RVS Member Spotlight
Regina Cash-Clark
Carolina Dreaming: Minding My Roots
“This essay explores the relationship that I had with my late grandmother and her father as I grew up going to South Carolina over summer breaks and for special occasions. I reflect on my roots, from family ties to the hairs on my head, as I remember time shared doing my grandmother’s hair and lessons learned from my great-grandfather about our family’s history. It’s also a representation of all of us who are children and descendants of the Great Migration and how those ties to the South have been kept strong.”
Carolina Dreaming: Minding My Roots by Regina Cash-Clark
It wasn’t easy growing up so far away from close family. All of my mother’s siblings and her parents lived below the Mason-Dixon line. We’d do our best to stay in touch between the long car rides or flights that brought us closer. But it wasn’t anywhere near the same as living close to them, the way most of my aunts and uncles did in their interconnected and tight-knit community. Over the years, the wires of our old wall-mounted phone became the lifeline, the thread that connected us across the miles, squeezing together the lagging years during calls when my Grandma would ask, “How y’all doin’?” and we would say, “Fine.” Always fine, even if it wasn’t… Fine because you can’t tell your grandma that your family’s falling apart, your dad’s moved out and your mom is falling apart and you’re doing all of the cooking and caring for your little sister, when you’re only eleven. How do you put that into words? So I just learned to say “I’m fine…” Fine like her silky threaded hair, always neat and stylish and sometimes styled by me. I loved the feel of her freshly-washed locks that I would smooth and comb over forgotten summers.
Regina Cash-Clark, serves as 1st VP Programs for NCNW Raritan Valley Section. She is a writer and associate professor based in New Jersey. She previously served on the editorial staff of Essence magazine and has worked as a copywriter and freelance editor. Her work has appeared in the short story collection A Kind of Mad Courage, and she is currently working on an essay collection Working Our Nerves: Essays on Black Trauma. She also holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. As a wife and mother of four, she values the importance of sharing and showcasing diverse voices.