Today we’d like to introduce you to Gold Meadows.
Hi Gold, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
As a girl growing up in Maryland, writing was self-rescue. Unbeknownst to me, it was cathartic and kept me from getting too close to the edge while navigating sexual and physical abuse from relatives. During summer day camp, in fourth or fifth grade, poetry evolved into songs. Every lyric went through a metamorphosis inside their own pupa and emerged from my mouth in song, and I knew it was home. Many nights, I slept in a ball with my back against the wall hoping to avoid being touched. Though my body did not feel sacred, nothing could lay a finger on my lyrics, and nothing could molest my music. As a student, I leaned on the side of getting straight A’s, but my good grades weren’t my meal ticket. During college, for which I earned a full track and field scholarship (one of the few fortunate results of overachieving to take my mind from my inner ache), I began to perform at every school event and talent show I heard about.
Meanwhile, I became pregnant with my first child. With a chorus of, “You won’t be able to graduate with a child. You’ll have to quit track,” on repeat throughout my circle of close friends and relatives, I proceeded to have the baby anyway. At this point, I entered the most excruciatingly difficult leg of my journey. My grandmother kicked me out, and I couldn’t stay on campus, but my coach ensured I got a decent refund check each semester to help me with rent and bills as I continued to run track and attend classes post c-section. I worked, I ran, I parented, and I studied seemingly around the clock which landed me in the hospital twice for immobilizing muscle spasms. Still, I managed to have my most successful year of track and field that year. My daughter’s father was my high school sweetheart, but we split, and I took full custody of my daughter after he lost his temper allowing his fist to speak rather than articulating through words. That same year, my mother died suddenly, and the following year, my younger sister passed from liver cancer at age 20. I was searching for a lifeline and found alcohol. As this path began to destroy me, my aunt came and took my daughter for the summer. During this time, I went to a local church, and at this fork in the road, I chose recovery.
Eventually, I graduated college Summa Cum Laude and went back home to become the third member of the front line of one of my state’s most popular gospel go-go bands Peculiar People. Seven years with Peculiar honed my ability to connect with a crowd and to deliver my songs with passion. The band dismantled due to schedule and ego conflicts, and I moved on to join a newly forming band Nova. Around this time, I had made it through my sixth year of marriage to my former band’s (Peculiar People) manager. The marriage was scary and volatile, but somehow, I stuck through 10 years and two children. During the marriage, I came in the primary breadwinner working full time at WJZ TV 13 as a web producer, but around the six years mark, we agreed I’d stay home with the children. I left my job, and I quickly assessed being a stay-at-home mom wasn’t the best fit for me because money was withheld from me, and I was unable to provide for myself. I began editing novels, and I felt a little like myself again. Soon after, a dear friend suggested I try background acting. I’d not been in any type of acting production since I was 15 in the stage play The Spirit In Charles Manor, and I told her, “I don’t act!” Her response, “You do! Do you ever see your own expression and emotion on stage when you sing? You’re an actress!”
I decided to look into it and immediately landed on the set of House of Cards as a reporter. That familiar homey feeling came over me, and I fell in love deeply with the craft. Several commercials and small roles later, I sat in the audition seat for the PBS period piece Mercy Street. I sat with dozens of lovely sounding singers with the hope that I’d be one of the 13 casting chose for the contraband choir. Not only was I chosen, they bumped me up to get married on the show with X-Factor finalist Marcus Canty who also happened to audition alongside me for the role. It was my first time working one-on-one with the immediate cast of a network show. I was unaware that the role made me automatically eligible to join the union (SAG-AFTRA) until the notice arrived in the mail. Fresh off of a divorce following a frightful encounter with my drunken husband, I decided it was time for a change. I had spent a year sleeping on my ex-husband’s father’s sofa with my three children in tow, and I couldn’t bare it any longer.
It was during a VIP room visit from a relative who came to speak with me during the intermission of a stage play I was in that I got the “where” I should move. She said, “Do you know that you’re good at this? You need to be in California!” My intimidation by the price of traveling was of little consequence because the next day, she sent me a ticket for a roundtrip flight to California to go and check it out. I spent a month in North Hollywood, out of which I booked four acting gigs and performed at The Study for their R&B night. After that month, I returned to Maryland just long enough to save up a couple of hundred dollars for another ticket to move for good. Reaching out to various companies, I found a job with a company called Playworks in SoCal, and I hopped on a plane to leave. My children would join me in waves with my oldest who was at this point 15 coming two months after I left. She stayed with me in a motel for a month before we moved in with a friend for two months. Right after this, we moved into what would be my first place of my own since she was an infant and I was in college. A few days after we moved in, my two youngest arrived at LAX, and I wept after not having held them for six months.
We’ve lived here in Temple City since December of 2018, and I’ve found serenity. I’ve begun healing, and I’ve grown as an artist publishing my first novel, releasing my first music video since 2009, and filming a children’s show for my current employer after two years with Playworks. My oldest daughter got into the Opera program at LACHSA where she was able to sing at the 2020 Grammy Awards backing Common. The youngest have also found their wings with my six-year-old becoming fluent in Spanish as part of her school’s dual immersion program, and my son who is 11 was able to enjoy a stellar season on our local basketball team. Overall, I’ve found so much joy in having my own space and being able to shed the hurt and devastation of the past.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The most arduous challenge for me were acquiring self-worth after thinking only sex made me worthy. Growing up with uncles and my mother’s husband molesting me, I was confused about sexuality. I spent many days being afraid and tormented by them along with everyone at school who teased me for my thick glasses. I remember one of my summer camp counselors who was probably 18 or 19 taking my glasses, and I could see only color. I chased him jumping up and down trying to get my glasses from him. This reaching and jumping seemed to plague me in all areas of life as a youth. I had no self-esteem until track and field. There was also the physical abuse. When I was 9, my grandmother put a hole so deep in my forehead that my aunt instructed me to lie and tell my teacher my brother accidentally hit me in the head with a bat. Though I recall being wrong for putting peanut butter on my brother as I made a peanut butter sandwich, I knew something was very wrong with how I was beat and blood spilling from my head. The punches by my daughter’s father and being put in a headlock and told I’d be killed by my ex-husband all fueled the feelings of worthlessness that I still work to overcome to this day.
I mourned my sister for 15 years before I finally said I have to allow myself to heal from her loss. It was something I just couldn’t wrap my mind around. She was healthy, a soccer player at Trinity University. We had been co-captains of my high school track team together, her as a sprinter and me as a middle-distance runner. I spent many days in my college two on my apartment floor with my face in the floor wailing and berating God for taking her from me. Many friends called. Some came knocking at my door, but I couldn’t answer. Because my great grandmother raised me and three of my mother’s five children, my relationship was shakey with my mom, and my dad was mostly absent. That made my mother’s death painful, but not the devastating pain of losing Monique. I remember our last conversation the week she passed. I picked her up from my grandmother’s house, and I drove us to the mall. While pushing her in her wheelchair, we noticed a talent show taking place with WPGC (the local radio station). She pleaded with me to sign up, and I refused emphatically. One of the most impactful conversations in my life followed this refusal. She said to me, “Do you see me in this wheelchair? I wish I could dance again. I wish I could use my legs and run again, and here you are complaining about why you don’t want to use what you have.” It broke my heart so much that I jumped into the line to sign up and sang my heart out when my turn came around.
Moving to Cali, I had no car, so we bused everywhere, and that took a toll on me. One morning in December, it was pouring down raining and cold. As we walked to the bus stop, I saw a huge puddle and to avoid it, moved to the other side. At this time, I along with my two young children stepped into another huge cold puddle, and it set me off inside emotionally though they weren’t aware. I got my daughter to her school in Pasadena. Then my son and I bused to his school in Alhambra, then we bused back after to pick her up and bused home. This was two hours of commuting in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. At one point, I attended an event with Playworks for a holiday dinner at BJ’s and on my way home, I stood near the train tracks just wondering if I should jump. I called my best friend from Maryland, and she managed to walk me through my hysterical tears. The car eventually came, but in the moment, I couldn’t see that I’d eventually get a car; I only felt despair.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a singer, songwriter, creative writer, and actress.
I think the thing I’m most proud of is making moves that allowed my children to thrive and do amazing things.
One thing that sets me apart is my energy on stage. Many say I take the stage by storm. I know this came from being in a go-go band where you had to have energy to get a crown into your music.
What were you like growing up?
I was shy and very much a bookworm. Most of my time was spent reading and following behind my grandmother for affection. I did love to sing and write poems. I also spent a lot of time daydreaming and imagining myself on stage.
Pricing:
- “Shift” $8.00 on Amazon
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: http://findgoldthings.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/findgoldthings
- Twitter: twitter.com/findgoldthings
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCByweg0MktMPoy0yjevPEkQ
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4svEF5VObjqJ982CPKTs64?si=VfU_pJN1R4WNZOl8lWjYLA
