The morning of my seventy‑third birthday smelled of freshly brewed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee and the petunias in my garden. I woke up, as always, without an alarm at exactly 6:00 a.m. The Georgia sun had just brushed the tops of the old pecan trees.
Its slanted rays drew long, shimmering lines across the floor of the screened‑in porch.
I love this time of day. The silence is still dense, untouched by the noise of Atlanta traffic, leaf blowers, and delivery trucks.
In these moments, it feels like you can hear the grass grow, like the whole world is holding its breath just for you. I sat at the table Langston built about forty years ago and looked out at my garden.
Every shrub, every flower bed, every winding brick path— all of it was imagined and cultivated by me.
Hydrangeas heavy with bloom, roses I’d nursed through frost, a stubborn magnolia that refused to die. This house, this getaway home on the outskirts of Atlanta, was my unrealized concert hall. A long time ago, in another life, I was a young, highly promising architect.
I had the project of my dreams laid out before me: a new performing arts center downtown.
My name was on the plans. I was chosen.
I was funded. I remember the smell of thick blueprint paper, the scratch of a graphite pencil drawing the lines of a future marvel of glass and concrete.
I used to fall asleep seeing the auditorium in my mind—tier upon tier of seats, a stage bathed in golden light.
Then came Langston with his first “genius” business idea: imported high‑end woodworking machinery that was supposed to make us rich. He talked about contracts and wholesale orders, about shipping containers and distribution deals, about “getting in early.” We didn’t have the money, and I made a choice. I liquidated the inheritance meant for my dream, for my future, and dropped every dime into his.
The business crashed and burned within a year, leaving behind only debt and a garage full of expensive machines no one wanted.
And I stayed here. Instead of a concert hall, I built this house— pouring everything I had into it.
The remnants of my talent, all my strength, all my unspent love for form and line. This home became my quiet masterpiece, my private museum.
A masterpiece no one else, except me, ever really saw.
“Aura, you seen my blue polo? The one that looks best?”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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