By Janet M. Reynolds
I am on my way to the shopping center in Queenstown. I am 12years old and in no great hurry to get there. The little town where I live is called Brentwood, in Hyattsville County, Maryland. It’s a small community of hard-working middle class people who maintain their homes and live quietly. I live with my aunt—my late mother’s sister—who finally married and now has a two-year-old son of her own.
As I’m walking toward the shopping plaza, I see Mt. Rainier High School on my left and then the Queenstown apartments come into view. These apartments are not that old but there is something about them that I don’t care for. Every time I pass them I get this feeling of unease. But I am a very intuitive child and I know—I just know—that I will move there some time in the future.
I have this strong feeling that I will live in those Queenstown apartments, and I am not happy about that one little bit.
As I’m getting closer to the apartments, I remember what happened at Halloween the year before when I decided to go trick or treating inside the Queenstown apartment complex. There was something that drew me there, and I could not figure it out.
The apartment buildings had four floors to climb and four apartment doors on each level. As I walked inside one of the buildings, the lights suddenly went out and every floor was pitch black. I was by myself and, even though it was eerie, I continued to knock on the doors, shouting “Trick or Treat,” and holding out my candy bag. But something told me enough was enough, so I followed my intuition and only canvassed the first two levels before heading home.
Quite a few years later, when I was married with two young sons – a four-year old and a two-year old, the Queenstown apartments came back into my life. The boys were 21 months apart. My marriage was faltering, and I was contemplating leaving my husband. We lived in a house in Kent Village and, at that time, I was working as a data entry operator in Brentwood, which was very near to the Queenstown apartments. One of the logistical problems about leaving my marriage was not having a car of my own. How could I get to work without a car?
My salary was good, but not sufficient for what I had to do. I didn’t want to go to a lawyer so I knew my husband was going to have to help me…and I was not so sure that he would. I wanted to go to a counselor but his opinion was if we can’t work it out together no one else could help us. So what I did next was leave.
Would you like to guess where I moved? Yes, the Queenstown apartments because that was what I could afford.
The apartment complex was almost four miles from where I worked and, with no car, I had to walk an hour each way, every day. I would pass my aunt’s home and sometimes I’d stop to talk to my cousins. I couldn’t stay long because my boys would be ready to arrive home, and I always had to be there to meet them.
They attended a local nursery school that picked them up in the morning and then bought them home in the evening. After three or four months of this, I finally saved up enough to buy a car. What a relief that was after four mile walks in all weather, rushing to meet the van bringing my sons home.
I stayed in the Queenstown apartments for exactly one year. I didn’t always have time to mingle with my neighbors but, when I did see them, they were always nice. I can say one thing – there was every culture and nationality possible living in that apartment complex.
I knew I didn’t have a problem with where people came from or what culture or color they were, but what my family thought about the matter was altogether different. In retrospect I realized that, at age 12, when I was passing the Queenstown apartments on my way to shopping, the unease I felt may have been on account of family prejudices that were hammered at me from the age of two. As I grew older, I replaced those values with my own.
It’s not who or what you are that’s important—it’s how you treat me. You could be pink with yellow stripes but, if you treat me with respect, you get that respect back.
I had many good friends over the years of different origins and colors. I think that living in a place I had been taught to fear changed my mind about a lot of things.
The Queenstown apartments are still there after all these years. When I go home and pass those buildings, I say a silent blessing to the Queenstown apartments for sheltering my small family when I was starting to rebuild my life. And for surrounding me with kind people just when I needed them most.
My stay there opened my eyes to different ideas about people than those I had been taught as a child. I guess it was just another lesson in life for me to learn and I am thankful.
Rev. Janet M. Reynolds is a Certified Spirit Medium and ordained minister with a private practice in Tampa, FL. She specializes in practical channeled guidance from the spirit world, through private intuitive consultations and group séance gatherings. She is a graduate of the mediumship certification program of the College of Metaphysical Studies in Clearwater FL, and has also studied at The Metaphysical Academy in Tampa and the Arthur Finlay College of Psychic and Mediumship in England. Janet was ordained as a minister through Harmony Church in Tampa and currently serves at People’s Spiritualist Church in St. Petersburg, FL. Certified in clinical hypnotherapy by the American Institute of Hypnotherapy, Janet obtained advanced instruction in hypnosis and past life regression at the Edgar Cayce Foundation of Virginia Beach, VA. She has studied medical intuition with Caroline Myss and Dr. Norman Shealy and is a certified Reiki Master. Contact Janet at janet@bluefeather.net.