GREETINGS FROM PRAHA Story 1 | Pt. 1

Feb 1, 1996 Day 1 – Seizure

The ticket was relatively inexpensive.
$375 to find my salvation.
Not a bad deal.

”Buy the ticket and then you’ll have a month.
Whatever money you come up with, that’s what you’re bringing.
It’s the only way you will ever do it.
It’s the only way you can ever afford to go anywhere.”

Amy was right, this time and always.

I know little of my destination past it’s an agency for change.
How do I grow up?
How do I expand past this version of me, codependent and scared?
If change is in Prague, then to Prague I will go.

$800 thanks to a Macy’s card loophole; I quit my take-away job, wallet my department store cash, and head to the airport.

I never ate that moussaka. It’s the best thing I know how to make and I think of it sitting cold in the microwave as we barrel into short-term parking.

I am late.
Of course, I’m late.

The Hartsfield Atlanta Airport is the 2nd largest airport in the world.
I need to be at the last gate of the farthest concourse on the furthest terminal.
Why would I be early?

“I’m calling the gate to tell them to hold the plane,” reports the clerk for Swiss/French Air.
You’ll have to take your bags with you and you’re going to have to run.”

Immediately upon stepping onto the moving sidewalk, I realize I have left my purse at Security.

This was a fucking nightmare already.
My roommate circles back.
I am on my own.

I had not ran, truly ran anywhere, for any reason since high school but I did it! 5’1 and 165lbs, I ran like my life depended on it and I made it!! I ran the whole fucking way! I can’t believe I actually did it! But there is no yellow tape at my finish line. No marching band greets me as I step towards a table full of medals red Gatorade. No, there is only her. And she has a different message for me.

“ I’m sorry but you can’t carry on those bags and the gate is already closed. You’re going to have to….”

Up to this point, life as a whole has been kind. Despite the geography, income, and race of our two-person household; I did not grow up painfully aware of our adversities. Despite my plus size and nerdy composition, I had also found the loopholes of school bus bullies & mean girls and had come through adolescence pretty much unscathed.

That said, the fact remains that in the area of the oral debate, I am a worthy opponent when impassioned. By 25, I had developed both form and structure in my craft. Unwavering in point and immune to distraction with the patience to see it through. I am unsure where this ability came from – it was just there one day.

I take a deep breath, ready to fight my way onto this plane.

Wow, I think, sweat bursting onto my forehead, I feel really hot.

“Has she done this before?” She asks, talking over me like I’m not here.

Two paramedics come in from the tarmac with a gurney and that little red suitcase.

Lying on the ground below them, I am flattened like Wylie Coyote.
Legs spread, arms spread, all my contents everywhere.
How long have I been down here?

I don’t remember standing up. But once I do, the world of French/Swiss Air is mine for the taking!
I can leave now, I can leave tomorrow, they will, of course, check my bags…

“Now, please! I can’t do this again.”

In 30 days’ time, I will return home to discover that I have had a seizure on this day. An occurrence that will make complete sense to my newly new-aged brain. That if by means of premonition or overlap of parallel universes I was given an emotional glimpse of what was ahead, It would surely have left me in the exact state in which I have begun this trip. Flat on my back and sweating.


Attuned to my situation, the flight attendants are quick with the apple juice and pillows. The speed of the plane pushes me back in the seat, gravity pulls at my spine. I LOVE this feeling! When the wheels disconnect from the ground and it is confirmed – You Are Gone!

A Black girl of little means, raised better than to do some white-girl-shit like quit her job to go find herself in Czechoslovakia, I was doing it! In this moment I could not be more nor less my mother’s daughter.

I pull out my Mary Ann Williams “A Return to Love,” ready to begin the journey for my true self. But self-help will have to wait until we land. During my impromptu gate nap, I have lost my right contact.
12 & ½ hours to go.
Rock!