The Secret to a Long Life
This weekend I discovered the secret to a long life. Last year, while having one of my famous conversations with Nana, she told me that her great grandfather lived to be 117 years old and his father lived to be 110. My great-grandmother on my father’s side lived to be 103 and passed from natural causes. This weekend, I continued reading Mama Day by Gloria Naylor and Mama Day and her sister Abigail are 88 and 90 and both don’t look a day over 50. Now I understand that these characters are fictional, but they really do represent a huge population of people who have also discovered the answer to this secret, but have kept it to themselves. Well, I am here to let the world know.
Although all of those people grew up at different times, in different eras and lived different lives, they all have one thing in common. All of these people lived in the south, and by south I don’t mean Atlanta or Houston. I mean THE SOUTH. That deep rural south where if you listen really carefully you can hear the old Negro spirituals still being sung in the distance. The south where once the sun sets, there is no light, at all, except from the light coming from inside of your house. The south where the sound of crickets plays the sound track at night. And most importantly, they all lived in the south where their closest neighbor was at LEAST two miles away. And that my friends is the secret to a long life!!! No neighbors!!!
So picture it. I was supposed to head to LA this weekend, but it didn’t work out, so I had one of those rare Saturdays, where I had nothing to do. I was beside myself with excitement. I slept in until noon…sort of…and got up, threw on some shorts and scoured my apartment. Once the house was clean and the oils were burning I decided to just lie across my bed and read a book. You would be amazed at how rarely that happens. Anyway, I settle into the book, I’m all into it and then…
“F you B! I don’t care…get out of the car…get out…I’ll show you crazy…get out!!!”
I let out a deep sigh and set my book down and looked up at the ceiling from whence my help cometh. The sound of wood cracking and breaking prompted me to get up from my perfectly placed pillows to make sure that my life was not in danger. I noticed my new neighbors fighting in the street, (the sound of the breaking wood was their gate crashing down after one of them was tossed into it), glass being thrown and all types of tomfoolery. One of them ran back into the house and all was silent again. However, knowing Oakland the way I do, I knew it wasn’t over, so I reached for my MP3 and placed my headphones on and got back to the book. A few minutes later I hear the screeching of wheels and all of a sudden a car starts honking obnoxiously in the middle of the street, in front of my house. I turn my player up and try to block out the noise, but the honking persists for almost 15 minutes. The sound of breaking glass caused me to once again, put down my book and dropped my head, once again sending up a prayer. The car screeches off again, and returns seconds later, on the opposite side of the street, once again directly in front of my breezy bedroom window and the commotion is now directly in front of my window. The breaking glass sound apparently came when a brick was thrown through the windshield of the honking car, which was now once again, honking obnoxiously. Moments later, the police come out of nowhere and just as suddenly as it began, the silence returned.
Now, if I followed the example of my elders, all of this could have gone on, and I could have been in my house, with all of the windows open, living my life, baking pies, and I would be none the wiser. I think those generations past were on to something…
