The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

 It was meant to be an ordinary after-a-busy-weekend-Monday for me. I had two small meetings scheduled. Came home to refresh and relax, and decided that the evening news was to fill the space of knowing I missed out on all weekend. The Grand Jury had been meeting in Fulton County all day on Monday. It was now past 5 o'clock Eastern Time and they were still there. I went on about my evening and one pundit turned into the next into the next and it was getting past my bedtime. Then well after ten o'clock Eastern Time, the clerk of the court, an African American woman who resembled so many that I know, walked, through a sea of other African American women and the smattering of men, to the waiting scene in the courtroom, all of this televised, but silent. She stood as the judge read through the stack of papers - looked like a full ream to me - asked her a few questions, signed them, handed them back to her. In her summer orange dress and pixie cut, she turned with that stack in her ...

 If you know me, you know that I am somewhat if a bohemian, an amateur anthropologist and sociologist, a presence who observes life and wants to be a part of that life surrounding beauty. Maybe it is the mixing of all my heritages and cultures, or the simplicity of my personality, but I like to be and just appreciate being, experiencing life and she unfolds around me. If you also know it, I wasn't able to always do that. Once-upon-a-time, I was in the early morning grind of just trying to survive, the then-divorced young mom in my mid-twenties with boys I had to get to day care before catching my train to work. Now, as I am winding down this sixth decade of my life, cruising to that Milestone birthday next year, I'm reflecting on how I am living in the moments I could only dream about. My time is essentially my own, something I could never attest to even as a working-full-time and going to school full time college student. Now, I can regulate my day as it goes and for most of t...