At Veritas, Sharon wrote about the day she gave birth to her child. She constructed a narrative to make sense of her life and find herself in her own words:
Tyrell is my first son. He was born March 9, 1985. He is my pride and joy. Tyrell was born 3 weeks early. When I had Tyrell we were both in danger, I had to have a Caesarean Section and that is no joke.
It was on a Saturday - late afternoon. I went to the store to buy some potato chips and then I came home and received a phone call. I talked on the phone for a while. When I got off the phone I went to throw the bag in the garbage and I felt something funny was going on.
I went to the bathroom and found myself bleeding. So I told my sister to call my mother and tell her that I was bleeding and that I think I have to go to the hospital. When we went downstairs to catch a cab we got one and we told him to take us to Harlem Hospital. He took the route on 125th Street during rush hour when traffic is terrible. So when my mother saw a police car she told the cops what was going on and asked them to please take me to the hospital. That is what they did.
When I reached the hospital I went upstairs to the maternity floor and went through the screening. I told the lady that I was bleeding and she said that it was ok. But when she told me take off my clothes and get on the table she found out that I was bleeding a lot and not just a little bit. She called the doctors and they took me to the back and did a sonogram to find out where I was bleeding from.
The first one gave them a hint, but they were not sure. So they put me in another room, but did not leave me.
They hooked me up to two sonograms. About 7:15 pm I started getting labor pains in my back and they were one minute apart. When that started happening they knew what was going on and that’s when they told me I had to sign the paper to have the Caesarean Section. I signed the paper and they took me to the operating room about 7:25 pm. They took Tyrell from me at 7:33 pm.
When I woke up Sunday morning I called my mother to let her know that I was alright and my sister said, “Do you know that you have a son?” I said, “No.” Then my mother came to the phone and told me to ask the nurses to show me where he was. The nurse showed me where he was in the intensive care unit. He was 5 pounds and 5 ounces and had lost a lot of blood during that time I was in the room waiting for the doctors to decide what to do for me.
Tyrell is now living with my mother while I am in the program getting my life together. I know that he is well taken care of. He is only 18 months, but we are going to have a very good relationship with each other when he gets older. I am glad that I came to Veritas when I did because when I complete treatment he will be 3 years old, and I will have a job and apartment that is sufficient to take care of him, and I won’t have to depend on anybody else to take care of him.
I really love my son and I am proud to have him, no matter what I had to go through to have him In the beginning it felt strange having a child because I was not used to having a big responsibility. No matter if I have any other children, Tyrell will always be special to me, and have a special place in my heart, because I almost lost him, and almost lost my life too.
The creative experience for young mothers, like Sharon, was to publish stories and poems they could later share with their grown children and the world around them.
The Waterways Project was Barbara's and my child. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to go into the schools, work with students, create publications, and archive the expressions of a generation coming of age in New York City. It was sharing the creative urge to bring a new consciousness into the world.
Leon came to the Veritas computer room when he needed to tell his story:
I went to the hospital and found out that I have a heart murmur from smoking crack.
When the rain falls upon our face
The stars twinkle and the moon rises
The world twirls in a heart shaped form
The rivers open just like my heart
I went from site to site, gaining the trust of the students and publishing their stories. They wrote about their addictions, their dreams and all that haunted them.
A dialogue between Leon and his girlfriend contained the line:
I don’t think it will work because you sell me dreams.
In another issue of the magazine, Leon continued:
And we walked through the night
The stars grew closer
Each word we spoke
And the sky got bright
At the sight of like
And I raised my palm and spelled out “like”
And birds appeared from every direction
The published writing became a Rorschach test for the rest of the world to read into students’ words. Words placed on the page. Catalogued in libraries, stored in print, and more than twenty years later archived on the Internet.
Wendy wrote about her mother:
There I was selfish for her tenderness,
There she was using me with such cleverness
She didn’t care very much for us to get close,
I longing for it too much
Wanting to feel her motherly touch
So to the cooker first she went
Then there by her I was sent
Another of her poems:
Mommy, mommy, don’t cry,
Life is hard and full of lies
Mommy, mommy don’t cry
I promise that I’m gonna try
Mommy mommy don’t cry
This time I’ll no longer live in a drug cage
Because this time I’m gonna change
So Mommy Mommy PLEASE don’t cry
The computer was just another pencil, but changed communication. The students saved their words on floppy disks that were returned to them as magazines. Words, creativity, labels, ideas, emotions, sense, and intelligence were grist for the writing workshop. Students improvised poetry to the rhythm of their heartbeats. They composed lines to match the span of their breath.
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