Grown Ass Women

 Have you been listening to my new (ish) podcast, Grown Ass women with Nina Foxx? I've been wanting to do one for some time and the pandemic has given me time, since I don't have to commute two hours a day and don't go anywhere else. I have have been using all of that time spent in the car to do creative things, I was reflecting on this last episode. Blaxit Part 2: Nathan Nash, Just an American-For the First Time.

Nathan has made a Blaxit--he's moved to Singapore. One thing that struck me about him and the \lLast Guest, Ms R. Both made what they thought were spontaneous decisions (but that were really years in the making), with a minimum level of planning. Nathan actually went to a south Asian country without so much as a hotel picked out and no idea how to contact his friends there. He relied on the kindness of strangers to drive him hours, in a place where he really didn't speak the language or even fully understand the culture.

These days, this is not something that is even feasible, especially for a woman, and there are few of us that would even feel safe accepting a long distance ride from a stranger even in our home town.  I balked when I was interviewing Nathan. Then, a listener reached out to me and my comments made me realize that there had been a time in my life when I was like Nathan. Remembering this made me rethink my judgement. His motivation at that time may not have been "lack of sense", but youthful adventure.

I was an exchange student in London one summer, and decided to cut school one Friday and take myself t...Paris. This was pre-cell phone and pre-chunnel. It was pre-European Union. My gal pal and I just hopped a hovercraft across the English Channel without telling our parents. No one knew we were going, we had no francs, and neither one of us spoke a lick of French. We were poor college students and by the time we arrived in Paris, exchanged what little English Pounds we had, figured out how to use a french pay phone and called our parents back in the US, the school had already reported us missing. My francs rang out on my phone call before my father could stop yelling at me long distance. I hung up the phone...and proceeded to have myself a grand old adventure fueled by the stories my father had told me about the beaches of Normandy and being a soldier in France during WW II.

As it turned out, my friend had an uncle that lived in France. at that time, he was the personal assistant to the King of Brunei. She was able to contact him, and he sent his (gorgeous) son to retrieve us from our state of "what the hell have we done" in a limo. I'd never been in a limo. He was fancy and gorgeous. We had the most amazing 4 day tour of Paris and the French countryside, even though it was peppered by our tour guide's North African Girlfriend screaming at us. She had never heard talk of her boyfriend's American Cousins, and to this day I have no idea what she called us but I'm sure it was not good. In her mind, we were tall Americans...and must have been models that came to steal her man. For geek, insecure, nineteen year old Nina, it was both astounding and confusing that I could make someone feel that way. 

We ended up with a private tour of the Paris Townhouse of the King of Brunei, and then an invitation to a small (30 people) wedding in the countryside in a farmhouse. We understood no one, drank LOTS of wine and to this day I remain convinced that French wine has less alcohol. People at the wedding took turns singing songs to the happy couple, and when it was our turn, we knew no French songs and were encouraged to sing in English. We sang the only song we both knew; the Greatest Love of ALL by Whitney and felt much relief when they overlooked how off-tune we were.

Everything we saw during that trip was alien to my friend and I, both New Yorkers; the language, the food, the small wedding, but we were all able to find a common space in that one, classic song that extolled the virtues of learning to love all of who you are. 

Remembering that adventure reminded me to not judge the spontaneity that Nathan's found in his journey to find a place where he could freely love all of who he is; is intelligence, his adventurousness and his Black skin, but instead made me want to find that youthful need to explore again. Like many in this pandemic, I am reevaluating where I need to be, and have continuously been finding reasons why I cannot work from Belize or Barbados, focusing instead on the responsibilities instead of the possibilities. 

Listen to Nathan's Blaxit Story Here.