Eclipse Of A Woman: Women Of Change

Beginnings.......

SHE COULD REMEMBER as a cliche' in color re-vision, as if it were yesterday, the bags sat next to her bunk filled with her belongings; she watched them for the last hour, the minimal things she’d accumulated over the past two years.  There was another for trash, stuff that hadn’t meant anything to her for the past few months.  Impossible to imagine this day having come, it has been faster than even she had sensed enough to believe.  Her last days at the juvenile facility had come and gone; two extensions granted and finally today all she could do was leave and go to the next level or tier for such a lifestyle.  The adult center or women’s shelter as they called it housed over thirty women.  Since she’d reached her eighteenth birthday months ago and managed to finish high school, at the end of her year exactly two weeks after, Miliona was offered plastic trash bags to put her belongings in, the few that there were, to carry on the city wide van service which assured her counselor of safe travel across town to her next short term home.  The other girls watched and chatted around her as she passed on things she didn’t want, need, nor feel like carrying outside the heavy gray doors.  They were careful to exchange cell phone numbers, they all had them for free, and supply her with hugs and cheek kisses, some she wanted and others she could hardly believe they’d even attempt to wrap their arms anywhere on her body or offer her words of happiness.  There was Timber, the tall girl mean and filthy, she figured staying a little dirty help keep people away.  Sharlin, her parents had died and she got stuck there for the past year or so, flighty and moody. And next, came Peeda, at least that’s what we called her, she hated to see me go the most, that was the only one I’d known I’d miss.  My confidant and one real friend, for she’d grown up along with me there at the shelter for the last two and a half years. After we’d both moved from one home to another, some how we landed there and stayed; now she was going south with people she meant in a foster home before coming there with me and I decided to remain in the city, alone. 

The first weeks were for adjustment. The hours of freedom were extended, I  was responsible for a job search program, obtaining food stamps to eat, and figuring out how best to act, to best fit in with the older crowd.  I had to become comfy being amongst an assortment of adult women who only wanted to help her, young and in need of direction.  They brought her food, told where to go get clothing, do laundry, get help with all the things she wanted and the one item everyone thought she needed most which was  to get on the housing list with the cities public housing program.  And so each Tuesday, because it wasn’t Monday nor Wednesday's overflow and the lines were shorter, she traveled and  found services, learned the streets she’d never gone up or down before, looked at new apartments just for the fun of it, and had more free time than she knew what to do with.  So the next issue was easy, hanging out with older, lonely, well acclimated women who were eager again too teach her about things she never understood, drugs, fast money, and most important, that in order to survive she needed if not all, one or two of them in her life, so she couldn’t be taken advantage of.

A genuine hard butt gone soft from aging, Duchess, was the commando, the warning, and the guide for who she could talk to, take anything from, or ask for advice.  If she rolled or turned her head it was a no, no, to say anything further to whomever they shared the t.v. room, bedding area with or for the newbee seated at the dinner table with them.  In her constant jeans and sweat shirts, there was Cansis, as in the Wizard of Oz just spelled different, who was a transplant from another city.  She followed her friend to the area and shortly after they’d broken up.  So here she was, an ex-drug addict, jobless, and homeless because they stayed with his people and when their relationship ended she was out on her own. 

Last on her list of touchables was Chelby , the youngest of the group besides, she herself, who formed her own opinion of all the aid they splurged on them so freely, you don’t need any of them no working, none having, misfits to tell you a thing.  Each one would've hustled out of here quickly no matter what their situation was if they knew it all.

But it seems to me, she added in, if they were right with themselves and all the people they keeping telling you, you need, they wouldn’t be in here.  I know the ones on drugs, that drink, got thrown out of houses, hand full of prostitutes, lesbians, and them that lost their jobs and went broke, but if it’s really like that, that easy to rise back up and out these doors, they’d been gone along time ago." She instead pushed her to find a job, save her money and leave that place never ever to return just as she was doing. 

But most of all, she said pointing her finger on one hand while holding her cigarette in the other, never let on how much money you have, someone will always try to get at you for it.  I’ve seen it happen over and over again. Best to keep stuff like that to yourself alright?

I had to promise to be careful and leave.  As long as you can work and keep money there was no need for her to ever return to the system again.  So she joined the work program and learned how to do resumes, looked into school, and searched for a job.  In fact, after almost a year, it was Chelby who'd found and circled the ad for her first job, she interviewed, and two weeks later proudly started her first day of work, a front desk assistant at the age of eighteen.

Though before all the greatness actually happened, there were many chores which applied toward developing our abilities to present as acceptable employment potentials.  I, aghast at some of the criticism from wig wearing, clothing combinations, or ever color choices in my make-up, sucked it up begging the time to pass and a miracle to happen during each job search session.  We had whole afternoons devoted toward this along with visitors of inspiration as trainers.  Somewhere old graduates and others from corporations like human resource persons all to enforce all the issues with resumes and interview appearances.  Somewhere it all stuck inside my mind throughout my sense of boredom with the mere insinuation of all these responsibilities.  Yet, after a meeting a day before with my shelter mates and the staff, I'd reasoned complying with anything to get out from down under.  At that hour, for the first time I actually looked into the faces of the women surrounding me and knew I had no 'real' business there and had been as they say, 'a victim' of circumstance.  I eyed the visions of poor, of battery, broken minds, un-spirited reasons for not being clean, arguing over places in lines, cell phones, or who had something that belonged to them like money and usurp of gossip mongering.  Most thrived from this alone.  For them, it wasn't about living but moving to the next place 'I can go' or 'thing' I can do.  Listening that day, I made it a reality that I believed Chelby, I had to leave, to live, and to depend on myself to do it.  There had to be a temporary stay until I'd thankfully get a job.  A sentiment I remembered today with all its impact.................... 

The gray haired woman came in the doors, pig tails twisted tightly on the back or her beaded hair, coarse it seemed.  Her knees knocked one another as she watched her left then right do it over and over again since she’d headed for the desk from the entrance.  As she began to speak with an accent she didn’t recognize, Miliona, listened trying to connect each word or sentence she’d say to get her paperwork together for the doctors" visit she’d come to the clinic for.  Then there was the older gentleman, whining, and loud, hard of hearing, who spat on her forehead almost each time he spoke.  It was a shower, the kind you were afraid to wipe off, so she sat stiff listening while trying to remember where she’’ put the handiwipe container last so as to hurry the minute he left from in front of her to do just that.  It plopped downward again and right onto her face from which she widely grimaced.  He was lonely, she could tell, he stood talking not about his appointment or payment, but her and that she was new, he knew because it was his tenth year as a patient of the center and she smiled and agreed with each comment he made that warranted it.  As soon as he left for the seat she finally offered him to take, she ran from behind the desk fearing her skin in the middle of her forehead might curdle, peel off, or have a permanent stain, from the germy splash it taken repeatedly. 

The back lunch room was empty; unusual for mid-morning, but there she was in the center of the mirror over the white basin, wiping then washing her face.  It wasn’t the first bad experience she had to compose herself through but it was her first shower with human spit, grotesque and the precursor to her offering to transfer to another position soon after she had taken the receptionist job.  There had been the crying children running up and down the aisle from parents to whom she try to offer the famous lollipops, the constant glance from each patient as they sat for long periods waiting for their chance on the doctors table, the nagging over the phone for appointments, and them in person fussing over bills wrong, overdue, or simply excessive without insurance, according to the patients.  She spoke to the manager and suggested she be moved to record keeper or billing, and a month or so down the road, because she felt sorry for the young, mild manner girl, that became her new title, and she worked with an understood gratitude. 

Milioni had four co-workers, one nurse, a physician’s assistant, medical biller slash receptionist and a medical assistant.  They each had known she lived at the shelter  which they together loathed but were fancied with rushing her out of it offering to help her look for a place, work extra hours, or at one point move in with one of them.  All these offers went nowhere with her, she simply wanted to work, save her money, and then move into one of the nice new apartments she’d seen on her weekend window shopping tours  around town.  She went home everyday faithfully after finding somewhere to purchase dinner, to the raunchiness of what she learned to suggest as her temporary home.  There she find loud music, loud talk, and someone always in need of something, money, her cell phone for use, food, clothes, or other stuff she dare not even speak of.  It mattered that after five months, she had not seen television past fifteen minutes without being interrupted.  It mattered that her things had to be kept in a small locker locked and everything else was open to thievery, borrowing, or possibly thrown in the trash because it had no true place, just as she.  It mattered the most that she had to leave this temporary home on each weekend morning, after working all five weekdays, when she mostly needed to rest and sleep in at least until noon.  All these things pushed her to take on the extra nightly hours for money; trudging home alone in the dark, fearing the worst, and to save only spending for food, work clothes, and transportation out of every paycheck.  Though it was with the exception of the few dollars she secretly given one of the women she simply felt sorry for in her state of brokenness. 

After six months at her job, Mil felt sure she’d be there longer.  Everyone on staff liked her and things seemed smooth, you know, she was okay with most of them.  So, she applied for her first home, a small studio in a quaint part of town, across from a park and up the street from a upbeat shopping center.  She had since paid her application fees, been approved but urgently still needed extra to secure it with a three months security deposit she hadn’t fathomed she would need.  It made her rushed with disparity, anxiety, or whatever it was that made her heart pound and bought on an instant headache.  Milioni, stood outside the café breathing canvasing the street bewildered. Then she went in ordered lunch and sat silently, mad, eating, troubled and rationalizing over and over again in her mind about how she could get the remaining money for her new home.  The bell of the door rang each time it opened as she heard the pang she eased her hand to her aching head as it was a sure disruption to her concentration.  All while she recanted that rather or not It would be a problem to borrow the additional money and still worried over the begging question, for whom?  That she'd asked herself all day.  The only friends she had outside of the shelter were at work and they each had it, she was sure, but how was she going to get up the nerve to ask.

I need more money for an apartment, Can you help me get out of that awful place with a loan, I promise to pay it back, she stretched her brain as far as she thought she need to get the right words, the right understanding that she wanted the extra four hundred dollars, or to make it seem like her worst nightmare to have to stay a month more.  No, not a day more in that shelter would suit her. 

Who do you think will honestly give it to you? she said as she wrote her question down doodling, onto the napkin before her. 

She listed their names and what she imagined there answer to be.  Mrs. K, the older nurse who’d been around for years, sported diamonds, gold, and was married to a retired man, surely she’d had children and would welcome helping; they smelled like money.  Then there was Celeste, thirty, young bubbly and living lively and single with men, she spent money like water, talked about it all day, especially Mondays, after the weekends, she too might say yes but, and it was a long but in her head, she had that astronomical car note she complained about all the time; so she put a maybe by her name.  The last plausible one was, Senqua’, she was a mother of two, got child support, a medical assistant, and gambled, she too had a wallet full, she bragged on occasionally with talk of trips, shopping, or other things. Miliona, thought it met she too had extra money.  It should be easy, but a hard thing for her to do.  Her ego was huge and she’d learned to never ask nor take anything from anyone, no matter what, something the older woman at the shelter seemed to shy away from if not for their own personal interest, but, to survive the lifestyle homelessness imposed on them.  It became fixated in her head to write a letter and ask, no, to buy lunch and ask, or should she cry right before she get to work, let her mascara run across a make-uped face and give her sob story, for sympathy help?  This was her greatest and best work yet into adult hood, she wanted it to be perfected and a shore shot, after all, the studio was newly renovated, had a dishwasher and a false door for an enclosed space.  She had her own room, her own home, no problems  and no worries except for the rent itself, her plan had to work. 

INTERLUDE:    AFTER the road to happiness   

Milioni was twenty-four years old now and this, it, had been the longest week of her life and now she was going to the Florida hospital only this time to bring him home; her boyfriend Dean for the last eight years of her life.  The new car smelled new still, it was cleaned and the trunk had been cleared for his bag and the things she knew he now needed, they would sit beyond the netting suited for groceries.  The cricking sound of the garage door followed with bright light made her anxious more to get out of the house and make her way to his bedside, in hopes that he was truly being released healthier and vivaciously alive, able to be as close to the person, the man she’d married shortly after she figured out that would make her a woman and at his best, happy.

Then there was the shelter, where she hated living but survived soon to escape to freedom and her first own one bedroom.  It was her first job at the medical center with the three women who’d proven to be beginning guides for her life. These women were.

Her mind reminisced over it all as she took the hour and a half drive across town to the hospital, it had been that past that when filtered, left tiny wounds making her who she’d become, a sheltered, incomplete, married woman.  And now, years later, she’d finally realized she was more than a wifey type, a potential mother, and a good girlfriend, she was not indescribable, but a soon to be fulfilled woman!  No longer a shadow nor a mere notion of what she fathomed to be strength and smart acts for a future. Nor what someone other wanted or thought her to be, but her own person it was her right.  That was at least until this accident, this had challenged even that image of herself, quite genuinely so.

Out On My Own  Chapter 1

THE REASON FOR SUCH a steep amount, which I know is a little to you guys, she mouthed carefully eyeing them playfully, is the security deposit, I didn’t expect them to want three months.  With everything I’ve done, I spent more than I probably should have and so I am short.  But you know whoever helps me out will get it back, I am good for repaying you.  I work here so you know I will, she wasn’t begging but pleading her cause and determined that one of them would feel sorry for her and help out. 

I can’t do another month at the shelter, did I mention they might have lice or some bugs crawling, I just really need to get this place.  It’s not the best but a really cute one.  My first real home, she grimaced, again a plea for money and enough time to pay it back from her measly salary.  At least that was another angle she used on them, all hesitant to give her money.  It wasn’t good to mix money and friends or were they still work associates, Senqua’d asked as she thought it over.

You think I am your friend, asking me for money, are you becoming a hustler and we’re loan sharks now, she’d said jokingly. 

Celeste, as she’d known, was easy, she loved the neighborhood, knew the complex, and hated that she’d ever had to stay one night at the shelter, but she didn’t have the full amount she added in after.

Honey, we like you and want to see you get your new home so why don’t we do a three way split, as she motioned with her hand, it’d make it easy for all of us and that way you can pay us back one at a time, the older wiser Mrs. K asserted taking over the total conversation as she looked into her eyes, sorrowfully. 

I know you won’t stiff the three of us as she too laughed confident that she’d made a kind decision, fair.  The foursome finished lunch with the understanding that the next two days was time enough for them each to bring her the cash and for her to sign the contract Celeste insisted on, It’s being responsible and cautious with my money," she said and then promised to write it out. 

Soon after had come the first of September and the last day I’d see the walls of some public facility ever again, Miliona had promised herself to never need a thing from anyplace, nor anyone, too depend on me, myself solely.  That stayed in my head for the first three months after I’d gained the understanding of living and having a life for myself in the first home I’d come to know.  Her first passion had become designing and decorating her place.  Each pay went for something she wanted, linens, curtains, shelving, all kinds of things from ads each of the lenders found and shared with her during their lunch hour.  The personal stuff for hair, body, and things she for the first time discovered were on her lists and as the weeks of pay passed she crossed off whatever was convenient for her to purchase.  The women themselves had things, nice, some used and some new, she had taken unable to refuse so as not to be rude or seem unappreciative of their attention and concerns.  It was amazing, the only other times she witness women this pushy was when someone was pregnant, sickly, or overburdened from someone or with something.  It was also the first chance for her too unwillingly break the promise she’d made to herself, to do it on her own. 

A Shell For Sound Chapter 2

EACH DAY AROUND 1 PM, they’d all go to lunch, sometimes together other times they’d break up into one or two party teams.  It was a kinder place to work, later she’d find out, and their unique personalities flared amongst them well.  Spending the day lent itself to weekend stuff, places to meet, functions to share attending like clubs, home parties, or movies and each of them made her a somewhat part of their small immediate families, she was in a soft place but for some reason it wasn’t it.  These acts of kindness hadn't surmounted into everything she wanted or needed.  The it she needed was to be completely happy.  She noticed the way Senqua was talking around her children and child support suddenly, bitter with the new marriage her ex-husband had sprung on her over the last week.  The children were in the wedding, they were buying a big beautiful new home, and she was no longer, with her gambling problem, a prospect for his future.  Their mornings began with her grumpy mood and ended with a tired disappointed snare, always about coming back into this place.

Celeste was herself, blazing with excitement, tales or neighborhood action, the police, the corner happenings, and which club was best for her to take her too later. Her boyfriends were there but she wasn’t feeling any of them for real, and it messed with her. She spent more time hiding from a couple of them on the street or out for the evening then it was worth to have ever dated them in the first place.  And when one of her girlfriends at home ended up with one of them, she was madder and in more pain than a woman with a hundred pound weight fallen on her foot.  It was strange and at her young age, ridiculous living.

But Mrs. K. she always seemed content with things, herself, her husband, and life itself.  Her children were grown and together, she and he traveled and did mostly everything.  From where she sat, he was this really good person and she was his really good wife.  She was happy.  Milioni couldn’t help wondering if the rock on her finger, the expensive clothes, car, and upscale house had as much to do with her feelings about life as he.  Because of her, somewhere soon after she’d fallen for the notion of another, better, mechanism for survival, marriage. 

So with marriage, security, and happiness in mind I sought in each place I started hanging out at for the perfect prospect, a masculine, single, employed, and ready for a woman man.  According to Celeste I just had to look good, and accentuate the three A’s: appeal, approachable, and have an attitude. Since I had my own place and money, I was already on the right track.  And so I listened to her suggestions, I got smarter, street smart that is, bought cloths that made me hot looking, or so I thought, to wear out, although I kept my comfy things in the dresser drawer I bought.  It was more likable to have on jeans or sweat pants to me.  I learned how to wear make-up better so I looked nicer like the women in the music videos I often saw or in the hip magazines which also gave me ideas for my hair and perfumes to buy, because smelling good was also significant.  But the most important issue to her was the conversation.  She emphasized having something to say without coming across as stupid, nasty, or not hip enough.  Instead I needed to be defined, pointed, feminine, flirty, and fun.  That is how it’d always been and the girls who had all this going on for them were never ever single women.  So she insisted.

It was a Friday night, the ensuing weekend made it okay to hang out at the corner theater opposite the mall after shopping for something anything to soothe her boredom.  It ragged her brain to find things to do besides eat and punch her cell for facebook or entertainment news, or the weather which she never found time to watch on television.  This time she was having dinner then the bar, her spot for finding chit chat and making herself accessible to the opposite sex.  Man and women seemed to roam in and out all night, it was close to home and safe, she knew the bar tenders now since she’d moved in down the street.  The zipper back sleek pants she worn with a semi tight button down vest with short sleeves cinched her mood and shown her bust well she honed in on looking at herself in the wall mirror as a shadow still in the blue lights surrounded the ceiling.  It mattered and worked, she had three approaches in two hours and wasn’t able to rid of the second, he watched, came over, left and came back offering his number and a walk to the café up the street so he could hear everything she said.  The crowd had grown along with the noise; so she obliged this average looking, 5 foot 9, medium built man. 

The alarm to the sporty ‘for real’ jeep flickered as she matched it with his key ring motion.  She got in with a pending crush, smiling, from the sense of solidity it offered her.  He was young with money she guessed he was actually the paralegal he bragged on being.  There was no perfume smells inside, just cherry from the incent, dirtless and manicured, he was looking better along the four block drive and sounding smarter. She wasn’t exactly feeling coffee and neither was he. Instead of the café he offered her a bigger brush with night life.  The park festival was still alive, onsite bands, food, and free seating to sit down anywhere along it path.  I  had never come, always under time constraints, so it felt like a fine thing to do and a token to befriend the city more.  Mil knew she hadn’t found her place nor understanding of it all and if he was eager to show her something about this city, she was bright enough to pay attention to him and anything else there.  It was a long night, the hours turned slowly in her head despite the lateness upon them.  As vendors shut down, they followed the crowd to the street a silent suggestion that it was time to leave.  The barbeque speck he smeared off her face with his fingers, smirking as he reached for her hand to continue back to the car for which they'd forgo again unwilling to part.  Instead, they window toured the art store, the admired the bright lighted tattoo parlor, than the café unsure and not ready to leave each others side; she smitten with his humor plus willingness to beee and he with her laugh, in fact, he said exactly that. This could work, she thought out loud having not noticed the word trickling from her mouth until after they were well into the night air. 

He turned to face the street seeking the block ahead, there’s this other place I know a few more blocks.  He stood thinking.  I ahh, probably should have taken you there, that is if you trust me?

With all the blushing and fun she’d forgotten he’d been picked up or was it really she at the bar.  She remembered as it flashed before her stopping to stare into his face.  The ‘what ifs’ she could hear inside her head, this is fine, perfect and cozy, she says quick not willing to go further with Jamelle. 

As she regretted the small outburst about them working out he managed to not mention.  His adding no stress, was an appropriate relief from her slip; it was a slip!  So for the rest of the evening she listened and spoke less, careful but assured that he would be good for futures that something she measured pounding three flights of steps to her apartment to elongate the moment. Then again taking her shower, and again with eyes still wide open lying in her bed almost all night. 

After more dates, and eight weeks on a Tuesday, I think it was four o’clock when I realized I’d talked with Peeda for the third time today; it was the umpteenth time we’d spoken since she left the area and moved down south.  Jamelle had taken up an hour and her life thrills all the others.  Her friends managed to hook her up with a place to stay and helped her get a job quickly, so unlike me, she didn’t have the luxury of staying anywhere but inside of a home.  She worked a lot and saved her money.  They traveled from the Carolinas all the way to Florida hanging out and partying. Back then it sounded like such a long distance as I later learned it was practically nowhere. 

They did the beaches often and thus far I'd passed on more than five invitations to visit having to pay bills and save for my expensive city life.  I learned life was cheaper for her but it was a sacrifice for living in the country like state she was in.  Long roads to get to the next town, she had locals, that’s what they called them, nothing that she was accustomed to and then there was the twang draw in the language all relative to their attitude about men, food, and befriending others.  Country.  The close cities were growing so rudely spurned from longer months of warmer temperatures the appeal of the south had shifted though it was still plagued with ‘contemporary segregation’ social stigmas of ‘black and white’ and its new issue, the Hispanic transplants.  Immigrants from heated Mexico she assumed Puerto Rican or Carib natured, all looking for a niche plus all the more of everything intended for a good life. It was a new south and everyone just had too sadly learn their place.  That was a smack back at the progress people bragged and had been proud of.  For Peeda it was a strange positive outside of the weather, to which traveling was the answer making her lifestyle seem much more exciting than mine.  So outside of Jamelle, she was the other hidden outlet away from Celeste and work in this city of change I'd quietly craved to leave if only for a minute to see the south and experience a bit of what she had going on.  So next on my list, I was an anticipating traveler.

Next, The Storm Chapter 3

THE SUMMER MONTHS HAD never promised a pause of life safe from weather inflicted upon us that is simply out of our