All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [86]
As Fats was winding down, his fellow peer educators started dancing in the street. I began to make my way toward them, then decided instead to ask some small girls to dance with me in a cooler spot under some stairs. A party broke out among us, and we added more girls, then boys, all of them grabbing to be the one holding hands with me. I led, then they led, and soon the shy ones couldn’t stand being left out and joined in, too, becoming the most animated dancers. I couldn’t count how many times I fell in love, how many times I said, “You are so beautiful,” how many times I said, “You are so smart,” how many times I said pleadingly to Papa Jack, “Just five more minutes!” But, as all things do, it came to an end, and I left Soweto perhaps the filthiest I’ve ever been, covered in dirt, snot, rice and gravy, slobber, my own sweat, and the sweet, tangy sweat of scores of children I hope help make Soweto a better place someday.
Back at the hotel, I soothed and calmed myself with normal, stable routines, such as hand-washing my things in the tub. I skipped my stained, caked linen pants, though, and decided I’d retire them dirty with a few other special things I kept in my closet, such as the sandals I wore my first summer in France and the sneakers in which I survived the ashram’s hikes. After so many years of following the liberation struggle, my pants were my own little piece of Soweto’s soil, sun, and soul.
It was finally time to go home. I’d had twenty days in Africa, and provided I had some sleep, I felt I could easily carry on with the work. But I wanted to be at Dario’s race that weekend. His energy beckoned me, and I couldn’t wait to connect with it. I was set to arrive at the track just in time to hustle out to the grid for a bad-airplane-breath kiss before the green flag.
During the transatlantic flight, I discovered an entire Joni Mitchell CD on the in-flight entertainment. I covered my head with my blanket and sang along with “Carey” as loud as I could without attracting attention. Then I listened to “California,” and the earphones made her so present to me, and therefore me so present to myself. I became the person I was when I was eight and “Carey” was my favorite song, or who I was when I was six and I lost my first serious fight, which happened to be with my sister, over the order of verses in “Twisted,” discovering in spite of my fierce conviction that I could be dead wrong. Or who I was in college when I played “California” on my radio show, or who I have been every time I felt the rapture of the rhythm of “Help Me” or reminded Sister on the phone of all the lyrics to “You Turn Me On I’m a Radio,” or who I was each time I drove to the theater while doing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, swept away by her brilliant orchestral revisitation of her old material. I felt all I had been, and all I am now, and it was so sweet and so here, a beautiful, almost unbearably exquisite here, my arc and my life, and the women who have entered it, oh, my hand on Nini’s belly, Sahouly’s incandescent smile turning toward me like a rising half moon, half radiant, half shy.…
“Amelia” affected me deeply tonight:
Me, well, I’ve been to Africa.
Chapter 12
BUMPING INTO MYSELF
My extraordinary big sister, Wynonna Judd. Of the many gifts she has given me, introducing me to recovery is the greatest.
The spirit is never at rest, but always engaged in progressive motion,