Lamenting Loves Loss

I lost a young love once.
When it began I was a kid.
It died of injuries suffered
from all the childish things I did.

I fell so deep in love once
that it had me struck with fear.
Held that love so tight I lost it
in attempts to keep it near.

I lost a love before I had it,
and it was the strangest thing.
Looked just like love in the beginning,
but it turned out to be a fling.

Now I've lost so many loves
that its been hard for me to see
whether I've been losing love
or maybe loves been losing me.

Schizoartistic Disorder

I've said it a million times before. Art is my sanctuary. Its my medicine. But medicine's a funny thing. In my business, medicine rarely fixes anything. It generally just masks the symptoms. As soon as you stop taking your medicine, the symptoms come back. And so it is with me. Art helps me drown out the voices. I know they're still talking. I just can't hear them so much when the music is playing.

When I start an artistic project, its usually because I need an outlet for my frustration. But because my outlet works so well, I sometimes forget what it was that I was frustrated about. This tends to leave me open to being blindsided. When I wrap up some project, high on the creative juices, I often forget that I got high for a reason. Then I come back down to earth and remember.

I spent the last two months on an artistic high. Movies. Music. Books. Photography. Its been nonstop. And now, as I wrap up most of these projects, I'm smacked with the realization that the summer is over and I'm back to the business as usual. I can already hear the voices calling me. Someone hand me my pills.

Next?

What a summer. I was a finalist in a modeling contest that put me on TV and all over the newspaper and the internet. I was the guest speaker at a celebration of the Black community in my town. I officially accepted a national fellowship from the American Psychological Association last week. My music was accepted to iTunes sometime in the last few weeks. I finished writing my first book and wrapped up filming on my first movie this week. In fact, shooting ended this afternoon. I submitted my book to a possible publisher this evening. In a few day, I'll start school again.

When I started the summer, my plan was to do research. I had started a research project at school and was excited to do my very own project. But, because of personnel problems at school, that project was put on hold until the fall. So, I had to fill my time. I suppose I did.

It feels like I've been going non-stop for two months. I can't remember when I last took a break. Then again, I don't like breaks. When I finished the book and the movie all in the same week, it sort of left me with nothing to do. My first thought was, "What's next?"

I suppose one day I'll slow down. One day I'll relax. But not today. Today I work. Funny that I even call this stuff work. I mean, I love this stuff. Learning psychology, making music, making movies, writing books..... Nothing could be more fun to me. This is my dream come true. This is the life I wanted.

So, as I think about that new song I have been wanting to release, that research project waiting for me at school, that photography book I was supposed to finish this summer, and the next movie idea, some might wonder where I find the time and the energy to do all this. I wonder that too sometimes. I'd figure that out if I had a minute to think. But who has time to think?!

Here Goes Nothing....

So I finished the book. Not that book. The other book. I know. Its tough to keep up. Its not easy for me to keep up either. So anyway, I wrote the 1st draft of my book. Its sort of autobiographical. Its about growing up without a father. More specifically, its about becoming a man and never having an example to follow. I'm pretty happy with it, so far.

This book, for me, takes my creative explorations to a new level. My art is usually relatively abstract. I play jazz music. I can express my feelings about a great number of things and never really have anyone know exactly what I'm feeling or thinking. I take artistic nude photos. Its an expression of my interests (obviously), but its not really a commentary that lends itself to intellectual understanding or even critique. But this book is different. I talk about my childhood. I talk about my father. I talk about my mother. I talk about my children, my thoughts on life, and everything in between. The message is far from abstract.

I've had an interesting life thus far. It has made me who I am. I've always said that if people only knew..... Well, I guess we'll find out.

iTunes? Really?

So I'm flipping through the iTunes store, as I often do, and I decide to put my name in the search engine. I had submitted a few tunes from my solo album a month or so ago. I never heard anything, so I assumed they didn't accept me. But, just for fun, I thought I'd see what happened when I put my own name into iTunes. Well, much to my surprise, there I was. Lord only knows how long it had been up there. I don't even know how to check if any units have sold. But there I was.

Its a pretty strange feeling really. I bought a couple Gladys Knight tunes last week on iTunes. I bought some Phil Collins. Before that I bought this Lady Antebellum tune that a friend of mine let me hear in her car. I've bought James Brown on iTunes. Jay-Z. Billie Holiday. John Mayer. Those guys are all supposed to be on iTunes. And then there's me.

I remember I was at a party one time and a guy came up to me and told me that I was in his iPod. It took me a second to realize what he meant. At first I thought he meant that I had somehow stolen his iPod. Then it hit me. My music is in his iPod. Why, I couldn't tell you. But it was. I knew that he knew some people who I'd given a copy of my CD to, so it made sense after I thought about it. But every time someone tells me they were just listening to my CD, I have the same reaction. How did you get it, and why were you just listening to it.

So now, years and years after I made my CD, its on iTunes. For those that don't know me, my music will be brand new. In a sense, that's kinda cool. There's the potential for a brand new audience for my music. But it just means that there will now be the possibility of true strangers, in any city I might travel to, to say, "Hey man, you're in my iPod." My response will probably always be, "Really? Why?"

The Blind man and the Fool

I remember back in college, a bunch of us were sitting around talking about the "what ifs" of life. Someone one asked my buddy, Leon, what if he found out that his girlfriend had been cheating on him while he was off at school. He said, "I would thank her." We all thought he was being silly until he explained his logic. He explained that if she had been cheating on him, then she wasn't what he thought she was and that he would appreciate that she had shown him what he couldn't see. That always stuck with me as profound wisdom. Steven Covey wrote about a similar kind of logic when he talked about paradigm shifts. The idea is that reality is always what it is. Truth cannot change. Our perception of it, however, is what really matters. Perception's change all the time. Something that appears at first to be one thing, turns out to be quite the opposite. Then when you look back on it with clearer vision, you see all those little hints that you chose to ignore or missed all together. The truth was always there. You just couldn't see it.

I find this idea particularly fascinating in relationships. Especially MY relationships. How do things that are so wrong appear to be so right? How do all the signs, which in hind sight will undoubtedly point to inevitable disaster, somehow seem to point to romantic bliss at the onset of things? And how is it that these signs are so often perfectly clear to everyone but the one that needs them most?

They say that love is blind. I suppose that makes sense. Love clouds the vision and makes the wise man into a fool. But as a wise man once told me, the only difference between a genius and a fool is time. If when you close your eyes and leap, you fall into happiness, that foolish jump will look awful smart. But if you're not so lucky, that same decision looks like a fool's errand. The problem is, only time can tell that tale.

One of these days time is gonna call me the genius and not the fool. Until then, I'm still blind jumping. Look out below.

Lights, Camera,......

Today is the first day of shooting for my movie. I say that as if there will be lots of days of shooting. There will likely be two. But, I'm sitting here waiting on the crew. This is my first film. I don't really know what to expect. I'm working with a director. I'm working with actors. I'm not used to this stuff. I'm used to flying solo. The creative juices have always been my responsibility. Today will be a little different. My job today will be as more of an observer. I write the flick. But then I passed the torch to a director to carry for a bit. It's gonna be up to him to make my dream come alive. That's a little scary for me. But in a good way.

I remember when I had my first photo shoot. I had this same feeling. That "Is this real?" feeling. Its like I'm asking myself if what I'm about to do is what I'd envisioned. Will it fall apart? Will it be great? I had the same feeling when I took the stage for the first time with my horn in my hand. I had practiced. I had prepared. But getting on the stage while people are watching is different than practicing. And that first photo shoot, just like that first gig, felt just like I thought it would. Amazing.

Here I am, standing backstage, horn in hand, waiting for the downbeat. Waiting for the announcer to say, "Ladies and gentlemen......"

Full Exposure

I'm a writer! I suppose I've been a writer for a while. I studied writing. I've been writing poetry, fiction, and biographical work for years now. But writing and publishing are two different things. In my opinion, you're not a writer until someone else says you are. 3rd graders write papers. No one publishes that. So, when your work ends up in print somewhere, then you're a writer. Well, this morning I'm a writer.

My local paper decided to print my last blog entry as an editorial piece. And so, this morning, my words are printed for all to see. I always knew I'd get published one day. What I didn't know was how strange it would feel. Especially because they printed something that was written without the intention of being printed in that format. They printed my raw unedited thoughts. My life. My experience. And in a few hours, everyone in my little neck of the woods will get to read it. That's a little bit scary. I've never had an audience this big for anything I've done. When I write my blog, I don't imagine that many people read it. Those that do, in my mind, are my friends. Its a captive audience, so to speak. Its intimate. Its close. Its just me and my pals telling stories. But the newspaper? That's exposure. That's public. I must say, I feel a bit naked.

In a few hours, my raw, uncut thoughts will be hitting everyone's kitchen table, beside their cup of coffee and their scrambled eggs. I hope I've got on clean underwear.