by Barbara Phillips

Boarding an airplane bound for the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta – decades after the iconic poster whispered to my Younger-Self of possibilities – I confess some bewilderment that I’m doing this. Fifty years ago, working for racial justice in a tiny southwest Mississippi county where until recently Black folks had to step off the sidewalk for passing white folks, I stared at the iconic poster of the Fiesta in the office of a civil rights lawyer. For a moment, I was transported to a place that had to be so different from my county – a place with balloons of all shapes and colors rising into the sky as if by wizards. People who threw a party for balloons even more fantastic than the one in “The Wizard of Oz”, a movie I watched on television every Christmas as a child growing up in the segregated South.

Now a retired civil rights lawyer myself, I’m on this plane responding to an invitation to celebrate the retirement of a friend. But something more is going on about this journey.  My-Younger-Self perked up at the invitation, first whispering and then nagging, Let’s go! Remember that poster?  Living in Claiborne County was decades ago and yet, the image of that poster still held a power I couldn’t explain fully to myself – a power emerging from gauzy memories of my first encounter with the poster and reckoning with the road ahead of me being so much shorter than the one behind. 

Pretending to be engrossed in my Kindle, my head was actually bowed in prayer that the middle seat remains vacant. Interrupted by a baritone, melodic voice saying, “Pardon me”, I prayed harder that this sound was not emanating from a Manspreader who presumed that all women should accommodate him. He took the middle seat, settled within his own boundaries, and I responded with some murmur of appreciation for not being squished against the window. From the corner of my eye, I saw him place a black fur-felt Western hat under the seat in front of him.  As he leaned forward, I noticed his long-but-not-too-long silver and black mane swept back and softly curling at the collar of his lush tan corduroy jacket.  I savored being surprised by thinking, Just long enough for my hands to get lost in those strands.

Rather amused to find myself fully in the throes of what we Southern Black women of a certain age would call “Hot and Bothered,” I thought Honeychild Libido had put on her sneakers and slipped away to accompany my husband the night he died. Since then, my life has been painted in rather muted colors. The only appropriate response was to bury myself in the Kindle. Then, with that melodic voice, he asked whether I knew the time of our arrival in Albuquerque. Well, I closed the Kindle.

Dropping all pretense, I pursued the caress of his voice. Dark good-looks notwithstanding, he was not from the Southwest, but from New England. He moved to his town of 200 folks about fifty years ago after wandering around with no plans to stay. Something grabbed him about that spot, he asked his friend back in New England to sell his motorcycle, purchased his land with the proceeds and has been at home ever since. What was it about the place that made you stay?  “Well, back East the trees get in the way. Out here you can actually see far into the horizon.” He paused before continuing, “And then . . .there are the stars”. I almost stopped breathing. Pretending to return to my Kindle, I was actually locking his voice into a place where I can hear him any time I choose.

Gathering ourselves to disembark, he was handed a package from the overhead bin and explained that it contained a kerosene lamp. Needed for light when he first built his cabin; now, kerosene lamps are no longer a necessity. He’s bringing this one home just because he’s so fond of the light. As we went down the aisle, I noticed that not only did he have suede patches on his lush corduroy jacket, but those were black and silver Western boots on his feet. This was a sensual man.

In that moment, My-Younger-Self whispered, Let’s go home with him. From the moment he sat down, She would have put the Kindle down and flirted as only women of The South can even through mask and face shield.  She would have called the friends waiting in Albuquerque to say she would catch up with them later. I gave My-Younger-Self the pleasure of a last glimpse as we waited for luggage. 

The Hot Air Balloon Fiesta did not disappoint. But the enduring treasure from that momentary sprinkle of spice upon my present is the return of Honeychild Libido – my own sensuality – to my 72-years-old self.  I’m wearing corduroy now. No kerosene lamp, but I light candles around my house because I like the light. Instead of ignoring my deck at night, I’m out there looking at the stars. As I contemplate the short road ahead, I am painting it in colors as vivid as those balloons.