Learning the languages of hope from our new citizens.

January 29, 2016

 
Como esta ustd?

At the last class of Spanish 1 at Myers Park High School where foreign language classes
are taught as an adjunct of CPCC,
right before the holidays, our fabulous instructor, Kelly, remarked that very often Spanish 2
classes were not well attended.
The class needed 10 students to make.
 I wanted to take Spanish 2 because I really
want to learn the language.  I believe it is important to be able to talk to folks who are ever in my life.
 I see the Latinos, hardworking, constant, polite, quiet, strong, steady, determined, children in hand,
comforting their elders or so it seems to me, they have grande corizon! Mucho trabajar!

 I want them to know I share their values
 and honor them. My new classmates come
 from all over the world. They come at different
degrees and angles and different
times for various reasons:
 to marry, to work, to go to school,
to be with family, to travel,
to seek, to build…to live it out, out loud!I was both surprised and delighted
 when our first Spanish 2 class this past Wednesday
 night (7-9p.m.) was almost a full house.
 And they are outstanding. The people are so alive and energetic. I am taken by their stories
( told in Spanish, remember, this is Spanish 2)
 their origins (one from Poland, another from
France and yet another from Saudi Arabia)
 their place in their lives. I felt like a
very young child and
 an ancient oracle.
Breathless.
Excited they were/are all in Charlotte with all
 of their gusto and desire and curiosity and transparency and vulnerabilities.
I fell in love with the body of students for what I know about a classroom: one's protective cape is often shed at the door.
A necessity I believe to open the gates of the
 learning center, the brain.
My spirit soared as I pledged to
myself to do the homework as soon as possible.And while I cringe and groan about the changes in our town and surrounding areas, I see Charlotte is drawing upon the world for her new citizens, her young leaders, her experienced teachers, her wise parents,
her  emerging heritages.I can embrace the
metamorphosis when I feel hope.
Hasta luego!
And a big thanks to CPCC and MPHS!

January 28, 2016

With this ring, I thee wed.

I promised myself I would write everyday. Everyday I would come to this magic place I love where round windows are portals to other worlds, where stone and glass floors remind me I am earth bound, allowed only to leave while I write and safe here away from a world that is turning and churning into red clay.
 Here my heart knows safe harbor.The noise of the machines are their own music as they hum and taste the richness of clay on their tongues and feast on memories of babies learning to walk, baseball games and black farmers on the edges of town cultivating their crops for their own and for the city folks. I  tuck my tears beneath my wings,  today they gush like mountain waterfalls over roads and barricades and a big white farm house that is no longer where it is supposed to be.For richer or poorer, I call Matthews my home, in sickness and in health, I find my way here. When I first came here, between Matthews and Charlotte,
mail could not be delivered to my small cottage
 much to my delight. I had to have a post office box.
 Matthews is morphing, the country town is changing.
The traffic is  overbearing even at  five in the morning, even at eleven at night.

Down the road before you get to farmer Groves’ front patch
and off down Brackenberry, one brick ranch was leveled in the
 middle of the night and markers
for three new ones are in place.
 Or down Ballantyne way  where I rode my bike, flew like the wind down to Marvin and over to South Carolina, rounded the bend one day and there for as far as the eye could see red clay and the smell of earth, of clay, of yesterday. “Go on ahead,” I whisper. “I am content to stay here, be wed here, always.”

How can it be? The month, January 2016, is slipping away.

Central Piedmont Community College-Elizabeth at Central-Dec. 1991   ©Logue

January 27, 2016

How can it happen?

 2015 drifts away, smaller and smaller.
What am I forgetting?
Am I forgetting that Park Road Shopping center at the intersection of Park Road and Woodlawn completed in
1955 is being ripped apart for newer and bigger and others? The red clay is turned and something brand new will rise.

 Am I missing the changes in SouthEnd where whole blocks are gone and Price’s Chicken Coop sits like
an outlander in home territory?

And where did it go, that church on the corner of Central and Hawthorne except to fade to our outcries after our long silences when we let it drift away and crumble?

I can say that I lived in Charlotte during the period where Mom and Pop shops flourished, when the airport was dubbed Douglas airport for the man who fought to bring the airlines here. Can you just imagine if it were not?

And we remember the woman who, from the basement of Central High School on Elizabeth, reached and stretched, called and wrote, stumped and spoke, knocked on doors, raised money and planted seeds for the University, north of town where the light rail will speed soon.
Do you know her name?

 Our lives are a cascade of old and new on many levels.The plan before me, the one being crafted in my every late night and early morning is just that, Charlotte’s old and Charlotte’s new, from our archives in my websites and blogs, looking back to the late 90’s and maybe before to a time when condominiums were the new kids in town, to a time when planners spoke of the giant steps being taken
and how they might impact us.

 I will speak to both old and new, seriously, older condominiums and newer condominiums, both choices with chances, among other concerns that give me pause, makes me wonder what are we doing,
what are we allowing in our once fair city?

And why?And maybe old and new from other parts of our country, the world. This is another beginning for me. And this is the old platform on Blogger  and the new one
is under construction on Square Space.
But I must hurry, I should not wait any longer,
 the tea party is well underway.
February is almost here.
I must hurry.