Today started out not much different from most days. Yet the end has been quite different. I needed to make a phone call before 8am but instead received a phone call before 8am that I needed to interrupt in order to make the necessary call. I did not catch the person but left a message instead. I then received a phone call from a friend that I had not recently spoken with, later, during the 8 o’clock hour. After all the phone calls were made and received, the emails checked and jobs searched, I had some moments where I was trying to figure out what do I do next? At that time, I started to feel the funny feeling I get sometimes when I feel as if I’m picking up on energy coming my way. I felt it in my heart. I took the opportunity to sit in the feeling and just feel it as I wondered from where was the feeling coming. Those moments brought to mind “Imagine” and that is why there is the earlier post of that video. After having posted the video and revisited the feeling of holding hands singing the song, I was getting ready to do something when the phone rang again. When I answered, it was a phone call arranging for me to be an extra in a film. I had previously signed up for a website that managed casting for local films with two non-professional photos of me – a head shot and a body shot that I had already decided not to use for its original purpose. After agreeing to the date requested, we hung up the phone. Later, the phone rang again. This time, the request had changed. Instead of being a random extra, I had been requested as a “special” extra with a wardrobe fitting that needed to be scheduled in advance of my original filming date. I have no idea from where the energy came. I’m not even sure the energy came from somewhere else or if it was just a natural shift in my energy. However, little did I know the changes a few minutes would make after having, in my own way, acknowledged the shift by posting the video. If it came from someone, thank you. If it was just a natural shift, then I’m thankful to the Universe for that shift. Me, an extra in a film. Imagine that…
Month: February 2013
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...
Happy Birthday Bob Marley
This is one of my most favoritest songs of Bob Marley’s. I love when anyone sings it but here is an acoustic recording of Bob playing it!!
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.
Unlikely Hero with Heart of Gold (NSFW)
This guy has some incredible words of wisdom in the beginning, prepare for the F-bomb later.
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.