***Readers Note: You will be using your hands for this one. If you cannot, use your toes. If those are restricted, use your eyes; if those are missing, your lips will do.
I’ve been sitting with the thought of my time here in Chicago – finally catching my breath after a very long run. I sit and journal with my light gel-ink pen with the cute, mint fuzzy ball on a plant stem that lives at my desk in my office as a Poet-Copywriter for a candy company. In this deep thought, I can finally process having left home, New York City, at 18 years young and moving to the Midwest.
Maybe, just maybe, I can finish my book, the story of this journey that I’ve been trying to tell for so long. I’ve always had an urge that pulsed and ached to flex in the tightening of my fisted hands.
Are you familiar with that feeling?
Make a fist, and let your thoughts travel to power.
I wanted so badly to tell my story so that when you— whoever is reading this, may it be somebody young in their journey or wise in their years, would come across my tales and find the calling, the spark, the voice of the Universe. It would summon you into the unknown because somewhere deep inside of you that began as hand drums, low, like the humming voice of the Earth, would increase its tempo, almost sinister, taking the breath from your chest and evoking a shift.
That sound was always inside of me. It was daunting for a while. It would creep into my thoughts, urging me to instigate the occurrence inside of my being.
I could not understand a thing.
I blamed it on my upbringing and my lack of experience. My world was small, though I lived in the City of dreams. I would cross back and forth between an apartment in Harlem and the Heights, thinking that my life was determined. A child not seeded with the tales of all that encompasses the planet will remain stagnant.
Reader: Make a fist and give it a squeeze.
Think about being uncomfortable. Let your mind go to a place you’ve never been. Imagine yourself in spaces that have never interacted with someone like you. Detach from the familiar and delve into the Terra Incognita of the self.
That is how I arrived here, at this desk, with my fluffy-tipped plant pen. It must have been the 11pm phone call with my younger brother telling me he felt moved to share his admiration for me leaving home and shuffling through thick mud to pave the way for myself. He kept saying, “maybe if we had programs and access to resources, we’d be stars. You and I were always doing something creative to get through the dark days.” All the shoulda, coulda, woulda weighed heavy from time to time, but I serenely told him, “Nah, man. This was the story. Whether it was our karmic debt, the education system, or lack of awareness from the adults that raised us. It’s just taking a while for us to find our way.
I needed to be reminded that things have been diamond rough. It has taken intention, applying thoughts to formulas for actions and results. I have had to learn the rules, to fail, and most importantly, I’ve had to learn to ask the right questions.
So, If I could leave you with anything valuable. To take something to apply to your own philosophy, it would be to sit with yourself and contemplate the following:
Write down questions you have for yourself, for the world, for an educator, a professional, or a friend. Start broad and create a digestible diagram.
Let’s call it draft 1.
Spend a week thinking through these questions, and pour them out without overthinking if you’re asking the right thing.
Let’s call it automatic writing.
Tap into the deepest part of your mind without limitations. This will give you direction on your next steps of where you need to go.
There is a place everywhere on this planet to belong to. If you experienced a time, as I have, in my younger years, where the back and forth seemed like I was doomed to a repetitive cycle of a surreal nightmare, I could attest that you still have time to reset your mind, path, and destination.
So reader, make a fist, squeeze and imagine yourself about to square up with the unknown. I challenge you to make yourself uncomfortable.
Tell me: Where did you go???
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