I’ve always enjoyed Sunday Afternoons…
As a freelancer, it is easy to lose the distinction between weekdays and weekends. With no obligation to go to work every day, Monday is only Monday when you call it Monday and Saturday the same, but Sunday is quite different.
There’s a spellbinding feeling of leisure I can’t seem to escape. Very few Sunday afternoons have passed without me taking a little siesta, lounging around, or reading my favorite novel. Thus, when I think of the day of the week the character in this fashion editorial would choose to lounge around writing love letters to her favorite people, bathing in sunlight, taking long walks and endlessly daydreaming it would be a Sunday afternoon.
Retelling the story of Ghana with my singular voice and experiences has been one of my favorite stories to share for a really long time. Coincidentally, it is only until today that I realized when and how it started.
“Hey,” the girls behind me whispered as the teacher stepped out of the class to give us time to finish our test.
I turned around excitedly, thrilled to possibly be making new friends.
“Colleen(name changed) wanted to ask you something!”
I smile at Colleen, but that smile quickly changes into a frown when her query leaves her mouth, “Do the people in Africa live in trees?”
Someone laughs!
And, another interrupts her with honest curiosity, “Is there Christmas in Ghana?!”
“Do you have SpongeBob?”
Having lived in both worlds and found beauty, even at that age, that I had learned to appreciate and respect in each, I thankfully found a teaching opportunity at that moment that followed me to this day. The next day I must have carried with me every picture I could find to show “real life” in Ghana to my Baltimore high school friends and updated my Facebook with more of these images until they got the picture…
And the truth is I haven’t stopped since Sharing (pictures of) and retelling stories of the real Africa.
As the heroine in my editorial leafs through the tales of her favorite novel, turning herself over to catch the warm afternoon sun kiss her face and light up the pages of her book, I am reminded of the power of storytelling—in the stories she reads and love letters she writes—to transport as to places we’ve never been...
…And how one person’s beautifully told story such as this magnificent dress designed by Ghanaian Fashion House, Christie Brown, can spark our imagination to create new stories if we dare to daydream.
