A Love Letter To D.C.

My first memories of you were simultaneous with grandma. Our days were filled with trips visiting the sick and shut in (shout out to being born and bred COGIC), church activities, lots of food, lots of laughter and even more love. We would find reasons to travel around you, interacting with those you called your own. This was my first glimpse of you. Through the years my memories of you were filled with July 4th family BBQ’s at Aunt Brenda and Uncle Richard’s, the smell of incense and the jingling of the chimes as I walked into Aunt Gina’s house, The Prince poster plastered on my cousin’s bedroom door, Howard University’s campus rounds with mommy and the infiltrating sounds of WHUR. I remember the frosted glass to one of our first apartments on Longfellow street and how it amazed me so. I remember I couldn’t wait to get to Sunday school with the rest of the Kelsey Kids. Always front row with grandma as I watched in amazement as she evangelized to the congregation. As I got older I would come to know your people and your soul. Each person connected to you was unique but all had a common thread, they had a warmth and vibrancy that was directly connected to being part of you. It was something I would only grow to understand as I got older. I found myself running your streets a little more as I tried to assert my independence. With grandma the leash was short but I still found ways around it as much as possible. I remember picking up my first Backyard tape and feeling so official or buying my first pair of Parasucos and thinking I was doing something. Both to find ways to become one with you, to show that I was yours like the rest of them. I loved you.

I didn’t always love you. I blamed you for the havoc wreaked on my family because of your unforgiving streets. The people you took away from me either for a time or forever. Those who were lost trying to find their strength in your streets. Those whose survival tactics didn’t serve them well in this life. I was young in barber shops perfectly positioned as fronts. There I learned of your other truths. I learned of the hardships you could and would inflict if you deemed necessary. I lost a bit of my innocence in that time but I gained an understanding that would carry me through my adult years. I gained the tools I needed to observe, be aware and be one step ahead. Allowing others to underestimate me but always knowing that I would have the upper hand because they didn’t know what I knew. I learned to harness my inner voice, use it to my advantage but also gained a wisdom that came with discerning when and where to show or hold my cards. You taught me this, you and daddy. Looking back on those times I now realize you were also trying to survive. You didn’t ask for the drugs to be pumped through your veins or the violence that came because of it. You became addicted like the people who belonged to you. You needed it to survive, or so you thought. But you were underestimated, just as many rose from their own ashes, so did you.

As I grew, I left you for long periods of time. I was taken to the midwest but always stayed connected to you. After leaving you to educate myself in a new way I came back to set myself on a new path. You helped me grow into my own once again. Returning to you in my early adult years was different but familiar. I got back to you in a time of early transition. You were also growing but hadn’t yet lost what I loved of you as a kid. You were still soulful and allowed me to tap back into you. I became free all over again. I danced my nights away at 9:30 club, The Black Cat or anywhere on U street. I found myself at art parties around the artsy folk, which I promptly became associated with. In that time you pushed me to find my purpose. I fell in love with you again. At the time I fell for you again, I fell in love really for the first time. I traveled through your streets again with a new lens. A lens of one who was open and free to love. I re-discovered you with him. He was a transport and I felt immense pride to show you off to him. But like with most young love affairs the reality of life set in. The realities of our differing priorities manifested and the love affair diminished. I began to feel that you again were wreaking havoc. That you were taking away from me once again. So I ran, I ran from you under the guise of following my passions and dreams. I wanted to forget you and parts of me that were connected to you. So I ran. I started a new life in a place unfamiliar but ripe with opportunities. My roots are there now and I am proud of what I’ve grown to be there. I’m proud of the life that’s been built for me there. I have come into my own, I am loving again. I now know that what I am there is because of what you groomed me to be.

I come see you now as often as I can. I come to sit with you these days. Sometimes, I don’t feel like I know you much anymore. You look different, you feel different. At times, I catch glimpses of the old you. A conversation with a cabbie born and raised here, a “Hi, well aren’t you a beautiful grown young woman now.” from one of daddy’s friends, a hug from a friend that has known me for 10+ years. Through each of those interactions I’m reminded of the real you. The you that cannot be diminished. See what they don’t know about you is that your spirit isn’t easily broken. It’s one that has withstood riots, the crack era, violence and the test of time. Regardless of what they do to you to make you look like you are their’s, we know the truth. We know that we belong to you and you belong to us. Our spirit is similar to that of yours, we’re not easily shaken, we are steadfast. Similar to you, they try to strip us of all that is connected to our true being. They take it and try to make it their own. They try to diminish our value and disregard us as unnecessary and not needed. But like you, we are (I am) here. We may re-invent ourselves to survive. But, at your core, at our (at my) core we are (I am) the same. Like you, we are (I am) not going anywhere.