blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

Walk to Nørrebro & take the 350S or 5A to Nørreport. Take the Metro to the Airport. Fly to JFK. Take the A train to 42nd Street Times Square switch to the shuttle and switch for the D (if it still stops there) Take the D train Downtown to Brooklyn. Get off at Newkirk Avenue. Stop at the Chinese restaurant & buy an eggroll. Walk from Newkirk to Ocean Past stately houses & apartment buildings full of immigrants. Walk to Our Lady of Refuge. Take a right. Walk to Glenwood, then on the corner of Ocean & Glenwood You are home.

But more important than that, perhaps, was the relationship between American Negroes and Africans and Algerians in Paris, who belonged to France. It didn’t demand any spectacular degree of perception to realize that I was treated, insofar as I was noticed at all, differently from them because I had an American passport. I may not have liked this fact, but it was a fact. –James Baldwin, Conversations with James Baldwin Write a story about me, he said; when he found out I was a writer. I said I would, not quite sure if I was telling the truth—what could I possibly write about him? It started with a move, a move that would take me from the posh side of town and the world of elegant embassies to an island the locals called Lorte Øen : Shit Island. This island is connected to the rest of Sjaelland, another island, in a nation of islands: Denmark. It was a move from the white walls of other peoples’ successes to the slightly messy, yet livelier walls of my own (at least this is what I sa...

It hadn't even been a day since the New York Times printed an article about our home and already the phone was ringing off the hook. "This is so crazy!" Jae groaned. "Maybe we shouldn't have agreed to that piece." She slumped down with exhaustion on our battered green couch. The piece she was talking about was an article written about our home--a warehouse in Williamsburgh, tucked neatly between the East River and the Con Edison Energy plant. Picturesque, barely but affordable, yes. After a week of photographers and a couple of days of interviews, we were all psyched to see the result in full color. What we didn't count on, quite naively, was that our fellow city dwellers were acute enough to pick up that one of us were moving out. The phone calls were flooding in, because in the end, what that meant was, we'd have an extra room to rent. The phone rang again. "I'm not getting it!" Jae declared, "I give up!" "I'll get ...

Sorry Lesley I didn't get to the computer on time, BUT this is your second day from the beginning. Stay beautiful like the smile and your portrait. A hug for Kai. soon Clymenza That's a message I got from my friend today. Yesterday was my birthday. In many ways, one could say that I have been going through a process of re-birth that culminated yesterday, my birth-day. And as dear Clymenza put it, "this is my second day from the beginning." The beginning? Of me staying true to myself.