new relationship, and a real career all fall into place because of the chance she took. But the once successful route she was on starts to take her down avenues she never thought she’d see, and everything falls apart bit by bit. So the true test of her faith calls for her to either use the same soul surviving radical faith to get her on track again. Or accept defeat and head back in the direction of a dead end life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sabrina McCrae
• Release date: Oct 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301428359

Sabrina McCrae

Sabrina McCrae (formerly known as Satima) is an accomplished self published author, graphic and character artist, and game developer who resides in Georgia.

Book preview

WHAT ROAD IS THIS

ONE BLACK WOMAN’S JOURNEY TO HERSELF

by Satima

Published by SATIMA

COPYRIGHT ©2013 Satima

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in review, without permission in writing from the author.

CHAPTER 1

Her alarm clock when off at 6:00 AM as usual, but this was not a usual day. She lay in bed for a moment, watching the ceiling as if it would move or speak to her. Maybe it would tell her to stay one more day, or at least until 4:00 PM. But it was at that moment that a contradicting wind had made its way inside her window and against her face. "What are you doing"? It did not sing her a melody or give her enlightenment, it simply asked a question that was, for the moment, unanswerable.

Why would I even need to answer something like the wind', she suddenly thought to herself. 'It comes and goes so carelessly without so much as a hello or goodbye. Something as carefree as the wind can ruffle my hair in the morning and brush someone else’s face way over in Thailand by the evening. It commits to no one, so why do I need to give any consideration to a question it may have?

In less than 30 seconds she’d given herself 101 good reasons as to why she didn’t need to answer its question. She rose up out of the bed and slid her feet into a pair of old slippers. So odd, just yesterday they were her old slippers she bought some 3 to 4 years ago. Now they were an old unfamiliar pair of things on the floor. As unusual as it sounded, these old slippers would soon join a lineup of things that had meaning once but had seemed to become unfamiliar this day; things like a snuggly pink robe, her best looking outfit, a few suitcases, and even a once precious art deco comb. She moved so mindlessly she barely remembered getting dressed or brushing her teeth. To her amazement, she realized that she had not been aware of anything she had done since she got up until her morning oatmeal had become much like plaster in texture as well as taste. Her breakfast had been spent staring at the floor much the same way she had gawked at the ceiling earlier. Once again came the lighthearted breeze, but this time it decided to play her a melody on the wind chimes that hung on the front porch.

But the first few lines of this song were "Are you sure you want to do this"? Stupid wind, why didn’t it just give her all the answers she was looking for instead of asking an open ended question?

Then she would know why she moved so mechanically, why she felt so lost, and why she waited for inanimate objects to hold conversations with her. She didn’t know if she was procrastinating or if she simply felt unready. But despite her growing confusion, no time could be wasted. Everything finally felt real when she began to throw away her old college bed sheets, and that jean jacket she never wore, and those old slippers. Everything finally felt real when, after all was packed up and ready, her things amounted to one suitcase, three shoulder bags, and four medium boxes of various books and other stationary materials. At first it surprised her to see that after all these years, this was all she had. But she knew this was all she needed. She packed everything in her car and made one final trip back into the house. She told herself she was looking for anything she might have missed, when in actuality she was taking one more look at her old life. While taking one last walk through the house her parents called her one right after the other. Her father’s words of advice were to always keep God first. Her mother’s advice, which came off more like a demand, was to call as soon as she arrived. But it was the fact that her brother called that surprised her the most.

Don’t let the white people out there tell you who you are.

Her brother was quick to educate her on the evil ways of white people. She only listened to about half of his advice since he was pretty narrow-minded. She preferred to believe that every minority; white, black, brown, green, orange with turquoise pinstripes; had its share of fools. Everyone always said if the two of them had been alive during the Civil Rights Movement, he would have been bombing warehouses and she would have been doing restaurant sit-ins. She began to think about how much it bothered him that she was so passive aggressive. But regardless of how much he hated it, he was still a good man.

Her trip down memory lane was interrupted by Mr. Zephyr who, once again, came tapping on her shoulder, breaking her zombie like trance. It brushed past her with the question "Won’t you be leaving them behind if you do this"? Trying hard to ignore the answer to that question, she turned and walked out the door and locked it behind her. Nothing left to do but shift into drive and head for the interstate; making only one stop to fill up first. At the gas station she noticed there was a man at the pump next to hers who seemed to be staring at her for quite some time. The man, who was actually taking note of all the things she had in her back seat, looked at her and noticed her cautious curiosity.

Sorry about that’, he said, ‘I was just looking at the stuff you had back there. So are you moving or running away, he joked.

It was at that moment that she realized that that was the question the wind had really been trying to ask her all morning. But it was only in the presence of a real person, who had simply posed the question to her, that she found she was able to finally answer it.

Starting over.

The strange combination of excitement and fear was almost too much for her to bear as she pulled up in the yard of her new home. She remembered the first day she laid eyes on it. She recalled the many months that she had spent looking at house after house, trying to decide exactly where it was that she had wanted to live. She remembered seeing one house in particular and thinking that it wasn’t much at first, until she went inside. To her it was strange at first how every room was exactly where she dreamed it should be, as if that house had been made for her. But when she stood in the den, that was when she knew, that was the moment she realized that the cozy little abode would be her home. She stood in the den on that day so many months ago and gazed out of the large bay windows at her ocean view. Within a week she had bought the house.

Now, two months later, she had driven miles away from her old life and her parents’ house and was ready to move into her home. She pulled up, stepped out of the car and took a deep breath as she beheld the house once again; not as a possible buyer, but as the new owner. She unloaded her few items from her car and sat them in her entry-way but didn’t bother to unpack anything. Her only concern at this point was getting to her backyard. As she opened the double doors that led to the backyard, the first thing that hit her was the smell of the ocean air. She walked down to the water and it almost felt like a dream. She walked with her eyes closed and by the time that she opened them she was at the water’s edge. In retrospect she barely even remembered walking. It almost felt as if the waves were somehow carrying her. She stood there for a moment listening to the sound of the waves. Then she bent over, untied her sneakers and took off her socks, and stood barefoot in the sand. There were days when she dreamed of that, standing near the water and watching the tide role in. So many days in the past that seemed as if that very moment was nothing more than a wish that would never be granted.

Remember 1

The morning was cool just like every other morning. It wasn’t so cold that she would need a blanket or fuzzy slippers, but just cool enough to wear more than a tee shirt to bed. It was one of those mornings that you only see on television. The air was sweet and cool and the sun gave her room a soft glow. As she lay in bed she could actually hear a bird singing. But this serene scene was crudely interrupted by the consistent annoying ringing of her alarm. The Angelic serenity that resided over her was quickly replaced by feelings of angst, irritation, and desolation. She knew it was time to do it all over again. And how she hated it. Finally raising herself off of her pillow just long enough to turn off her alarm, she dragged her tired and aching body out of bed. Aside from the fact that she was overweight, the thought of having to go through this routine one more day made her feel as if she was wearing a suit of weighted armor. She sat on the edge of her bed contemplating her life before finally starting her day with a trip to the bathroom. Once finished she came back and went to her closet and grabbed her work clothes that were hanging in the very back. It was not only the sight of these clothes that disgusted her about her job, but it was the smell that permeated from them. Her faded uniform shirt and stained work slacks had a dull smell of grease and random cleaning products. No matter how many times she washed them, the dirt and grime went away but the smell persisted. It is said that smell is the strongest sense tied to memory. Well the smell of her clothes brought up memories of a job that she had hated since day one.

She could not stand her backstabbing boss or her pathetic coworkers who seemed to do everything wrong yet still get away with it. After a year she absolutely loathed the smell of the cooking grease, the halfway frozen food in the barely cold freezer, and the mixture of all the chemicals that were used to clean the counters and the bathrooms. However, one of the worst things about her job was having to deal with those insufferable customers. Some of them demanding, some of them demeaning, some of them loud, some of them lewd. But no matter how different they were across the board they all shared one common trait, they lacked the knowledge of the basic rules for common civility. It was sort of odd but she could deal with her boss because she knew that bosses came and went.

She could deal with her coworkers because, let’s face it, stupid people lose their job every day. And she could even deal with the smell left in her clothes because she changed those as soon as she got home. But for some reason it was the great amount of hostility that she received from perfect strangers that she was unable to let go of. In her mind customer service no longer meant what it used to.

She searched the room for her keys. After finally locating them she walked to the back door in her socks. She didn’t dare take her work shoes past the back door. The bottom of them had so much food and trash caked up between the creases that they had to be hosed off every night. But that was only about 75% effective. What was left was ground in so deep that it needed to be dug out, a daunting task that she avoided at all cost. When she reached her car she continued her self-sermon on customer service. Taking note that up to this point she had had at least 17 jobs, she considered herself an expert on customer service. In the days of old, people would go to a place of business and expect a high level of hospitality from those who worked there. But in the same instance those who provided such excellent service would receive the same degree of hospitality from the patrons. That, however, was no longer true. Gathering what she had learned over the years from these many jobs she came to a conclusion while driving to work. And her conclusion was this; those who looked to be served wanted exactly that, servants. They acted as if they no longer had to treat the working class with any respect. If things were not done the way they wanted them to be done, if they were not able to get exactly what they wanted, despite policies and regulations stating otherwise, then the nearest worker to them was obviously incompetent and needed to be fired. Too many customers lived by the motto that many businesses operated on; The Customer is Always Right.

When the customer says another worker told them the price for an item was half of what it actually is, that item must be sold to them at half price because the customer is always right. When a customer goes to the manager and says that a worker was extremely rude, that worker must be disciplined or fired even though it was the customer who provoked, berated and belittle the worker over a minor thing, because the customer is always right. When a customer does not get exactly what they want or is inconvenienced in any small way they must be compensated with either money or free services because the customer is always right.

After 10 years in the workforce and numerous jobs, those were the very scenarios she had come across. One of those numerous jobs was a Representative for a call center taking orders for satellite television. That job and the ones after it would serve as the real basis for her true feelings about the customer service industry. At one point during that job, she had sat next to a very nice elderly woman who would end up leaving her desk in tears because of a customer she had spoken with on the phone. The horrible man was so angry that his services were disconnected; due to an unpaid bill; and he was missing a ball game so he called in to speak his rude mind to the first person he got on the phone. Finally frustrated over his own incompetence, he told the lady to just "Shut up and get