Mahoganie Jade Browne
I’m not exactly sure why I’m doing this. Ok, maybe it’s to receive some public feedback or a push in getting me motivated and get going in finishing this manuscript. Today I feel moved to share at least (and more than likely only) the intro to the book I’ve been working on. My manuscript is still very much untitled. What is it about? Maybe you can gather that after reading the intro. How far or how close am I in finishing? I’m not exactly sure. I’ve outlined it to include three sections. I’m 60 percent done with the second and need to conclude with the third. My problem is, I’m always changing the ending before I reach the ending. I drive myself crazy with that.
I would love and appreciate constructive critique. I doubt I’ll ever do this again. I think I just need some form of motivation as the characters have been haunting me lately. While I do answer their call, the words haven’t been coming so easy. This also helps to keep me committed to this as I do confess that I have a fear that I may let my distractions enslave me and that this will never see the light of day. Sharing this is kind of hard for me. I’ve contemplated this for months actually, because this book is my baby. Like most artists, I’m sensitive about what I write and hard on myself when I write it, but I know eventually I have to turn it loose for the masses.
Emerald Shaw (my fictional main character) needs to be heard. So today, I’ll let her voice be previewed… but only for today until she’s ready for her full on debut. Enjoy!
Dear Reader
Present Day
There is a saying in the journalism industry that goes “if it bleeds, it leads.” The saying is some sort of twisted mantra to remind journalists to go for the drama. For years journalists have relied on this saying to tell compelling stories, even out of the most mundane and ridiculous of subjects. Sometimes we do this without even knowing it. It is human nature to be voyeuristic and I have to admit that we journalists are enablers by telling these drama filled stories that we call “sexy.” You as the viewer have to admit as well that you like the sexy. Otherwise, what else would you talk about as you and a few other of your co-workers crowd around another’s cubical? The stories are laced with sex, violence, money laundering, betrayal and any other elements that are usually found in a soap opera. However, it is all real life.
Much like these sexy stories that I sometimes tell as a journalist, my life has its share of drama, but who am I? Why would anyone care to know about what my life is like? I am barely on the local radar. You can forget about trying to find my name in lights in the global world unless someone in the Ukraine does an internet search on Catholicism, and ends up reading my local news story on the Catholic priest that moonlighted as a hypnotist. Still, I thought it was time to release a lot of pent up thoughts on how I came to be, as I am often misunderstood. A lot of that may be my fault as I was the classic Nina Simone lyric;
I’m just a soul whose intentions are good/Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.
For years I walked around with this veil of so-called mysterious aura. I called myself a “Komplex Phemale,” because I believed I was so abstract that no one on this earth could understand me. You could tell me that the sky is blue and I would counter the argument with the sky is anything other than such. I took delight that I seemed to be that edgy girl with a chip on her shoulder. You know the kind that is played out on a movie screen. She is not totally decked out in goth garb, but she has jet black, strawberry blonde or some loud color hair that screams “fuck society.” She has more than two tattoos, she wears combat boots or if she is the ultra femme fatale type her kicks are stilettos. She is also portrayed as being a bit promiscuous, only indulging in the fun of sex and disconnecting from intimacy. When intimacy does catch her off guard, she runs. She has accepted a false truth that she is not capable of being loved or loving another.
I really did not have to be that girl, but I created a façade and became her without even knowing. It was all in the name of declaring my independence and hiding from a reality that I seemed to always want to outrun.
I was born in February, but my mother settled on naming me Emerald. Emerald is the birthstone for the month of May. My mother, my father and my grandmother were all born in May and naming me Emerald was my mother’s homage to the two most important people in her life. She often told me I was a blessing to them, especially since she had endured a previous miscarriage. However, my strong independent nature would drive them crazy the older I became; mainly my mother. My father, in all his nonchalance, insists that is the rebel Aquarian spirit in me.
Ironically, as thirsty as I was for full on independence, I struggled to obtain it. It was a toxic mix of self-limitations, living more so under the expectations of others and being utterly confused during my early twenties. A large part of my self-limitations was due to fear. Facing my fears had not been a desire of mine. I chose to be in denial about my true feelings and kept the world in awe about my mystique femininity…the komplexity. I was so much in denial that I did not know what was fact or fiction about my life anymore.
Naturally it all caught up with me by the time I was twenty-two. I crashed hard and landed in a plush chair in a shrink’s office. I was one in a few black women who admitted to seeking therapy. Granted, I did not go blasting the news from rooftops, but when the time was right I opened up about it. For any black person to seek therapy is still a touchy subject. As I look around I see more of us heading into the head doctor’s office in an effort to get to the root of our dysfunction. This is good, but beware.
While therapy helps with the healing process, it does not fix what is broken with our lives. Instead it is a way to help us understand why we function the way we do. Solutions on how to cope and keep moving with life are suggested and implemented. Once you show signs of healing you are gradually released into the wild or the real world. This is the real test as there are triggers that can pull you back under. What was my test? Did I pass or fail? Sometimes I still ponder this.
Maybe in some way I am an exhibitionist, willing to put my life on display, for both entertainment and with hopes it will give you cause to pause and reflect on your own inner (and perhaps seemingly eternal) conflicts. I have already broken an unspoken boundary within my culture’s belief system; I saw a shrink instead of solely consulting with God. My story will surely break another boundary; unleashing secrets hidden within the crevice of my home. This was not done for tell all purposes, but to show and tell you that every family has a dysfunction, but the degree of severity varies with the different households. My degree of dysfunction may be more or less severe to yours, but nevertheless my pain was very real and the road to healing proved to be just as challenging as the addict striving for sobriety.
This is the ink that bleeds through these pages; words that tell my test on how I survived life after therapy.
Emerald Shaw
Mahoganie: Musings East of the Anacostia River 
Posted on July 11, 2012
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