What if everything you ever wanted was within your reach, but you missed out on it because you were too busy being caught up in some neurotic freak out to seize the opportunity? Davilin is a young woman asking herself that very question. She's 28 and a semester away from earning a master's degree, leaving grad school and her job as a teaching assistant, and heading out into the "real world" again. She has everything to look forward to, right? She's not so sure.
Six years before, she was a bright-eyed, 22-year old post-grad who just knew she was on her way to realizing her life-long dream of breaking into the entertainment industry. When her careful plans fell through, she spiraled out of control. Now, she faces an uncertain future once again, and she's afraid of revisiting those dark places that nearly destroyed her.
As she braces for the big "what's next?", she keeps going back to one thought: remember who you are. The problem is, she doesn't know anymore. Her mom called her the child of destiny. What does that even mean? She used to think she knew, but now... So she turns to the past to find her way into the future.
Born to Fly is a generational memoir in which the author, Davilin L. Deadmon, recounts her life, as well as the lives of her mother, Ruthie, and her grandmother, Mamie, from childhood until the age of 28. Mamie Harvey is a beer-drinking, tobacco chewing, gun toting force of nature who could fight like a man in her prime, and whose determination saw her family through extreme poverty and years of domestic violence in rural Mississippi. Her daughter, Ruthie, who was known as Muhammad Ali for a time in her formative years, survived the pangs of hunger and the furor of violence in her childhood home, and as a teen mother, she vowed that her children would have something better. The daughter and granddaughter of these two women should've been unstoppable. Growing up in a lower-middle class, African American family in Arkansas, Davilin didn't realize the rich inheritance of strength and survival at her disposal. Born to Fly is the story of that discovery.
Both humorous and heartbreaking, Born to Fly is a journey of self-realization that may inspire you to seek your own "inheritance" and remember who you really are.
Six years before, she was a bright-eyed, 22-year old post-grad who just knew she was on her way to realizing her life-long dream of breaking into the entertainment industry. When her careful plans fell through, she spiraled out of control. Now, she faces an uncertain future once again, and she's afraid of revisiting those dark places that nearly destroyed her.
As she braces for the big "what's next?", she keeps going back to one thought: remember who you are. The problem is, she doesn't know anymore. Her mom called her the child of destiny. What does that even mean? She used to think she knew, but now... So she turns to the past to find her way into the future.
Born to Fly is a generational memoir in which the author, Davilin L. Deadmon, recounts her life, as well as the lives of her mother, Ruthie, and her grandmother, Mamie, from childhood until the age of 28. Mamie Harvey is a beer-drinking, tobacco chewing, gun toting force of nature who could fight like a man in her prime, and whose determination saw her family through extreme poverty and years of domestic violence in rural Mississippi. Her daughter, Ruthie, who was known as Muhammad Ali for a time in her formative years, survived the pangs of hunger and the furor of violence in her childhood home, and as a teen mother, she vowed that her children would have something better. The daughter and granddaughter of these two women should've been unstoppable. Growing up in a lower-middle class, African American family in Arkansas, Davilin didn't realize the rich inheritance of strength and survival at her disposal. Born to Fly is the story of that discovery.
Both humorous and heartbreaking, Born to Fly is a journey of self-realization that may inspire you to seek your own "inheritance" and remember who you really are.
