For all that I’ve lost this week, I’ve gained so much as well. I performed an excerpt of this last night to a crowd of mostly teenagers. For the most part, it felt good. Most of my insecurities stemmed from the fact that this was a “green” event and as Bamu prefaced as he introduced me, “There is nothing overtly environmental about this peace.” The journey, however, is truly about self-sustainability but that is less evident in the portion I performed.

They were pretty engaged in the beginning, laughing at a lot of those jokes but I could feel myself losing them near the middle-end. Some people walked out too which was heartbreaking especially when you know the crowd didn’t come to see you AND you, I rather, am speaking about something that is so personal to me. I feel so vulnerable sharing this story and thinking about it today, I feel that should be investigated and translated into this piece. I am excited because I still don’t know what that is and self-discovery, especially through writing, is always beautiful and profound. After a pretty strong ending, I believe, I received like an 85% standing ovation and as I always do, I focused on the 15% who weren’t standing. I was going to reconcile that feeling by standing in the lobby after the performance and let people boost my ego, but I was distracted upon returning to the dressing room.

The woman had called while I was performing and sent me a text saying that she wanted to tell me something that would probably make me dislike her more. I wanted her to call all day so I could feel better about the whole situation. I was going to not pick up but this allowed me enough justification to do what I really wanted to do anyways, which was talk to her. I won’t disclose what she told me. I’m still reflecting on it. A little more angered today then I was yesterday. But the talk went in an interesting direction and I learned some things about her, about myself, and about us, that I wish I had known a long time ago. Some of it was heartbreaking, some of it left me with more questions, but some of it actually resolved things nicely and neatly. I hope that resolution grows as I hope this play grows. The talk came right after my “test” of spiritrials. This whole week was a spirit trial – a spirit test – wherein I faced it and may have not got a perfect score but I didn’t do half bad. At least that is what the talk symbolized for me. I had gotten back my test, saw the answers that I did not know I did not know, and now I’m prepared to study for my next trial/test. I didn’t, however, get my test score back from my performance, however, which was based largely on the audience reaction because I was still on the phone when everyone had left the event. Lisa, the artistic director of the Painted Bride, gave me great feedback and more importantly, she believed in me and what I /it could be. I appreciate that more than anything. Bamu sent me an enthusiastic text and gave me the look. And then only one other person that I saw that night even said anything about it. I only saw a handful of people but still I was hurt. Chopped it up with Bamuthi today, and he gave me the “well, it’s dope, your dope, but it needs work” vibe, but I guess, what that made me most appreciative of is, regardless of how he feels about the work right now, he has my back COMPLETELY. As he said, I have his support and I now know that I have Lisa’s support, which I shouldn’t question whether or not they think I’m the next WHATEVER. I’m just grateful that they would extend themselves to me…for whatever reason. I guess I always see the former as being more guaranteed or stable but as I told the woman last night…there are no guarantees.

So all day I had felt kind of down about both situations until I read the comment that a woman named Karla had posted on this very blog. It seems that the piece touched her and if it DID touch somebody the way that she describes, well then that’s all it needed to do. Thank you, Karla. You made my day…this most intense day of healing and processing and rebuilding.

I have been enjoying posting these blogs. It makes my writing a little different and it kind of excites me that people might have an inside scope on my process. I might continue…anybody reading?