I am sitting here with a photo in my hands. It dates back to 1990. It's edges are
only now beginning to curl in towards each other. The scene is of a narrow hallway, where two young women are in the foreground, positioned just left of center. Behind them is a white-paned window and to both their right and left off-white walls lead to doorway entrances. The young woman on the right has a hand firmly placed around the narrow shoulders of a younger, and shorter, female. Both women are looking directly into the camera, each with a smirk on her lips. In their eyes is both mischief and agreement. The hair on their heads is nicely manicured.
The woman on the right has long, dark brown tresses that fall in waves down the left side of her chest. Her face is adorned with the markings of popular culture, - lipstick, blush, and eyeliner, all highlight the features of her round face. She is wearing a leaf patterned, brushed silk dress shirt that jumps out in vivid hues of magenta, mustardseed, and teal. Her fingers sit plumply on the other girl's black shirt, which has rolled cuffs at the short sleeves, and from which tanned, slender arms jut out. Gold, lame lettering adorns the front of her t-shirt, -
"IMTA Presents Hooray for Hollywood," it reads. Her hair is pulled out of a tear drop face and back into a thick braid. A black and white hair tie sticks out from behind a hidden neck. She has a puff of ringlets above her forehead. She, too, wears a gentle smattering of makeup, - black eyeliner underneath brown eyes; lip gloss accentuating pearly whites. On her chest a pink, square badge is pinned.
This photograph was taken during the summer between my exit from middle school and my entrance into high school. I had spent a week on the UC Davis campus participating in a 4-H Leadership camp. My memories from that week, eighteen years ago, are hazy. I recall a suffocating heat,- I passed out, for the first time in my life, while sitting at an outdoor picnic table and waiting for a presentation to begin.
I also remember the envy I felt over watching my sister move around in considerable ease. She had been to the camp before; she knew a number of people there; and she was part of the "cool crowd." I felt stuck in between, somewhere in the midst of lost and found.
As a thirteen-year old, my body was slow to develop. An innocent brain accompanied my pre-hormonal frame. I had followed my sister's footsteps into 4-H. Unlike her, as she had been drawn to working with both domesticated animals and exotic creatures from an early age, the classes I partook in did not involve the raising of livestock or the handling of guide animals. Rather, I took lessons in clowning (yes, as in those imaginative beings of white faces, red noses, and big feet) and in Japanese cooking.
I had been elected to our local 4-H governing board yet, I tried hard to fit within a milieu that I had little to no understanding of. I resented my sister's comfort.
In the photograph, the woman standing to my left, is Neva. She ran with my sister and her gang, - a group I tagged along with but, given my rank as 'little sister,' I knew very few as 'friends.' On this particular evening, we had dressed for a communal dance.
Throughout my three years spent at Washington Middle School, I reveled in the after-school dances, when the cafeteria's tiled floor was turned into an open space onto which the lyrics of Top-40 tunes streamed. During these afternoons, and on the rare occasion an evening, I would be found shaking my groove thing to all of the latest hip-hop moves. The Running Man? Check. The Cabbage Patch? Check. The Robot? The Kid N' Play? You betcha. In the span of what felt like mere minutes, hours would elapse.
I danced alone, and I danced with everyone. I danced in circles, and I danced in squares. I danced, and I felt different. The lunches spent hiding in the bathroom (from the girl who wanted to kick my ass because my boyfriend was an absolute hottie, who just so happened to be black like her) melted away. The cyclical nature of abuse that would wrap itself around my parent's home disappeared. The confusion and the turmoil all seemed to evaporate. There was only the beat and the rhythm of the moment at hand. There was only one giant pulse to which, for what seemed like both an eternity and a wink of the eye, I felt deeply connected and whole.
Neva was a voluptuous young woman who took to the dance floor with a mission. Her vibrant energy, powerful grace, and hip moves, drew the attention of others. Like satellites attracted to a larger body, Neva would spin circles around a developing fan base. She was a force to be reckoned with. In vain, I attempted to meet her, eye to eye. She danced me under a table, and she danced me off of the floor. She was the reigning queen of the dance floor, and I wanted to be just like her.
