Feng Shui: Steps in The Right Direction
an excerpt

Once again I stand here scratching my head, amazed, perplexed, wondering how in the world I ended up in this situation. One would think that by the time one is fifty and over, one would have a clue. No such luck. I still often find myself with this look of wonder. Not as much as in my younger days, but still, now I finally know what my grandmother meant when she lamented, “Will wonders never cease.” I suppose I have to answer that question with a resounding “NO”, not as long as we live and breath.

Well, at least this time it is not something terrible or harmful, or life threatening. Actually, this time it is something that might prove quite beneficial, in a therapeutic kind of way. And actually, for once I know how I got into this mess.

I have a friend who had a dream. Really. Not the Doctor Martin Luther King Junior kind of dream, but a dream none the less. I was a major player in this dream. In fact, I was the star. And because I have this inherent, inherited, make everyone happy if possible, and do not disappoint anyone gene that has spawned generations of domestic technicians (that is what they called maids, after they decided that ‘maid’ was not politically correct), teachers, preachers and military personnel. See the pattern? Actually, I did not until this very moment.

I will be taking may side trips and detours. This is one of them, because I just had a thought. “They”, whomever ‘they’ are, keep changing things to be politically correct, but what about the truth? Many times there is no truth in the politically correct statement or action. I am not waxing poetic about politics or some such thing. I am only relating to this idea of political correctness and how it has played out in some areas of my life.
Okay, I will give you an example, one which you have probably heard before, but here is my take in it. I am black, and I am an American. How the hell did I get to be an ‘African’ American? I have never been to Africa, although one of my brothers is working in the country and I hope one day to visit. My point is, I do not know that place, and I do not claim that place, nor does that place claim me. In fact, from what I understand, they are as, if not more ashamed of me as the place I consider my motherland. I have no recollection of Africa, nor do any of the very wise elders in my family. I know this becuase I have had the pleasure of sitting at their feet. I do however have a very old photograph of a large group of black people looking fearful, confused, and perplexed. But, on some faces there is hopeful anticipation. They had just been told about the Emancipation Proclamation. They had just been told that Abraham Lincoln had set them free. After that photograph, they all went back to work. What else were they to do? What else did they know? How would they take care of themselves, especially when most of the people around them resented their new found ‘freedom’. What skills did most of them have, except for know how to care for others, and where did they have to go? Anyway, my point in all of this is this, from the eldest to the youngest, not one of those people were born in Africa, nor was anyone in their linage that they knew of. All of my roots seem to begin, or end, depending on perspective, in Alabama and Georgia.

Anyway, that is so NOT what t I wanted to talk about. See what I mean?