OUTloud pt 2

another point in the journey

Why you want to fly Blackbird you ain't ever gonna fly
No place big enough for holding all the tears you're gonna cry
'cause your mama's name was lonely and your daddy's name was pain
And they call you little sorrow 'cause you'll never love again
So why you want to fly Blackbird you ain't ever gonna fly
You ain't got no one to hold you you ain't got no one to care
If you'd only understand dear nobody wants you anywhere
So why you want to fly Blackbird you ain't ever gonna fly

blackbird - by Nina Simone

I first heard the song Blackbird in the featured film "Beyond the Lights," starring the intensely captivating Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The song first appears as the audition song of a small biracial girl performed by India Jean-Jacques. Her voice and choice pierced through me. I found solace in the music, words, and, most importantly, the sorrow. For me, the song is a holding, a reflection of a deep pain I could not entertain. It is a soft, chronic pain I suspect many of us endure. The song was the beginning of learning to relate to that tenderness differently. To me, India Jean-Jacques's version feels like a secret. The experience, sorrow, is placed on them and threatens to suffocate them. Reflecting back, it makes sense; she is very young, and a child cannot tend to that type of wound alone. We come in as young ones needing to be cared for by our caregivers and community. I am reminded culture can be a beautiful technology and framework to guide us in learning how to be with sorrow.

When I heard Nina Simone's version, I knew there was a different way to hold my sorrow, loneliness, and the entities barraging my field of thoughts with incomplete narratives and pulling the strings of my emotional experiences. Simone's version is a taunting, a pushback, for Blackbird. It sounds similar to the aggressive entities; instead of bottomless despair, the mirage of hopelessness, her voice holds Love, teasing, and rage that can birth impossibly to soothe its ache. An acknowledgment, yes, I have lived with displeasure, lack of care, and safety in certain areas of my life, and yet I want to fly.

Simone's voice asks me to turn my attention to my desire for flight, freedom, and unconditional belonging to myself. It is a delectable experience. Writing about this song sparked a re-membering of a promise I made to myself in the 7th grade.

Sitting in an empty classroom during my afterschool program, I have a pencil drafting on a looseleaf sheet. I am responding to an application question asking about my career aspirations. At this point, I am fully competent in English, voraciously reading technical texts, and entering adolescence. I am surrounded by teachers and adults who trust me and support my intellect. Kind reader, I am enamored with knowledge, practicing curiosity, and surrendering to the pleasure of learning. Learning is giving me levity, giddiness, and joy in my body. I am clear in my writing: I want to be an intellectual, a Doctor-Ph.D. not MD! I want to write a book, share my knowledge, and be recognized as a public intellectual. I am energized.

That self-recognition and choice is the seed of this publication, beloved reader. This is part of my going to the BLACKNESS of life, the blackness of my wing as I fly, live, and be with it all.

My flight, like my life, is not an individual effort. It is a node within a complex system far more extensive than I will ever know. I know you are part of my journey; your eyes, heart, and desire to be with my word are also a part of my flight. Like the wind beneath my wings (ik, ik, we have to be able to enjoy the clichés together). I have always scribbled, written, and thought for myself. To share with you is a gift to connection, the irrefutable belonging of me to you and you to me. Sharing with you allows me to pour Love and care into my words so that when they reach you, You know and feel it.

That is a gift of story crafting, telling, and listening.

Thank you, Ms. Nina Simone.

An unfurling fern,

Flore