ABOUT

It started young—when I first flew.  I could not have been more than 10 years old, or so when I first got on the airplane.  The big metal bird, the whir of the engines, the daunting size as you walk up those many steps to enter into this massive door that like 3 feet (0.91 m) thick. What feelings and words are there to describe how magical it really can be? A little black boy from Jamaica going “up north” and I’ll tell you this, I’ve never looked back, I was hooked, in love.

Being a tall black and a wanderer isn’t easy.  It’s a feeling, it’s a place, it’s part of me that wants to be on the move.  Seeing new things, meeting new people and discovering new experiences.  For me, it’s not a trip, it’s a way of life—a mantra.  Tall black and nomadic… simple words but them most salient observation you can make.

Jamaica has a program where they fly unaccompanied minors with little clear bags, later blue, around their necks to the USA and London. I flew alone my second time, as a little hummingbird.  If you are that old to remember. Can you imagine it?  Little old me, a poor little boy from rural Jamaica who still had scars on his feet from walking barefoot. I’m flying alone on a fancy airplane getting ackee and salt fish with yellow yam for breakfast on his way to New York City!!  

That spirit is where I feel that my heart lies.  That happiness of seeing the plane take off and knowing when it lands I’ll be somewhere new.  I’ll be in a different place, ready and ripe to take in what new experience lies ahead.  The unknown and unfamiliar, not just on a screen but in front of my face.  That is what I live for.

—Tall Black Nomad.