Manhattan Me

This is the stuff of legends. A Southern belle, come alone to the big city, and shacked herself up on the 4th floor of an apartment building in Hell's Kitchen. And what did she do after that? Why, she got herself a secretary position at the United Nations of course. And here is where a small town girl transformed into an eccentric lady about town, her story passed on from generation to generation in my family. What adds to the mystique of her story is when in July of 1960, the UN called for 'Resolution 143' in response to the Congo Crisis and began to deploy UN troops to the Congo for military assistance. They would need some secretaries. So off this daring woman went, with no family to care for and no love to leave behind. What happened while she was in Africa, no one really knows. Some say she took a lover and engaged in a passionate love affair. When asked, she only tells you brief bits and pieces, scattered throughout the Congolese jungle. What remains today are artifacts and souvenirs of her travels: an ebony relief of majestic elephants, the odd assortment of cocktail umbrellas from some waterfront resort or another, a pair of African carvings of drum players, and boxes and boxes of photographs of UN soldiers and the African countryside.

What we do know is this. She came back a changed woman, and she came back with a parrot named Dukie. She filled her apartment with souvenirs from her extended stay in the Congo. There were shelves stacked upon shelves of ivory carvings, musical instruments, and dolls. The walls were covered with paintings of what was most likely the view from her living quarters in the Congo. She wore around her wrist a charm bracelet that jingled wherever she went, decorated with mementoes from her life, including an African mask and the country itself. She wore around her neck a solid gold globe marked with a star. And then, she traveled the world. She went to Egypt, to Japan, to Jerusalem, to Morocco, wherever the wind took her. And she came back with more souvenirs, and more charms on her bracelet, and more bits to add to the legend.

Picture this regal looking woman, her blonde hair done up in a beehive as tall as gravity would permit, donning a handmade floor length gold sequined dress, jingling her charm bracelet down the streets of New York, a slew of admirers, unable to resist her thick Southern accent coupled with her worldly knowledge, at her feet, and a twinkle in her eye that led you to believe she had a great secret, one that brought fond memories of years past but that must never be shared.

This woman's blood runs through my veins. I like to think her gutsy spirit and charming nature have rubbed off onto the walls and into the carpets of her apartment that I now call my home. I look at myself in the same mirror she looked in, probably on her way out to a dinner with UN Secretariats or Broadway premiere. I store my jewelry in the same box that she did, and I have kept some of her world souvenirs, as this will always be their rightful home. They remind me of the strength a woman named Mary possessed when she left the comforts of Atlanta, GA for the fast life of New York City. I listen to my music from the same speakers she listened to, and when the song ends and my home fills with silence, I hear the jingle of her bracelet, the sultry laugh, and I am reminded of the great legend that I can call my own.