Posts

Imagine, The Idealist’s Theme Song

This song popped in my head today and I thought I would share.  It reminded me of one Sunday when I went to a church in my neighborhood.  At the end of the service, we all held hands and sang this song.  By the time we got to the end, I was a moist mess.  I needed two tissues (or one, used in the correct order).  One to wipe the tears from my eyes, the other, to blow my nose.

No tissues today.  Just a good feeling in my heart.  Imagine that…

Book Three: Raising Fences: A Black Man’s Love Story

Michael Datcher’s Raising Fences was the next Black Male author who blew me away.  Reading his story felt familiar as if we knew each other.  That feeling mainly was created because we are about the same age and share many of the same cultural references.  Datcher, like Nathan McCall gave voice to his inner thoughts and feelings.  Not just the defensive or angry feelings that are easiest to express but the softer, more vulnerable feelings like yearnings.  It’s easy to read about how an author or character would like a new car or some other material possession but reading about the inner workings of the heart and soul is something totally different.  With Raising Fences Michael Datcher delivered.  His story about growing up in LA, yearning for his father or a father, resonates with the poignancy with which he was able to write.  Most girls are taught to dream of being a wife and mother.  However, it is quite different and, in a way, special, to read the words of a man who dreamed of being a husband and father.  It is quite special indeed to read the words of one who could write of his dreams and struggles in the face of all the obstacles his socioeconomic status has in place that makes such dreams a long-shot.

Raising Fences was a beautiful read from a gifted storyteller, telling the story of his life, his hopes and his dreams.  When I finished reading the book, my heart felt light.

Don’t just take my word for how good of a book this is, buy it!  Or, borrow it from the library or from someone who owns it.  Or “liberate” it from someone’s bookshelf to be definitely returned at a future date.  Kindle or eBook seems not be an option unfortunately...

Book Two: Makes Me Wanna Holler

Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall made me want to – meet him.  After having read his autobiography, I was blown away by his life story and the way in which he wrote about what life had been like for him growing up with the negative pressures exerted on young Black men.  In his book, maybe for the first time, I was allowed a peek inside of a Black man’s feelings.  The emotional honesty with which McCall wrote about his feelings regarding the various situations he confronted, for a moment, peeled away the layers to see and feel the heart of a Black man who displayed his feelings honestly and in print.  I was in my early twenties when he wrote the book and I’m not sure when I read it.  However, the concept of having a Black man share his deepest, most tender feelings was something I can honestly say I had not been exposed to in my formative years.  The boy that McCall was in many ways seemed similar to the boys I grew up with.  Not communicating.  Communicating desire but not feelings.  Creating an identity through posturing instead of being.  Yet, the man that he became touched me with the simple honesty of his feelings.

Yes, Makes Me Wanna Holler made me wanna holler the way that you do when your soul is touched by a particularly moving sermon on Sunday.  Makes Me Wanna Holler made me wanna holler the way a singer does when they are singing a song you know comes from their soul.  Makes Me Wanna Holler made me want to meet the author – and I still do.  Not to brag about having met The Nathan McCall but just to sit down and have a conversation about life with a Black man who can have an honest conversation about his feelings.  That’s all.

Don’t just take my word for how good of a book this is, buy it!  Or, borrow it from the library or from someone who owns it.  Or Kindle it.  Or “liberate” it from someone’s bookshelf to be definitely returned at a future date.

Book One: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Eleventh grade.  New high school.  Literature class with Mrs. P. Smith who knew her literature and expected everyone else to know it as well.  There was the required Shakespeare that not many are able to escape.  To this day, I find Macbeth’s Soliloquy to be a very dramatic piece of literature that I would love to recite with high drama.  Anything less than a dramatic rendering seems an insult to this particular piece.

Then came the big surprise in the small package.  The option or the assignment to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.  At the time I read the book, Angelou was already an established author so she was already down the road of success when I “discovered” her.  Reading Maya Angelou write of her story in Stamps, Arkansas allowed me to relate to her life growing up as a child in The South, navigating the idiosyncrasies of Southern living (or during her time, Southern surviving).  That may have been one of the first times in literature that I actually related to what someone wrote without them having to over explain it.  Yet, for a story so accessible and familiar, there was still so much more to learn.  So much with which to find awe.  There was a bold willingness to try new things that made her my first hero.  The limitations of her environment were by no means a limitation to the possibilities that she saw in the future.  Maya Angelou blazed a trail in her life that was not necessarily comparable to the fame-seekers of today.  The world, in my opinion, is greater for it.

Inspiration can come from many sources.  Although I was writing prior to attending the second high school, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings proved to be an early inspiration to continue writing.

Don’t just take my word for how good of a book this is, buy it!  Or, borrow it from the library or from someone who owns it.  Or Kindle it.  Or “liberate” it from someone’s bookshelf to be definitely returned at a future date.

The Black Experience in America

Yesterday was the first day of February which is Black History Month.  In celebration of Black History Month, it would be interesting to not really highlight the historical facts of the Black Experience in America but to highlight the voices of those who lived and wrote about their story or created stories that helped to convey the full breadth and width of the Black Experience in America.

I attended an all-Black high school my last two years and it was during that time I found myself immersed in literature written by Black authors.  In years prior, I don’t really recall having been assigned any books by Black authors (I don’t remember many things and this could be one of the many things I don’t remember).  Black History Month was usually devoted to the history of Great Black People.  We learned and relearned and learned again the historical significance of such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Yet, a whole new world opened itself when I read the words of Black authors describing or creating works detailing the subjective experience of life in these United States.

In honor of authors of the far past, past and present, I will attempt to highlight a literary work by a Black author whose writing gives voice to the Black Experience in America.  Official history has a way of reflecting the pieces of the story that those in power would like to have remembered.  However, the true reality can be found in the stories that people tell in their own words.

When Reason & Religion Collide

Recently someone told me that they were God-fearing and wanted to get married in front of God.  To clarify what I was hearing, I asked if what they meant to say was that they wanted/preferred to get married in a church.  After all, if they believed in an omniscient, omnipresent God, anywhere they married, technically, would be in front of God…

My early years were spent two doors down from a church and at a relatively early age, I attempted to combine reason with religion.  My mother told me that God could see everything that I did.  In my mind, he could see everything happening outside (there were no obstructions to his vision from above).  However, I gave him the same limitations as humans when I decided he could not see through the roof.  Thus, whenever I did something bad, I did it in the house using the roof as my cover (I was a merciless wall-writer). 

Reasoning didn’t just “happen” to spring forth from out of nowhere though.  My mother and grandfather both were heavy Bible debaters amongst themselves or with people who would come over from time to time in order to discuss/debate the Bible.  I even remember my mother being a champion in my eyes once when she debated a Jehovah’s Witness who came to the door with the ubiquitous Watchtower Magazine. 

JW: Good afternoon, m’am.  I’d like to talk to you today about Jehovah if you have time.

Mother: Certainly, come in.

JW: I’d first like to give you this copy of The Watchtower and discuss (current cover’s topic).

Mother: I have no problems discussing (current cover’s topic) however, I will need you to make your case from this (big Bible sitting in the middle of the coffee table).

JW: Well, m’am, Jehovah says blah, blah, blah (still reading from Watchtower) and it says right here that….

Mother: I understand you have your magazine, however, I read from this (big Bible sitting in the middle of the coffee table).  Unless or until you can point to me where it says the same thing in THIS book, I will not be able to agree with what you are saying.

JW: Thank you so much for your time m’am.  Do you mind if I come back?

Mother: No problem.

Needless to say, I don’t think that person or any others came back after that episode.

Because there was so much debate going on while I was growing up, I do not debate religion with people.  It’s like having a question that to the people answering, the answer is right to one person if he says yes and the answer is right to the other person if he says no.  Knowing that, I tend to let religion happen around me.  Ever so often, if I meet someone of an unfamiliar religion, I may ask questions.  However, my typical approach is to let each person be.  I’ve personally known people who come from Jewish, Muslim and Hindu backgrounds, learned about people who are Sikh and have read the names of countless other religions in passing (not sure I’ll ever meet a Zoroastrian or not).  At times when I am with others from differing religious backgrounds, we just are.  No debates.

On (My) Writing

I enjoy writing and someday plan to write a book – maybe.  However, all writing is not my favorite.  When I first started college immediately after high school, my teachers dissuaded me from trying to be the next WilliWear or Chanel so that I could use my other gift – writing.  However, the directive to focus on writing didn’t come with any other instructions.  As I attempted to narrow down the question of what are you going to do with your life, I was able to recognize my preferred writing style – subjective.  I’ve picked up copies of The Wall Street Journal just so that I could read the human interest stories that are also featured on the front page (or at least they were).  Once I finished reading the article, I would close the paper and put it away.  My interest has always been in people and their subjective experience of life.  Hard numbers hold an interest as well, but if I read about X number of people who suffer from ABC condition, my curiosity would lead me to want to know about an individual person’s experience of ABC condition.  Knowing the number of people who share this condition is of secondary interest.  Ultimately, my curiosity leads the way in many situations.  Turning down random streets to see where it leads.  Seeing people while out and wondering what kind of life they lead because of some random detail I noticed in passing.  It’s all subjective.  Yet, ever so often, when compelled or forced to, I can write something far more objective, filled with numbers and statistics.  Just know that behind the numbers and statistics lies some subjective story along whose path I may have already meandered.

Cajun Chaos

Most people who know me, know that I am not a big fan of New Orleans.  My first visit to the NO should have had me saying “hell no” to ever returning.  Highlights from that first visit included going to a prominent drug dealer’s birthday party (we were told it was a house-party and technically it was) with a homicidal lunatic who later threatened to kill me, my friend and his male friends who were going to take us back to our hotel (according to homicidal lunatic, they were going to take us somewhere and rape us); barely escaping said high drama by attempting to leave with two women and a man (who was a New Orleans police officer – what was HE doing at the party?!); having homicidal lunatic being chauffeured to our hotel, sitting in the back seat of the police officer’s town car between me and my friend who were trying to escape him.  Did you catch all of that?  By virtue of the fact that I’m writing about this today, I was not killed (or maybe this is Blog Posts from the Other Side). 

Considering that misadventure to be an enormous one-off, a few months later, me and my friend were in New Orleans again.  This time, I found myself standing on the sidewalk outside of a souvenir shop where I had purchased some souvenirs waiting for my friend to finish her purchase when a group of guys came walking up and proclaimed verbatim “bitch get the fuck out of my way.”  Never mind that I wasn’t in the way.  At that point, I figured that I had given the Big (Not) Easy enough attempts to welcome me with warm hospitality as opposed to brutality.  Epic failure on its part.  So, at the tender age of 19, I proclaimed that I would Never, EVER go to New Orleans again in this life nor any following lives.  I didn’t even want to take a flight whose flight path would bring me over the state of New Orleans.  There is something funny about making a declaration of never – sometimes there is an again.  And in my case, again, again and again.  Although to my credit, I waited another 19 years before the next again occurred.

Yet again, the bad mojo returned.  I was going to visit a friend I met in Luxembourg who was working at a law firm in New Orleans and was going to stay overnight and hang out in the French Quarter with a known person.  Who doesn’t own a gun.  And who would lead the way instead of commanding that I get out of the way.  Yet, I found myself in the Quarter with someone who was compelled to get a beer at every place we passed.  We ended up at a club in the middle of the afternoon that was jumping.  After dancing for a few minutes, he got a table and four beers.  I continued watching everyone dance from the side of the dancefloor.  All of a sudden (that’s usually how things happen), I heard a loud PLIINNGG noise near me, looked down and saw that a glass bottle had been thrown right next to me and had broken.  For a moment, my temper was about to get the best of me but then I remembered where I was.  Instead of responding in the heat of the moment, I took a deep breath and used my foot to scoot the shards off to the side.  However, a few minutes later, my ankle was itching.  I reached down to scratch and first, felt moisture on my fingers and second, saw that the moisture was blood.  Not good.  When I informed my friend, he reached down and touched my open wound (who does that?!) and declared we couldn’t leave because he had not finished drinking his thousandth beer yet.  We unfortunately went through a routing of are you done yet, no that had my head about to explode.  In utter frustration, I finally left the club alone after having thrown the remainder of the last beer in the garbage with such birds-eye accuracy you would have thought I was a professional dart player instead of a near-sighted, non-athletic chick with non-existent hand-to-eye coordination.  In anger, I walked straight back to the car although I had paid no attention to where we were going when we came because I was following him like a baby duck.  After 19 years, I realized that the mojo had not changed at all.

In spite of these horrendous experiences, I found myself two years later returning to New Orleans for a brief period of time because I booked a flight into New Orleans and then would drive to Florida.  And that is when the mojo changed.  I went to the more local part of the French Quarter and had the most laid-back, chill time ever.  I was hanging out with a local resident who was responsible for my first sane experience in New Orleans and I greatly appreciated the reversal of fortune. 

I am now in New Orleans for a somewhat indefinite period of time and have had good experiences.  I’ve returned to the French Quarter with the laid-back New Orleanian and again, nothing happened.  I’ve been on the ferry at night (that thing moves pretty fast).  I’ve meandered around some parts of the city during the day and have found my favorite local coffeeshop (I’m here right now).  I’ve met normal, sane people – one even from Alabama.  I’ve seen some neighborhoods that have allowed me to understand what makes people enjoy the beauty of New Orleans.  In the grand scheme of things, I’ve now experienced a small part of the true New Orleans and it isn’t that bad.

I’ve learned that not every rocky start leads to a rocky ending…