The Little Black Book

"OMG, Skye! Your book is sooooooo good. I knew you could do it", read one of many Facebook comments in a post I was tagged in. Immediately, my stomach started to knot. I'd been writing mini-memoirs since the sixth grade. At this point after writing for so long, my little composition notebook was so raggedy, the white splotches from the original print were also black with pen marks. What's going on? What are these people talking about? Who tagged me!? I'd just gotten off of the Greyhound, I'd previously sworn to never go back on, and I hadn't reunited with my folks in Chicago yet. Oh my goodness, I can only imagine what my people are saying!

I dropped everything and tapped the notification button and read the post:

'The Unbecoming of Destiny by Skye Knight

I was just going to say, "It's so funny how...", but I had to stop. Let me rephrase. It's actually sad how folks bashed Halle Bailey and started the hashtag #NotMyAriel in Disney's remake of The Little Mermaid. I find the parallel to my life ironic with this generation's hate for anything remotely Black. One of my earliest memories was of my ex-foster mom's granddaughters and I watching Disney's animated film, The Little Mermaid (1989). Back then, I didn't realize how the somber tunes to "Part of Your World" were of such desperation. From this particular movie, these were the most beautiful sounds to me. Nearly two decades later I'd cry to these tunes as I reminisce the emotions I'd exude when the song started playing. Today this song for me takes on a new meaning, as I mourn the figurative, not physical death of Annie Hernandez, for I was NEVER a part of her world.

While it had taken me until adulthood to recognize the power of my words, I can recall my love for words and the significance it held in my life. If at any time, as a young girl of about five and six, I did not speak proper American English, I was told to get into the dictionary and read it until I found a good word appealing enough to articulate its meaning and proper use in a sentence without it. Mrs. Scott further intensified my love for words through the accelerated reading program she urged us to take heed in at 5th grade. As a girl in my mid-teenage years, I tried to recollect the lyrics to "Part of Your World" again and found another ironic parallel between mine and Ariel's need to pinpoint the exact terms to express our desires. At age 14, I thought I knew what I wanted.

When I started Paul Cuffe on 83rd and Racine, I was heavily criticized by the students who stated, "she thinks she's better than us" and "she talks so white". This was one of the earlier instances I recalled feeling ashamed of speaking out loud. I was an old 4th grader, fresh out of foster care who did not know how to respond to these remarks. One of the nicer ones called me 'white girl'. The meaner ones eventually moved on from the way I had spoken to the gap between my teeth. I immediately would flashback to the times when I'd climb upon Annie's toilet to brush my teeth and I'd say, "Mommy, I don't even remember losing this tooth here". She'd say, "Babe, the space was predetermined before your wiggly ones grew in". And that was the last I noticed or heard of tooth gaps until Paul Cuffe.

The girls at Paul Cuffe started early comparing their natural hair lengths against one another and 'bald headed' was a term commonly coined in reference to short hair, which was deemed as another "flaw" of mine. I even heard it in my own household. And again, I'd flash back to the days of commonly acquired "swimmer's ear" because of my kicking and screaming for Annie to get that burning kiddie relaxer cream off of my head. She'd reply, "this will make it easier for me to comb through your hair" and "this will make your hair long and pretty like Pocahontas". I loved Pocahontas and everything I thought she stood for: love and acceptance. This was as much as I could take away from the movie at age 5, besides Pocahontas' pretty singing. Every morning before school Annie sang "Colors of the Wind" and at some point, my love for this movie prompted me to ask Annie, "Mommy, why are we all different colors? And parts of my hands and feet match you, but the rest of me match Chase, Cole, Dominique, and Brett. And Jordann doesn't match any of us." Annie said she replied with, "Well... if you notice that all of the flowers in a garden, they are all different in colors, shapes, and sizes. But you know what? They all come from the same place and they are all beautiful." She also said that I was content with that response. For many years, like Annie, I’d contemplate different ways to manage and change my hair. For many years, like Annie, I’d express my frustrations and disappointments with this hair. In my most recent adulthood, it dawned on me that, of course, you’re going to hate something you don’t know how to take care of. I also found this prevalent in my daughterhood and marriage.

At age 9, in my second foster home with my Black foster mother who initially was annoyed by my speaking of proper English, I became an avid beholder of Tyler Perry's work. I thought I'd settle on following his career path as an author, playwright, actor, and producer, but I knew I was too timid. Elaine O'Neal, in one of his plays I'd seen for the first time at age 14, sang 'Motherless Child' and for a while this scene in "I Can Do Bad All by Myself" had depicted most of what I was beginning to feel like at that age before Lucinda passed. At this time I was referring mostly to Annie, and to some of my strong dislike for my stepmother. I tried to remember the lyrics to "Colors of the Wind" during this time of dismay, but it hurt me too much to recall much of the good times between Annie and I. Her firstborn, Heather, found me on MySpace that year, she sent me Annie's Facebook information and my Facebook account was then created. Here, Annie had always talked about how much of an "indestructible bond" she and I had and how it was "our destiny" to be together forever. I just went along with it to get answers. I knew how hard it would be to get back to where we were when I was a young child. I had no idea that it would be impossible.

I watched Pocahontas all the way through, with a few tears, for the first time in over twenty years. And I saw the irony. Pocahontas and I were motherless. We both saw ourselves in people who, on the surface, were much different than us. We both had overcome so much for young women. We both did not have an affinity for discord. As far as I knew, I didn't think that Pocahontas and I were both "savages". I didn't even notice the correspondence between the storyline of Disney's Pocahontas (1995) and some of the most traumatic events in my life until after Annie called me 'n*gger'. I struggled with this incident for months because the change in her parenting with a "rose-colored lens" (as she referred to it), to a harsh reality and giving excuses for her behavior with very little to no accountability or remorse was too immediate for me.

It was not my destiny to be held captive to the self-hatred Annie instilled in me from the very start. Her excuse was that, "People judge you for the way you look and speak." There was some truth to that, but proper English was taught in the writing curriculum at school and I aced it every time. Speaking this way had come to me naturally by the time I was enrolled into Paul Cuffe. Annie would say things like, "I wish there was a safe skin-lightening serum and hair texture-changing formula to make you more like me" and "you should marry a white man so your kids won't have to struggle like you do". One of the stomach-knotting ones was, "You should get braces to fix your gap." This remark, for some reason, hadn't entered into the minds of my high school bullies. Such snide comments, in my adulthood, about HER uncomfortability with who I've always been. There was nothing wrong with my skin, teeth, and hair. This was all her. One young lady from nursing school asked, "Why'd she pick you up from that hospital if she had a problem with Black people?" This to me was one of the most thought-provoking questions during my time in the program. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was the root of why I no longer saw my childhood through Annie's rose-colored lens. I didn't know that this is what my father meant by "brainwashed". I entered California, my first marriage, and nursing school with loads of self-hatred in my heart. I did not come out the same.'

My stomach dropped when I realized I had left my little black book in California with Evelyn. Now why would she post something so personal to me!? I tried contacting her for months. She didn't block me. She didn't unfriend me. She always left my messages "on read". I never knew what was wrong or what I did. I offered to pay her back many times after she helped me move out of the emergency shelter I was in. And still… no response.

Jesus, my book was nowhere near ready! Maybe she wasn't trying to be spiteful. Maybe she wanted me to have a backup plan to cushion my nursing career. Maybe she just wants a clean break for her own protection. Like in every other situation, I tried to understand. The more I tried to understand what was wrong with the others around me, the less I understood me. One day after crying about all of what has hurt me and was continuing to hurt me, I started pointing out my own poor decisions. And I had come to terms with how I was conditioned to operate emotionally inwardly and outwardly. All of my life I studied the word "destiny" and what I wanted it to mean for me. And I thought I could detach myself from what Annie wanted it to mean for me by shortening my name to "Skye" and adopting my father's last name to embody my Black pride. I had hoped people would catch on and start calling me 'Knight, Skye'. It finally dawned on me to Google my own name and its variations.

My name means 'truth in light' in Swahili. I smiled and decided that I can and will live with that... because Shyquanda is beautiful.