About

One of my earliest memories is holding a black trash bag that was never meant to hold a life.

My hands were small, working quickly, gathering what could be reached before there was time to understand what was happening. There was no sorting and no choosing what mattered most—only the urgency of carrying something forward when everything else was being left behind.

That moment did not end my childhood. It redirected it.

What followed was a life shaped by instability—by learning how to read spaces, observe people closely, and adjust without instruction. Home was temporary. Stability uncertain. Meaning did not arrive all at once. It emerged slowly, through experience, missteps, and the repeated effort to continue.

Beneath all of this was a persistent desire: to belong somewhere without fear of being moved again. To know what it meant to stay. To imagine a life that included family, continuity, and a sense of peace that did not have to be defended.

Pursuing that desire did not come with permission. Wanting stability was often dismissed as unrealistic. Wanting parents and siblings together—an intact family—was treated as naïve. Wanting peace was misunderstood as weakness. The word dreamer was not offered as encouragement, but as something closer to dismissal.

And yet, the pursuit continued.

Language became part of that pursuit—not as theory or explanation, but as lived communication shaped through Ameslan, the visual language that grounded my earliest understanding of the world. Attention, observation, and lived experience shaped meaning long before it could be named.

This way of knowing—rooted in experience rather than certainty—shapes how I remember, how I write, and how I remain close to life as it unfolds.

The Dreamer’s Trash Bag grew from this pursuit. The memoir traces a life shaped by instability, effort, and persistence, and the decision to keep reaching toward something steadier even when it was treated as an impossible dream.

The Dreamer’s Trash Bag is planned for publication in Summer 2026.

Thank you for being here.

James B. Smith