Shoot Promos on Race, Class, Gender, Etc

"To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence." - Eckhart Tolie 3/11/2022. I'm meeting with Zachary at a coffee shop in Lakewood to select the photos from my photoshoot on 3/8. I assumed that I was only going to limit it to 20 but my best friend assured me that I wouldn't be able to resist going with the package of 30 photos. Sure enough as we went through the 150 or so photos he showed me, we kept whittling it down until we couldn't whittle it past 30. I called Piper and put her own speaker so she could tell me "I told you so", which I enjoyed giving her the opportunity to do so. Zachary and I would meet 4 weeks later so I could pick up a beautiful box with my 30 photos enlarged in 11x14 prints. I would also receive the digital copies of my photos. When he asked me what I intended to do with the photos, I shared that I intended to start a blog series and tell a story or anecdote wit...

"Don't try to recreate peak experiences. Instead, just accept them as the gift that they are, and don't beat up on yourself for not being able to stay there. Because if you stayed there, they wouldn't be peak experiences. They would be normal, every day in time hum drum boring, experiences. So, savor the peak experiences and compliment yourself upon achieving of them, and expect more of them, and leave everything else out of the equation." - Abraham Hicks Self-actualized people enjoy peak experiences. A peak experience describes a moment of euphoria, wonder, and joy, often characterized by a sense of feeling connected to the universe. They might seem like eye-opening moments, where deeper meanings suddenly become clear. They aren't necessarily spiritual, though.  I remember my first praise night for KCCC when I was a sophomore in college. It was supposed to be a big "Christian revival" event where we invited friends and family to accept Jesus into th...

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." - Ralph Waldo Emerson Warning: the following blog deals with areas of mental health and suicide ideations that may be triggering. I won't take it personally if you skip this one. Based on the viewership the last few weeks, y'all skipping anyways. So f*ck it. LOL "What is going well in your life?" My therapist RB asks me through the zoom screen. During our last session two weeks ago I shared that my mental health had declined and it felt like I was back at square one. The throbbing headaches returned. And the quality of my sleep had been inconsistent. The suicide ideations returned and whatever progress I had made over the previous six months felt like it was all for naught. And what actual progress had I made? I was still heartbroken. Though I tried to cautiously date since then, every "I...

"Lift the veil that obscures the heart and there you will find what you are looking for." - Kabir For the last several weeks I've been dealing with the grief of my vision board and everything it symbolized. For me it was grieving the loss of a life I'll never get to experience; a life that validated and rewarded all of the trials, birthing pains, and rebirths I experienced within this lifetime. It validated the decision to keep trying because there was sunshine on the other side of depression and suicide. It was the manifestation of self-love that I had constructed that identified and honored the coping mechanisms and survival tools I created as a result of a lifetime of rejection, abandonment, and feeling unworthy. When I discarded my vision board I severed the delicate bungee cord that allowed me to stare into the abyss and be roped back into the realm of the living. I spent the next week in a virtual free fall and returning to old fears and anxieties: that nothing ...

"The leaves have refused to change. They say that they are tired of things never remaining the same, of dying to be reborn, of winter's dry withered hand. They are praying for an eternal spring. Even I expected that the beautiful autumn must have been ecstasy for the leaves. But they admit that there is nothing more painful than changing from green to yellow to red to brown. They insist that their beauty is a prolonged suffering. They say they will never change again... I have told them that everything has its season." - Saul Williams, S/he SPRING It was August of 2003 (yes I'm telling a story that happened in the summer but just follow along this strained analogy). Nearly 6 weeks after surgery on both knees for patellar mal-tracking and tendonitis. By now I no longer needed to use crutches but I still required the use of a cane because any prolonged standing caused immediate swelling and inflammation in my knees. I wouldn't be able to resume physical therapy unti...

"Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea." - Edward De Bono March 8, 2022. "Let me know if there's something else you want to try", Zach says to me as he rests on the couch for a few minutes. We're nearly three hours into the photoshoot and we took a few photos in my white linen shirt and pants outfit with some black chiffon fabric draped over my head (see last week's blog; yes, I would greatly appreciate a few more views). The contrast in colors and lighting weren't working well. I did have one more look that I wanted to try. At this point I felt relatively comfortable in front of the camera, Zach and I had already took three different sets of photos. The Prince playlist I had curated for the photoshoot (selections from my top 20 Prince albums, in descending order, starting with 2 tracks each and adding an extra song after each group of 5, i.e. 2 songs for albums #20-16, 3 songs for albums #15-11 and so forth; yes I know VERY OCD) ...