PROGRESS NOTES

As I was driving home from work last Friday, the thought came to me to approach the manager of a local coffee shop about hosting poetry readings. Café Jolie is a quaint, very warm little coffee shop in the same shopping center where I purchase my groceries and my heavily discounted books. The manager, Martha, is a wafer thin, young Polish woman with piercing green, cat like eyes. I don’t know why the thought came, but knowing what I know about timing and intuition, I figured hey, better listen. I’d been in this establishment only once before and during that once I didn’t have enough cash to sit down and make it a pleasurable experience so I promised myself I’d get back over there as soon as Soon came around again. What I remember is soft music (Sade if I'm not mistaken), soft lighting, a very non-Starbucks feeling (read: non-commercial). There were no mugs and spoons and mousepads and coffee cup holders demanding my money so that I can serve as a walking advertisement for some mega-corporation. Simply, Cafe Jolie.

So I approached the counter, ordered my latte and waited for the last customer to be served. Once it’s just Martha and myself, I ask her if she’d be interested in having poetry and prose readings at the café. Instantly she’s interested. Her eyes light up. Oh yes, she exclaims, but I don’t know how it works and what I would have to do. I explain. Sign up, readings, discussions, book sales for local writers. She’s hooked. Another customer comes in with a complicated order that pulls Martha away. We promise to meet again sometime next week (which was this week) when we can discuss the details further. I came home elated.

Feeling very writerly, I headed off to a poetry reading at another local café later that evening. Small venue, outdoor setting and a diverse group of poets from varied backgrounds with varying levels of skill. I ran into my very good friend T who teaches creative writing and runs a performance group at her home once a month. The group consists of poets, her jazz musicsian husband and a few dancers. Anyway, turns out she was hosting at this other locateion. She saw me, embraced me, pulled me in and demanded I sign up to read.

“But I don’t know these people. And…and…I’m a virgin. I’ve never read my poetry in front of people. My poetry has always lived on paper. Not my poetry. Maybe my fiction but not…not my poetry.”

"Sign up, girl," was her only response, one lip curled to the side in True Black Woman fashion.

I shed my virgin skin that night. I read my stuff. I read my stuff. My stuff. My poetry. Not my fiction. I’m talking my poetry. My insides. And then I read an excerpt of one of my short stories. I can’t describe how good it felt to do it, to get past that stage.

Virgin no more, I talked to my friend T about the other café and the possibility of having readings there. She was on board immediately. Tuesday night we went over there together for ice cream and for her to get a feel for the location. We both agreed it’s perfect. So after driving home from work this morning, I make a detour to Cafe Jolie, to see Martha with a typed draft of the plan in hand. Martha’s on board. She talked to the owner who thinks it’s a great idea both for business and for us. Martha and I talked about how she came to the States (she won a green card lottery while living in London) and her love affair with New York (who doesn’t love New York ?) and her desire to have babies one day. She wanted to know about my career (the one that pays) which I rarely talk about and my novel. She’s got family back in Poland and we talked about them and freedom (or at least, what looks like freedom here in the States). Cool conversation for someone who’s been up all night long. We’re going to shoot for a start date in September and to keep things cool, I’m thinking we’ll run on the opposite Friday nights of the other place. No need for competition – the more venues there are for creative expression, the better.
I’m psyched. Updates to follow.


On another note, I had a long, long conversation with my girl N on Tuesday night.
She straightened me out and it was the best 4 hours of free therapy I’ve ever had. We talked about a great deal, including but not limited to my warped concept of time. The next day, during my meditation time, I realized that my problem is a real basic fear that time is going to run out. That I won’t reach my goal and some untimely death will creep up upon me. Too often, I look at where I am and wonder why it’s taking me so long. I often find myself wondering what do others think when they hear me say that I’m still working on my novel. Why is it taking so long? N helped me realize that “so long” is a relative term, a comparison to something or someone else’s time. A self-destructive notion which has no place in the creative world. Things don’t operate that way. Things don’t flourish when you’re weighted down with those kinds of shackles. So I’m working on purging that out of my system. Allowing myself to travel this journey as it’s supposed to be. Doing the work I need to do to serve the story not my impatience.

Lastly, as I was twisting my hair on Wednesday afternoon, I put in a tape of an old C-Span interview of Toni Morrison and propped myself up on the couch. Toni in my livingroom. She responded to quite a few call in questions, one of which I found particularly interesting. One caller asked how she balances her writing with her activism. Toni responded that it’s not a matter of balancing; the two are intricately woven together.

She said “I think that art should be political, representative and absolutely and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.”
Beautiful.

Another caller asked her about the whole notion of black writers writing about white characters and Toni’s response was that people should write about whomeever they want to write about. The charge is to do it with respect for the culture of the people you are writing about; to do the necessary research so that the story may be presented respectfully and with empathy. She opined that only black people are asked to transcend race. No other group of people (writers) are ever asked why they don’t write about white characters. No other group is ever asked to transcend race and her question is, why must race be transcended? Why must writing (by black authors) transcend race in order to be deemed valuable? My girl N and I were talking about this very issue during our long, long call and we both agreed that surely W.E.B. DuBois was right about the problem of the 20th century being that of the racial line, but as it pertains to art – only, only when we are able to take race out of the equation and look at the work alone, meet the needs of the work first and foremost are we ever going to achieve what art is supposed to accomplish in the first place. If a black thug character is needed for the story, the plot, then by all means put a black thug character in the story. If a physician is needed for the story and he needs to be a black male, by all means do so. But to start out with the heavy burden of making someone a black male physician, with a Lexxus and a four car garage home simply because one feels the need to make a political statement that blacks are doing well too, is too heavy of a burden (unnecessary burden) to carry. Likewise, to omit a black character simply because one feels that to do so would be to ease themself into the canon with greater ease is also a burden (unnecessary burden) to carry. Similarly, to write black/latino drug thug movies and black woman prostitute-trying-to-get-myself-together and can only do so when white man comes to save me types of movies simply because that's what sells is a major disservice to both the reader, viewer and the writer.
It’s got to be about the story. It’s got to be about the art. Anything less is a smokescreen, a fake, a phony and most of all a disservice. Anyhow, good vibes....good conversations. I'm learning. I'm absorbing. Moving forward.

**** School begins in four days. Melancholy and happiness. Need some space but damn sure don't want to start waking up at the crack of dawn again. Oh well. It's been nice. L'il Mama's got a Hello Kitty backpack and all of her supplies. She's happy as a clam. L'il Man's got his Clifford "pack-pack" and he's good to go too. ****

Be Good.

ANGEL