The Journey Is The Destination: A Birth Parent's Story

by Faylita Hicks (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Jamaica

Jamaica is paradise. It requires a passport, window seats, condoms, cash, and fresh skin. I had everything except for the cash--but that didn't matter. I had finally left the U.S. for authentic jerk chicken, poems on sun-washed patios, and men drenched in melanin and reggaeton. My trip was timed perfectly. I needed a break from the witches across America who were hexing President-Elect Trump via how-to articles, and from the dialogue that regularly turned into fistfights and fake news. This was my first/last chance to attempt world travel without the anxiety of Trump's proposed border protections, but I landed in "the land of sun" only to learn that I—would be stuck at the airport for at least 24 hours. A miscalculation about the distance of my Airbnb in Montego Bay, from the city of Kingston, had left me with no place to sleep for the night. The direct deposit from my hourly job as an inbound call center sales agent wasn't due until the next day, so I sat in the waiting area, trying to feel more of this so-called #blackgirljoy. Honestly, I did want to more joyful. I was, finally, all the way across the Atlantic—but I couldn't fight the guilt growing pit in my stomach. The city of Kingston could be seen from the gate. An initiation of a view that meant I was (almost) international. I'd have to leave the airport to make it official, but I had finally made it out of the "hood" and into the world. To celebrate, I grabbed a seat on the patio, where a curvy bartender served suspiciously dense and colorful drinks through the metal bars of a gate that protected her register and large crocheted handbag. Sipping on an unusually large coral colored cocktail, I looked out past the fence that separated the open land from us foreigners. Admiring the nearby mountain's girth—pregnant with little white houses that spotted its dark and textured face—I waited for the sun to dig under the horizon and slowly wash the sky in mauve. Even from here, I recognized the sagging body of land that was tired after having given birth to an idea that it no longer knew. Though it was not my land, it was shaped like me, and that was an unexpected sort of comfort in this strange place. Instinctively, my hands reached down to where I still sometimes felt the phantom kicks of a little Black girl living somewhere in Chicago now. Five years before Jamaica, when I was making less than $500 a month with part-time work and taking graduate classes, I went to the Central Texas Medical Center emergency room, the only one in my rural county of Hays, with stomach pains. Crying up at the ceiling, my doctor confirmed my fears with the sound of a baby's heartbeat. Since signing the adoption papers in 2012, I had only seen her twice, even though I had been invited for birthdays and weekend visits. My job then was steady, but I still couldn't afford a car, and rarely, a plane ticket. I calculated the total cost of this trip to paradise, which was being hosted by my new creative writing graduate program and had this overwhelming feeling that my choice to go to Jamaica--was somehow akin to betraying her. Sipping my drink, I stared out at the land I had yet to explore and remembered a time when my daughter and I were the same person—two ideas rooted in a dark body. I imagined her beside me now. But the reality was, if she were beside me now, I would've never had made it this far. Later, while the warm blue waters of Port Antonio—my actual destination—slipped around my feet, I cried and calmed myself with the knowledge that I had needed to see this land. I had needed this—my first escape into the world—to be real. Authentic. Imperfect. Like life, I needed to know that even though she wasn't with me, there was still real beauty and love to be experienced—somewhere out there.