TRAVELLING IN WEIGHTED CLOGS

black and (A)broad:

traveling beyond 

                                                                               the limitations of identity

“Child, who’s going to do your hair if you take off with this man to Holland?” challenged a voice inside my head not even a minute after my Dutch boyfriend of two years asked me to move back “home” with him. And rightly so because Holland wasn’t exactly known as the Mecca for black hair care. It wasn’t like when I’d moved to Washington, D.C. (a.k.a. Chocolate City), where I could get my hair done on every other street corner.”

The opening chapter of this memoir brought back memories, when I moved to the South of France many year ago, before TGMOBTE  (The Great Migration of Blacks to Europe).  I had moved to an area in South Eastern France, and feared that I might have to take a train to Marseille (three hours each way back then) or fly to Paris, just to “touch up my roots”.

What I found, though, was that French people can do almost anything, with panache style and creativity.  Even when meeting  up with the challenges of black hair.

But I digress…

Carolyn Vines was raised in the United States.  Her memoir  chronicles the journey of a black American women from the restrictive baggage filled with  American racial, class and cultural  attire to the challenges of  recognizing the opportunity that awaited her outside in the larger world as a unique member of the global community.

One only has to look at her family photo at the beginning of the book to see that the cute, bright inquisitive looking child in the center would have a destiny outside of a restricted cultural climate.

The catalyst of her journey was her Dutch boyfriend and future husband, whom she met in The United States and eventually moved with to Holland.

Her novel spans a twenty year roller coaster ride of living, travelling and working abroad.

Thank you, Carolyn, for your wonderful and inspiring memoir.  

Now, I look forward to your novel.

author Carolyn Vines

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain