What’s up my lovely love letters… I’ve got some words this moment…letters make up words. Can’t have one without the other. Thank you.
I don’t know when or how I began drawing less or nearly not at all. I never stopped drawing eyes and eyebrows though, a quick sketch to get me through the day. For some reason, I have always found it satisfying to dot the “i” (eyes).
For a period of time I stopped writing too — poetry, short stories and the like. I am unsure exactly what happened. I got busy in other ways. The PhD. Me focusing primarily on dance as us dancers are often trained to do, at least when I was coming up. I became a wife and mom.
Although I got engaged, married and started a family, I never stopped being an artist – I danced – but I stopped tapping into all of my artistry collectively. In high school, I recall having to or choosing to “making a choice” between dance and music. Ah my cello. I studied music starting at age 8; first piano, then clarinet, then cello.
That cello. My aunt purchased my very own cello for me when I was in middle school. It was brand spanking new. I played for 9 years all together. Where is my cello now? My mother gave it to my youngest sister when I was away at college and it hadn’t taken it with me. This was unbeknownst to me… I guess she assumed I no longer wanted it although I would play it from time to time even after I stopped studying and whenever I would come home from college.
Apparently, my step dad, my youngest sister’s father was sitting in the driver’s seat while the cello was behind him in the back seat and he backed up his seat crushing my. What a metaphor. But I digress.
Anyway, I didn’t find out about the death of my cello until I was asking my mom quite franticly when I decided I wanted to bring it to NYC where I lived and spark up my foyer. Additionally, I had this urge to play again. I was also a mother now to my first baby and realized how I wanted the cello and music, dance, art and so on to be a part of her life too. You know I think it is that legacy thing and futuristic thinking that may come over many of us as we become parents. It was only then in that one conversation specific although I recall bringing up my cello many times prior to this conversation of really asking for it to be sent to me – or that I would pick it up from Virginia – that I learned of my cello’s demise.
Wait…my youngest sister decided to play cello, following my footsteps… that’s dope… let me take a moment to acknowledge that)… okay, I’m back…
No one told me what happened to my cello. I only found out some time later. No memorial service…no opportunity to offer money for them to fix it instead of them just throwing it away. I missed it really, I mean, I really missed it don’t think I realize how much and how awesome it would have been to have my cello into my adulthood and pass it to my own kids who, along with myself, my husband – would have taken care of my cello like it was my own. Was this fair? I mean I did “give it up
to focus on dance when I got further into high school. You know, they always tell you to make a choice. But I don’t know, it wasn’t my mom’s to give away nor my step fathers to destroy and neither to call me and have the decency to tell me what happened. If I even wanted it. If it was okay to give it to my sister.
Well let me be honest. I have never really given up my cello. I “play” my cello when I dance so really I don’t fully miss it because the sound is in my body. In my muscles. It is always here with me, mentally. It is with me in my bones and blood. Blood memory. But I miss it physically – playing it, holding it between my legs and grabbing the neck of the cello pressing into its beautiful strings delicate and electric strings rolling below the balls of my fingers as I feel the vibrations gyrate against chest. My heart beat like a metronome keeping a steady beat. I would dance when I played the cello too.
[Inset picture of me playing the cello here. *still trying to find one from childhood. FaceBook wasn’t a thing yet*]
Like playing my cello and other musical instruments, I stopped doing so… along with taking my time to draw/sketch, do my embroidery and write. I mean I was writing A LOT of academic and scholarly writings … damn PhD but I had essentially stopped journaling and writing poetry. I stopped blogging over the last several years too although at one point I had started! Why? WHY? As I noted… dance really took over, or I took over dance within my life. But more so… the work and labor that went into my PhD not just because it is a laborious thing to pursue but because I was also in a PhD program brought with issues and was no longer viable for me a long the way. I pushed through but it destroyed my spirit. Thankfully it didn’t kill it or kill me altogether.
I don’t know. How could I give these things up though when they were such a voice for me??
Since I call myself an interdisciplinary artist these days, I recently graduated from a phenomenal MFA program where I earned my Master in Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts, I thought it be timely to go beyond the photography and videography I do turning my ephemeral art of dance into forever moments. That is the way I have been working as an interdisciplinary artist and using my illustration and painting as a well to help me through my creative process. Well now, all of that will be a bigger part of my work. I am going back. Sankofa. Going back and touching my gifts again. As many as I can. I will discover new ones…
I plan to repost old blogs too. This will be fun. Why not. The beauty about words and memories is that they stay with us. We can go back to them and sometimes they have a whole new meaning depending on where we are standing next.
As Audre Lorde says, “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” – Audre Lorde
“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”
– Audre Lorde
I am speaking again. And I think I will buy a new cello. To play before I sketch. I will sketch a cello (next project, noted).
[Inset picture of future cello here. *Googling /checking Amazon after this post* ]
[Inset image of sketched cello here. *I will sketch beautiful cello over the next week* ]
Below is a sketch I completed a few days ago for one of my wrapping paper collections I designed for the 2020 holidays. It is part of my, Haarlem Nights series. I couldn’t decide on her hair, but I think she is happy in this her doo.
I encourage you to speak. To use your talents. Use your VOICE. You never know how the sound of YOU will change or touch someone. Or you.
Leaving you with this:
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
– Coco Chanel (a Josephine Baker fan)