Therapeutic thoughts and theses from a Weaver of Dreams
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Everything not what it seems...
you may have thought i wasn't doing the blog thing. truth is, i was trying to, but the doggone site was frustrating me because it wouldn't publish. being, the techno-phile i only long to be, it took me a while to figure it out, but i did, so now i can run my mouth and share perspectives on the world and everything else.
whew.
for a moment, i thought i was going to delete all this stuff, and that would have freaked me out.
it's a pretty decent looking saturday, so i'm going to get out in the world today. there's a lot of work to be done, for sure. i'm painting some of the exterior windows on my house and wondering how much i should invest in an extension ladder. i think i'll paint the windows closest to the ground and leave the extension thing to some cat who lives on one every day, as opposed to occasionally like yours truly. the last guy my ex-wife hired to paint the house streaked the bricks with white paint--that ain't cute. anyone know how to get that stuff off??
anyhow, i'm gonna jump outta here. my daughter just came in and said "good morning." in this world of teen-dom, that's a HUGE deal!
"How Blak" went off successfully at The Belcourt Theater. we had a really good crowd and everyone was enthusiastic. i had a fabulous stage crew who made every component rock. i did my best to bring it all and leave it all on the stage. when the show was over, i felt beat up, beat down, and beat around.
mission accomplished.
and now to the future. this indepednent lifestyle is a challenge, to say the least. aside from the mundane matters of existence like bills, bills, and more bills, the challeng is to keep growing, keep building for something higher. in the program for the show, i quote Langston Hughes from The Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain (1926):
"We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual, dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves."
it sums up what keeps me going, when i reach these spaces--gaps if you will--where something major has been accomplished on a mountain of freedom, and i now face a valley where i have to survey which mountain is next--and that is the challenge. for i suppose i am a climber of mountains as well as a weaver of dreams. all artists are. we look at the landscape of reality, and imagine how we can first build, and then conquer mountains on the horizon. why do we do this? is it just for the challenge of accomplishment? does it feed us spiritually to see things in any way but an ordinary one? is it some inherent masochism that is simply woven into the DNA of the artistic soul? apparently, we can't help ourselves, so we may as well attack the task at hand fearlessly.
for when we reach those landings, and we breathe the pure air of accomplishment, the payoff comes. we sigh a sigh of relief and acceptance, and smile around at those who marvel at the sheer gall of our cause. "why in the world did you climb that mountain," they ask from their cubicle of safety and security.
we smile confidently, triumphantly, and think back on all the trials we faced in our quest to rise above the mediocre, to the pinnacle of possibility, and we'll reply, frankly:
today is the day i emerged from my Mother's womb, involuntarily so, which is probably why i seek so much for the spiritual sense of heaven that i once physically experienced as a fetus inside such a safe and peaceful haven.
yeah, it's my birthday.
and for some reason, it's hard for me to get "up" for it. i even wonder why i should. don't get the brother wrong, i am so thankful for being able to be on this earth, to work toward my goals, to love on my daughter and family and friends for another year. but as for parties and celebrations and dinners and all of that?
i haven't been feeling all that the last few years. i used to study the works of Dr. Josef A. A. Ben-Jochannon. he was controversial, outspoken, loud, belligerent, and wise as all get out. i went to Kemet with him the first time around, and it was revelatory. one day, when i was a young man, Doc Ben pointed out that we as African people have been so screwed up by western thought that we get things backwards, like Birthdays. he pointed out that on our day of birth, we did absolutely nothing. it was our MOTHERS who suffered through 9 months of body changes. it was our MOTHERS who labored for hours through misery and strife to bring us down into the birth canal. it was our MOTHERS who endured the pains of death to bring us into this world. so in the frankest terms:
our Birthday should be a celebration of our Mother's accomplishment.
made sense to me, and maybe that's what turned me. years ago, i started thanking my mother for giving birth to me; for the hard work and courage she displayed so many years ago.
and now, on my Birthdays, i just can't seem to make a big deal about myself. i've always spent a lot of time trying to make other people happy--co-workers, women, wives, etc. i believe in the success of people around me and i believe it's the way we are supposed to live life. yet, even on my Birh-day/Earth-day, i find myself doing for others as they do for me. odd, huh? maybe it's because on that one day, i want to go find my beautiful Mom, give my heartfelt thanks, then...
disappear.
i mean disappear. go find a park or water and just think about The Creator, try to remember what my grandmother's hands looked like, recall how slim my deceased Uncles were sans beer guts and reflect on how i may have hope for not being overweight one day--especially since i'm not a beer drinker. good stuff like that.
but the phone rings. the texts come. the people who earnestly want to help me celebrate "my day" come around. and i'm thankful, and grateful to have people in my life who want to celebrate me.
what happens when i'm not wanting to celebrate me, though? now, i do NOT have a complex. i'm not saying "omigod i'm a worthless rag of sin" and all that bullshit. i'm just saying, sometimes you need some reflection time so that you can understand who "me" is; so that you can remember the coordinates of "me island" in the swirling river of humanity; so that you can be even more grateful and loving to the people around you that are loved so much for all they give.
one of these birthdays, i'm gonna disappear--head to a foreign land, or the ghetto (same thing in some cities), and spend a day busting my butt helping out some people, after a morning of long meditation. then another day, i'm gonna do all that massage-ish/get your toenails cut off stuff; then another one, i'm gonna get naked and sit on a screen-in porch (i was gonna run outside, but man, bugs are crazy in this day and age and if i get all bit up and i go somewhere and am scratching every part of my body no one will want to talk to me).
but as for today, i'll enjoy the fact that i slept in. i just called a buddy of mine and asked him to go get a french press coffee with me (Yeah!); i'll scoop my daughter back up from her visit at her mom's and attach her to my hip for the rest of the day; i'll go to an early dinner at one of my favorite spots with some family and friends; maybe, just maybe, i'll make it out to the park tonight for the bi-weekly Big Band Dance and hear some decent swing, maybe convince my kid to have a dance or two with her corny old pops. that'd be cool.
for now, i hear the magic sounds of my yard man attacking the edges of the house with the weedeater. i'll be able to walk outside into a pretty darned clean yard without being worried a snake will slither across my pathway. what a birthday gift--although i have to pay for it. i wonder if i tell the yard man it's my birthday, he'll smile and say "Well, Damnit! it's on the house then, anything for you!"
i spent last night in good conversation, some meditation, and some unclassifiable communication. i probably should have spent more time sleeping, as i had just conquered the jet-lag thing from my Kemet trip. i woke up a little tired, reflecting on what time i should have gone to bed. i woke up remembering that i have to go track down a lot of paperwork today that could have been done by now if i had taken my butt to bed. i woke up remembering that i needed to check some email for an important message (don't we all these days). i skimmed through the computer (yeah, sometime i'm guilty of sleeping with the laptop)and was closing out some windows. one of them was iphoto. as i was groggily looking over some of the images, i saw one that took me back several days: little Nubian boys in the middle of the churning Nile river, paddling around Faluca Boats and Cruise ships in homemade wooden boats or on doors, singing songs in several languages, hoping for alms from tourists to help feed themselves and their families. seeing those pictures made me realize something:
i woke up this morning.
that, in itself is a blessing. i woke up in a comfortable bed. that, too, is a blessing, because i remember the days when i, in this same room, once slept in a lawn chair because i didn't have any furniture. the daily back pain i struggled to hide in front of my friends and colleagues is no longer there. i have a wonderful life and career and all i have to do to keep it going is get up and out and create. push papers and pens and meet and greet. share and speak and learn and teach.
yeah, sure, there is other work. sweat, blood, the accompanying struggles of literally trying to build a theater by hand. coordinating those who volunteer, and volunteering to do the work of those who cannot be coordinated. i'm not afraid of hard work, because i came from a line of people who nodded their heads forward in fatigue at the dinner table after 12 and 18 hour workdays--hard labor days. from farms to cleaning facilities, to suburban white folks' homes; whatever was necessary to feed the family.
but i haven't had to get in one of the largest rivers in the world and sing for money. now, i've sung for supper, sure. and i've sung on a boat before. but swinging an air-conditioned crowd with your jazz trio and linen suit on as a grown man is a little different from being 8 years old and maneuvering between sometimes massive ships to get pennies.
i have a new respect for the things we take for granted.
these little Nubian boys, who looked like my own cousins, met the Sunrise at the river, and swarmed around the boats carrying our group. when we encountered them, they asked us what country we were from. why? because they spoke French, Dutch, English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and a couple of other languages.
and these young brothers don't go to school every day.
i had to marvel, because many of our kids can't focus for 5 minutes without a playstation in their hands. but here are these tiny kids, braving this massive body of water with only pieces of cardboard for oars, doing whatever they have to do, learning whatever they have to learn, to "make ends" as we say here.
i was humbled by that then, and i'm humbled by that now, as i get up outta this bed and go about the incredibly hard business of coordinating some personnel today. and although i may pitch a fit about what it takes to pull off a play or build an institution, i'll reflect upon the song of the Nile Boys and remember that if they could attack their watery world with reckless abandon and no fear, i can do the same with mine.
sounds strange, i know. unfamiliar to many of us, Ptah represents the power of The Creator in speaking Creation into existence. all Religions have some form of Ptah. in Genesis, God spoke the world into existence; in the Qur'an, Allah did the same. in Kemet, Ptah did just that, chronologically several thousand years before what many of us have come to understand in our chosen spiritual pathways.
i'm not going to spend a lot of time bullshitting back and forth, bickering over names. i prefer to be amazed by the power in the ESSENCE of Creation, and how we are "gods,all of us, children of the most high" (psalms 82:6). we are created in the image and likeness of a grand Creator and Architect of the Universe.
and we're wasting our divine power.
we spend time speaking a lot of garbage into the world. we fight over meaningless, small things. we refuse to listen to one another in conversations. what does that mean? well, if you're ever talking with someone, and you find yourself going over the points you want to remember when they are talking, then you're not LISTENING.
the power of Ptah comes from measured thought. Ptah, as representative energy of the Grand Architect, conceived of the world to be wrought. once this conception was clear, he spoke it, then watched as chaos ensued, the darkness churned with the light, the earth moved with the water, and when all was said and done, there stood an amazing entity we are still pondering: Creation.
the birds, the bees, the forests and trees, woman and man-kind, our complex minds--all sprang from that Essence. that same power we have.
and how do we use it?
do we spend time meditating about the things we want to see manifest? or do we just speak things into our world without realizing that most of what we are manifesting in our lives we spoke it ourselves? i meet people on this journey who are so friggin' negative, when you speak to them, it draws you down:
obafemi: hey there!
x: hey.
obafemi: how ya doin' today
x: hell. strugglin'. just tryin' to make it.
obafemi: oh...okay.
what do you say to that? have you ever encountered that? now i know there is something to being real and honest, but hell, when you run into people who are consistently stuck in that space, you have to feel for them, because they have locked themselves into a perpetual state of struggle, or sickness, or depression, or stagnation.
SPEAK UP OUTTA THAT THANG!
i've been penning notes for another book, even as i re-commit to blogging and finishing a screenplay and other work, that deals with how we sit still, order our thoughts, speak them clearly, then work to make our own Creations manifest. we have a lot of power that goes wasted.
so as i see this beautiful day unfolding, i'm going to remember Ptah by sticking a necklace with his image on and focusing on speaking good in my own life and the lives of others around me and see what happens.
it's 4 o'clock in the morning. and no, i'm not an early riser, per se. i'm just up because i awakened from a nap with a revelation: i haven't blogged in God knows how long. okay, that revelation was helped along by a good friend reminding me of that earlier in the evening. but nonetheless, given the fact that i've been out of the country to The Motherland, Africa, and our most holy and ancient civilization, Kemet (Egypt for the latecomer), and i've had a serious turn of life events over the last year (the year of 40, yippee!, it's about time to get back to this often therapeutic--and hopefully informative--venture.
sure, i've missed this place. after all, i do fancy myself a writer. my energy has been spent as of late finishing a new screenplay, one that i hope will transform the particular genre it fits (ah...more details coming later). i also am learning some of the finer points of Facebook, where i also have a page. i promise, i can't figure out how some people can maintain a presence there on a regular basis AND manage life. they must be a whole lot smarter than i am, for real. there are like a million applications and bells and whistles. i just felt able to stick my chest out because i figured out how to post some pics from my Kemet Trip.
i've met some fascinating people over the last few months, and i've been some interesting places that i'll talk about as i remember. i've missed the energy of blogging, though. i was talking to a fellow artist about the science of writing, and how to make it become an art, and i was speaking about why i like to go to coffee shops. one of the reasons (outside of a good, strong cup of hot motor oil) is that i can feel both surrounded AND isolated at the same time. i'm in the world i'm creating on my laptop or in my moleskine, but i maintain one foot in the real space around me. so i'm connected, but not really. odd place for some, but does anyone feel that, too? it may be almost deliberately rude now that i think of it, but on some level, an artist has to be "in the world, but not of it." something to think about.
i'm coming up on August 14th and a Nashville engagement for my one-man show, "How Blak Kin Eye Bee?" that thing drives me bonkers, schizo, and manic, and i love and live it. it's been 5 years since i did it at home, and i really want to have a great house of people. so i've been calling friends, getting flyers out, recording commercials--all the things people tell me i don't have to do anymore because i'm a "star of a Sony Pictures film."
Yeah. Right!!
i'm having to bust my ass, but i don't mind that. when it's all said and done, my end result will be a contribution to history in the building of a theater building operated by people of African descent--a first in Nashville. i have to raise some money and get this thing off the ground, or die trying.
that said, i'm going to get a few hours of snoozing (still just getting over the jet-lagged-ness), then make the rubber hit the road. i told my wonderful teenage daughter i'd take her to breakfast. i need to buy some eggs and cook them, but hey, maybe the chicken n waffles spot (minus the chicken for us Vegetarians) will have to suffice for now.
