I took two pictures this week, one of the sunset and the other of Los Angeles City Hall. I could not figure why they grabbed my attention. For some reason they seemed to go together. Perhaps because the two photos symbolize many things for me — things about the past and the future.
The sunset made a silhouette of the Downtown skyline, with my childhood and life-long neighborhood in Leimert Park in the background — a fading past sinking into the distance. I've taken a number of photos of City Hall in recent months, but this latest one looked new to me. I guess I started taking pictures of City Hall because I saw it so often as a child while watching Perry Mason or Dragnet. My earlier photos showed only City Hall, capturing nothing beyond the gleaming white stone edifice.
That's how I felt about my future not long ago — nothing beyond Skid Row, where I now live, just a few blocks away from City Hall.
This latest photo caught a mountain peaking through the skyline. I captured something beyond City Hall.
These days I can see a life beyond Skid Row. It's starting to reveal its potential.
Let me explain.
These past few weeks have been big for me. I finished my third installment of this column, my story. This is part of my studies at the University of Skid Row. You and I are doing the work together.
It was a different feeling, writing those columns. It felt new to work with an editor who reviewed my thoughts and the words I use to express them. I feel fortunate to now be a part of a progressive news organization and have an editor who has shown trust, confidence and patience. That's important because the freedom of the column is frightening.
All of that runs through my mind as I prepare for a court hearing that could lead to a reduction from felony to misdemeanor for an old charge against me. I maintain my innocence altogether in regard to the incident, which helped push me along to Skid Row. But I know something about our system of justice, and I want the reduction from felony to misdemeanor in any case. It will change many things — including my sense of self esteem. It will open the door to a new future by expunging a criminal conviction from my record. I am more than willing to compete court-ordered classes related to this incident. I have already completed 36, with 16 remaining.
I am getting close. Close to a breakthrough on my legal troubles. Close to finishing my studies at this curious college called Skid Row.
I am no longer in a rush to leave this place, though.
I want to leave, to move on. I relieve my time will come.
I will not hurry, though. I will use this time and these circumstances to develop my understanding of society. I will learn more about how it works, and the impacts that its institutions — educational, governmental, economic, etc. — have on the individual and vice versa. The dynamics of the interplay and the countless factors are fascinating.
So this is my classroom, our own workshop. I will continue to submit to you topics for your consideration. I know I will move on. I sense that this is my final term at the University of Skid Row.
But I won't hurry through — and I hope you'll take your time and join me again next week.
Walter Melton is a writer for the L.A. Garment & Citizen.
Collage by LA Beez
Leave a comment