Baptism: Initiation to Life

In the second part of the book The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life by Frankie Lennon the title “Baptism” serves as symbol of what the author is experiencing. A symbol is something used for or regarded as representing something else. These stories represent baptism because they wash away the narrator’s innocence as she is initiated into the reality of life.

Baptism is an act, an experience, or an ordeal by which one is, sanctified, initiated, or named as we see in the story “Baptism.” In this story, the narrator Frankie describes the life changing events she witnessed during the 1960’s, which were baptism to her. As Frankie states, “This decade of crisis and drama would take us to the water to be baptized: In fire and in ice.” To me, ice was the water used to baptize Frankie when she no longer encountered “White’s Only” signs above water fountains. Ice, the water used to baptize her as she experienced a higher standard of living. Still, there was fire: The water used to wash Frankie’s innocence away as she witnessed assassinations, and other gruesome acts of violence. This is baptism because the child who loved fairy tales was quickly learning that life was not always a fairy tale, whether she was ready or not. The narrator was placed in a position where everything was possible. Including in America, where a president was shot and parents were sacrificing their own children. Baptism, a rebirth, can also be the purification of thought and character of a person.

In the story “Fever” we learn about the narrator’s first love Stacey, which baptizes the narrator. In this story the narrator is baptized and reborn into her own identity as a lesbian. I believe she is being baptized because she is embracing her true identity without hiding her feelings for Stacey. They share a love that purifies them as a lesbian couple who truly love each other. Unfortunately there is also fire. In this story Frankie is baptized by fire as she learns the social stigma of same sex attraction. Though she is with the person she loves, she is forced to keep her relationship secret because of Stacey’s homophobia. This leads to Stacey becoming engaged to a man and leaving Frankie heartbroken. I think this experience is a form of baptism to the narrator because this experience allows her to grow as a person, which is purification of character. Though she doesn’t stay with Stacey, she manages to accept Stacey leaving. This shows how Frankie was born again as a stronger, lesbian, woman.

In the second part of the book The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life by Frankie Lennon we find stories that are forms of baptism to the author. These stories teach us how the narrator is pushed into the reality of the world as if she were pushed into the waters of baptism.

The Stages of Life

In the book, The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life we read and learn the story of Frankie Lennon’s journey through life. Throughout the book we can find stages of “The Journey” as explained by Lennon in her blog. Two stages I have found in the book so far are Meeting the Mentor and Test/Road of Trails.

One stage I found was Meeting the Mentor. In this stage, the journeyer meets a mentor, teacher or guide. It is through this mentor that the journeyer learns new skills and gains confidence in abilities to continue in the journey. I found this stage in the story “Sanctuary.” I believe this story exemplifies the stage of Meeting the Mentor because it is in this story that she meets Reverend Bean. Reverend Bean teaches Frankie that, “Love was for everyone” and that there was nothing wrong with being same sex attracted. I believe his teachings facilitate Frankie’s journey because she no longer has to hide who she is. She doesn’t have to worry about hiding her identity anymore which is one less thing she has to worry about. Though all her problems are not solved, Frankie uses Reverend Bean’s teachings to facilitate her journey.

The other stage I found was Test/Road of Trails in the story “Skirmishes.” In this stage the journeyer encounters challenges that test his/her ability to continue the journey. In the story “Skirmishes” we find the narrator in her A.A meeting after being fired from her job. This incident makes her want a drink really bad. This becomes a test, a battle within the war, as the title states. This is a test because Frankie doesn’t want to relapse into drinking. She wants to stay sober, but getting fired was an excuse she wanted to use in order to drink again. She fights with the monkeys in her head as she imagines tasting the alcohol in her lips. Tempted by the monkey’s words she gets up and walks to the door almost defeated by the urge to drink. Fortunately she hears Sam say, “don’t leave five minutes before the miracle.” For the first time she raises her hand and says, “I’m Frankie and I’m an alcoholic.” In doing this, Frankie wins this skirmish and passes the test.

In the book, The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life by Frankie Lennon, we can the stages, Meeting the Mentor and Test/ Road of Trails. These stages test Frankie’s ability to continue in her journey. In the end, She learns from these stages and continues on her journey trough life.

Modern Cinderella Story

The story “Cindy Ellie, A Modern Fairy Tale” by Mary Carter Smith from the anthology Talk That Talk is a modern Cinderella story. I enjoyed reading this story because it is modern, original and entertaining.

One of the things I really liked from this story was the modern twist. One of my favorite scenes in this story is when the Cindy Ellie’s godma turned the onion into a white Cadillac. I liked this scene because it shows the story’s modern twist. Who doesn’t want a white Cadillac these days? I also liked how the godma turned Cindy Ellie’s rags into a dress made from African laces and made her hair into braids. The reason I liked this is because I feel it embraces Cindy Ellie’s culture as she receives a traditional African outfit. It also makes this fairy tale original from the other fairy tales where the princesses get sparkly and puffy dresses. Another characteristic I liked about this story is the humor and exaggeration used by the author to describe the characters. One example of this is when the author writes “Poor Cindy Ellie had to give one a perm, the other a jheri curl, and both of them facials; not that it helped much. Honey’s them gals was ugly from the inside out!” I think the humor in the writing style makes the story entertaining and fun to read.

While reading the story I encountered two words that needed to be clarified. One of the words was curdled. This word can be found on page 397 in the sentence, “The milk of human kindness had curdled in her breast." I found out that the word curdled means to spoil or to turn sour. Learning this word allowed me to realize that the author was saying that Cindy Ellie’s step mom was actually cruel. The next word I needed to clarify was the word primping. This word can also be found on page 397 in the sentence, “Oh, them stepsisters was primping and buying designer gowns to go to the ball.” The word primping means to dress with excessive attention to detail. This means the stepsisters were really trying to look their very best to impress the mayor's son.

The story “Cindy Ellie. A Modern Fairy Tale” by Mary Carter Smith has turned into one of my favorite fairy tales. I really enjoyed it because of the author’s style of writing and because of the story’s modern twist. If I could choose anyone to ask a question to, I would choose the author. I would ask her what inspired her to write this story?Another question I would ask her is, what other fairy tale does she have a modern twist for?