Imagine That

I imagined 10 years ago that I would have been at established as an artist... a vocalist/writer/director/producer/publisher by now.  What happened?


I come home nightly and expect that I should be crafting some great play or coming up the arch of my as-yet-unwritten-novel[la] or at least posting INTERESTING Images of inspiration for me to feed off of and plan from...but no.  Nightly, I return to this room as I have returned to every space I have occupied since returning to the States - wondering, smoking and thinking, "HOW DID I GET HERE!?"  Followed UP that Strokin' to Sleep.


I can't move on for FEAR of repeating some awful mistake of my past.  I am UNABLE to move forward...UNWILLING to take the RISK necessary to LIVE AGAIN.  Instead, I have reverted to type.  I have once again inhabited a cliche'...one so ugly, I LEFT THE COUNTRY TO AVOID IT!!!  LoL...I think. 


You can't NOT KNOW!  I came back knowing this and STILL I have ended-up...just how I was hoping never to - CRUSHED, sTIFLED, Confused by the PATH behind me and CONFOUNDED by the one BEFORE ME!!  Funny thing about KNOWLEDGE...you can have all the knowledge in the world, but left dormant, it serves NO PURPOSE.


I have too many options...as my Dad once told me.  I SEE everything.  They named me GREGORY, which means The WATCHER [OE].  Joel, my birth name, is that of a minor PROPHET in the Old Testament.  BeNU, with the altered spelling, is meant be my embodiment of The PHOENIX...the ORIGINAL PHOENIX, as know in KEMET.  He/That which RISES from the ASHES to BRILLIANCE and once again FLY HIGH, OBSERVING the WORLD and SPREADING HARMONY!!!  Be that as it may, I have tried all that I can try in the hopes of whittling down my options.  However, the more I see, the more of the world that opens up to me...the more diversions from my original path I see...and try. 


My ORIGINAL Path was perform, learn, direct, create, produce.  In the course of all of thi,s gain the knowledge I need to fulfill my dreams, while earning the respect of my peers for both creativity and being thorough. 


THE MINUTE FEAR of ANY SORT seeped into the picture...It was a WRAP.  Initially, I thought "since my parents don't SEE IT...I must not have IT." and "I will work diligently...find something that catches my interest so that I am able to distract myself from my dream/passion."  I tried everything and in the process...learned how to best keep ME on the BACKBURNER...so much so, that I developed an almost instinctive way of IGNORING ME in order to best HELP/EXIST THROUGH OTHERS!  That is where I find myself...PRESENTLY.  This is the ME I keep thinking a COWARD for not...ONLY using a small part of my TALENTS to GET BY, as opposed to realizing that THIS is HOW I HAVE BEEN LIVING.  ME IS IN THE AIR and UNAVOIDABLE.  I have been able to REHASH everything I have done to get here.  Despite these choices being the folly of my 20s and 30s...the effects has been lasting.  Also, I DID IT...lol...while I was working in media, so...


MY ART...My HeART has suffered tremendously.  I never REALLY gave my wits the room to breath...consistently.  When the time came to step up, I got a bit tripped-up.  But that happens.  Funny thing...IF YOU HAVE NEVER TRULY FALLEN...it is a BITCH Getting back up.  I NEVER Really CARED about anything else.  Even living through Fashion, as I was able to do for the Greater part of the 90s...never had any complete allure.  Music...My VOICE...THIS MUSCLE that was to GIVE VOICE to MY HEART/SOUL/MIND, had been kept on lowflame for so long...that when time came to execute...I couldn't sustain it.  I tried to apply the experiences I'd had in NYC to living as an ARTIST.  Hoping that would spark my RESILIANCE...I called upon those Fuck, Foibles and Funtimes to INFORM my FUTURE...in a POSITIVE way.  I RETARDED.


I stepped into an CHAPTER of my LIFE that was convoluted...confounding and humbling in a way that threatened to BREAK ME.  It has given me pause, though. 

I ACHE to move forward and FULFILL what I IMAGINED, but to where? 

Graduate school has come up again...


Learn...LIVE in a controlled environment.  Do I still have a chance?  Why not?

MOVE Forward.  The PATH can Lead to what was initially IMAGINED, but

 I have to take the steps. 

The Past is the Black/MRBHistory.  Learn from it...and go on.


LIVE.

Now is the Time

BeNU

AURAL FIXATION...Michael Franks - Sleeping Gypsy (Full Album) ►1977◄

Hmmm...

Hmmm...Patience Pays

That  was the T today...

Patience Pays...

You are where you are supposed to be.




Stay open.




Guard your Light.


Be Present.


LOVE...Unconditionally


LOVE HARD


Follow your Heart


TRUST your GUT


Do what you LOVE and you'll never work a day in your LIFE!!!


Just recalling some of the...

WISDOM

Merci Beaucoup.

Now, USE IT.
[I'm waiting!!!]

PEACE


BeNU

YOU GOT TO BELIEVE

This morning...I was pulling on SpriGs...

...This evening...I have 3 different flavors to DIGEST.

Merci Pour La Sagess!!!

Chauncey capped off my day.

I started slow...taking forever to rise, as the dry heat and my new late night writing routine had me floored.  The air was thick and dry...HEAVY.  It foretold of HEAT to cum.  A funk...FUNK settled-in on me...that I could not shake.  I felt worthless from the first sight of the sky.  That Blue Blazed right to my heart...to my soul.  It spoke volumes just where my spirit lay...after the first breakfast.


It was there.  No vitamins.  No stretching.  No 350...nothing PHASED iT!  IT was just there.  I got no information from Roger regarding work and was waiting for the arrival of my new debit card, after my previous one was corrupted. 


I stewed with - HOW DID I GET HERE...AGAIN?  How could this happen to me??  This is a Conspiracy!!!  They are trying to KEEP ME POOR and HERE!!!  I can't Find a Job!  What are they taking...$10??  That is ALL I HAVE!   I am a Failure!  VACATION?!?!?  What is THAT?  THis is NOT A VACATION!!!!  Vacation...is when you are free of THESE types of THOUGHTS...no CARES...JUST RELAX RELATE RELEASE...;-)


Wisdom in the morning.  Then something happen.  My Malaise flipped me into focused SLOTH.  So, I begrudgingly cleaned the bathroom and kitchen.  I did my 350 with ease...as the HEAT came, so to did my muscles warm.  And just to get out...I decided to walk to Lincoln Center...eventually.  I just sat...layed-around...clean...checking e-mails and dick sights...flirting with no real intention...on both.  Nothing came through...a relief.  I updated the information for food stamps...need to complete that finally.


Then Roland was home.  He had my card in hand...I ripped it open...and just felt...MOVED.  I open the envelope...finished my work on-line; map-out my Route - Bank...start card; Bodega...$10; Juice Bar...redeem my card for a juice; water and Wheat Grass...walk.  That was my plan.  It flowed perfectly with perks.  When I went to the juice bar and JUST ordered a wheat grass and water and explained about my card, they GAVE me a LARGE GREEN JUICE.  Just pay later...go 'head, she said. 
THAT...IS COMMUNITY!!!  I love LOYALTY.  I will go back and cover that. 


I left there energized...proceeded down through So. HA...lol and onto CPW. 


Walking like a Goofy Soldier, folks seemed to part more easily...the lower I got.  The stride steady and the breathing rhythm set...I WALKED down to about...65th...cut across...checked some e-mails...finished the water...MERCI...stopped on the corner to consider my options - to the Left Central Park and East SIde...people...noise...funk...Not what I desired.  To my Right...Riverside Park...BOOM.  I made my way up and over to Riverside Park...right off 72nd Street...and sat.


[I stopped earlier...very early in my trek to make note of these three older black gentlemen "admiring" a beautiful Brown Sista's  ASS...in NO UNCERTAIN WORDS!!!  Straight outta DO THE RIGHT THING, they were as greasy and funny as the fellas on the wall in the Spike Lee Classic.  I drew an abstract.  The next time I opened the journal, I was at the bench...thinking and recording the impressions of the setting sun.  A Dizzying Display of Orange and Blue...Hmmm...how fitting, now that I think about it.  My 2 modes...Brilliantly on Splashed across the NYC Sky.  Sure...]


Get into it.  Walk it off.  So I did...right UP Riverside Park.  It was great...and a little ominous for a Beige Brother with my kinda' hair/beard/bushiness going on.  I walked long enough for twilight to rise up, then I crossed around 86th. 


It was completely different experience on the residential side  At one point SOOOOOOO quiet...With entrances facing the highway, I realize THESE people NEVER have to see the INNARDS of the city...should they choose not to.  Privilege...personified.  I believe only 3 Black people passed me...that I paid attention to. 


I was more intrigued by the path this sidewalk was taking me on...snaking up past these buildings to cover the walk of Riverside Drive.  BEAUTIFUL.  As I Ascended into the 100's, past the Columbia dorms...No, JUST BEFORE...I walked upon the most beautiful house on the Boulevard - 330 Riverside Drive.  Built to replicate Haussman's French facades,  it was stately and impressive in a way that made me recall my treks through the 18th. 


Just past this...was gated garden...and in this garden STOOD a statue of a ...enroute...down his path.  I WAS TRANSFIXED.  I read the history of this Buddah and how the statue was saved from Hiroshima[?] and brought here.  As He stood there...TALL, STRONG RESPLENDENT...on HIS PATH...I took it ...AM READING it as a WELCOME sign.  I am curious about the statue and center it is in front of.  I will return.  Merci.
BUDDAH


Up Riverside, past Columbia...Chauncey text me. 


Hey What's Up?  Been thinking about you a couple of times today and just getting an opportunity to reach out. 

Been better...but Walking it Off...LoL. 

Got any WISDOM?.

Ehhh...ahhhh not really.

Want to get some?

Uhhh

My Treat!!!

Ok!!!  Should I come to you?  I will hit up my folk, normally around 12 we connect. 

Is that Good For you?

Uhh...sure!  [text to check availability]

Ok, well how you want to do this?

I can walk to you?

Where are you?

By Columbia.

Ok, I am here.


[Smile...SMIRK...Giggle...Hmmmm...MERCI]


I pressed on...up to the Church...and suddenly had to pee.  Found a spot, let loose...and set across Harlem...Down Broadway...Across 125th...and.Up Amsterdam...GREAT Walk...to 145th.


[text]
You want me to come to you??

LoL...no, I am at 145th.  See you Soon.

Cool...1B


Get there...enter Hug.


OK, This is FOR YOU..$100 in `10s and THIS is for the WISDOM $40.


[STUCK] Merci...MERCI BEAUCOUP.


FATIGUE and STIFFNESS, coupled with SWEAT wic'ing into my shirt had me sit. 


You want water?

Yes. 


3 FULL GLASSES LASTER...Do you eat Bananas? 


Yes.  MERCI for the Potassium.


His roommate came home...and we VIBED...engaging in a full on discussion of LIFE ART, RACE POLITICS FEAR MEDIA BLACK Portrayals in THEATER and FILM.  Love it.


WE took the train down to 125th and they met.  We got BLESSED...I HUGGED HIM, DOUBLY at the ATrain and hit up to the Bodega for Backwoods and Water...the final 2 things on my list for the day. 
Merci Mon Frere...LOVE CHAUNCEY.  Looks good with the GOATEE.  His NY Cut...gives him a different...appeal.  Hmmm...


I was MOVED to just give in...too spent to fight it...I LET IT LEAD MY DAY.  Slowly beginning to TRUST IT.

LOOK for LOVE and it will FIND YOU...in the MOST UNEXPECTED ways.

Merci pour le COMMUNITY.

I must remark the BEAUTIFUL specimens on the streets of NYC.  BROTHERS and SiSTAHs too...but mainly BROTHERS...in all over your GLORIOUS BROWN BUFFeD BURNISHED BRILLIANT-NESS...KEEP ON!  Sights to BEHOLD...some even taking notice of me. 

Ok...gotta' rest.  and reflect.


MERCI


PEACE

GB-C...Gypsy...See!

Good Morning...I am concerned.


What now?  That is the question that has plagued my last...6 years.  What now?  After witnessing the gradual demise of those tangible memories I'd curated and cultivated in NYC, I am left consider WHERE TO...with no FUNDS!? 


I want to leave...the country.


  I want that slower life.


    I want a BREAK...to consider all of this. 


However, I am afraid to fly.


I feel as though when I returned, whittled-down and sick from Paris, I was tagged and it would be difficult for me to fly. 


I think of how I am made to feel about the way I look and it gives me pause. 


The idea of travel is FREEDOM and EXPLORATION...SHARING. 


Still, I harbor these nascent fantasies about Living the Life of Gypsy.


GYPSY...GB-C...so they knew. 

You can't NOT KNOW.

Now, I know they knew. 


So...WHAT NOW?

Yoga

HEALing

REIKI

TIA CHI

VIBRATIONAL STUDIES/THERAPY

NATURE

HARMONY

(music)

PEACE.

BeNU

DREADED

I sit before you...on the morning after.  Yet another petal has fallen.  Yet another life has moved on.  I have chosen to be still...and "get healthy."  All the while the world has kept on moving.  Progressing into turmoil.


I can't help but think of that painting.  That fateful painting  the doors of that bus opened-up to as James [Binion] and I stepped into our first full day of exploring Amsterdam.  I bought the painting on-sight, thinking that this somehow mystically was connected to the BLACK BIRD from Caen.  There IT sat, atop a brittle branches of a the last tree standing as the city was AFLAME in the background.  I was riveted...convinced that this somehow harkened to  me using this voice in the way that I should...coming back to this brittle branch and sing, just as the BLACK BIRD from CAEN had...for me.


As I sit...looking out onto the rooftops, jazz serenading this observation...as only it should, I am taken by the parallels the image before me would have to the painting...if taken in abstract with me sitting UPTOWN...atop a CITY...HOT...HEATED...SWELTERING in the confusion that is blanketing this world...or so it would seem.  Perhaps THE BUBBLE is truly rupturing.


Two very significant revelations came to me as I negotiated my time in Paris...alone and foreign - the first being that we are in trouble.  We are so disconnected and so cynical about overwhelming information and images we are being fed every second we exist.  This is especially true in Metropolises like NYC, San Fran, Atlanta and Paris...all of which I can speak to personally.  There is NO way to connect with one another, we are so personally distracted.  The delusion of convenience has brought a rupture in human interaction that we cannot soon escape from.  This LACK of CONNECT...of COMMUNITY has bread a MisUnderstanding of just how far we have come and a refusal to  accept the truth about the root of all of our issues.  We do not talk, we TYPE...and POST. 


Paris swirled about me, sour with disdain for compliments, as that would be pase' at this point.  Still she reveled in all that was showered upon her.  I didn't always see that City of LiGhT, but stayed just long enough to experience the Life of Les Miserables.  C'est n'pa CUTE!  The Disney Land...EuroDisney for Adults I was able to see...set my stomach churning.  In my gut I could feel this foretold what NY and certainly the US in "THEORY" was becoming - DISNEYLAND for RICH ADULTS.  We...Les Miserables were all too distracted to realize that.  So many isms on display amongst the storied streets of Paris and NYC.  So much...playing.  Everyone, playing...except those to weary with their reality to play.  Indigo and I used to sit and speak on just how lucky we were to know what a bit of freedom to THINK INDEPENDENTLY...was.  Most people cannot afford to, so DON'T think outside the box.  It takes too much to fight it, plus with all of the ASPIRATION being dangled before you....US, how can we resist?? 


The Second revelation I could see in that painting or because of it...and turning 40 and creating my own babies for the firs' time...Something Is about to HAPPEN.  I thought I would cause it...because  my song or voice or actions.  I happily sat by, afterawhile, as my health and Escape from NYC became of greater priority. 


I have felt in my gut...for the last six years...something coming.  I have watched as this country...my country has become the laughing stock of the greater World Nations, for something so seemingly trivial as race.  That being said, I have always contended this is never just about race, but moreso about the HAVES and HAVE-NOTS.  As the Euro flipped and more Europeans flooded America, the shift has been gradual...not at all subtle and not at all unexpected.  Sad...scary...telling...INFURIATING...inescapable especially in places like NYC and Paris.  This are cities where the rich from the Floundering EuroNations have once again found refuge, exacting a Class shift masked in racism that has found folly in our age-old Achilles Heal.    We have watched our cities be repopulated causing a shift in every facet of the socio-economic make-up of this country.  The world has watched as the Real Estate trade has made once-livable areas out of reach for the layman, but prime pickings for the 1%.  I have watched my city, NYC, shed...literally turn about 10pages before me.  With every turn, she is becoming that much more intolerant of what used to make her a catch...her mix.  Her make-up has always been a Motley to say the least...but never soooooo  obviously conflicted.  The very things that brought all of the NEW FOLKS here have been replaced with their MassMarketMall Counterparts.  TheFiFthElementing-of-NYC happening right before out eyes. 


I find it equally interesting how STOPnFRISK was enacted...exacted on the Black n Brown communities, just has the Real Estate boom happened and The Gentrifiers were being lured here with SexintheCity, TheDevilWearsPrada, et al.  They "cleaned" the streets they could just long enough to make a point - we are THUGS -...allowing for folks to now re-populate once largely Brown and Black areas...Harlem n Brooklyn. 


It all seems so insidious.  These people...my people have no idea what is about to happen and no where to go.  You see, I feel like we are trying to Reason with CRAZY...with SAVAGES.  These folks have gone so far as to re-write history, destroy Historical Monuments that challenge how they long to be perceived.  There is no rationale to be had.  They are NOT rational.  They flaunt their bigotry loosely, constantly mocking the very President Elect...with no seeming recourse.  How does one imagine they might be able to sit across from the table with said FOLKS and ...WORK THROUGH all of the MIRE they have created...without being shot in the process?!?


For the moment...I hold my breath, as I have been for 6 years and await the next STROKE proving the Firey, Rainbow background from my AMSTERDAM PAINTING is ...was speaking to was  have seen and what is to come. 


I can no longer HOLD MY BREATH. 
We have got to be smart.  If we are not able to see the full picture, find one whose sight you can trust and listen.  Pay attention.  Do NOT be RASH.  Be ACTIVE, Vigilant, but NOT CRAZY. 


Equal and Opposite.  What does that mean for US??


Too many petals dropping from Le Fleur. 


Too Many PLUMES from my wings


I am Loosing my Wings.


Hmmm...


Interesting...What is there I can do?


Guide My Feet...while I run THIS race!!!


PEACE

Omar - The Man [Full Album]

Hmmm...