The Holy City: Charleston, South Carolina

I fidgeted with my sweater dress and phone while I waited. To my right a tour group assembled on the side walk, taking in the historical building across the street.

The Old Slave Mart

Centuries old cobblestone lay between myself and the place many of my ancestors were traded and sold.

The night before I had done something kind of stupid…I wandered.

Wandering isn’t the stupid part, it was the starting my adventure at 9pm part that was stupid, reckless even.

But the city was both quiet and alive with groups of friends bopping in and out of restaurants, bars, and rooftop lounges.

I’d eaten at a seafood restaurant (She-Crab Soup is DEE-LISH-SHUSH) in the market and decided to walk it off by making my way to the waterfront.

I only had one rule, that I wouldn’t use my phone for directions until I was ready to make it back to my hotel at which point I’d type the hotel name into the maps app and follow it home.

I am drawn to water, and so I wandered and I could smell it, and the breeze picked up as I made my way by churches, graveyards, and the odd late night ghost hunting tours. 

The streets turned from asphalt to cobblestone and I stopped briefly. I knew the water was in front of me, but something was drawing me in a different direction.

I started to feel like maybe the She-Crab soup wasn’t sitting well my stomach was starting to flip and my chest got heavy but my feet kept moving. If I was going to be sick, maybe I could do it in a dark alley.

Bars and lounges gave way to residences with historical badges. My stomach felt worse, and my chest heavier. My feet began to hurt and the cobblestone became a nuisance for my sandaled feet.

I stopped walking and for no reason at all began crying- the silent tears, the ones that have been trying to break the surface for a while but had no clear path forward. 

I looked around to find a seat, give my stomach, chest, and feet a break…and maybe pull my emotional self together before turning back. I began to think maybe I wouldn’t make it to the waterfront after all.

Still searching for a bench I looked up, and realized I was standing directly in front of The Old Slave Mart, now a museum.

I had told Brianna Glenn (who curates these vacays) that I didn’t want to visit the museum, I wasn’t in the mood for revisiting trauma. But there I was standing in front of the building.

I don’t know why I did it, but I touched the bars, and then began sobbing. This time a far less controlled cry, more like wailing- more like mourning. 

That morning, I had done a two hour black history walking tour with Franklin of Frankly Charleston. Before the tour I was in love with the quaint charm of the city. After, I had a different relationship with the city.

Still wailing, I turned my back toward the building and looked up and down the street. I was sad but also something else-

Several hundred years before an ancestor I don’t know came through this very port. And on that night, I was standing in front of the same building: free.

Perspective settled over me like a comforting weighted blanket. And I began to see my life not as a failure, but as paying homage. So, as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other, walking, crawling, running towards personal freedom I cannot fail.

The wind shifted and I could smell the water again. I followed my nose to the waterfront and let the water restore my soul as it does. I pulled out my iPhone typed in “Restoration Hotel” and made the walk back.

I slept deeply and peacefully.

Now, waiting across the street from the same building I’m listening to a tour guide explain to his group the significance of the Slave Mart,

He said, “it’s awful but South Carolina wasn’t the worst of the states. Does anyone know which state or states treated their slaves worse than us?”

I looked up then, head cocked to the side, interest piqued. Excitedly, the tour goers yelled out various states and their guide nodded his head as he took in the faces of his group. We accidentally locked eyes…and likely without realizing it he took a few steps back and ushered his group farther down the sidewalk. Where they stood just out of earshot.

I straightened my dress, retied the strings to my boots. I was meeting my photographer for a photo shoot, one of my favorite things to do especially on solo trips. I wasn’t sure how it would go given the history of the city. Am I meant to be super happy to be here on the same street as my kidnapped, enslaved ancestors? Should I be somber about the number of lives lost here?

And I remembered the feeling I was left with the night before, and I decided that there was no place better than this to be seen, to take up space, to shout to the heavens LOOK HOW FAR I’VE COME.

It was one of my best experiences with Flytographer, not because I didn’t take bad pictures, but because it didn’t matter. I’m here. Living life, doing the best I can, making myself and my family proud every single day.

I didn’t view my life that way before visiting Charleston. And just like my ancestors, this city has changed my life.

Blogger’s Note: From my hotel room in Charleston I reached out to University of Tennessee to express my interest in returning to finish my undergrad degree and pursue my master’s. I got in, and I’m going back.

I also drafted my next book. There’s a quote by Henry David Thoreau that says this, “If we will be quiet and ready enough we will find compensation in every disappointment.”

I’ve been quiet. And now I’m ready.