Could it be because it's my Birthday? Could it be all the cups of green tea I've consumed? Could it be that Barack Obama was elected President? Could it be all of the above? Because I must face it, joy or not, I am a Blues Woman and I wear this badge with pride. I romanticize the hell out of it. I joke about it. I make big efforts to try to change it. But it remains true. Blues women love and cry hard but fight even harder and we do it all with soul and style. So my highs tend to be higher and my lows, lower, and then I need some feel good, honey.
I do not recall how old I was in the picture above but I look hopeful and happy, though I was a blues child in the making. I started this morning of my 34th year by jumping up and down on the bed. I used to love to jump on the bed as a child. I am so glad I have not lost this spirit or at least put on enough weight so this might pose a problem. I feel happy today. Empowered. Giddy. I feel that my ancestors are proud. I am honored to stand on their shoulders. I am becoming more and more of who I am. And this is how it is supposed to be. Here's a little rhymeless ditty I composed some years ago:
When a Revolutionary’s Gotta Eat
You have led me toward marijuana,
Moodiness, magic
and finding men to get me high
with smoke and words and flesh feeling.
You have held my hand so carelessly and pushed me into
saltwater with prayers to the mermaids to
hold me in their sea foam so I can drown.
I was the little you except
Born with something in the bank
And the belief that a little black girl
Could eventually grow up and be somebody
I would never have wanted to be if I never knew
what wanting to be a somebody would do to you.
You have tried to exorcise from
My marrow the blessed spirit of revolution
Because it was exorcised from you and so many others
In the service of oppression
But here I am black and pissed but free and unfettered
And though you hurt me profoundly
I understand and I forgive you finally.
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