A friend of mine is not doing so well health-wise and yet another made a decision I can’t help but be disappointed by, despite having made that same decision in the past. Both of these events have left me really assessing my life in a strange way. I feel a great sense of urgency in taking control of my life so that I can surround myself with affirming and restorative people and influences. I also feel like time is running out for me to make this move. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I’m turning 39 next month and I feel like the hour is late for me to be trying to make my art career take off, however with little talent in anything else I’m feeling like past wasted-time in developing other interests has yielded a wasted-life, but….
I was going to write something different at this point then I saw this on my Facebook news-feed…
… And then I decided that I should make this a personal motto.
I was going to talk about Bigger Thomas, the main character from Native Son. I was going to talk about how I sometimes relate to that feeling of hopelessness, though my upbringing was only a tiny fraction of south-side Chicago in the 1930’s. I was also going to talk a little about the new Ta-Nehisi Coates book “Between the World and Me”, structural racism and how it relates to blacks who have artistic dreams, but I wanna finish the book first so more on that later. Honestly I read this awesome response to this book by a friend who I went to undergrad with who is a professor at UCLA, Melvin Rogers. Melvin’s response was so excellent that it’s intimidating me into wanting to write an elegant response about the problem of being a creative minority in a racist society. But because all that heavy thinking and brooding over my social environment seemed to big to take on now with work, a new big-ass painting, and preparations for other big fall projects. I instead decided to relax a bit. I got the new Jill Scott CD “Woman” – track 5 “Lighthouse” is my favorite – blazed a bit with my friend’s kid, and watched a couple sentimental movies. All the while continuing to nurture a sense of grace and thankfulness for the supportive influences I already have that all indulge me so kindly.
Anthony Smith Jr. 