gypsy in the bronx 1

I am gypsy. I know, right? That's obvious. Been shuttling up and down the east coast, trying to find my way into somebody's American dream. I wonder sometimes if my children will remember me as a crazy mama with little sense for all the movements I've caused inspired by my whim and desire, trying desperately to make their lives a little better. It's a stupid feeling, being a woman like myself, caught inside some genius idea that words will make my living profitable and get my babies to the summer vacations over-seas they dream about aloud. I can't stand that I can hear them. They don't even have passports, and someone stole mine. Guess this one woman with visas for Ghana and Brazil amounting to only one and half months of my thirty four years was too much for the thief, had to steal my just got to blossoming new self in one second and snatched all my rights to leave this place. Got damn.

But I'm still claiming I'm a gypsy. A gypsy in the Bronx. I wear my scarf everyday. Tie it tight around my head and let the tail of it swing in the cold wind. I tighten my lips against the grit. I step over the dog shit. I used to tell my daughters to walk with their eyes straight ahead. Something black girls got a right to do - - keep their heads to the sky and be proud of they skin and what they got from the generations before. Now I insist that they look down at the concrete, beware the feces, and please don't trip over that broken glass glistening in the sun light so pretty.

My horizon is beneath my feet. I swear to god I might have to jump over it, and miss my golden ticket out of this daily hustle. This is where my jones has got me. I live for the sound of the elevated train rumbling past while I'm on my cell phone, and I must be finally fitting in 'cause now the shorties on the block say 'wassup' as I pass by, like I know them, when they only used to stare before. I'm proud of this small thing …. acceptance, despite my southern drawl sneaking through the pseudo hybrid accent I've cultivated to pass. My gypsy scarf confuses them. I swear. Be a gypsy, and no one will know how to place you. You just kind of belong everywhere and nowhere.

And I'm cool with that. Aint never had a problem with being a little bit of this and that, one foot in the water, a toe on land, the rest of me kind of hovering in the air somewhere. Moving. It's how I know myself, how I sense the next beat of my heart. Stillness is a place I house on the inside. The rest of it is all about journey. So, I'm cool. I'll gypsy the Bronx for a spell ... and when this juju's done, it's all wing span and free style. I don't covet places. Home is my being. I am teaching my children that ...and going to the post office to apply for a new passport ... actually three. My crystal ball is showing me a new movement reaching crescendo in yet another place in time. Soon come.

But for now, I ponder telling fortunes out front the Laundromat while I do my weekly wash. I will sell my special gris gris in once used honey jars saved for this purpose. Yeah. I will sell two special gris gris. One for love and one for hate, since those are the two extremes we humans tend to live torn between. I will keep them in a small cooler next to my bottle of sangria, and I will drink that sangria out a real pretty wine glass, too.