I circled the Duomo about 3 times. My camera was hopelessly broken, so, I needed to absorb everything I would have otherwise captured by film. It was past noon and I was ready for lunch. I walked d0wn a side street and there was no one except:
myself- Snooki, and the Situation.
aspettate!che cosa? which is italian for, "wait, what?"
When I was 21 I had decided to take a permanent hiatus from all things dull, irrationally monetized, or otherwise unauthentically me. It would be the fourth time I had seen the city and the first meeting with Dr. Cornel West. I realize retrospectively [tears welling in my eyes] that the God who knows us so well, gives endlessly: August 11th, 2001 was my second trip to NYC and my aunts had taken us to the WTC. We kept our receipts and moved on- until one month later. The third trip had been Broadway auditions for "For Colored Girls . . . extended title: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Isn't Enuf, cite, Ntozake Shange. One of the producers, and by producers I mean audition assistants, had emailed me one day before the actual auditions. At the time, I was working as a stitcher in the costume shop between classes. That night I bought a plane ticket to JFK from Richmond. I got in my Jeep and drove that morning to the airport, caught a cab to Broadway, auditioned, and took a bus back for my return flight . . . at 9.15. There were two full rooms of Black girls: tall Black girls, short Black girls, skinny Black girls, fat Black girls, black Black girls, brown Black girls, yellow Black girls, white (but Black) Black girls. . . nappy hair and straight hair, thick, thicker, thickest- kinks, curls, shaven, low cut, short, bald, natural, permed, dyed, press and curled, flat-ironed, hot-combed, strawed, rodded, texturized, weaves, glued, pin-ups, pin-ins, blown outs, and dare I say . . . jerry curls, s-curls. . . waves.
An aisde: I had a homie in undergrad, a man of substance, prone to art, exposed to literature, and a frequent printer at the Office of African American Affairs where printing was free. And my homie was a white boy from Maryland who needed zero reconciliation for who he was, his consciousness. Yes, race does matter, and because it does, he meant so much in my understanding on the Black consciousness. And my homie, who neither asserted some false recognition of Blackness through proverbial catch-phrases or clothes, rather fully recognized the struggle over resources and identity that exist within a nation whose "foundation" is equality for all people is "Blacker" than the rest. All to say, those girls, with whichever combination of the former they had, in my idealistic mind, represented four folded down fingers at existential angst.
There were so many of these girls and I was one of them. I felt something, it wasn't fear, it was neither intimidation, nor excitement. I was mesmerized. There was a sign in sheet at the entrance, and only the names on the list were allowed to sit for auditions. My name was on the list, and that, I believe, was one many abounding gifts.
When the plane touched down in Richmond, I was drained from the day. I got in my Jeep and contemplated what to do. It was about 2 am and everything in and around me was utterly exhausted. My eyes were so heavy . . .
but when I looked up I saw a white stag, with at least 8 points. I slammed on brakes and everything within realized how insignificant I was, so, why had I been saved: there must be work to do, about three brown deer jumped in front of the car. The stag, standing on the sharply sloped hillside, looked down without bending his chest and walked in the opposite direction.
About two weeks later I received an email from a producer. I saw the subject title, "For Colored Girls" and I knew this was either, a job, a call-back, or a rejection. Whatever the verdict, all things understood, the process was amazing. I opened the email which was none of the aforementioned rather a confirmation of what the Wall Street Journal had reported two days before, that the entire world was in recession. Reading articles about global recession made me irreverently, laugh out loud. The play had been canceled until further notice due to insufficient funds.
When I was in New York that fourth time, I met Mr. West, the man of unsegmented thoughts and higher level swagger, the fancy quoter who made mention of the little negro Wayne and plugged his new album, not lil' Wayne's but his own. The man had old soul and a contagious sense of sensical genius. The reception was quite nice and as discreetly as possible, I snapped a camera phone picture of the roasted chicken which was on my plate. . . a chicken cut in half garnished with parsley and potatoes. While the Yale director of AAS sang, I wondered who would potentially eat the other half of the chicken resting on my plate.
When the event was over, I had- to keep- it real . . . and asked Prof. West to take a picture with me. He smiled, and while talking to me, leaned in for a photo. I looked to see how it came and out, and it was that perfect signature, lean-with-it, rock-with-it, cocked to one side pose, gap and all. A lot of the world's notably smart and notably pretty people have gaps, like Mr. West and, like my mother, generally, gaps should not be "fixed."
There is a place in New England that rests on the East Coast and is the meeting point of the entire world. As the bus rounded the highway towards the city I looked out thinking about how loud the dreams were that evaporated out of the minds of the newest breed of revolutionaries. And, all the hopes of those who, in contrast to the pain they've weathered, yet reached out to an nonsustaining empire. What becomes of all those preeminent thoughts? They fester and they die, or they whither like zombie's hands. So this is my charge to New York and all the world:
. . . live dangerously, honestly, freely - step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away. via crw.
Peace to those who believe, and open arms to those that do not. I toss my right fist in the air and utter:
