Welcome 2 my World

If ur reading this, I have high hopes for u.

I think ur important.

I think if you channel whatever gifts you have, you might create a better life, not just for you, but for all of us.

I think if we don’t try to do that, we will surely lose our minds.

I don’t know a lot, but I do know that the work of creators is to save ourselves, and allow that to be enough.

So I’m writing to creators, and I mean that in the broadest sense. It’s not about the “work product,” at all, it’s about the process. You might make art, or be art, or do invisible labor. Regardless of how you pass the time and pay the bills, you have the option to engage with your life as a creative practice. That’s what I’ve been doing, ever since I realized that doing otherwise would cost me whatever joy and sanity I might find.

I’ve decided that my short time in this world will be a messy, beautiful masterpiece, and if that’s your desire, then I’m reaching through the void, hoping that you and I can touch, because I can’t do this alone.

Some of these posts will be deeply personal, and others will explore my influences and inspirations from art and culture, to fiction and non-fiction, to the mysteries of the mind and body. What I will always return to is the determination to find ways of being well, or at least well enough to keep going.

These posts will be sporadic. I want to reach as many of you as possible, but I didn’t come this far to start living by an algorithm. So I hope this writing finds you if, and when you need it. This is meant to be a digital refuge, and I want to shape it with you, so please comment or message me directly.

I opted into the creative life 12 years and 14 days from the date of this first draft. It was a day that my whole life until that point seemed to have been building toward: my graduation from a university whose administration is so unethical I will not name it here. It was my greatest accomplishment up until then, and I had never felt emptier. To be fair, I was coming down from a drug and alcohol fueled night that ended mere hours before I donned my cap and gown— but this sunken feeling had been brewing in me for a while. It had something to do with the back-to-back concussions I had sustained playing basketball the year prior, but not in the sense that those injuries compromised my ability to feel joy. To the contrary, I knew in some unspeakable way that life was course correcting me, by smacking me upside the head.

I’m the daughter of a musician. I grew up in a community of iconic Black artists in the historic Leimert Park Village in South Central, L.A.. My community was made of talented, brilliant beautiful people, many of whom were then or are now, household names. And yet my mother and I struggled. Our community struggled.

So despite my strengths having always been writing and theater, and whatever creative thing I got my hands on, I decided to go pre-med. For those four years, I studied biology, and part of me truly enjoyed learning the mysteries of the human body and mind. I still think the scientific method is a powerful tool for grasping reality. But I had rejected my natural gifts and the things that brought me joy, in favor of what I thought would bring me security and belonging. It’s an impulse that I’ve learned to honor and respect, and one that I still contend with in every life decision I make. But I am grateful that I had the ability to read the consequences of that wrong choice, and to accept the course correction for what it was. I’m big on reading signs. I’m still a work in progress. But I’m on the other side of many things that once felt insurmountable, and that’s what gives me the courage to write to you now.

Since that time, I’ve made three feature documentaries, written for television, and now, I’m back in school, getting my Masters in Fine Art at UCLA.

^{photo by Randolph Carr}

You’re on the internet, so I don’t have to tell you that this world is sick. I’m grieving as we speak, and I feel overwhelmed by the work that needs to be done.

I’m writing to you now because I know something about how to do that work. About how to step forward while you’re scared, when there appears to be no path, and trust that either the stepping stone will rise beneath your foot, or that you will get back up after you fall. I’ve heard this phenomenon attributed to God, or manifestation, or the universe. And maybe it is a divine thing, but I think sometimes we give too much power away. To me, the most divine things are practice, starting over and over, and stepping forward into the terrifying dark.

_{AI free zone. All words and images handmade.}