"The darkness of the morning whispers secrets into my ear. Deep breathing and meditation can sometimes block out the sounds and I am able to return to sleep. At other times, I am at the mercy of the messenger. Resistance futile, I rise from my bed without a clear understanding of why I have to wake while most people are still sleeping. I wonder whom it is speaking to me. I wonder if it's God, my angels, or my ancestors. Maybe it's just my mind in overdrive I think to myself. Usually I know what it is and/or whom.
Listening has required discipline and humility. The skill came through many a sleepless night, long days of introspection, thoughts of guilt, feelings of regret and forgiveness. Forgiving myself and forgiving others has been half of the battle. The other part of it, for me, has been rooted in gratitude. In expressing gratitude for my struggles as well as my joy, I have been able to move mountains.
We pray for guidance. We ask for clarity. We listen, but how often do we hear? How often do we obey what we know to be right? Do we honor the messages we know to be true? As I practice listening, more and more, I am able to stay in alignment with my truths.
My mother told me 'you have always been so emotional'. My ex- told me 'you were just so sensitive'. I told myself that something was 'so wrong'. As I go through life, I am discovering the beauty of being me. Those emotions enable me to love from a space so pure and so deep that I can connect with youth from many walks of life, that I am able to heal my heart, and forgive. It is why I am able to be so hope-filled about the work with this lyrical movement. Those sensitivities permit me to travel along paths that many fear. Even I am sometimes scared of 'where' my mind and my heart can take me.
I remember being booked to do a series of gigs with a band assembled by legendary trombonist, Craig Harris. He shared the tunes and told me 'do what you do'. I was to freestyle and spit rhymes on a couple of the songs and improvise spoken word over a couple of others. A master musician and bandleader, he surrounds himself by other masters. There's a team of percussionists, descendants of the great DouDou Ndaiye Rose, the Senegalese master drummer, playing with Craig from time to time.
Craig treats the emcee, the rap lyricist, as he would one of the musicians or a skilled vocalist. He gives direction onstage-'pull back', 'ease in', 'take it home baby'... When working with someone like that listening is not an option, it's a must. Still, at the same time in improvisation one has to be able to 'get open' and get into the zone. Paying attention while letting go requires absolute surrender to the music, to the word.
There were a couple of gigs during that time when I got so 'open' that I didn't know how to close back up. I remember living in Harlem at the time. I was in an imbalanced relationship and living with a needy person who wasn't in a space to give as much as he would emotionally take. My work as an artist was helping me get through it all as I accepted responsibility for the life I had created and the choices I had made. The music let me go to safe space of serenity and sanity. For whatever reason, the stage seemed like the best place to take a risk. One night, I could feel myself not as myself, but as if someone else was speaking through me. I didn't say anything particularly profound, but I felt it and I shared those feelings in such a way that I felt a flash through my body. It was the way the words melted from my mouth and I could see that the band and the audience also felt what I felt. After the music ended I felt completely naked, but I also felt empty and light. The heaviness of home was no longer weighing on me.
The next week I sat in with the Senegalese group, Gokh Bi System, on a night that they were particularly open. Baca played the drums as if his life depended on it. They were not performing that night. They were simply allowing an audience to watch them get open as they connected with their traditions, with their ancestors. I freestyled onstage that night with Safahri, a gifted improviser, and went home on a serious high.
The next morning I walked to the Uptown Juice Bar, the West Indian veggie spot on 125th Street, to get carrot/beet/apple juice. Walking back home I felt fingertips tapping lightly in a strumming motion on both of my shoulders. Once inside my apartment, I took a long hot bath and got back into bed just thinking I was tired, but later that evening I still felt something on my shoulders. A week later, it was still happening off and on. I met Craig at the juice bar one afternoon to get payment from one of the gigs and asked him about it. He didn't seem 'wierded' out or anything and although he taught me a lot about music and performance, he gave me some advice that wasn't really that useful.
That was in the late summer or early fall of 2003. I can admit that I haven't gotten truly 'open' since then. It's like I want to be able to go 'there', but I haven't allowed myself to do so too often. That was the first time in my life when I understood my father's drug use and I understood my paternal grandmother's alcoholism. I said to myself, "I get it." I got why so many musicians and artists ended up abusing some sort of substance. I don't say that I approve of it nor do I accept it in my cipher, but I felt so absolutely vulnerable and exposed that all I could think of was my escape. The harsh Harlem pavement, the Manhattan concrete, the history and the ghosts walking the streets smacked me in the face like brutal winter winds. I've always been able to feel the ghosts in Harlem when I am there, but more so when I lived there. They weren't bad energies, they were just obvious to me. That coupled with the space that I was in and my inability to process what I was discovering led to my shut down. A month after that I moved to Philly for a year before returning to Brooklyn.
I have a cousin who is a mostly self-taught genius visual artist. She smokes a lot of cigarettes and is a heavy drinker. I had a close girlfriend who is a great writer. She eats a lot of "comfort foods" and spends hours living in her head. I had a boyfriend who is a talented photographer and artist. He spends more time focused on sex and women than he does on any of his talents. I have a friend who is a wonderful filmmaker. She drinks to numb the pain, secretly experiments with recreational drugs and is absorbed in the gossip of the day. Sugar used to be my 'crack', but my health issues require dietary discipline so I've had to turn to things like yoga, smoothies and dairy-free, gluten-free cookies (which by the way aren't the same as Grandma's all butter pound cake). These health 'problems' have ended up being my biggest blessing.
Many of us block our creativity, numbing ourselves so that we don't have to 'feel'. I am working through my discomfort with getting 'open'. As I go through this process I am confronting my fear and challenging those areas where I lack faith in myself and in other people. I was in Roanoke, VA for a week-long residency at Jefferson Arts Center and a student at one of the high schools asked me what motivated you to begin this journey, to be on this path. He wanted to know how and why I got started. I told him that when I was 18 I decided to live a life with no regret. I had heard a speaker talk about how beautiful life is when you turn 50 and look back on your life with very little regret. I've based most of my life decisions on that simple premise and I don't regret it one bit.
I've been writing, thinking for an hour and 1/2 now and it's barely 6am. I can hear my neighbor's alarm clock through the wall as my music plays softly. The winter skies stay dark long enough for me to get back in bed and complete my sleep. I intend to make 'listening' a part of my spiritual practice and as I consider the weight of that commitment I know it will require a great deal of effort and surrender. I don't want to be afraid of 'getting open' anymore. I don't want to limit myself or play it safe. I don't want to play by anyone else's rules. I am an artist. I am a creative. I am leader, a spiritual being, a child of God and I am protected. These are the words I say to myself today. If we are to spark this lyrical movement in the right way, then we must do it with all of our hearts. No doubt, no fear."
