Hello gentle-people,
I want to honor several shifts I have been feeling in me the last few months and explore them with you all in this space. But first, a song—
I do my Sunday dreaming, oh, yeah
And all my Sunday scheming
Every minute, every hour, every day12
“I know why the caged bird sings”
“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,
of things unknown, but longed for still,
and his tune is heard on the distant hill,
for the caged bird sings of freedom.”—Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I introduced with you all my intention to share more music in the world, under the moniker Eldest Dawtah Rage. I had hopes to put out videos of myself singing on a weekly basis on TikTok with the help of my sister,
.3 While I intend to share music, I realized I set up a cage for myself without realizing. Music has always been an escape for me. It is where my voice goes when it has felt restraint for too long.My hope was to release EDR as the first of my many Fledglings4 from A Gentle Landing. I still think EDR needs to be in the world. I still want to practice in public and share my voice out there somewhere. But I must admit, just the notion of sharing at the pace I imagined has made me reluctant to pick up my guitar.5
I started EDR with a desire to share when I wanted to and I want to continue to do that. But at the moment, her wings don’t feel strong enough for independent flight. I want to keep her close for now because I love singing alone in the comfort of my own room, more often than not.
But I am also saying yes to performing in public more when I have opportunity and energy. I would rather lean into that growth more, since there’s an increased chance people will sing along with me and I love love love communal singing.
lemme put this ball down for a sec
I will be come back to this series I am calling “Woven: Reflections on the Wonderfully Weird Web.” It’s been over a month since I published the first piece.
I think this is one ball I will not drop but set down frequently and pick up when energy finds me. My mind is swimming with thoughts from my readings on social media and digital media literacy.6 I want to bring my stories forth, as I explore what is taking shape as an autobiographical account of social media and the ethical commitments that now shape how I interact with it now. If you think my writing is vulnerable, well—this series is stretching me in that area. I am realizing, I carry a lot of shame about how “chronically online” I have been. So if it takes a little long to pump these stories out,7 it is because I am working through that shame alongside sifting through months of deep reading.
But there is more to come, at the pace of flourishing.
Now on to our perching lines.
drop the ball
I have been sitting on my love for the end of this interview with Alice Walker for some time, wanting to share it with you all. I particularly love the end of the interview, when Charlie Rose asks Alice Walker what her next book will be after her publication of By the Light of My Father’s Smile and her response was she wanted to take a break. She said “We wanna just live. We wanna go look at the river and at the trees and be happy we’re here.” When she suggested he do the same, Rose responds with a chuckle.
I love that she does not let him carry that chuckle into dismissing her directive. In a lovingly calm voice she says:
“Let some of those balls you’re always jugging fall and just walk away from them.”
Every chuckle he releases for me recalls the quieting power of hegemony that supports our lifestyles of overwork and burnout. Rose goes on to say he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do, after Walker states that most people are too busy. I cannot help but feel like she was genuinely interested in his well-being. Perhaps he puts the attention back to her, because that’s what good interviewers do. But I can’t help but wonder where the conversation would have gone if they carried on unpacking all the things that makes him so busy.
All I know is, there are many of us chuckling to release, with concentrated effort the tension of our desire to join Alice Walker in her resistance to busyness—
“We wanna just live. We wanna go look at the river, and at the moon and at the trees and just be glad we’re here.”
I do think there is something to this tension between Alice Walker’s restful invitation and Charlie Rose’s hard chuckle of resistance to slowing down. I know because I live in that tension. I have had moments where I’ve taken on too much and dropped the ball because in one way or another, I was too human to do it all. How about we all take a moment to figure out what we can gently put down before we, purposefully or accidentally, drop the ball?
Imagine me (or someone who cares deeply for you) matching as best as I (or they) could, the conviction and sweetness in Alice Walker’s voice as she says “Now, now,” when Charlie Rose insists she isn’t concerned with his personal life:
Now, now, gentle people—You’re always welcome to insist, through your own hard chuckle, that you can do it all. That this busyness you have found yourself in is necessary or is good work someone has to do and so you do it. Perhaps that ball is being held so tightly to your chest right now, you don’t even feel like passing it to someone else who has their hands wide open. Maybe you think no one plays this busy game like you can play it. Maybe you are not holding the ball but you are dodging them, and you wake up with an attack of your schedule before your eyes each day—
Let these questions be an invitation to perch in the places your chuckles cannot go.
Landing Tracks
As you listen to the clip, how does this conversational dance around the epidemic of busyness feel for you? Do you wear the mark of busyness with pride?
What does it feel like to hear Alice Walker say that most people are too busy? Do you identity as one of those people? How do you find space to just live, look at the trees, the river and the moon and just be glad you’re here?
Have you dropped the ball recently? By accident and on purpose? How did it feel to let it go? Did you feel lighter or did you miss the weight?
If you haven’t dropped it yet: Is it possible to set the ball down gently before it’s too late and the only option is to drop it? Is there someone or are there someones who are open to catching it if you release your grip and pass it?
I actually call my weekly planning sessions “Sunday Scheming” because of this song and make intentional time for dreaming as well. I may share more on that in the future.
Don’t worry, Grace and I are still dreaming and scheming.
Fledglings for me are projects and dreams I want to bring forth. I have materials ready to share as I find energy and capacity. There will be an opportunity to support these Fledglings in this space and to explore the ins and outs of their formation. (Footnote to the footnote: When a girl loves her bird metaphors, she really loves her bird metaphors.)
I realized one of the things that has been getting in the way for me is video. I know I have some say in what it means for me to be “camera ready,” but even still, most of the time I feel “camera not ready.”
And I keep reading new things and finding new thoughts that start new threads of unfinished writings.
This is why I love tags. I am tagging all of these posts as #Woven and they will soon have their own place on the homepage for A Gentle Landing, irrespective of when they come out and how many #perchinglines I must rest on between them.