Day 1
Whatever the excuses are, don’t matter right now. Not saying they won’t matter again, somehow, at some point, but they don’t matter right now.
I am bursting with things to say and with someone to tell. Even though it won’t be “perfect,” which my ego is convinced is the worst possible thing that could happen (thank you, ego, for trying to protect me, by the way.).
This is what happens when you grow up in something close to, but not quite as affluent as Negroland (or maybe it was as affluent, I haven’t finished the book).
The point is that I’m blogging. Today. Each day for as long as I can stand it. Who is this for? How personal are you going to be? These are the thoughts that are coming up.
This is me:
This morning, I walked from my man’s house back to the apartment where I live. He went to work, I came to write. Today, I’m filled with some combination of militancy and softness, which might be my idea of “good.” Perhaps that feeling has been growing since the election, and my subsequent extended visit with my family over Thanksgiving.
Softness and militancy.
ART
On Saturday, I went to a potluck of black women artists: producer/indie filmmakers, marketing people, and actresses. The hostess and resident-crazy-lady—brilliant and insightful, asked me about my thesis project. I explained that I’m writing a play that unpacks the relationship of my black identity to my Americanness. It weaves my family history into its own unraveling.
“And I go down these different rabbit holes.”
(this is a blog about process)
She replied, Girl, you deep! Imma be sittin’ up watching yo plays like Adrienne Rich’s work. Suzan-Lori Parks. Imma be like, ‘I don’t know what it’s about, but it reminds me of my family!’
I covered my face to tee-hee and blush. I really did blush. She called me “Adrienne Richetta,” then.
I squealed across the coffee table, “But, I want to be Arthur Miller!”
So, in this case, the softness would be embracing that I’m Adrienne Richetta that my plays, this blog, that my thoughts, filters, ideas, expressings might be Suzan-Lori’s little sister. I’m her. Quietly wanting to blow up the world and explode it into something I deem more real.
HUMILITY
I think it may be selfish to want to make everything so deep. Everything and everyone. I read, read, read signs in everything.
I am humbling myself to admit to myself that sometimes, everything isn’t that deep. That’s what I learned from my trip home for Thanksgiving. And the humans who breathe and clash together, who gel and separate, this family I think I know so well, that I think I remember, perhaps I don’t. Perhaps I don’t know anything and the books have not taught me who They are.
We are holes of each other and we’re filling each other in with our memories.
Sometimes that’s ok, and other times it’s really not.
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Be soft and militant.
Do not hold so tight, but don’t let go.
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[ctt title=”Today, I\’m filled with some combination of militancy and softness, which might be my idea of good. #theartistslife” tweet=”Today, I’m filled with some combination of militancy and softness, which might be my idea of good. #theartistslife” coverup=”Cua80″]