The Arkansas Arts Council’s GetSmart! Learning series was the forum for a three-part virtual series, “Still I Rise: Women’s History Month Celebration,” during Women’s History Month 2020. The series included an author’s talk, featuring Robin White; a session centered around women sharing messages from their mother and other women in their lives, and during the final session, women were invited to share their stories of survival through the trauma of the global COVID season. Participants represented a diverse and intergenerational cross section of women throughout and outside the state of Arkansas, all sharing unique stories of the challenges, lessons, victories and dreams that impact their lives.

 As a follow-up to the writing and sharing series, the Arkansas Arts Council held an open submission for women who had participated in the Women’s History Month Celebration and others, to write and submit their own short memoirs and personal stories for possible inclusion in the Messages from our Mothers and Other Women Anthology.

We are excited to share these stories with our audience! We hope you will enjoy reading them and share them with your own circles. 

Mornings with Mama

by Shannon McGill

Her voice wakes me at six am. “Time for school, princess.” 

She leaves for work minutes later, and the scent of White Diamonds acts as the snooze button pulling me from the wooden bunk bed I shared with overnight guests, or with my younger brother Googie.

Her voice is the intercom inside me,  despite her being in her Altima driving up Highway 75 to her job at Pepsi. It seems to know I need to be at school in time for the bell. I have left the bed and am now lying on the floor above the vent, allowing the hot air to puff up the top sheet draped over me, creating a heated tent around me.

I can’t see a clock. In fact, there isn’t one in my bedroom, but my sleepy eyes blink open when I hear her announce, just as she did before leaving for work, “TEN MINUTES!”

I leave the sheet on the floor because I don’t hear her telling me to put it away. I stomp towards the bathroom so Googie can hear me from downstairs. He’s much harder to wake, especially since Vaun left.

In the bathroom I almost always get lost in the vanity mirror that stretches horizontally across the bathroom wall. My new braids keep me from having too much to do in preparation for school.  I smile at my reflection, showing off the braces I begged Mom to buy.

“Grease your scalp,” the intercom purrs. 

“Don’t forget behind your ears. You’re so pretty. The prettiest girl in your whole school.”

I frown at my pretend conversation with Mama. I might be, could be, if I wasn’t black. If. If I looked like the others, maybe. She replies, but this time sounding like her mother, Grandma Allie.

“It’s because you’re black, because you’re you, that you’re the prettiest girl in your whole school. No one will ever look like you, but they will stare into the sun to seek your melaninated skin. They’ll never reach something you wake up with every morning.”

I know they are telling the truth. My mother and grandmother are the most beautiful women I’ve ever known. Yet, because I’m only sixteen I feel it’s different for me.  I’m not them. I study my face and find that I’m not displeased with what I see. I’m displeased with what my peers don’t see.

Yes, I AM beautiful.  I don’t need mascara, but I’ll use just a little. And, since Mama can’t catch me, I’ll even wear the lipstick I stole from the mall. Why did I steal it anyway? Because Mama said you couldn’t buy lipstick.  Well, but isn’t it more trouble if---

“FIVE MINUTES!” White Diamonds invades my nostrils.  I rush out of the bathroom, ignoring Mama’s call to finish my edges.

_______________

Shannon McGill was born into a vast family of artists, musicians, writers, playwrights, and leaders scattered through Oklahoma after surviving the Trail of Tears. McGill and her siblings spent weekends amongst nearly a hundred cousins in Tulsa but lived in Bixby, Oklahoma: a small suburb with a 98% white population at the time. Although most of her life was spent between two entirely different worlds with very few blurred lines connecting them, Shannon enjoyed her upbringing and finds joy and comfort in recalling even the worst memories through essay, short story and prose form. She’s author of two novels, “Naked: A Collection of poetry, journal entries and short stories” which was awarded a local bestseller in Fort Smith, Arkansas and “Unrequited Life.”  Shannon currently resides in Farmington, Arkansas and is a Senior at The University of Arkansas seeking a degree in Communications while minoring in Rhetoric. In her spare time, she practices yoga, reads, and spends time with her children, partner and pets.