Essays and solo performance- cross-posted
...I am currently obsessed. The personal essay. The solo performance. One turning into the other. I have this need to dedicate a significant portion of my brainspace to breaking into this arena, yet, that same brain will not slow down. Enough to read the books I have checked out. Enough to pick up the pen to write. When I do, nothing seems to fit. My notebooks are inadequate. I'm in the wrong light. i'm too sleepy...always an excuse.
But the idea grips me. Of writing, even bad essays. Even essays not publishable in slick, perfect-bound books. With gushing author's endorsements on the back and a blurry, yet evocative cover. And an interview in Salon. Or Bookslut. And I'd take these colorful, witty little epistles and turn them into a touring show that would gain me entree to festivals; I'd be a star.
Or so I think. So I wanna think. In truth, I am sitting with a blank page and a bunch of insecurities, censoring everything before I commit it to paper as infantile, GenX angst that nobody's interested in hearing. I'm not angry like Kathy Y- smarter, but not as angry. I'm a bit too sappy for that. I care about finding and keeping love, and in figuring out how to love a man without losing yourself. And leaving. Leaving the old behind and embracing the new. And I care about dodging the student loan people a little while longer...like forever. I care about missing Over-the-Rhine, and being saddened because I felt a connection to a man from a newspaper article, which I didn't recognize until I saw on the news that he'd been murdered.
I know I can't write like anybody else, and I can't write anybody else's essays. I gotta write mine, and if my life and insights ain't (yup, on purpose the ain't) good enough, then, well. But you know, I like beenie weenies, and that's low-rent food. So maybe my honest little pieces can appeal to the beenie-weenie market.
I wanna write about how I, as a single black woman, feel about Antonio Davis going into the stands to defend his wife. And how guilty I am that I was glad that he did it. And how guilty I am that I'm glad his wife wasn't white. And how, I know she probably did start something, but how that didn't matter to him at the time; he just knew it was his job to protect her. The rest they could discuss at home. And even though it cost him $633,000 and probably bruised his image as player's league president, he's a hero in my eyes. Deserves an NAACP Image Maker Award. I want that footage shown in Dr. Abercrumbie's "Black Man" class. If we had more men like him when the white settlers came, those ships would have been turned around.
I want to write on how basketball and boxing are perhaps the sports that most objectify the black man by reducing him to pure livestock- and how the fans, the rich, white fans who pack those arenas and stadia every night, keep that perception going. And how that sickens me.
I want to write about crushes, and crush management. I want to write from that space between angry black woman and Carrie Bradshaw-wannabee. I know what a Manolo is, but I'll likely never wear one. And I could care less about a pashmina or whatever the newest colors are for spring. But I'm also not ready to denounce Whitey and become a neo-Socialist. I like the taste of Starbucks, and have succumbed to the lure of Wal-mart way too many times to be self righteous.
I want to write these things. Good, bad, indifferent. And hey, guess what? It seems like I've made a start.