thought at work.

a moment of clarity.   

words.

  I saw this headline and immediately began to get misty eyed and tear up. my days are long, and often aren't about me. and it's rewarding, and it's fulfilling.

and each day, monday through friday, I get an hour to myself. we call this lunch. and on my lunch I take a walk and I sit down in a park that is fortunately not too far away. just me, my snacks, tall bottle of water and a book.

and for the last few months my book has been a borrowed collection of essays:

baldwin. the price of the ticket: nonfiction 1948 - 1985.

I sit still for about 20 to 30 minutes in that park. music curated, alone with these words, his thoughts. I'm about 280 or so pages in at the moment of the 690 page book, and I am in rush to see it come to an end.

                                                                     ******

     this article's headline grabbed me, moved me, because on more than a few occasions, I'd read an essay or passage in the price of the ticket and say to myself, "still relevant (still current) today. respect."

and as I write this kendrick lamar's for free? - interlude is playing in the back. a few years back he, along with a few of his peers (danny brown, schoolboy q, asap rocky, ye) helped me reclaim my blackness and be comfortable in my own skin, and with my own personal narrative.

it's not that i was ashamed of or running from my blackness or being black but I, admittedly, spent a number of years refusing to talk about or refusing to acknowledge it, especially when the world open its door to how the other half (white people) lives.

                                                                    ******
     but a funny thing about getting older is, if you are lucky, you often see things for what they really are, and never stop educating yourself/partaking in this education. let the sun shine in, have a moment of clarity, get a grip and better perspective on things. a change for the better. yeah, a lot of it was me, but a lot of it was/(is) societal and systemic.

(nobody's perfect).

                                                                     ******

     and it was refreshing to, all at once, at a time in my life where I feeling pretty low and unimpressive (with a piece of it being unfortunately attached to who I was, where I've been, and what/where I came from as a black man in america), it was refreshing to know I was not alone. and never was.

(I could never hate you hip-hop).

that I'm part of something bigger than me. that this blackness is part of me, and beautiful, and varied, man. fucking unique. and we're in this together. been through this together. and we're still here. my _____, my homies, my dawgs, my people.

     I, along with these cats (and many others in the rap + r&b game right now), continue to grow and expand upon what it means to be black (and embrace it) in america today while keeping our pasts in the rearview. and I continue to turn to them for reminder of where we've been, and a reassurance of where we're going/will and can go.

                                                                    *******

     and i thank you mr. baldwin for being there, too, with your the cross of redemption: uncollected writings during that period, offering me clarity from another time, still relevant today.

                                                                    ********

     and i thank you now.

     for the clarity you bring me monday through friday presently in the park as I navigate thru all this here blackness in america, two thousand fifteen. where it seems like ain't shit much changed, even though we know that it has.

(or believed this to be true).

     and know that it must.

GAWKER: What James Baldwin's Writing Tells Us About Today