Your Gifts Will Make Room For You to Grow
It’s been a minute since I’ve found myself roaming the hallow empty halls of this space that I deem my solo run newspaper where word of the my latest happenings and thoughts are documented and broadcasts into the abyss of all the people that do not care. Let’s face it. I’m like most people who start a blog because they feel they have something to say. But as I have learned recently, there is a huge difference between having something to say and having something others need to hear.
That being said, since the last time I have been here, I have been places, seen things, received messages and have most importantly learned my greatest lesson of 2019 coming to me in the form of a book, The Inhabited Woman By Gioconda Belli; “You must learn to be in good company of yourself.”
The best part of being a writer and thinker by gift and purpose is that most if not all of my messages and lessons learned comes in the form of words-actions-words. That being said, I have and continue to develop the skill of reading and reading comprehension and application. I must say, I am a great purveyor and collector of books. As important as it if for you to read it is just as important for you to know what to read; shoutout to Eryn for that message from their mentor which they passed to me. I love losing myself in the intimate pages of poetry and prose and the problems of another world. The more books I read the more I cannot help but feel insecure in my own ability to ever write something of equal depth and eloquence and confrontation as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, or Sistah Souljah. I feel like I am not playing the same game as my predecessors, though I should be.
I finished my first play, Death & Love Walk Through a Graveyard Looking for Hope, in the fall of 2019. I fell in love with playwriting. It removed the veil with which much visual mediums are gazed through. It grabs the hand of the audience and throws them into a world in which they are forced to analyze their thoughts, patterns, roles, and life choices. It was where I could confront myself to myself and the world must sit back and say nothing. They mustn’t even clap until I have signaled that I am done. There is a level of respect, power, and great responsibility in this.
Alas, I fleetingly left the newfound playground of playwriting and ventured in to tv/film. After much rearranging of puzzle pieces and trying to accommodate the ways in which my creative energy flourished to fit within this new field while also learning its structure, I was left feeling drained, defeated, and with a wicked case of imposter syndrome masquerading as being way too busy. I just didn’t want to admit defeat. Excuse the vanity this may be seen within, but I have never tried something in my life and not either a.) been intuitively good at it. or b.) excelled quicker than expected. I don’t give up on things because I rarely indulge in things with which i don’t feel even an ounce of long term commitment to; no matter how fleeting in nature I may appear. But thank GOD for friends, better yet, for Spirit Sisters, who tell you when maybe your art is just not speaking the way it would like to speak in this room and you forcing this creative eugenics isn’t going to allow the acclimation to breed growth let alone success.
So my sister Candy suggested I go on a reading tour. in search and discovery of the different dialects and schisms, isms, and languages with which my art speaks; urging me that it may be in a voice I don’t recognize, do not listen to regularly, and in little ways know how to currently speak. But that’s the beauty of art and the artist, the symbiosis is molded in a way that allows both to grow simultaneously and influenced of each other. I’m excited for this reading tour. I have carefully selected a list of five books which I am sure to recount here in these hallow walls of my solo newspaper, where I will meet again shouting my thoughts into the abyss of people who do not care.