180 Posts ... And That's All She Wrote

So 180 seemed like a good place to bring our conversation to a close. A million 'Thank you's to all my friends & readers for sharing in this experience with me. (Gratitude to folks like the sweet-as-pie Korean gals at my local coffee shop who decided I shouldn't pay for pastries when they discovered I was a writer.)

Your kind words of support and encouragement were deeply appreciated, whether in the comments, giving me digital love, or on the streets.

If you found something here that was interesting enough to spark a feeling, a thought, a plan ... I'm delighted. But if it was just soulful enough to entertain you on occasion, then know that I'm smiling as I walk out the door.


Lights.

Just For Kicks

It's Autumn in New York and that always gets me thinking about fall dressing. Some weeks ago, I was stopped at a traffic light in the West 50s and noticed a girl probably in her early teens, dirty-blonde hair cut into a messy pageboy, pale skin, freckles, and clad in a tissue-thin grey shirtdress. Like she'd been plucked out of a Norman Rockwell tableau.

Then as if to dot the "i" on the post-war American girl look, I looked down and realized she had on grey cap-toe canvas sneakers, a single shoelace trailing behind her.

Like the perfect black ballet flat, vintage dime-store canvas sneakers have been my obsession for a couple years now. (Guys in Chucks give me butterflies...but that's another story) I just think nothing says Autumn like warm layers, a boyfriend jean, and battered Keds. That's a detail up top of Rockwell's 1964 The Problem We All Live With, and a 1993 Bloomie's ad for the classic shoe.

I Think I'm From Where Dreams Are Made. The Lights Will Inspire You.

First things first.

One Hand in the Air for all of us Born Yankees, we the few New York City natives, who know what it is to walk by skyscrapers and never look up because we were too busy slinging tokens and bus passes, stopping at the deli for a beef patty and a quarter water.

Shout to the barber shop with the beautiful black men getting the edge-up, to the corner where the grizzled elders are politickin as the scent of Nag Champa wafts overhead, to the beauty shops like Harlem Berry where the ablutions happen over the sink. You might have relocated to Houston, W. VA, FL, no matter, I bet you still bleed blue. And I bet that Blueprint 3 is on repeat today.



As the still agile Jigga Man preps his show at the Garden (I see you, Greg!) tonight, benefitting the city's bravest and finest, I wonder where were you on 9/11? I was on Morningside Heights and some of us converged on my friend M's Uptown pad overlooking the George Wash. Smoke billowing even from that vantage point, we prayed, talked, reflected, cried, called out incantations. A Towering loss.

Allow me to reintroduce myself: I'm from the Empire State, most definitely from New York and I go by the name of Black Girl Named Becky. If this is your first visit with me, wipe your feet, welcome. To everyone else who's supported me, I appreciate you. I'm back.

You coming?