The yellow lines were the only safe place left
That morning, Mujiba Salaam Parker was exactly where she was supposed to be. A Rutgers graduate with a master’s degree. A respected professional helping manage part of a $175 million revitalization initiative. Before the morning was out she was walking the yellow center lines of a busy Camden street during a manic episode, convinced they were the safest place left in the world.
In the Middle of the Street: Walking on the Yellow Lines is the true story of what happened before, during and after that moment.
Her life holds striking contrasts: two Rutgers degrees, a 25-year career and a paid-off home, alongside bipolar episodes, homelessness, welfare and bankruptcy. It is a story about hardship and achievement, and about how faith, choice, purpose and an unwavering belief in what was possible kept her moving forward.
What happens when the life you’re determined to create collides with a condition that can temporarily alter your reality?
Above all, the book challenges the idea that a mental-health diagnosis has to define the limits of a person’s life, and asks readers not to judge a person’s entire life by the hardest moment in it.