as always: a writer in praxis?

i have always said that writing is a lifestyle, not a profession. i have chosen a profession that allows me to engage in my own writing, and service others in finding their voice. but this has never meant that i have ceased to be a writer. make no mistake, i still have hidden blogs and secret chapbooks that i publish to close circles. i will always photocopy zines and press the warm copies to me before collating and stapling. producing my own history is deeply embedded in my marrow. somewhere along the way, i lost my thirst to make my own name known, but this does not mean that i don't still read voraciously, in search of the root. my writing forces me to face myself in the mirror: magnifying my faults, loving my idiosynchrocies, trying to calibrate my heart to the rhythm of my community, forcing me to keep searching, to never sit idle in complacency.

practice what you preach they say, and i say. so i am deeply engrossed in revision, in taking those tongues i sometimes speak and fleshing out their forks. i remind myself in the summer that i am many other selves besides a teacher. listen to janelle monae's "many moons" if you don't quite feel me. i am brooklyn, am BX, am southwest D, am maple and dexter, am abbot elementary, am community, am dancer, am poet, am healer, am masseuse, therapist, activist, theorist, am femme and butch in a single cell, am party, am baby mama, am noogit, i am part of la isla de verdad, UP 4 life, LPS all day, i am the roundtable, the harlem renaissance, the boogie down and downtown, i am intergallactic, am vampire, am zombee, am space and time continuum, am tears in time and the jurassic period. i am 2pac and biggie, dilla, eazy e, left-eye, aliyah, jam master J, i am emily e, dave, dustin and my own fallen angels. i am buddha and peace personified. i am water and air. soy el corazon. watashi wa omoshiroii desu ne.

how many sides does your prizm have? i haven't yet discovered all of my facets, and i hope that i keep growing, becoming an endless valley of geodes. there is so much that i want to become and have yet to live. will i have time? my arms are open to the life that embraces me. there is nowhere to move but forward. i will go as far as my breath takes me.

freire speaks of praxis: the beautiful symphony of theory and practice. i strive to live my life in a way that i am simultaneously thinking, reflecting and acting. it is a cycle, a process, and each day we are a work in progress. i will fall from your pedestal, as certain as the sun cresting an eastern horizon, waning western. i am in freefall right now: busy rebuilding myself in cocoon and fearful of what my shell says about my seismic splits. we are our harshest critics and i am venomous in my own veins sometimes. but i break out each year, hit prospect avenue and remember my resume.

objective: the elevation of today's generation, if i can make them listen. (pac)

experience: if love is the answer, what the f*** is the question? (invincible)

references: the eastern wind, western rain, southern snow and northern hail. midwestern grit, new york grime.

this is my time.

xo
lo