It is so funny, it did not seem like life was so easy back then. I just did not realize. I was just watching VH1 Soul and I saw some old videos. Music, well, for me it is like a time machine. I remember moments, occasions, people...all based on a song or even a beat or hook. I used to say my life had this ill soundtrack-rap, gospel, r&B, pop...all those genres and then some would be on the soundtrack. Different songs and combinations of songs would drop at different moments during my life, my past. Great songs would be on the soundtrack and some underground hits most ears aren't liable to remember. Soundtrack to life.
Music and freedom. Two of the biggest descriptions of my youth. I think back now, as probably everyone does at some point, about what I would do differently. All the apologies I owe to people I will never see again. It is crazy how it all moves so fast. I think that is why I just had to write something down today. I feel like it is rolling by. My life that is. Just whizzing by and I am caught up in some job-career ladder-want to do the right thing-mumbo jumbo, and at times just missing out on life. What is really important? God. My wife. This degree I have been in pursuit of for a decade. My family and friends. My job. You know the regular stuff. The politically correct stuff. The damn near 40 "canned statement" stuff. But beyond that, what? What happened to music and freedom? Passion and fame? Dreams?
My cousin was in town over the weekend and we were talking about jobs. She is an actress. A great actress, who has not gotten that major break as of yet. However, her husband-who is an actor too-may have come across his. To me, it means she is next-but I asked her what if it did not happen. What was her fall back plan? She said there was none. She said she never wanted to just do something, anything, just to do it you know. She had to commit her life to that which felt right...felt good.
The crazy thing for me is that although I knew what she would say, it was still so deep to me. I told her I had heard Keenan Ivory Wayans say that when he was telling his father that he was dropping out of Engineering School at Tuskegee, to be a comedian, his father told him to just finish to have something to fall back on. He told his pop if he had something to "fall back" on, he might just let himself fall. But if there was nothing there-he could not. My cousin basically said the same thing-and in that moment my respect for her rose even more. Nor like it was non-existent prior to that, just that I could dig what she was saying and her passion when telling was real.
I have been one who has lived life in fear. Fear of the fall. I would tell people I had alot of irons in the fire, waiting for one to get hot...however, I would have so many things going on because I would never dedicate my entire existence to one thing-I mean what if I failed? Of just fell? That is living in fear. Someone wise once told me that fear is the lack of faith not the absence of courage...or maybe I just made that up...regardless, the elder Wayans and my cousin do not carry that same type of fear. I admire that.
Guess that will be it for the moment. Not really an entry that is as cohesive as I like to write, but necessary. Sometimes you just have to clear some space in the mental, to continue on.
Thoughts crowded in my mental space
like the red line at 5PM
no seat for the weak minded
so I pretend to gain clarity
with a piece of paper
and a pen
fingertips extend my limbs
to greet keys that will
open a menagerie
of possibilities...formerly crowded
now free
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