“Revealing the story of this hidden treasure whose truth longs to be known, unveils the strength and courage that only manifests through love.” — Jonnet Solomon, reflections on National Negro Opera Company House, August 2021

“Perhaps … not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” – James Baldwin, on the topic of home.

Home

With the loss of my grandmother, I spend a lot of time thinking about home — and how we build homes in people.     

A crystal image of her dances through my mind often. In this reverie, she hasn’t aged a day. 

Tight coils bloom at her edges, chestnut and silver. The radio whispers the Suze Orman Show, or maybe Dave Ramsay upon my arrival, remnants of her past life working in banks. Carefully-selected stained-glass lamps dim the room. New shoe boxes line the steps (“Can you take those up for me when you go?”). Her white church usher uniform hangs from the closet door along with a menagerie of opulent purses and coats. A prayer list sits on the table in front of her, a page full of names.

She is my comfort; the master at leading (and scolding) with love. She is my home. 

It helped that her two-story red-brick home was less than a mile up the road. Physically and spiritually, she was never far. I was blessed. I could walk less than 15 blocks and land right at her stoop. Climb four steps. Lift the brass mailslot flap. Peek through. There she’d be, plopped on the couch. Maybe watching Real Housewives or The Haves and the Have Nots. “Coming!” she’d say. 

We dwell in structures but find ourselves in the crevices and light of others. We sometimes bury ourselves in them. I’m guilty of this.

Homes capture generations of memories of how we burrowed, loved, and lived. Structures immortalize memories for us. They are a physical manifestation of our past. 

These memories and ideas were swirling in my mind on a walk around my neighborhood in December. A few long blocks later, I ended up at the Silver Eye Center for Photography and was captivated by the sprawling prints lining the walls. 

The polite Black woman managing the reception desk told me the room showcased the photography of Hannah Price’s Still Standing installation. The exhibit depicts historical structures that are steeped in Pittsburgh’s Black history (the August Wilson House, the National Negro Opera Company House, and the New Granada Theater), as well as the people who still occupy the neighborhoods and those working to preserve the buildings. 

In 10 photos, Price captures landmarks with a certain historical and cultural significance for Black people. All at once her work beseeched me to consider how legacy inspires the future, our role in protecting and preserving a legacy, and how the ravishes of time impact our perceptions.

Home. Presence. Legacy. 

These questions and themes have confronted me constantly since my grandmother (and absolute best friend) was called to her heavenly Home in 2021. How will I keep her alive?

In the gallery, I see the Black people who look like libraries of wisdom reside within them. I think of my grandmother’s eyes. I see parts of streets and homes that look like abandoned parts of my childhood neighborhood. I think of what could happen if I don’t tend to my grandmother’s legacy and memories.

I held myself and shut my eyes for a moment. How do we preserve what home means as what we know transforms into something we don't?

Presence

Photos of the National Negro Opera Company House struck me the most.

A chain link fence adorned with crunchy, wilting leaves staggers the perimeter of a great house on a hill. A tall chimney. Triangle peaks and round edges. Lanky windows. A columned front entrance with an air of grandeur. Vines and tree branches knotted and contorted together overtaking pathways. with climbing vines and shrubs overtaking stone and hand-carved wood. The house itself was wrapped like a gift.

It’s stunning. Enchanting, almost. The existence of certain structures is proof of love manifested, of love persisting. That doesn’t mean it’s all roses. It’s vines and thorns; abandonment and loss; grief and anger.

The National Opera Company House seems to almost embrace the forces that have attempted to overtake it, grown beautiful and thrived in spite of it all, reminding me of my  African-American ancestry. There are no victims here. Only home. Only love. 

For African-American people, the concept of home can be complicated. I sometimes feel like I’m caught between two homes, one I know and one I don’t know exists. I vacillate between seeking, finding, and creating home.

My gmom eventually sold the childhood home (after I graduated college ...and much to my vexation), however, my memories still live on 38th street. 

I still see it. She stacks extra blankets over her knees in the winter. She teaches me to use dryer sheets to get deodorant out of my shirt. She wiggles a happy dance when she tastes a ripe cherry. She twists the ring on her right hand when she’s considering or contemplating. She speaks Nene Leakes’ praises. She teaches me the proper grocery prices for bread and apples. I watch her and learn how to be clever. She ensures I can address an envelope and mail a thank you card. We memorize The Temptations, and I have too much fun dancing for her. We watch the New Years Eve ball drop and clink glasses filled with Welch’s sparkling apple juice.

We take stick, mud, and hope to create monuments, memories and legacies.

I stood in the gallery holding myself until I lost track of time. In this loved and crumbling structure, past and present meet.  

Legacy

This Pittsburgh home has lived many lives. A residence. A sanctuary for Black travelers when Pittsburgh’s segregated hotels weren’t an option. A haven for Black arts, culture, and business. A station for society; celebrities, parties, and leisure. In its heyday, it was the place to be. Theoretically, with Pittsburgh’s thriving multigenerational Black art scene, it still should be. Right?

But these days, it seems to be a home hanging on to its past life. Yearning for something new.

We discover more about ourselves in the process to protect a legacy, threading together pieces of self and past to imagine and create new possibilities. I’ve seen this. I’ve dealt with this. As I mourn my grandmother, I’m looking for ways to honor her in tradition and memory while also discovering who I am without her in the flesh. Charting a path has been a journey. The hard kind. Sometimes the “why am I still going?” kind.

But the work of Jonnet Solomon, and people like her, remind me that protecting and continuing legacies are as possible as they are necessary.

At the gallery, I was also struck by two crisp portraits of a Black woman and a Black man. In the framing of the photos, I could see their lives, love, grief, and dreams in the curves and contours of their faces and bodies. Face to face with portraits of residents who live amidst the legacies, I thought both about these humans as living history, living in history, as well as the person behind the camera lens, who also plays a role in preserving a legacy. It’s similar to the work of Carter G. Woodson, who elevated and celebrated overlooked historic Black contributions and achievements, so much so that Black History Month was established. Price is now part of the lineage of protectors.

Memory

Price documented the restoration of historic buildings in the Hill District and Homewood, historically Black Pittsburgh neighborhoods. In the photos, she’s able to capture the work of a small group contending with the impacts of time on a legacy, on a home.

Grief has me thinking a lot about home; what takes us away, what brings us back, and where we build our homes.

Wilmington, Delaware is my physical home. But the home I inhabited regularly was my grandmother. Home was sitting next to each other in the car after a trip to Wendy’s, feeling the sun pour through the windshield. Sunlight was some of the best medicine, she believed. It was tasting the savoriness of her beef stew from a spoon while she and I waited for it to finish. It was rotating through prom gowns in a boutique dressing room. It was competing against her to complete a word search — and putting up a good fight, but often losing.

Memory is transportive; sending us to a time when things were different, reminding us things can be different. Memory, both individual and collective, is often shaped by a connection to a place. Time warps and wears Black legacy, a legacy already frayed by white supremacy and intentional erasure. Capturing the labor to preserve legacies and the structures that house them — through photography and other means — is incredible work.

It's vital to preserve the once-safe spaces of marginalized groups even as newer spaces become available, distracting us from what once was. We can’t lose our history or the spaces that give us a deeper sense of self. We can’t lose our memories.

That’s partially why I’m writing this. Preservation is why I still say her phrase “Use your nouns,” even though I’m almost 30. It’s why I’ve written out the list of ingredients for beef stew over and over again. And why I still eat cherries, even though I cry every time now. I even find myself twisting my rings the same way she did. 

I cherish moments alone in the car, when I’m just sitting under the sun. I close my eyes and feel them conjure a film of tears, wishing I could reach out and grab her hand to hold. 

The Still Standing exhibition will be on view at the Silver Eye Center for Photography until Feb. 11 in Pittsburgh. 

Thank you to all the people who have been home for me.

Until next time,

TCJ