Brooklyn and a Person’s Worth

This is a ramble. I am a storyteller. Whether you think my story is interesting or not,🤷‍♀️🙃 you can comment on.

Storytelling…

YO!
I can still remember working a temp job in Manhattan and trying to catch a driver with information he needed before he went to pick up the delivery and yelling YO, ROBERT! at the top of my lungs. I have very good lungs. I’m a singer. The sound carried through about four rooms and two halls, just as the executive director walked around the corner.

The look on her face was priceless a year down the road; me looking at her face assuming I had just lost my job, it wasn’t so Priceless in the moment.

She said in a very Stern voice, “We do not yell down the Halls here, and you may not use “YO!” unless you’re from Brooklyn.” 🤷‍♀️😝

Then I spent the next 10 minutes trying to convince her I was from Brooklyn.

For some strange reason I’ve had trouble convincing people over the years that I’m from Bushwick, Brooklyn. 🤷‍♀️😉 (The freckles, blue eyes, and brown hair might have been a part of it. The lack of proper Brooklyn accent and attitude at any given point in time also could have been a problem.)

I was born there. I was raised there.

I would go to Manhattan and ask for a hot dog and people would ask me where I was visiting from…. it would absolutely infuriate me. Nobody would believe I was from Brooklyn.🤷‍♀️


I blame my parents. They were not from Brooklyn. My dad was literally from all over the United States, my mom was from rural Connecticut.

We had friends that were Multicultural from all over the world. India, China, Iran, Russia, Germany – that right there is one reason I absolutely love New York. It is so interesting. Life in New York City can be many things, but it is not boring.

I wonder if anybody else does this? It’s really funny because my husband was raised in Liberia and he does this and I do this but my girls when they became adults told me it was offensive and I’m like,

we don’t mean to be offensive, it’s just what we do and what we’ve always done…

I think it was just a survival mechanism, because even though I was raised in Bushwick, my parents’ circles were very Multicultural. My dad had some dealings at the United Nations and my parents just had a very wide Circle. So I had my Bushwick friends, but then often I would be interacting with people from all over the place. Which to this day is one of the greatest Treasures of my life. I love interacting with people. I think people are the most amazing, fascinating, interesting things on the planet.

Growing up I would pick up whatever accent I’m around. Which became very problematic when I went from Brooklyn to Tulsa, Oklahoma — absolutely no comments on that please — and yes that was a culture shock.

I remember my first day in downtown Tulsa at 6:00 p.m.

I told everybody they need to turn the radio on and I was completely petrified. I was in a car with a group from college going to a concert. And we were driving in downtown Tulsa at 6:00 p.m. and there was literally nobody on the streets.

I was 100% sure that we were under attack and that we needed to hightail it out of there and find some place to take cover.

Okay maybe the rest of you guys weren’t this stupid, but this is a true story.

I mean my entire life, you can go out at 2:00 in the morning and there’s people on the street. If there’s nobody on the street at 6:00 p.m. it surely meant there was a nuclear attack. Though I will tell you the photos my friends sent me from NYC covid were some of the creepiest things I ever saw. 🙃

So I went to Oklahoma, went back to visit Brooklyn, picked my Brooklyn accent up again, and said y’all in the middle of it. My aunt literally hit the floor, rolling on the floor in laughter.

Yes I’m screwed up, sorry.

But when I’m around my friends from India, I sound like I’m from India and literally had a girl from China asked me how long I had lived in India?

When I’m around my Hispanic friends, I have a Spanish accent.

It’s just whatever I’m around I pick up. I think it was just because I was raised so multiculturally and I wanted to fit in, but I don’t have a way to force it, like I can’t fake an accent for the life of me.

I have a really good ear; I’m an excellent singer so I suspect that has something to do with it, and so far no one’s like punched me over it or anything.

I’ve tried in my older years to turn it off but it doesn’t turn off very easily. Whatever group I’m in I pick up the accent and that’s what I sound like. And I truly don’t mean to be offensive, it’s just what I did my whole life.

So far the only ones who have been offended to my knowledge of in my adult daughters, but unfortunately they were not raised as multiculturally as I was. Though now that they’re adults are getting better balance and I’m happy about that. I think every human should have the opportunity to be around people that don’t think the same way they do. It’s just a lot healthier imo And gives people an understanding that there’s a lot of variety in this beautiful world God created. A lot of strands of thinking, and while there is definitely absolute right and absolute wrong, none of us have it absolutely right.

So we can focus on understanding, being kind and compassionate, using our time energy resources and money for the things that we need for life and then when we have enough taking that same time energy resources and money and using are our abundance to help others who don’t have what they need for life.

Could you imagine what would happen if everybody in America over the next 40 years decided to transition our love for entertainment and other things that we don’t need for life, and transition 60% of that time energy money and resources to making sure that others have what they do need? Not giving up all of our entertainment and fun because yes the world was made to be enjoyed, but what if our fullest enjoyment was helping others so they could have what they need for life? Relationships is the biggest need for life. Understanding that we are worth dying for, understanding how very valuable every human soul is and what a treasure each human is in spite of the flaws and the messes. Dirt and dog poop don’t change the quality of gold. Drop your wedding ring with all its diamonds into a pile of dirt or poop and it doesn’t change its value. It might need to be a little bit cleaned and a little extra TLC, but the value has not changed.

If that is true of temporary tinsel treasure gold and jewels, how much more is it true of human Souls?

Well that’s my ramble. Blessings and God’s peace.