Table of Contents
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Part One: Mud Lake Memories, Crystal Lake Dreams
Chapter 1: Watching the Shimmer from the Shore
Chapter 2: Mom Drops the Nuclear Family Bomb
Chapter 3: High School, Low Point
Chapter 4: Teenage Motherhood: A Babysitter for the Prom
Part Two: Dreams Deferred, Detours, and Downturns
Chapter 5: Work Instead of College: Not the End of the World, Just the End of a Dream
Chapter 6: College: That’s Not a Work/Study Program, It’s My Life
Chapter 7: Rock and Roll, Sex, and Battle Fatigue
Chapter 8: The Big Break and How I Almost Blew It
Part Three: The Big Bounce-Back
Chapter 9: Finding Myself in Boston
Chapter 10: Marriage, Maturity, and Making VP
Chapter 11: Big Pimpin’ in the Big Apple
Chapter 13: Stanford: “If We Catch You Working, We’ll Have to Let You Go”
Part Four: Making It Big, Making It Work, and Making It Matter
Chapter 14: New York, Part III
Chapter 15: On Top of the (Uni)World
Chapter 17: 9/11 and Other Acts of Terrorism . . .
Chapter 18: Life as a Vigilante: Coming Back Smaller and Better
Chapter 19: Puttin’ My Foot in It
Chapter 20: What a Legend Becomes Most
To my husband, who makes me happy so I can work
Introduction
Mining for Gold in Muddy Water . . . Returning the Page
The city of Pontiac, Michigan was celebrating its 150th birthday in March 2011, and my role in the festivities was “hometown girl made good.” Being honored as a lifetime achiever by Pontiac is no small thing—my hometown has produced two Olympic gold medalists, renowned jazz musicians Hank, Thad, and Elvin Jones, and the noted playwright Phillip Hayes Dean, a Chicago native whose family moved to Pontiac when he was young. I am flattered and pleased, though the achievements for which the city recognized me could never have happened if I had stayed within its boundaries. I could describe my blessings as unimaginable, except for my belief that they came to me precisely because of my imagination.
My life in New York and improbable career in advertising have taken me into the world of famous people, from President Clinton, Bill Cosby, and Johnnie Cochran to Magic Johnson, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Spike Lee. Advertising Age magazine once named me one of the best and brightest in a mostly white industry. The leading organization in multicultural advertising has awarded me the standing of “Legend.” I have been a senior vice president of Motown Records, home of musicians I idolized during my youth in Pontiac. The work I am lucky enough to do for a living, my hometown watches on TV. That night in Michigan, my fellow honorees would include a retired NBA basketball star, a billionaire real estate developer, a noted author, a legendary union leader, and an award-winning New York journalist. I wondered how many of them, like me, were motivated to succeed by the feeling that their hometowns were too small to hold their dreams. Had they, like me, ever fallen from grace and had to pick themselves up? I thought of the years I had spent longing to leave Pontiac in order to “make good,” and of the time I had spent clawing at the imaginary walls that held me there. I even wondered if a bit of prodigal confession should be part of my remarks.
On the way to the program where I was to be honored, I attempted to drive through the former site of the public housing project where I grew up, only to find it impenetrably reclaimed by nature. The sapling trees of my childhood were now tall and strong obstructions to my attempt to revisit the past, and the land was overgrown with thick brush, grasses, and cattail reeds. The location of my childhood home once again belongs to creatures that were there long before me, and nature’s reliable cycle of destruction and resurrection was not to be interrupted. Gone was the horseshoe-shaped drive where fresh-off-the-line cars had once cruised in search of fast young girls. A pleasant memory fragment of a passing white convertible, the R&B tune “Knock on Wood” wafting from its radio, drifted through my mind. Trailing behind it was the realization that nostalgia blunts the pain of the past by filtering it through the comfort of now. My adolescent angst was now as ephemeral as a recollection floating on a brain wave. From the condos across the lake, the view is now of a tranquil natural habitat. When economic times are better, and we humans make our presence felt again, the critters will likely be displaced by housing befitting the valuable waterfront setting. An unexpected surge of real affection for my working-class homestead washed over me as I realized that it, too, is destined for change and upward mobility. I drove away from my invisible past, finally understanding what it could tell me about my present: that life is a constant process of becoming and transforming.