Written on 3/15/21 at 12:05 pm
I sit outside
Reading my Living Buddhism
I spot three robins
beautiful red breasted robins
Hopping around on the lawn
Hip hop hip hop
Peaceful as can be
As I sit under the bare branched tree
The mosquito eaters buzz around me
I soak in the azul of the beautiful sky
The sun nurtures me with
Her radiant vitamin D
The robins are so beautiful.
Written on March 15, 2021
I wake up at 6 Mom makes some grits and greens My bed is rumpled The sheets need to be washed I chant Nam myoho renge kyo The story of my life The title of my Buddhahood The title of the story of the Universe From time without beginning While I dawdle on my computer Just gotta finish this blog post My fingers sweat with anxiety As I clack them across the keyboard Barely finished Half-baked book review But at least you finished it after Weeks of procrastination I pack my lunch Spaghetti and vegetables with tomato sauce And a banana I grab my two masks And go out the door Shoot I forgot my phone I rush back into the house And grab it In my sleepy haze I travel down the roads of my neighborhood Cars turn left I turn right without looking Thank God it's school zone time A car glides along There could have been a collision But my mind is brainwashed By the marijuana of sleepiness I start chanting as my car glides Through the quiet morning streets And the sun bathes my eyes and face In its radiance Nam myoho renge kyo Nam myoho renge kyo Nam myoho renge kyo "Never seek this Gohonzon outside yourself The Gohonzon exists only within the mortal flesh Of us ordinary people who embrace the Lotus Sutra and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo"* I keep this little jewel of wisdom in my Back pocket And remember that my life I am the Gohonzon The embodiment of Nam myoho renge kyo Even if I barely try to get through the day I need not slander my Buddhahood If you love yourself It's easier to love other people As I write this poem In the parking lot of work In the peaceful solitude of my car I intone the title of Buddhahood Nam myoho renge kyo My busy mind slows It pumps the brakes To savor every honey syllable And my body feels like limp spaghetti Know thyself I sink into my greater self And manifest it in more ways than one When I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo I bring forth the wisdom, courage, compassion And life force that has been the essence of my being And the essence of others And the essence of the universe Since time without beginning. *from "The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon," page 832, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, volume 1. Soka Gakkai
A few weeks ago I stayed up late reading this on Saturday night (thankfully I took a nap before) and honestly, reading this book felt as if I was eating a delectable hot fudge sundae (lactose-free of course, since I’m lactose-intolerant.) It’s one of those books you have to eat in small bites just as you savor the delectable hot fudge sundae. It is juicy with love affairs, gossip, religion, philosophy that you won’t want to read it quickly at all.
In particular, I really loved the edition I read (it’s the Penguin Classics one translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.) I understand that there’s a saying Don’t judge a book by its cover, but this time this cover enraptured me. It shows a young woman holding a small bouquet of purple flowers, I think they are lilacs, between her knees. I don’t know why I love that cover so much, but I guess because it has this sensual energy about it. It made me feel like, Oh yeah baby I’m reading the 19th century 50 Shades of Grey (disclaimer: I haven’t read one 50 Shades of Grey book. I’m behind the times lol) this is bad look at me I’m so bad haha. I also got this edition because several years ago I was reading Oprah’s Book Club list and this was one of the books on her list.
I was really craving more of Leo Tolstoy’s writing after reading his tome War and Peace. I bought a copy of the Signet Classics version back in my senior year of high school, but I never read it or picked it up, so it pretty much just collected a boatload of dust bunnies, unloved and unread. But during quarantine, I decided it would be the best time to read any large books (or really any books of any length) I had sitting on my shelf that I had not read yet. After reading and falling in love with War and Peace I wanted to read more writing by him, so I bought Anna Karenina. I tend to read multiple books at once, but Anna Karenina was so spellbinding that it was the only book I read for a while. The particular translation I read was excellent, just the style of writing was powerful.
I don’t really know what else to say because this book was so good and there was so much juiciness about it that I’m still trying to digest it. I’m sure I’ll come up with more ideas about it at a later time, but the writing was absolutely amazing and I really loved this book. The ending is pretty sad, but I’m not going to spoil it in case anyone hasn’t read it yet.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. 864 pp.
Here are some songs that I’ve been jamming to:
A couple of weeks ago I read a book that someone had recommended to me. It is a collection of excellent poems by the U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Joy Harjo’s poetry blew me away, and I am so glad that this person recommended her works to me. I first heard of Joy Harjo when I was reading this newspaper called World Tribune, which is one of the Soka Gakkai International’s publications, and in one of the issues there was a short news article on Joy Harjo becoming the U.S. poet Laureate. I was so glad to hear this, especially because after doing my senior thesis in college on Indigenous communities and the environmental justice movement, I was interested in reading more works by Indigenous authors. So someone I knew from a virtual book club told me about Joy Harjo because we were talking about works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) authors. They recommended I buy her poetry collection, She Had Some Horses, and her memoir Crazy Brave. I started with She Had Some Horses and wow. All I can say is wow. While I read She Had Some Horses, I felt inspired to get back into writing my own poetry. Reading She Had Some Horses showed me the raw power and vulnerability that goes into writing poetry. I haven’t read many works by Indigenous authors, other than works by the scholar Kyle Powys Whyte, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. She Had Some Horses really inspired me to write my poems from my lived experiences and to not be afraid of vulnerability. I worried for a long time about being vulnerable in my poems because I was worried what people would think, so I didn’t write poetry for a while because I thought it all had to sound like roses are red, violets are blue. But of course that’s far from the truth. Poetry is life, it is lived experiences, it is truth, and Joy Harjo’s She Had Some Horses showed me that. Every word I read in her poems sat with me for a long time. I found myself slowing down in time to take in every word, every syllable, and to listen, just listen openly, as the words moved on the page. Each word stirred an emotion in me, and I just listened, and absorbed, and listened. At the end I felt as if I had encountered this honest deep dialogue with Joy and listened to her narrative on womanhood, tradition, culture and human nature. Thank you Joy Harjo for inspiring me to write poetry again. You have shown me the importance of writing from the heart, from sharing my narrative so I could have a dialogue with myself and a dialogue with others. Thank you.
She Had Some Horses. Joy Harjo. Copyright 2008, 1983. 80 pp.
A few weeks ago I finished this excellent novel called Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo. I got a gift card to a Black-owned bookstore and was searching through the online catalog, looking for what books I could buy. I came across a memoir by the late congressman John Lewis and this book. I was looking for something new to read, and I didn’t know the plot of Stay with Me so I went with it. I was also looking for something fictional to read. Some friends of mine saw the book when it arrived and told me they loved the book and how deeply it moved them. Within a few pages I was hooked. It got recognized as a New York Times Notable Book and was rated one of the best books of the year, and I can see why, because the author’s writing is absolutely spellbinding. I have read a few works by Nigerian authors: Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (The Thing Around Your Neck, Americanah, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Dear Ijeawele), and all the books they wrote were really good. Ayobami Adebayo’s book Stay with Me was published back in 2017, and frankly I don’t know why I waited so long to read it, because it is an amazing novel that left my heart pounding until the last page.
It’s about this young woman named Yejide who finds out that her husband is cheating on her with another woman named Funmi in order to bear children. Yejide has a hard time bearing children, so her husband Akin tries to conceive with another woman, partly to please his parents, who dislike Yejide because she doesn’t have any children. Yejide does everything she can to get pregnant, and she finally goes to some people who put her through a ritual to make her pregnant. She notices all the signs of pregnancy over time; her stomach gets larger, she experiences morning sickness, she feels kicking in her stomach. But what she is experiencing is actually a thing called pseudocyesis, or false pregnancy. Akin warns her that she isn’t really pregnant, but Yejide, who has been stigmatized by her community for far too long for not being able to conceive, can finally have something to hold onto, so she keeps saying she is pregnant. Then Funmi dies and Akin’s world falls apart. Yejide finally gets pregnant, but when she does she deals with a trauma that keeps on happening over and over again each time she has a child.
I’m not a mother myself, but reading about Yejide’s struggle showed me that the path to motherhood is definitely not an easy one, especially if you lose your children and have to deal with the grief and trauma that comes with it. I guess that’s why I read fiction, though, because even if I’ve never gone through what someone has gone through, I get to know what their lived experiences are like, and so I’m having to put myself in this person’s shoes. Of course, at the end of the day, I don’t have to carry the trauma and grief that Yejide did for many years, but reading about what she went through gave me a deeper appreciation for women and mothers because they have to go through a lot, and taught me a lot about cultural attitudes around children and marriage and how these attitudes can have a deep impact on people who either don’t want kids or are having a hard time conceiving kids.
Stay with Me. Ayobami Adebayo. 272 pp. Published July 10, 2018
Written on March 16, 2019
Ok, now let me preface with a shameful disclaimer: I have not seen one episode of Parks and Recreation. Like many people I only know the American comedian Marietta Sirleaf (aka The Actress Known as Retta) from the episode where her and Aziz Ansari’s characters Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford have a “Treat Yo’Self” year where they treat themselves to fancy things such as mimosas and “fine leather goods.”
Little did I know that Retta is pretty sick and tired of people using that phrase so many times around her. That is, until I read her memoir So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know, in which she chronicles her childhood in the projects of New Jersey to her struggle with employment in Los Angeles and her success later on. I honestly think anyone of any profession can learn from Retta’s memoir, and I found reading this book especially helpful as a musician because like any entertainment field, it is competitive and you have to have a sense of humor even when struggling to be successful in the industry. I normally don’t read non-fiction but as of late I have found reading funny but touching memoirs by female comedians (the last one I read was Bossypants and I snagged a copy of Amy Poehler’s Yes Please from the library shelves) to be my go-to for continuing to persevere in the quest for my dreams.
Here are just a few things I learned from reading Retta’s book:
Ask not, you get not. In her next to last chapter “The Year I Went Lin-Sane,” Retta talks about how her friend got her hooked on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical Hamilton but that it was hard to get tickets since they were all sold out. So Retta asked her publicist, which led her publicist to connect with someone who could get her the tickets. She finally got them and, when there were subsequent showings of Hamilton she kept persisting in asking the person who gave her the tickets before if she could see it again with her friends. Retta not only got to meet the entire cast of Hamilton, but also Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, and even got to see him in the last show he would be in. Just goes to prove that when you really need help, you just need to ask because the worst someone can say is “no.” Also, Lin is a sweetie. Never met him, but from how Retta describes him, he seems like a genuinely sweet person.
Love yourself so you can genuinely respect others. Retta has faced a lot of size-based discrimination while in the entertainment industry. In her chapter “Membership Has Privileges” she describes the surreal glamour of being at the Emmys and the Golden Globes and getting to dance, drink, and socialize with the hottest stars (and exchange awkward moments with a few of them, such as when Retta mistakes Julia Stiles for another actress and Julia gives her a deer-in-the-headlights look and tells her coldly she is mistaking her for the wrong person. That moment had me shooketh, like “Wow, Julia Stiles. Just wow.”) One of the photographers at the Golden Globes refuses to take a photo with Retta because she doesn’t like the way Retta looks, and so a bunch of photographers start photographing Retta, and when the photographer lady proceeds to catch up with her peers and finally take one of Retta, Retta holds up a finger and basically tells her “No, you’re good. Everyone else was fine taking my photo, and you didn’t want to, so why bother?” It takes courage to love yourself after all the tears and struggle, but as Retta says in her chapter “Stretch Marks Fo Life!” you have to accept who you are and embrace your own beauty rather than feel pressured to conform to other people’s standards of beauty. She says that exercising and eating right are great, but you also need to splurge sometimes.
Imposter syndrome comes with a nasty price tag. Spend your money and time on bouncing back from rejection, not on imposter syndrome. In the very first chapter “Eff You Effie!” Retta says that her manager called her out of the blue about fourteen years ago to tell her he booked her an audition to play Effie White in the film Dreamgirls. Even though Retta at first thought it was her dream to star in this film, she started doubting herself and her qualifications even though she had been working as an actor for ten years. Retta says that “the fear of rejection is real, my friends. When you’ve had your fair share of soul-crushing, self-esteem-destroying experiences, it’ll do a serious number on your psyche.” She experienced rejection after rejection many times during her acting career, and it can be hard to bounce back after rejection so many times, so she didn’t put herself out there for the longest time until the Dreamgirls opportunity came along. She also injured her ankle one time while dancing and thus thought her sprained ankle would ruin her acting career, and also worried that the costume department wouldn’t find a dress for Retta’s size. More importantly, though, Retta didn’t feel she deserved to be acting alongside Jamie Foxx, Beyonce and Eddie Murphy because she felt she wasn’t what they wanted in Effie White. According to Retta:
“I never said no. I was way more chickenshit than that. I just kept avoiding it, putting it off. For about three months I never made myself available, and it got to the point where they had a movie to cast and so they did. They went with the seventh-place finalist of season three of American Idol. They cast Jennifer Hudson. She had no credits. But you know what she did have? The balls to show up to the audition.” (So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know, page 11)
Now, to be fair, and Retta does acknowledge this of course: Jennifer Hudson kicked serious ass in that movie and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Hell, her performance throughout the film gave me chills and all I could think was “Woah. She is hella talented.” I then saw her in the film Chi-raq, in which she plays an incredibly gut-wrenching role as a mom who daughter got killed in gun violence. Jennifer Hudson is truly an incredible actress, and her approach to the audition was that simple: Just perform. Don’t try and craft a perfect image of Effie White. Just play the role and be confident even when you feel that you aren’t the right person for the role. Or, as Retta says,
“I did not win an Oscar but I learned a valuable lesson that stays with me to this day and plays a loop in my head anytime I have a big audition. It goes a little something like this: Bitch stop wasting time fearing the worst. Living through the worst is never as hard as fearing it. Fight the fear and go do what you gotta do. That’s what you came here for.” (So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know, p. 13)
Honestly I think this quote will stick with me for the rest of my classical music career. In classical music the focus is on mastery and perfection, so it’s no surprise that people in conservatories spend their whole lives working at their craft (with some time to have fun and enjoy life, of course). However, we live in an age where anyone anywhere, regardless of of whether or not they think they have enough expertise, can record themselves performing with their phones. There are people out there who create video blogs and even if they talk about things such as what so and so said to me or what I had for lunch today, they make millions off of it. I’m not saying that get-rich-quick stories are applicable to everyone (ya girl is one example). The work doesn’t have to be perfect because someone will tell you whether or not they like your work and you just need to keep creating and pitching yourself until you find someone who does like your work and wants to offer you an opportunity better than you ever thought possible. I get that classical music auditions are competitive, but at what point does perfection become an illusion? Because a lot of times we can’t afford to stay at home and work on something until it’s perfect; we’ve got mouths to feed, jobs to work, errands to run. Yes it’s important to practice, but you still need to get your work out there so that the experts can see it and help you fine-tune your technique. And if you don’t end up making the orchestra audition? Don’t beat yourself up; do other things besides just music because people want a well-rounded person nowadays. If you’re going to be a successful artist you need to learn to promote your work using other mediums, such as writing and other things.
Keep in touch with the people you work with. Retta and her Parks and Recreation co-stars communicate via group text even to this day because they were with each other through thick and thin during all of the seasons.
Have an attitude of gratitude and keep an open mind. Retta got to attend several hockey games, meet famous hockey players and present at the National Hockey League awards. Before, she thought she would have no interest in hockey. But after communicating with the LA Kings hockey team through Twitter, Retta came to the games and thoroughly savored every moment she was at the games, even trying to get past a security guard to go directly towards the glass to see the players in full action. She got to attend several incredible ceremonies (and meet her dream bae, Michael Fassbender. Although I will say I had a hard time thinking of him as a dream bae after seeing him play a beyond-hostile slave owner in Twelve Years a Slave. But that’s just my opinion.) After growing up in such difficult circumstances and struggling even when she moved to LA for her acting career, achieving success was truly a life changing thing for her, so she was able to appreciate gaining so much access to Hollywood and getting so many amazing acting opportunities along the way. She says that as an actor, what is most important is not getting smug and complacent with your success and quitting your work, and that as long as she is alive, she will keep being a working actor because it brings her joy. I remember the personal finance expert Suze Orman saying something similar: keep working, even if you have all this money, always keep learning new things and always keep doing work that you love.
This blog post is by no means a comprehensive review of the book because I literally love it so much I couldn’t stop guffawing in the library while reading it. But it gives a snapshot as to why I think you should drop everything you’re doing and treat yo’self to this epic book (gosh why did I make such a bad joke about that meme? Please forgive me Retta and don’t tweet this. I promise to not stop you in a store one day and have you say it in my camera-pone like that one fool did. I pinky-promise.)
So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know by Retta. 2018. 262 pp.
Written on February 28, 2019
I am plunging into the deep my body tingling with the summer air i submerge myself into the ocean of my heart. as i snorkel and swim i dance rhythmically, mystically, blissfully with dolphins who look at me curiously as if I was an extraterrestrial My pulse pumps life blood into my body as the oxygen leaves my lungs and i slowly fall into a deep, deep unconsciousness i feel a humanness rescue me from the depths of the deep blue it is alas you and you came to rescue me from that abyss. i want to thank you but my heart is full of grief as i plunged into the ocean blue the air on land liberates me from the shackles of shame serenity serendipity a blessing not a curse pulls me from the dark dungeon of my heart. i retch. my breath heavy i struggle to breathe the saltwater overwhelms my struggling lungs then a torrent of saltwater and other contents plunges from the depth of my being my body convulses rebels against the bitter sharp taste of vomit that coats my entire mouth in one grand gesture of bitter sweetness. your hands warm my convulsing back as i give up all the thrills, the ecstasy, the laughs, the dances i shared with those dolphins and the rest of the marine life.
Written on February 28, 2019
I sit alone at the kitchen table And watch as the lonely waves crash outside my window I peel the sweet pulpy fruit listening to the crisp squish of its flesh as it peels back against the sour bitter flesh i admire the curled strips of fruity flesh hanging off the succulent sphere in my sticky hands collects the sweet and sour juice i take my fingers and grasp onto a crescent moon and peel the moon gently from its friends goodbye, it says, my loves it was nice knowing you i detach the lonely moon as it gives one last longing kiss to the other crescent moons that nestle alongside it that try to latch themselves to it like a magnet on a refrigerator i embrace the pulpy mass with my fingers honey running down my hand the orange makes its slow descent into the abyss of my stomach i chew that flesh with the relish of a food aficionado sparks fly on the surface of my ridged tongue sweet, salty, bitter, all of my lost memories of picking oranges in the summer Texas sun with my ex. they no longer pick oranges with me but they pick oranges with me in spirit they enjoy the scrumptious sumptuous moment of dining on this exquisite fruit with me. The peels sit on the table untouched. I let them have a moment of deep contemplative silence and dry out for a few days in the sun so that i could make essential oils out of them they sit, feeling used, torn apart by the violence of my delicate yet impatient hands. mangled by the hunger and passion of my taste in fruits i tip-toe my fingers to the middle of the table and caress those delicate remains of a round ripe healthy body with a sticker certifying its livelihood imported from Nicaragua.
Written on February 28, 2019
We sit together Eating hot dogs Full of crunchy fresh pickle relish Spicy ocher mustard And crimson ketchup on that Brooklyn bench After wandering round Central Park. He looks at me for the longest time and just smiles. A simple smile, no more, no less. His long sandy hair breezing in the wind. His green apple eyes bear through my every thought telling me i'm hiding something even though i don't want to say what's on my mind he holds my hand, with its tarnished wedding ring stained with blood a ring i no longer care to think about a ring of a love long gone a divorce that still bears the scar of our rocky marriage i let the tears flow calmly i feel my body give little quakes off as he continues to hold my hand this gentle friend of mine tells me that it's ok to not be ok that everything is going to be fine that i don't have to live with the hurt of divorce this friend tells me in a whisper, that i no longer need to wait on someone to please me romantically and i no longer have to please anyone but myself that i can be free of the fetters of loneliness and enjoy the placid silence that comes with solitude solitude = juventud juventud = youth in Spanish. i let the hurt wash over me and then i inhale, my lungs taking in the crisp fall air and i let out a long sigh that shakes letting go of years of pain, pleasure, destruction, emotional detachment i let this friend curl his turtle-necked arms around my neck. a neck that bears the burning flesh wound of emotional abuse a wound that will take many months to heal from a gash that bears my name, my namesake, his name, his namesake i jokingly rub the tears into the wound at the back of my neck. the tears are magical healing water they are an elixir of salty and sweet they gently kiss my broken wounds as i rub them gently on the scars these tear kisses gently caress these screaming wounds and calm them so their flames don't continue to lick my neck even as this moment of sweet, sweet bliss only lasts for some time before i am once again back to tasting the sweet and salty of fresh flowing tears. i wake up in my own bed the friend has gone home i sit and look up at the ceiling my mind is no longer racing and even though the demons of doubt will in any second rear their ugly demonic heads of doom my body dragged down by the weight of emotional depletion. the tears are dried like a charcoal mask after it's done sitting on your face on my puffy face my eyes tired from all the tears, the crying worked my face muscles, my eye muscles, every muscle that waged a war in my body, worn and dragged beat and bruised body.
The Arts Are Life 