Fog Lights by Nadiyah Ngah D. Windsong

Painting from the private art collection of Nivea Castro.

Nairobi, 1998. MTV. Will Smith’s “Just the Two of Us” filling the living room. And me, ten years old, already knowing that Bill Withers was underneath it — warm and patient, holding the whole thing up. That is my funny superpower: I can hear a song and know immediately what it samples.

It was my great-grandma who had raised her, who taught her how to iron before she knew how to read, who took her to the mercado de todos for the best and frothiest chocolate milk, who made her attend mass at the Catedral de Guadalajara, even if she didn’t want to go because it had an urn with the bones of a little saint girl and that scared her.

I was standing on the field at Truist Park, where the Atlanta Braves host an annual HBCU Night in August.  This event honors presidents at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and salutes the positive impact of HBCUs on our communities. As my name was announced, I walked out and waved to the crowd, trusting that my strength would hold out through the night.