Today was one of the most amazing days of my life. I felt like God was somehow telling me...
"Yup this is what I had waiting for you. See man...and you were worried lol"
I had a meeting with my booking agent and it seems like I'll be teaching Middle and High School students how to perform Spoken Word Poetry for the next 2 or three years. December 14th I'm at graduation thinking "Ohhh snaaaap! Now what!" And now everytime I check my e-mail or pick up the phone I'm getting job or workshop offers. The coolest thing is that I don't just teach them Spoken Word Poetry. I teach them to believe in themselves. That they have a voice and that they matter. The Griot tradition, the concept of Ashe and Sankofa. How the brain works and all of the knowledge that I find critical and amazing. They now too find amazing. I've somehow taught them things that I didn't even intend to teach them. Like the possibility of going to college even though you might come from the hood.
I recently worked on developing a pamphlet that would outline the two ReadNex Youth Workshops and asked for some feedback from kids that participated in it. The words they wrote pinned me to the wall and kept me smiling for days. Years ago in the Hammel Projects of Queens, NY I would have never thought that I'd be reading the words that they wrote about me.
Even more I would have never in a million years thought that a brief conversation that Decora and I had in the SUB parking lot would come true. That convo entailed my dream of developing a youth workshop titled the "Next To Be Read Workshop".
After writing the sentences above I paused and thought about all that it took to get to where I find myself today. The hours spent reading. The help given to me by both related and non-related brothers and sisters. All that it took for me to get to where I am today.
Thinking about all of that made me want to end this post with a simple statement.
Keeping dreaming and struggling brothers and sisters. For if you follow your dreams your dreams will always follow you.
