Chapter 84
Becoming Who I Am
To avoid the slave economy as best he could, William C. raised potatoes, corn, beans and tomatoes in the back of his cabin. Sometimes as a treat, he would take his fishing line and bucket out early in the morning as the mist rose up off the pond. The best time to catch fish was early in the morning before the sun burned the mist and the fish retired to deeper and deeper gradations. As he cast his line out on the mist, dragonflies would flirt from spot to spot taunting the marine life below the water’s surface.
During these moments of solitude, William C. was most prone to lose himself in his thoughts. He was pleased with his growing proficiency in Greek. He was almost able to read a complete sentence without pause or stumbling. Some words like Titanomachy carried a universe of meaning, a twilight of the Gods. Those were his evenings for the most part, the life of a hermit-like scholar pouring over his Greek primer by the candlelight.
Mornings were devoted to writing. He had a million ideas for essays – The Intuition of Colored People, Pennies in a Stream, Moonlight in Vermont, Self Reliance as the Secret to Success, Nuance and Complexity as a Way of Being in the World. His challenge was never possibility. His task was to grow in mature discernment, the judgment to slice away the good from the great, the pedestrian from the inspirational. He could touch people with his writing, but he was never quite sure he had hit his mark until he received reader feedback. This vexed William C. and, in his solitude in the woods, he had ample time to think about producing a desired effect upon the reader.
He could never grow in this way had he remained at home under a roof suffused with slave dollars from afar. Descendant guilt would have dulled his insight into the inner nature of things. And, of course, there were his strained relations with his mother whom he had written off as hopefully complicit in the slave system. Not only was she complicit but her consciousness, her awareness about the lingering effects of slavery was razor thin. If it wasn’t concrete, it didn’t exist for his mother.
And then there was dear Daddy, a corrupted man who betrayed mother with his best friend’s widow. There was a special place in torment for such a man. William C. had thought of changing his name to cut off any connection to his father. The resentment and grudge against father ran deep.
For these reasons, the cabin in the woods was a godsend for William C. He removed his parents from his awareness and focused on becoming who he was, who William C. was freed from expectations and ancestral guilt and regrets.
He recast his line into the rising mist. “That’s my idea for my next essay, 'Becoming Who I Am.'” As the fish ignored the bait on William C.’s hook, William thought about the points he might make. That life was richer when one engaged life in one’s unique way. And this only made sense. If there were 1 million Colored Americans, then there were 1 million different Colored American life stories, experiences and truths. They were all authentic, each and every single one from Vermont patriot St. Claire to Boston Rev. Thomas Paul, Sr. to the most brutalized slave in Charleston, South Carolina. Authentic Truth could never be stereotype, only sincere perspective as lived life experience mattered.
As he thought about the idea some more, William C. reached an understanding which explained why Colored Americans could be so divided and simultaneously united at times. He was brought out of his thoughts by a tug on his line. A bite! A bite! William C. yanked back on the line and, like an experienced fisherman, pulled in some trout. Dinner, William C. thought to himself.
He removed the struggling fish from his hook and tossed the quivering life into his bucket.
That morning, William C. wrote out an outline for his essay, Becoming Who I Am. The ideas came quickly and fast and with ease, always the sign of an inspired piece. William C. wrote well into the afternoon as his anxieties and self-consciousness melted away. He always felt the sensation of running when he wrote in flow like this. His hand couldn’t move fast enough across the parchment. When he finished, he placed the essay in an envelope. The next morning, he walked into Concord town center and mailed the essay to Publisher William Lloyd Garrison, care of The Liberator.
Garrison read the essay once and marveled at the raw, blunt honesty of the piece. It was as if William C. could not do less than be completely honest. The essay was published to widespread acclaim and discrete discomfort within the Nell household.