I saw The Notebook musical on Broadway during a Full Moon in Scorpio. Yes, I am an astrology nerd and this Full Moon in Scorpio matters because Scorpio is in my fourth house of family, elders, and foundations, and I thought I was fine most of the day until I arrived at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Emotions started to overwhelm me before the show began. I saw one of the leads, Joy Woods, in a different show and wanted to see her in this role, given how phenomenal she was. Plus, I love a good love story. I forgot, however, that The Notebook includes a storyline that centers on the tragic decline of Allie and her battle with dementia.
My paternal grandmother—Grammy, as we called her—passed away in 2011 after nearly 20 years of living with Alzheimer’s. I only recalled this detail as someone’s grandmother, a sweet lady who reminded me of my late Grammy, sat next to me. Before the show, she and a woman, who later identified herself as her daughter, went to the restrooms to avoid long intermission lines. Her seat was to my right side as was the aisle to get out to the restrooms. When she returned, she tried to pass me to my left to get to her seat.
“Oh no, I think you’re right here,” I said, as I pointed to the seat on my right.
“Yes, Mom, our seats are right here,” her daughter affirmed to guide her back.
The confusion left her eyes as she took her seat. I immediately felt a heaviness in my chest. This woman doesn’t really know where she is, and she happens to, like me, be here to watch a musical about a woman with dementia. Dear God.
Moments later, her daughter turned to her. “Mom, you don’t remember, but we watched this movie many, many years ago and now we’re seeing the musical.” The old woman only nodded, not quite recalling the memory or the story. It took everything in me not to burst into tears. I missed my Grammy, but there was something deeper stirring inside. A sort of heaviness lay on my chest as I took the C train back home to Brooklyn. I exited the station at Lafayette Avenue and caught a glimpse of the luminous moon with fear, grief, and worry. What if? I thought.
My Grammy forgot who I was when I was 11 years old—around 2001 or 2002. I had greeted her and my Grampy at church. “Good morning, Grammy and Grampy!” I said as my scrawny frame leaned over to give them each a hug.
“Who are you calling Grammy? I don’t know you, I’m not your Grammy.”
I didn’t know how to respond; I’d been told already that Grammy was losing her memory, but no one prepares you for when the woman you baked cookies with forgets your name, your existence, her existence, and her role in your life. There is a weird juxtaposition about having a grandparent forget who you are when you’re at the age of adolescence where you’re trying to figure it out too.
“That’s Nathan’s daughter,” my Grampy piped in. By this time, Grammy still had recollection of who her kids were, so saying who my father was, helped her realize that I am, indeed, her granddaughter.
It was around this time I started worrying about getting Alzheimer’s one day. I hadn’t yet been diagnosed with ADHD, but I’d often forget minor details—why I came into a room, to lock the front door if I was the last one to leave, food I left in the microwave. For years, I chalked it up to being a busybody and needing to just slow down. My ADHD diagnosis put everything into perspective but also made me aware that I’m more susceptible to developing some form of dementia later in life.
As I walked home after The Notebook, I kept telling myself to save the floodgate of tears for my apartment. That’s why I live alone. I would not be some sad-ass woman crying on the night of a Full Moon in Brooklyn. I would not have some other writers spectate and write prolific prose about me. I am a memoirist. I would write about my damn self with context, not speculation. If I could just get home, I could let it all out.
I worried, I spiraled. Allie had Noah. My Grammy had my Grampy. And just one month before I saw this musical, my partner suddenly broke up with me. We were technically hitting pause, but it was unexpected, and I was furious. I thought about returning to the cesspool that is dating in New York and worried that if and when I’d begin to show signs of dementia, no one would catch it. No one would be there to remind me of where I was or who I was.
In the musical, Noah tells Allie that the reason she can remember how to play a few notes of a tune on the piano is because music is housed in a different part of the brain and is often the last thing we forget. This too, led to weeping. I thought about how I began playing piano at age eleven and how I can manage to still play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata even though I haven’t performed it since Obama was a Senator. I thought again about how, at the time, I was in the middle of producing a music showcase and reestablishing myself as a musician and artist, not only an activist.
I began pondering a question and prompt from Beth Kephart’s Handling the Truth: where does the music take you?
I needed to write my thoughts, feelings, lessons, fears, joys, and experiences through music—before I forget. So, whether I have a Noah or someone like my Grampy, I’ll have my memories clearly and lovingly kept right here on the page.
Where Does the Music Take You?
John P. Kee and Kirk Franklin take me to a mellow Saturday morning where my body effortlessly floats toward the smell of French toast, sausage, and eggs, and the sound of my father’s melodious tenor. I must savor the moment and take it all in now because soon we’ll have to start cleaning the house, top to bottom, before we can step a foot outside to play with our friends or ride our bikes around the block.
“Down” by Emily King brings me to the last conversation I had with Donnell in Nashville.
He actually booked a reservation at a fancy restaurant, I couldn’t think it could be done after he stonewalled me at Logan’s Steakhouse a year prior for ordering the most expensive thing on the menu. But I arrive before him at Midtown Cafe and mention his alleged reservation, to which I’m greeted by name and escorted to a table in a small, intimately lit room though it’s just early afternoon and sunny outside. I’m flattered and also not going back to this relationship. We talk and mutually acknowledge how much we’ve grown.
There is an air of ease he senses from me, less critical and anxious. I tend to be that way when I’m not dating.
“Here” by Alessia Cara takes me to Haitian Independence Day.
My roommate and I arrived too early to the party—about an hour and a half after the start time listed. The house is filled with the smell of Diri djondjon, plantain, and Soup Joumou. Nothing is ready but the process smells comforting. This isn’t where Alessia comes in, though the song begins to play in my head as more time passes and few people arrive.
Close to 10 o’clock—about 3 hours after the start time listed—the party officially commences, and my social battery begins to die. The roommate I came with agreed to ride home with our other roommate—I can’t believe five women lived together in a three-bedroom apartment. I take the car, press play on Alessia, press repeat, and drive the 30-40 minutes home. God, I wish I wrote the song. I wish Alessia and I could be introverted friends; united from afar.
“Gave Me Something” by Jess Glynne takes me to the beach entrance at 85th and Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, about three blocks away from our apartment. I’m running. I hate running. But I’m running because this anthem is too upbeat to sit at the beach like the freelance writer/orchestra teacher/Anthropologie sales associate that I am. I ponder words and whether my next article will be published. I’m running to a sand hill to treat myself to the view of the Atlantic Ocean. To treat myself to the idea that I’m taking care of my body.
I make it through two or three other songs, “Feelin’ Myself” by Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj and “3005” by Childish Gambino, to give me a smooth ten minutes of running. That’s good enough. I walk the rest of the way, taking in the morning breeze, to grab a café con leche from Sazón. I leisurely walk back to my apartment. Running is bad for your knees anyway.
“Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)” by Solange reminds me of the Fall of 2016. The precious gift A Seat at the Table is bestowed on myself—and the rest of the world—on my birthday, September 30. The radical feminist organization I interned for over the summer decided to keep me and hire me as staff. I’ve left Miami and commute every day from a townhouse in Northeast D.C. where I live with two other women and a cat who is friendly and cuddly like a dog.
I have been reading The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson for a long time during my morning commutes. I say a long time because a person who sees me on the bus each morning points this out one morning while they sit next to me.
“That book must be really good, I see you reading it every morning.”
“It’s dense, but it’s good,” I tell them.
I read to signal my gradual migration. D.C. was not a part of the plan but it gets me closer to New York. Solange cradles my mind as I process the new president-elect. I add “Mad” to the rotation. The government, white evangelicals who voted, white women who voted, the (mostly) white women collectively losing their shit because the world—as they know it—is ending. Pity. I add Sweet Honey in the Rock “Ella’s Song” to block out the fatalistic conversations that swirl around me. I remember the music of my people—past and present. I remember our resistance and our resilience.
“Wait for It” from the Hamilton cast recording takes me from my office—where I’m wearing headphones and listening to music because I can’t focus on my work otherwise—to a theatre in Chicago because the New York Broadway tickets cannot be bought with my modest salary.
I coyly body roll as I watch the performance. I am the one thing in life I can control. I’m cooking up something, too. I don’t know what. But I appreciate the break I took from the conference I’m attending in Chicago to finally see what the fuss is about.
I’m mildly disappointed. I’ve become accustomed to Renée Elise Goldsberry’s voice as Angelica Schuyler and the woman playing her in Chicago isn’t doing it for me. I also don’t know what I’m waiting for. I don’t want to be a kiss ass like Aaron Burr.
“Gold” by Joseph Solomon carries me throughout 2020, the year I have my golden birthday. A Zoom room of about 60 people due to COVID-19—and still not having my passport—keeps me from the dream I had of celebrating 30 years of life in Cape Town, South Africa.
We play 90’s baby bingo, which I created and curated a playlist. We play a trivia game about my life, which my then (very new) partner wins. Nosy aunts wonder who this random dude is who happens to know so much about me, more than them. People share encouragement.
I breathe it in. I breathe in joy despite the pandemic. Breathe in my abundant community. Breathe in while many can’t.
“BREAK MY SOUL” by Beyoncé invades our timelines as I’m commuting to the Flatiron District to Wonder Media Studios for a podcast interview with psychologist Dr. Thema Bryant to talk about coming home to yourself. I’m celebrating two years in the city I came to during the pandemic, celebrating a year since calling off my engagement—and finally returning my wedding dress to receive store credit through Anthropologie since my dress was from their bridal line BHLDN—and it’s been just a couple of months since leaving my church home in Harlem.
I’m uncertain but I’m confident that I’m headed in the right direction. I’m still frightened when I can’t see three feet in front of me, but I’m choosing to move toward uncertainty, not away from it. I know where I’ve been, and we are not going back there again. I keep the song on repeat, amazed that I’m being touched by and enjoying House music. I sit in a studio, meet with Dr. Thema over Zoom, and share my story as it is thus far.
I’m back in the subway station, looking up and reading the lyrics on the platform as I wait for the Q train that will take me to 42nd Street where I can switch to the A/B/C/D trains to get to Harlem. I scroll through endless memes of folks laughing at the “release your job!” encouragement. We’re not there, yet. But where I am won’t break my soul.
*Edited by Non-Fiction Editor, Jina DuVernay
************
Are you a Black woman writer? We’re looking for short stories and personal essays to feature on our digital and print platforms. Click HERE to find out how to submit.
