Light-skinned-ed Girl

James Baldwin On Being An Artist & Staying True to the Vision

I started this blog seven years ago as a struggling novelist seeking community.  And to a certain degree I came to blogging as a woman who was learning how to trust her own voice.

Today, I am a published novelist--my book was met with great critical and commercial acclaim.  I was dubbed a Power 100 Leader by Ebony Magazine.  I've met so many wonderful readers traveling the country almost non-stop for three years; I've had wonderful opportunities like walking the red carpet for the Image Awards and hanging out with Vanessa Williams at the after-party, appearing on CNN and NPR and the NBC Nightly News, speaking at the Schnitz to an audience of 2500 people who had all read my book.  The dream I had so many years ago came true!  I got my big break -- now what?

I re-read this quote by James Baldwin and thought: he really gets what it means to be an artist--not just a success story.  Words to live by.  Thank you once again, Mr. James Baldwin!

“Then you make—oh, fifteen years later, several thousand drinks later, two or three divorces, God knows how many broken friendships and an exile of one kind or another—some kind of breakthrough, which is your first articulation of who you are: that is to say, your first articulation of who you suspect we all are . . . [Y]ou make your first breakthrough [as an artist], people have heard your name—and here comes the world again.  The world you first encountered when you were fifteen.  The world which has starved you, despised you.  Here it comes again.  This time it is bearing gifts.  The phone didn’t ring before—if you had a phone.  Now it never stops ringing.  Instead of people saying, ‘What do you do?’ they say,’Won’t you do this?’ And you become, or you could become a Very Important Person.  And then—and this is a confession—you find yourself in the position of a woman I don’t know who sings a certain song in a certain choir and the song begins: ‘I said I wasn’t gonna tell nobody but I couldn’t keep it to myself.’  You’ve come full circle.  Here you are again, with it all to do all over again, and you must decide all over again whether you want to be famous or whether you want to write. And the two things, in spite of all the evidence, have nothing whatever in common.”

--James Baldwin, "The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity"

On Mindfulness & Now

You Reading This, Be Ready

by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

           William Stafford

Roots, Race, and My Dad: My Newest Huffington Post Essay

I've done a lot of writing about my dad over the last 20 years since he died, but have kept much of it private.  I wrote this essay for a news organization but ultimately it didn't fit the series.  But I was happy with the balance in the piece, as well as the small measure of peace I found in writing it.  I hope you will take a read over at the Huffington Post: My Father's Silence, A Kind of Grace.

On Seeking & Being Free From Suffering

I've been on a concentrated quest in the last few weeks and really for the last many months of trying to find some way of finding more balance and a sense of peace.  I've been trolling bookstore shelves for self-help books, and meditation manuals.  I've amped up my exercise regiment so that at least I can fall asleep at night even though I will likely wake long before dawn and toss and turn all night.  I've sought out podcasts and video talks to bolster my days.  I have listened to this particular episode of the On Being podcast with Sylvia Boorstein three times now and hope some of the lessons sink in.  Maybe you're feeling the same way?  Maybe this will help you too? 

At the end of the episode she reads this Pablo Neruda poem.  It's the poem I just need right now.

"Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

—from Extravagaria (translated by Alastair Reid, pp. 27-29, 1974)

On Missing Bread

So, I finally got serious in the last two weeks with the exercise and weight loss regimen again.  (It is so much easier to focus on healthy living when my days are regular and I'm off the road.)

I have been missing bread doing my low-carb diet.  But I have found a wonderful alternative and a great recipe for a low-carb grilled cheese sandwich.  True, it doesn't look like much, but this little sandwich makes me happy and it has only 5 net carbs.

The "bread" recipe is inspired by the muffin in a minute recipes (muffins that are made in the microwave).

1/4 cup milled flax seed

1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/4 of a 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp butter

1 egg

Stir the dry ingredients.  Then add butter and egg.  Mix well.  Pour in microwave safe dish (square if you can).  Cook in microwave for 1 minute.  Slice bread lengthwise and continue with the regular grilled cheese making steps.  (Except I don't use any more butter.)  I also use fat-free cheese and add chia seeds to the mix as well.  I'm going to try a version with just egg white to cut down on the fat as well.  Try it.  It's actually pretty tasty.

 

Bryan Stevenson: "We Need to Talk about an Injustice"

I posted this on my Facebook and Twitter accounts a couple of weeks ago, but it's so important and so moving and absolutely transforming--that I had to post it here too.

This is Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk on injustice, his grandmother, and the importance of sharing the truth of one's identity to help others.

 

 

Adrienne Rich, Visionary, Rest In Peace

I was lucky to take a course taught by Adrienne Rich while she was at Stanford.  It was a literature course focused on "outsider women" -- I can't remember what it was called.  But it was then I was introduced to the very amazing work of Lillian Smith, Audre Lorde, and Frida Kahlo among others.  I will never forget hearing--for the first time--the song Strange Fruit.  This was back in the day and the class crowded around a boombox at the front of the room.  We were transfixed.  Here we were--mostly women--of all stripes and polka dots feeling the pain of the story Billie Holiday was singing.  I can't explain the power of that moment.

About three years ago, I found a collection of Rich's I wasn't familiar with: A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far.

from "For Memory"

Freedom.  It isn't once, to walk out

under the Milky Way, feeling the rivers

of light, the fields of dark--

freedom is daily, prose-bound, routine

remembering.  Putting together, inch by inch

the starry worlds.  From all the lost collections."

It was one of those days when I found exactly what I needed.--Strangely, only a few weeks later I saw Rich at a restaurant in New York City.  She was gracious enough to let me interrupt her family meal to say hello.

I learned so much from Adrienne Rich's poetry. I learned so much from her vision.  She will be missed.

The Way Shame Works, The Way it Stops Us

Last year, a friend introduced me to the original TED Talk by Brene Brown--The Power of Vulnerability-- when I was going through a difficult time. I immediately bought Brown's book and found some comfort and wisdom from it--and have revisited it a few times since then too. 

Here is a follow-up TED Talk that was recently posted on the way shame works in our lives, "the unspoken epidemic in broken behaviors."

 

Write a Letter a Day Challenge

The last few weeks I have finally found a measure of peace in organizing my office: new file cabinets, new storage, new label maker, and at last I have a clutter-free desk!  

Part of the clean up involved going through old journals and letters.  I used to be an avid letter writer, and I had a great correspondence with a few people over the years.  I started writing letters as soon as I knew how to write.  I loved stamps, and saved my money to buy more stationery.  I was a weird kid.

I continued to write letters through college, and law school and well into the late 1990s when email was more common.  There is a wonderful intimacy in reading about a friend's adventures in Panama, or a friend's excitement over a new love.  I miss my pen pals!

So I was excited to see this challenge: Write a Letter a Day in February.  (Perfectly timed for Valentine's Day!)  I'm going to take the challenge.  How about you?  

Oh, and if you'd like to send me a letter, you can find my address on my website contact page!

Oh, Etta! You Will Be Missed!

Etta James died.  I adored Etta James.  It is a sad day indeed.  

I fell in love with her music kind of late.  I knew of her, but it was her albums of jazz standards that made me fall in love with her voice.  I could play her version of Someone to Watch Over Me all day long.  It is my all-time favorite song.

I first saw her in concert at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of years later.  She was Ray Charles' opening act and I was in the front row of box seats (my summer intern treat!).  I didn't know what an extraordinary performer she was.  Wow!  I saw her at least half-dozen times in concert after that--the last time was a couple of years ago again at the Hollywood Bowl.  She was still and again amazing.

In my novel, Etta James actually plays a pivotal role. When Rachel, the main character, goes to see Etta James in concert she is profoundly changed.  She says:

"Etta James is stuffed together like Grandma--a big, squishy capsule--and she's light-skinned like me.  She's got the gravel to her voice when she sings the loud parts (and the parts that are kind of nasty too).  She also has that soft spot in her voice when she sings songs that are about being lonely and sad.

The last song, which is an encore, is a long, slow song.  I clap and clap.  And stand and clap.  I want to say this the way Grandma would if she agreed: I like me some Etta James!  It feels like it's the only way to say it to make the meaning good."

I should have written: I LOVE me some Etta James.  Oh, Etta!  You will be missed!