Reds, Whites, and Blues

Once upon a time a man called Slim informed that from a certain point on I would have two lives, my life as a writer, and my life as a...something else. The second of these two lives would be for even less than everyone than the first. It would be a thing embraced and understood by a tiny chosen few folks entrusted with keeping certain secrets that so much of our world just wasn't ready for.

He didn't push the perks on me, only the responsibilities. And I think that's what makes the fun times such a big surprise. So as I found myself dancing into Sunday morning amongst fellow members of my tribe, men and women who have seen the world through both lenses for longer than I have known breath, I had a night and early morning where I smiled wide. My hips rocked to rhythm of bodies that know the way men move better than we do ourselves. And though the DJ couldn't keep a pace to save his life, I jump and ground, spun and two-stepped my way through a reminder that life does not stop at 40, or 50, or even 80. God gave us the gift of dance for a reason.

"I gotta go," one woman said when asked why she was leaving us. "I got church in the morning."

"But this is church," someone argued, a truth that kind of blew my mind, even when I'd long before accepted it as a fact.

Where I came from we were taught that God only lived in certain houses and certain books. We were not distinctly informed that everything we did was a reflection of him, that the sacred and the profane were both different faces of the same flow. But I always felt that truth. It whispered to me in spaces and places where its acceptance would have meant the end of life as was status quo. As I sweat through yet another shirt to the sounds of Frankie Beverly and Roy Ayers, the few drinks I had coming out of my pores no sooner than they had entered, I smiled at the face of God hovering over us all in celebration of a magical woman's born day. I love ya Iya. Know that. And Ifaniyi, that MC Hammer electric typewriter moving is going down in the record books. Nuff said.

By last night I was baking chicken wings and getting ready for the last new episode of The Wire that I would ever see. Sitting there with Rich and Kris and D, we bore witness to the final chapter of what was has easily been one of the most important shows of our lives and the standard by which I will always judge my work as a dramatic writer. I pretty much called all of the closing plot points. But it was still hard to watch my heroes succumb to their inevitable fates. And yet the game continues for all of us in it's many incarnations. More on this after the stragglers have seen the final ep.

Deep within the night I confessed truths to a relative stranger as I marveled at how full of a circle (I hope)I've traveled since this blog began. For once in a long while I felt understood. For once in a forever I didn't feel completely alone on this side of things. And that's progress. I'm not sure if my Grandaddy Jesse ever figured that out while he was here. But I'm sure he does now. Out.