Annie Q Syed

Here is how it began…Augury was merely a thank you letter to a woman I befriended on April 11th, 2009, so as to express my gratitude for what her meeting meant for me. A series of events prior to and after to that meeting lead me to conclude I must title the collection of my writings “Augury.”

Augury

Between 121st and 120th streets on Fredrick Douglass Boulevard, otherwise known as 8th Avenue, in Manhattan, there is a magic store. It is no ordinary magic store: it is called Harlem Vintage; it sells wines. The area’s first boutique vintner.  The allure of the physical essence and the history behind the creation of the wine shop is wonderfully narrated on the website Harlem Vintage. The magic of which I speak, however, is governed by serendipitous meetings with people that take place there.

I am not a wine connoisseur. I know there is a red and a white and my level of tolerance for acidity makes my choices limited.  I know what I like and what I don’t when I taste something. I am not familiar with the ‘how-many-legs-on-the-wine-glass’ mean what or any other terminology that defines a taste. The first time I decided to stop by Harlem Vintage was because I could not believe that, in my neighborhood, there was a vintage wine store. In Central Harlem. Vintage? I had to look up the word “vintage” to find context with the word “wine.” I liked what it meant in my head so I decided to stop by and met Jai Jai, the beautiful owner. Upon our meeting I instantly knew she was someone I wanted to get to know better, and moreover, I wanted others I knew to meet her too! I told her I knew nothing about wines and just liked the feeling the store held–like a room familiar from childhood (without the wine bottles of course!)

Sometimes when I stopped by it was never even to taste or buy but to say hello. As time passed she learned about Marco, my favorite yoga instructor who had changed my life and I learned she was pregnant and still passionately working; she had a baby and I graduated law school; I met her business partner and she met my friends; I went to visit my family of friends in South Africa and she opened a wine bar next door; she met more of my eclectic set of friends and I met her husband; I introduced people to her wine bar she introduced me to her sister who went to yoga with me; she came out with a t-shirt line for the store and I bought one (recipient of numerous compliments); and the window into one another’s worlds kept expanding as time went by.

My first unique encounter with someone in the wine shop was due to the fragrance in the shop. I had often asked Jai Jai about the smell in the store: a dreamy scent that lingered well onto the sidewalk outside of the store. Jai Jai offered me the contact information for the woman who made the scented candles because she did not know the name of the candle (my hope being that I could find another maker who made that same scented candle). I never contacted that woman. One sunny early autumn day, soon thereafter, I saw a small crowd gathered for wine tasting and in a corner there was a table set with candles on it. I knew these had to be the candles with no names. I walked in the store and after the usual hellos to the always occupied, multi-tasking Jai Jai, made my way over to the table with the candles. There, next to the table, stood a pretty woman with short blond hair. Her name was Andrea and she had nice hands and her short nails were painted a deep, edgy red nail polish. Her hands looked like a magician’s when she wrapped the candles in paper for the customers. This was the creator of smells that had no names but feelings. I picked up and smelt few of the candles on display and finally decided on a smell that drew me most and bought it. I took Andrea’s contact information. Four months later, I bought another one. Then another one.

Another serendipitous encounter with someone in Harlem Vintage is more recent. On April 11th, a few hours before hosting a celebration with my friends for my 30th birthday, I decided to swing by and introduce Jai Jai to some non-New Yorker college friends of over ten years who were visiting me. It was a crowded evening in Harlem Vintage, but as usual, intrigued by what was brewing inside I took my friends in.

The first person that caught my eye was this dark skinned, petite woman, in a black leather jacket and I was awestruck by her features. She was stunning. Her face made me wish for the umpteenth time in my adult life that I could draw. Around her neck was wrapped the strap of her camera. She held a rather heavy looking professional photographer’s camera with the affection and care with which a mother would hold her first-born: stern-love. My mind could not decipher fast enough if I should notice her hands or her eyes or deep skin-tone hues or try to guess her age or the way her hands caressed the heavy camera she held. Unable to decide I gave up, scraping my attention off of her, and walked on over to the table where two equally attractive women sat at the table, bursting with the a super-nova energy, doing a book signing of their first book which they had co-authored: You Buy The Peanut Butter, I’ll Get the Bread: The Absolutely True Adventures of Best Friends in Business .  I do not know how quite to describe my next few actions, probably because they hold the most significance for me alone.

I have been to up and coming artists’ book-signings, cd releases, art exhibits, jewelry show cases–after all I live in i a big city like NYC—but I must confess that, although I support all creative endeavors from deep within the vortex of my being, hardly ever do I support it to the extent of purchasing the product. Usually the convenient excuse is money, never realizing that supporting another artist within my budget is probably the best money ‘wasted.’ So, when I reached the table and my eyes met Kirsten’s (the author who was standing to my right) I didn’t even turn my face around, I reached my arm back, trying to grab either Ali or Amir (my two friends who are twin brothers, I am their de facto ‘third twin’ since we were all born on the same day and time), whom I overheard  speaking to the beautiful woman with the camera (I don’t know how I overheard them given they can be very shy and sometimes speak at a decibel which is only audible to one another!) and grabbed one of their arms (don’t know which one) and turned my head a little ways and tried not to scream: Please. Just hand me $20. Real quick (as if there was only one copy of the book left!). Having known me for 10 years and knowing I never had enough cash on my persons, one of them handed me a $20 bill. I hurriedly added, “I promise, promise, promise, promise I will pay you as soon as we get back to the apartment!” (As if they didn’t know!). I handed Kirsten the money who instructed me to hand it to another woman who was in charge of collecting the money and she said to me, “We will sign it for you. What is your name?” Instead of telling her my name like a normal human being, I blurted, “I am not sure if you are going to believe me but I never really buy on such occasions.” She looked at me, smiled, and I knew she believed me.
She asked me what I did. Usually my answer is at least four sentences long, like a person suffering from multiple-personality disorder reaching for an identity in a bag of tricks. The answer that followed, which she heard in two second sound waves, had taken me twenty-two years to say: I write. I said it slowly, feeling the weight of every letter: i.w.r.i.t.e. There are few moments in life, after being born, when one can consciously feel the moment of his or her own conception. That was my clearest. I wrote my first complete short story when I was eight; I have never finished another story since, although I have accomplished much in between. “Of course,” replied Kirsten Poe Hill as if that was the only response she was expecting: why or how else would I support another writer.

I do not recall much else that was going on in the store after Kirsten Poe Hill and I started speaking. I do recall every word exchanged between this woman and I. I was speaking with this beautiful woman about many things besides her book and she was the answer to a question I had asked the Universe on my birthday in my parents’ backyard in the almond groves in California. I wondered if she felt it too but then I did not wonder further–what I felt was enough for me. Conviction.

At this point the other author had joined our conversation and so had the woman who was the photographer (and I think I told all of them how stunning they were at least three times). I asked for their cards. The photographer handed me a post-card (which had a picture she had taken) and I raised my eyes to meet hers and whispered, “Holy. God. You are the artist behind THIS photograph?” She was humble and smiled. This was no ordinary woman—this was Regina Fleming, an award winning photographer, world renowned. I knew her work well. The picture on the post card is quite famous.

The book is about the story of two friends, Renee E. Warren and Kirsten Poe Hill, after being quite broke with only peanut-butter sandwiches for dinner on some nights for weeks on straight, fifteen years ago, co-founded Noelle-Elaine Media Inc., a New York City based event management, media relations, and video production firm. It was not until I got home that my dear friend Erica explained to me how ‘big’ they were. These were no ordinary women: their firm had many notable corporate, non-profit, and celebrity clients.
I still have not read the book but I already know it is worth reading because it is not just about being women, not just about starting your own business, not just about dealing with personal relationships while pursuing your dreams, it is about much, much more than that.  Essentially, it is a passionate testament for everyone wanting to follow their fullest potential, the potential embedded within every breath that pulsates to be more than just a breath: that unless you have been declared clinically delusional, never settle for less than what you desire for the kind of life you want to live and the love you want. Ultimately, to live as authentically as you are brave enough to at any given moment.

That’s the best part of my block really: to see what is brewing inside Harlem Vintage. You never know what serendipity brings your way. For me, it brought the conversation I had with Kirsten. As I told the three women then: the reason this moment was so big and beautiful was not just for all the obvious reasons but we all had the insight, for a very brief moment, to recognize a four-dimensional, 360 degree view of humanity in which we could touch the hope for the best we are capable of offering one another.

Copyright, April 2009, Annie Q. Syed