by Kim Fields
Inspired and energized, I fulfilled a dream when I launched my own clothing line, aptly named HarlemHoney. I partnered with my godmother and longtime stylist, Victoria Shaffer. The items were going to be available in an online store. I didn’t know the extent of my entrepreneurial zeal until I began helping to design items (it was more casual apparel, T-shirts, shifts, and accessories than an extensive line), create the website, and work on marketing and promotional plans. I was happy with the final product and got lots of pleasure wearing my own design to Harlem Week and proudly told reporters that I was wearing me.
Here is my favorite part. Every month on the website, I wanted to spotlight a different Harlem “honey.” For my inaugural pick, I shot for the moon and the stars, landing the one and only Ruby Dee. A car brought her to our apartment for a photo shoot. The fact that we had a passing acquaintance did not mitigate the awe I felt when I opened the front door and there stood Ruby Dee—writer, poet, movie star, activist, role model, legend, and American treasure.
We had corresponded several years earlier when she and her husband, Ossie Davis, had agreed to be interviewed for a documentary I wanted to do about lasting love. Then she had agreed to star in an independent movie I tried to produce. Neither of those projects came to fruition. So not until February 2005, the month before Chris and I first met, did I actually meet Ruby. It was at Riverside Church for her husband’s funeral, an event that was a who’s who of admirers, including former President Bill Clinton, Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, Harry Belafonte, Burt Reynolds, Danny Glover, and others. I cautiously approached Ruby, who was dressed in black and wore dark sunglasses that covered half her tiny face. As I began to choose my words, she said, “Oh, you’re Kim Fields. How’s the movie coming?” I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed. “No, Beautiful, we’re not talking about that right now. We’re just lifting you up and loving on you right now.”
Six months later, I was honored and a little amazed to host her in my living room. I hoped she didn’t notice that I stared at her, but she was Ruth Younger from A Raisin in the Sun, and beyond that, I was mesmerized by how tiny she was, yet still such a giant. I had read about such people—small in terms of height but enormous in spirit. That was Ruby Dee. I mentioned that I was still replaying Maya Angelou’s words about her late husband in my head. I repeated her opening line: “The heaviest door in the universe slammed shut.” I didn’t have Dr. Angelou’s voice or delivery, but wow, what power those words had. “That’s a piece of writing I’ll never forget,” I said.
Later, as she waited for her car to take her home, she took a brief nap on the sofa. She was so cute. While she slept, I put the scarf I had given her as part of a gift bag of HarlemHoney goodies in our dryer to get any wrinkles out. It was warm when I folded it and placed it in her bag, and still warm when she reached in and felt it herself. “Oh, this is warm and soft, like the earth,” she said. Again, I marveled at her realness and the poetry that flowed from her.
Like the earth.
Who says that?
Before leaving, she complimented our home, saying it reminded her of the Harlem she knew in its heyday. She also signed our guest book. Hers was the very first entry: For Kim and Chris—glorious life continued in this new/old place. Ruby Dee.
I was privileged to spend more time with her over the next few years and participate in several tributes to her. At one such tribute in Dallas, after I delivered a spoken-word piece about her, Ruby grabbed my arm and pulled me to her side. Her eyes were full of happy tears. “Oh, Kim, it’s too much,” she said. “It’s too much.” In retrospect, given that she is one of those people who inspire you to do more, and be more, it probably was not enough.
Was there a time when we didn’t know you?
Didn’t have you/love you/need you
Was there a time?
No. No memory of first hearing of you, seeing you
Shoot, we prayed for you to the Almighty
For a mighty wind to rush through our people
It was, is and ever shall be a surprise, your impact
’Cause we made a pact with the Almighty:
Send us an angel, we’ll treat her like a Queen
Oohh, we didn’t mean
To make you cry
We’re sorry, Mother, for running rampant
On your one good nerve
With our killin’, lyin’, cheatin’, beatin’ selves
Takin’ us backwards, after all the marchin’ steps forward you and your beloved
took for us
Wrapping history around your finger and never letting go
At times choking it into submission
On your mission/journey/quest
For truth, justice, freedom…
There is none like you, there is no analogy
No example
You’re not like anything or anyone
Comparisons are made to you
(By those who just don’t know no better)
Nothing, no one compares to you
You are the measuring stick…
You make the oaks in your beloved South stand strong with pride
You make preachers want to preach
You make actors and activists want to act
You make these beings that are human want to be better
You make people of color want to be greater
You make weeping willows in your beloved South weep with grace
Oh let’s face it,
You sho-nuff make women want to be wives
You make wives want to love better, stronger, harder, longer
You make humility never want to be a capital H
You HarlemHoney, are the sweet and have tasted the bitter of our beloved Harlem
You make people, couples, want a love like yours
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told…
Oh, do I bring this up? How can I not bring this up?:
We ached for you
You were our first and only thought that awful February day
We had not ached like that
Perhaps since ’63, ’65, or ’68
For Jacqueline, Betty, and Coretta
For you we ached…
Now, hear with ears as open as your heart
Here is my heart
So full, thoughts so scattered
Assaulted and battered by love for you
Knocked off my feet
Overwhelmed with connection
Yearning for direction
To place this love, respect, admiration, illumination
Ah yes, light does come from deep within you
Finding its way to me
Believe, I know others feel it too,
But I’m greedy and selfish when it comes to you
You’ve touched me
Though I’m not yet even born, you’ve reached me
Beyond the womb, into the universe
This verse is for you who has touched me
Reached me, taken hold of me with your
Voice, integrity, mastery of art/word/prose
I suppose I wish to be, long to be…Because you have been
I have a spirit, your spirit
Though I don’t even have life yet
Not yet formed
But already formed by you because you touched me
Reaching across space and time
Not God-like
Yet not unlike God
Surely you and the Almighty must be tight, right?
Nothing but a Holy hand could implant such
Talent, beauty and compassion
Beautiful, enduring
Strong as granite, granted, that’s a surface
And the last thing you are is surface
No, Mother, you are deep, deep and lovely
Like…Like…
Now didn’t I say there’s no analogy, no example, no measuring stick?
The Nile and Euphrates are as deep and lovely as Ms. Ruby
Ruby—I will not give in to the notion to plunge
into an ocean of phrases
paralleling your name and gems, precious stones
I will with stone face receive the notion to plunge into an ocean of witty weaving of
Character names you’ve donned,
Awards and honors given since the dawning of your career hitting its stride
But ooooohhhhh the pride, the pride Mother I feel
When I think of the goodness of Ossie and Ruby and all they’ve done for me my
soul cries out Hallelujah!!!!!
No disrespect, no blasphemin’
But it is spiritual
You know they have been kissed on the forehead by the Almighty
Right here, in the center, in the sweet-spot
Where only the one who loves you mercifully, gracefully and sweetly can
The same way, Mother, you love
your beloved and your children and your grandchildren and your people
From one HarlemHoney to another,
I will always be on full
When it comes to Ms. Ruby Dee
When it comes to you.
For Chris and me, living together in these early days was more of a series of reunions. After he finished From My Home Town, he started Once on This Island in Baltimore. I spent March and April 2006 on the road in the gospel-themed play Issues: We All Got ’Em. Fortunately, the two of us were extremely compatible when we were home together. We loved being in our backyard (a rare and coveted slice of real estate in NYC), which we named Kismet. We enjoyed going to the theater, hanging out in local restaurants, working on our craft, talking about acting, and having friends over. When we did hit those cohabitating speed bumps, we talked—more often than I was used to in relationships.
But Chris was more complex and evolved than most of the men I had encountered in my life—and maybe most men in general. He had studied psychology and communications at James Madison University. He was in touch with his feelings and shared them with me, and when he was done sharing, he wanted to know how I was feeling, and after that, we explored what those feelings meant and how they connected to the other feelings. Not usually my style of communication. I cherry-picked what I wanted to bring to the table. I kept things inside me—sometimes forever or sometimes until I could no longer contain them and probably uncork. Not the best way to navigate through difficult or challenging moments, I know, but I don’t like conflict. In general, I did not like to rock the boat. Chris was the opposite—not in terms of rocking the boat, but in wanting to ensure it sailed as smooth and efficiently as possible, which meant we needed more frequent dialogues, not him sharing and me saying, “Okay, gotcha.”
We were both trying to bring the wisdom and lessons learned from our previous marriages and relationships. Wisdom and learning, not baggage. One day, we were in the midst of some conversation, going round and round, when I put my hands on my hips and said, “You know, it seems like you’re giving a lot of notes at the start of rehearsal. You haven’t even seen what I can do and you’ve given me notes.” After a long pause, he laughed and then we both laughed together—and at each other. It was good.
In all transparency, over the decade we’ve been married and nearly thirteen years we’ve been together, I’m still working on some of the basic tenets of love and marriage. Understanding that while there are some things that work as Wife, I have to be clear and nonjudgmental about what works as Chris’s wife…what lands with him. And vice versa. One of our best talks was late one evening, under a cool, moonlit night. He said, “Baby, I see you’re working hard for us, for me. I see your efforts, they’re just not in the right direction.” It made me think of the time I celebrated my eighteenth birthday in San Diego and was driving (rushing) to the airport. I knew the airport was south. The issue was, it was not south of where I was at the time, the zoo. Imagine my frustration and surprise when I started seeing signs that welcomed me to Tijuana.
As for my initiating potentially difficult communication, someone once told me, “The Word says ‘blessed are the peacemakers’…makers, not peace keepers. Think of all the great peacemakers and what they went through. To make peace, sometimes takes uncomfortable work.” I’m not where I may need to be, but I’m not where I used to be on that.
Another lesson: Don’t judge whatever language your spouse speaks in love. If someone speaks a foreign language and you are engaging with them, you work on learning how to speak to them and vice versa. However, reluctantly learning is not cool; that does not make them feel like you want to talk to them. Nor is getting aggravated or judging why they speak the language they do. They just do, same as you. That was a revelation in the early days in the Morgan home.
In the summer of 2006, we solved the issue of being apart so frequently. We worked on a project together. BET Jazz approached me about creating, producing, and directing three and a half hours of programming for a partnership they had with Royal Caribbean Cruises. I created a three-part Love Boat–inspired miniseries. Titled A Royal Birthday, it was about a handful of girlfriends who go on a cruise for a joint celebration and end up on a journey of self-discovery and romance.
I hired Chris as one of the male leads. We shot on two separate cruises, which was an added delight, and on the two days off between the two cruises, as Chris and I were heading home on the train, he looked at me and said, “I’m ready to start our family.” I burst into tears—happy tears—right there.
I had no concerns of starting a family in my late thirties. I was healthy and relatively fit. I trusted the Lord and modern medicine to do everything they could to make sure the baby and I were healthy. Apparently my body was also down with the program because Chris and I had only started to try to get pregnant when I came out of the bathroom one morning with the little magic wand in my hand. Chris was not even able to ask if what I was holding was what he thought it was before I said simply, “Yup, it is. And we are.”
I was exhausted through my first trimester. Chris was working on a play just north of the city, in Westchester County, and I couldn’t stand when he would come back home after a long day of rehearsing or an exhausting performance and an hour train ride to find me in the same spot on the couch I was in when he left, wiped out. But he comforted me, saying things like, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Do you realize you probably made a kneecap today?”
My family was excited. This was the first grandchild, so they were over the moon. Chris’s older sister already had children, but his parents were still overjoyed, of course. As my pregnancy progressed, my energy returned. I went to the gym, swam, and worked with one of Chris’s best friends, a personal trainer, who guided me through prenatal training. My pregnancy was a joy. In November, I appeared in the long-running play Speak Truth to Power, Ariel Dorfman’s moving adaptation of Kerry Kennedy’s book on people who have fought for human rights and social justice. Chris and I spent Christmas with his parents in Richmond.
By January, Chris and I were desperate to find out the sex of the new life growing in me. “Please tell us who’s in there,” I pleaded with my doctor at the next checkup. Chris echoed my request. Both of us were convinced we were having a girl. Chris’s sister had a daughter. I came from a family of girls. My mom had one sister, and her mother came from thirteen sisters. By the time the doctor had a picture of my belly up on her monitor, Chris and I were running down our potential girl names—that is, until the doctor said, “Not so fast.”
I turned my head. “Is everything okay?”
The doctor nodded. “There’s the heartbeat. It looks good. And right there is the evidence that you are having a boy.”
I was thrilled, shocked, amazed, and overjoyed. I squeezed Chris’s hand. “Oh my God,” I said. “A boy. Thank You, Lord.”
* * *
With my face still wet from all the happy tears I’d cried in the doctor’s office, I called my parents with the good news. Chris phoned his parents, too. Both of our mothers spoke to me about the special love a son has for his mom and the protection he will always provide. I was overw
helmed with the profundity of creating this life that would help replenish the earth with a beautiful, smart, strong black man. So many of our men had been senselessly, violently taken from us, and here was my contribution to reversing that fact. I was not at that place where I thought about what he might do in life. It was just the fact that he would be, period.
Chris loved the name Sebastian. As a boy, one of his favorite movies was The NeverEnding Story, in which the lead boy’s name was Bastian. We thought Sebastian Morgan was quite a name and perhaps he’d need a nickname in school, so we gave him the middle initial A to create the nickname SAM. Sebastian Alexander Morgan. Of course, no one uses it.
In the middle months of my pregnancy, I toured for the second time in the play Issues: We All Got ’Em. Chris and my sister, Alexis, were also in it, ensuring every performance was a family affair. On the road, we fell into a daily routine of waking, eating, walking, resting, performing, and chilling. I listened to my friend Maxwell’s “Urban Hang Suite,” which filled me and my unborn son with peace and beauty. At 4:00 p.m., he began to stir, as if aware I was heading to the theater. At 8:00 p.m., he heard the overture and knew the play was about to start and began to move, as if limbering up. “Time to calm down,” Chris would say to my tummy. “Sebastian, Mommy needs you to be calm for a little bit.” And if we had a day off, Sebastian would still stir in the afternoon, as if to say, “Hey, aren’t we supposed to be going to the theater now?”
Navigating pregnancy, work, and traveling didn’t leave much room for anything else, which was a bit frustrating to handle when the presidential campaign for Barack Obama began to ramp up. Everything in me wanted to be a part of the campaign and movement. Especially when I had a very brief hello and handshake with Senator Obama at JFK airport. Aside from pledging my support to him and an aide (in passing), I wouldn’t get the chance to do more than make financial contributions and cast my vote for him. I remember telling Chris that night, “Guess who I saw at the airport? Barack Obama! He was nice!”
We also traveled to Las Vegas for the annual Trumpet Awards, where I announced to the who’s who of the community, including CeCe Winans, Usher, Toni Braxton, and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, that I was having a boy and he was going to become someone we all were proud of. At the reception, it seemed as if everyone in attendance touched my belly and shared in our happiness.