Magnolias and Harlem

Me in 1985, just before my whole life changed

Here's the story of a lovely* lady* who went to New York in 1985 and met a guy who had been raised in a cold water flat in Harlem,  African American, 17 years older, and the love of my life.*

His name is Daniel Wayne Moorehead.

The whole thing was a fluke.  Our office secretary was from Jamaica and I wanted to go with her but she didn't have the money so she decided to take me with her to visit New York.  Her husband is a minister and their church was having a convention.  I went with her and Wayne was there to pick up his mother, Velma, who was visiting from Virginia.

We looked in each other's eyes and fell into.....casual conversation. He offered to show me New York and I accepted.  Two days later we were in love with each other.  For real.   For life.*

I kind of fell in love with his apartment and New York and his view too.  I was in love with everything.  It was like coming home.  I had spent many lifetimes in this city.

He lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with great light overlooking the Hudson River, on Greenwich Street.  Just below Greenwich Village and just before Wall Street.  Here's the view from his apartment building.

And here's the WTC shot from his apartment balcony.

I flew home to South Carolina intending to get a job, move to New York, marry Wayne, have two gorgeous children, and live happily ever after.

It took me a year to get a job.  I moved to NYC in 1986 and began working for the NYC Commission on Human Rights.  I loved my job.  My best friend was Adimu Amili, a gay cross dresser who was in the process of a lenghty sex change operation.  We were both in love with men named Wayne.  

His Wayne, sadly, had decided to marry his high school sweetheart and have a family, so Adimu (later Arielle Makela) was most distraught. 

We had great times chatting over coffee and margaritas.

Most people in the office had never met a Southern woman and it took some time to warm them up, but eventually we all became best friends.

Time flew, and suddenly it was Christmas, 1986.  Wayne invited me to live with him.   I began picking out names for our children. 

I saw Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner at a tennis tournament.

I was too shy to speak to them. But how I wish I had!  Especially since I ended up being operated on for the same disease that killed Gilda Radner, ovarian cancer.  I didn't have it.  All went great.  Well, except that the operation to remove it kicked off  fibromayalgia which has rendered me a near invalid, ended my beloved career, and has caused me agonizing pain, but other than that, I'm fine.

We took a trip to California in 1987 and stayed at his cousin's apartment in Oakland. * I was in heaven.

We went to Napa...

We went to the Bahamas...

?We were in love.  We were madly in love. 

There was one little thing that I slowly began to realize...

Everybody else hated us.

My parents threw a fit.

"You taught me that all men were equal," I argued.

"Don't get me wrong.  We love black people. We watch The Cosby Show every week."

I am not making this up.

"So...I want to marry Wayne and have his children.   You in or out?"

"Absolutely not.  We will not accept children of a different race as grandchildren."

Little did they know.  Two of their grandchildren aren't even from the same species.

Eventually they met Wayne and fell in love with him, and gave us their blessing.

People in South Carolina were simply horrified.  To them, I had gone over to the Dark Side.  I guess literally.

"You stole a single, straight, employed, handsome black man," said my black friend at work.   "Shame on you!" 

"But we're in love.  Love overcomes all,"  I reassured myself.

Not so much.

...to be continued.

*lovely may be exaggerating

*lady is a total lie

*so I thought

*yes, for life.   But I love someone else a whole, whole lot more.

The guy in the pool.  Our 18th anniversary is on 10-10-10.
*This visit is forshadowing. We'll be talking about it later.