Excerpt

“…As I type, I am passing through North Carolina on a train through lush green leaves, so thick that they are reclaiming the since abandoned structures built by humans littered across the landscape.

A woman sits beside me, deep lines sketched into her face, burnished gold teeth make up her beautiful smile and a soft voice asks probing questions to the conductors.

She is traveling for the first time, her daughter bought her ticket and she is wide-eyed, a bit scared, but brave.  Her hands show that she has done it all.  It’s always interesting, definitely hard, requires much optimism and faith.  Faith that I am held by my ancestry; by spirits who take care of me and hold me tight as I move through the world.  This morning, I wake up at 4:00 am in a motel to catch a shuttle bus to the airport.  I was told that here I would catch a bus to the Amtrak.

I pack quickly and realize I didn’t bring snacks (this is so key to always have nuts, or oatmeal, sometimes finding food, especially healthful food can be impossible) I run down to catch the bus and I arrive at the airport.  I ask questions.  You need to ask lots of questions and the same questions more than once.  Some people lie, some people honestly don’t know, but you need to collect as much information as you possibly can from a diversity of sources to make it all work.  He says I can take a cab, I couldn’t afford to even if I wanted to.  And the bus is $1.50 so I run down to the bus stop and wait.

 I am a unicorn.”

Kim Crosby is a daughter of the diaspora, Arawak, West African, Indian and Dutch, hailing from Trinidad and living currently in Toronto.