memphis
i posted the first 100 photos on flickr, but without any captions yet: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15326293@N06/sets/72157604730898698/
the first day i drove to memphis, tennessee. i had arranged to stay at the pilgrim house hostel. it was located inside the "first congo" church in midtown. midtown is a rapidly gentrifying artist area of town. i knew this before arriving because the hostel had described the neighborhood as delightfully diverse. for now at least it met up to its description. i imagine that in a mere year or two, the area will be too expensive for anyone other than rich "artists" to live there. but for now, it still has a famous bbq place within walking distance, eclectic restaurants, independently owned coffee houses, the glbt community center and other businesses that feel actively involved in the neighborhood community.
the church was HUGE. it had a church, day care center, park outside my window, recycled bike shop in the basement, multicultural dance center on the first floor, and hostel on the second floor. i loved the place. the residents of the hostel were much younger than i and students at the local christian university. but they were liberation theologist christians interested in social justice rather than condemning judgmental christians. this was the first of what would be a theme of my re-connection to christianity as a social justice concept, rather than merely viewed as an oppressive religion. (see a later story i will write about colorado). the church was surrounded by little one-story bungalows with gorgeous flowering trees and plants everywhere. spring was in full bloom in tennessee. everything was in a house. everything. the local real estate agent. the glbt community center. the literacy center. the video store. it was as if there were no zoning laws and someone decided to turn a residential neighborhood into a quaint business district.
after getting settled into my adorable little private room at the hostel, i walked about a mile to "central bbq" on central st. it was a completely manageable 2 mile walk and welcomed after eight hours of driving. i was able to see things on foot that might have been overlooked by car. like the bridge decorations that looked like a lit up miniature city. an old car repair shop that had a handful of gorgeous cars from the 50s in the parking lot in front. graffiti in corners of abandoned buildings.
after bbq, i walked back and went to a coffee house near the hostel, java cabana. this is what i wrote in my paper journal while in there: "it's supposed to be the best coffee house in memphis and yet i'm having jasmine tea. i will definitely come back in the morning (it WAS great coffee in the a.m.!). it is a typical great coffee place - how all great coffee places should be: used furniture, paint chipping, board games, the random aging intellectual mumbling to himself in the corner, "spiritual" paraphernalia densely covering the walls and ceiling except where some local artist has their photographs, a book-share library, a chess board set up and ready to be played...i'm sitting in an antique embroidered chair next to a shelf of two scrabble sets, jenga with pieces written on them, pictionary, boggle, a torn trivial pursuit game. there are two journals for anyone to read or write in. poems off the top of the head, unsent letters, doodles...i am going to finish my jasmine tea and read the harper's folio article. the aging intellectual has decided to stand right next to me and read out loud from a book he pulled off the shelf. we are two of only five people in this relatively large coffee house. my mother has always said that i inherited her 'talk to me face'. i do find that i attract random people."
the next morning i spent a half hour trying to save a dying hornet. i did my chores at the hostel (garbage). plotted out my route for the day. ate breakfast i made myself from food i brought. got coffee to go from java cabana. drove to the civil rights museum.
downtown memphis was relatively commercialized. jazz and blues clubs that looked somewhat manufactured. i was more impressed by the flowering trees, the parks, and the water. it looked like it was going to thunderstorm. everyone keeps talking about "the rain coming." since last night i've heard someone at every place i've been talk about "the rain coming." a cultivated awareness from living on the mississippi, i suppose. i put "godspell" on in the car on my way to the museum. between staying at the church and the music and where i'm going, i'm feeling very moved. 'filled with the holy spirit' as pastor don would later say.
the civil rights museum was a mix of what i expected and didn't expect. outside the museum was a small group of union employees protesting the museum. they looked like they had been sleeping there for months. three lone strikers. apparently the museum has not contracted union employees. the protesters pointed out the hypocrisy of this fact. i debated whether to go in. i'm growing in pride for my union status. i anticipate i will become more active as the years go on. perhaps sooner rather than later. i felt conflicted as to whether to go in. i went in over my conflict. it was my reason for coming to memphis. not sun studios that i passed. not graceland, of which i never even drove past. but the museum. it's the hotel where martin luther king, jr. was assassinated. the cars parked below the balcony are still there. it's still the same hotel, but added on. i needed to be here.
the museum is structurally well designed in its maximized use of space, but it's too text heavy. every room looks almost identical and is equally text-based. BUT...they have LIVE re-enactments of five key scenes in the civil rights movement. i'm reading along, alone, in one room, when i suddenly hear a very large commotion and shouting and fighting in the next room. i walked in to see the lunch counter confrontation being played out before my eyes. emotions were very high. all i could think about was being one of those actors. how do you come to work and re-enact being the object of such immense hatred over and over and over again all day every day and not get completely drained by that. i felt such sympathy for the actors that i couldn't seem to shake. the live enactments stopped the flow of traffic in a good way. museum patrons could not walk past the scene, so bit by bit, the numbers of people accumulated with each performance. so that by the time we were all at the march on washington, and then standing in the room where king was shot, we had gone from groups of 1 or 2, to a group of 50. it was a tangible way to see the power in the combined emotional force of many. by the time i walked out, i felt like i had shared an experience with those 50 people, rather than just isolated and alone. the parallel meanings were not lost on me.
i got back in my car. turned on godspell. and cried through the rest of the cd. past the point jesus died. through to the reprise of "prepare ye the way of the lord." cried when the rain started. the thunder and lightening. the sheets that made it hard to see through my own tears and the rain coming down. and then i cried because i felt part of something. maybe i could be part of something. i should be part of something. i vowed to remember that commitment to never let myself completely leave the struggle. it's tempting to do. lead a more privileged life. a more relaxed one. a less stressful one. but i couldn't live with myself. i know i couldn't. it's not who i am. rather, it's not who i want to be.