Proof of Life … & Death

Somewhere in between “Ayeeeeeee” and Alice Coltrane 

An excerpt from my dream journal and a few photos from the Black South - spanning from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the Lowcountry of Georgia, and my ancestral lands & family farm in Ellaville Georgia.

Last night I dreamt up a storm. That’s how momma always used to say it.  And I’m not sure if a storm is coming or not, but I’ve sat around all day trying to wrap my head round it all.

I died… in this dream. I remember it vividly, but it was almost as if I knew it was coming. I remember only having a few hours before I’d make my transition out of this hellacious place, so I frantically made my way round town telling my loved ones goodbye. The setting appeared to be in southwest Georgia, my ancestral home places of Americus, Ellaville, and Plains. I recall the clay, red as ever, crumbling beneath grandma Annie Bells house, and all of us somehow existing underwater, womb like. Match mirrors hung in unison on the walls amongst golden framed photos of those that came before me. Plastic still covered her sofa - and those twin porcelain white cats with blue eyes that grandma kept at the entry way, stared back at me, still.

I saw my aunties, my uncles, brothers, my cousins, and I even saw my momma. It was eerie like because I was the only one knowing that I was fixin to “kick the can”. I told momma who was stirring a pot of something good on the stove, “ I love you momma” and she replied with a gentle smile, “ I know” and went back to cooking - real trance like, in a daze as if she had already made peace with this death thang. It was at that moment that I took my last breath and my lungs filled with the womb water. 

So there I was, back in the 3D, this physical realm; not dead at all but very much alive. As I drank a few gulps of water, I looked at the clock, it was a little after four in the morning, the candles on my altar flickered with enthusiasm, and I could hear a car drive past my house, “Funny How Time Flies” by Janet Jackson, playing faintly in the distance. I died in that dream but somehow I can’t shake this feeling that I was reborn and the only thing that died was the absence of the love that I had for myself.  But as for me and this leather skin suit that strut around in, I am very much alive. We is very much alive.

Momma called me a few hours after writing in my journal . The conversation went like this… “ Quincy, I had a dream and we were all at your grandma house; and I remember being at the sink, washing my hands but the dirt wouldn’t come off. And your grandma, she was just a smiling at me with this sweetness. And it may be that I’m not remembering correctly, but it seemed as if we were underwater. And Everyone was there, ‘cept you…. “