To Be and Feel Seen

PHOTO BY AUGUST DE RICHELIEU FROM PEXELS

Currently, I’m working through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Very slowly, I should also say. But when I have the time, I’ve been reading through the exercises and utilizing her wildly popular morning pages method and even trying to take myself on a few artists dates, quarantine edition. One of the passages stuck with me that talked about our negative self speak and tracing the route of those thoughts that inundate us and eventually create roadblocks to our creativity. In reading, I realized just how fortunate I am that no one in my life ever really tried to tell me who or what I couldn’t be. 

I recently read the Autobiography of Malcolm X and he had an incident that stuck with him throughout his short life, of a teacher in grade school who ultimately extinguished the little ambition he had in himself to become a lawyer someday. The teacher told a young Malcolm, that he needed to be realistic about the opportunities for negroes. In that time, of course, much was limited for Black people, but it was not as if Black children were incapable of making something of themselves if they had the will and opportunity to do so. 

Most of us know that before Brother Malcolm rose to prominence within the Nation of Islam, that he led a very wild and crime-infested life, and maybe, just maybe, if someone had encouraged him a little more as a child, he may have skipped that intermission altogether. 

The disappointing part is that Malcolm X’s story is not foreign to many Black children growing up in those times or sadly well beyond. So many Black children have been told to “be realistic,” or that “they should manage their expectations of how successful they could become.” I recall both of my own parents talking about how guidance counselors try to quell their desire to go to better schools within the city. My own mother opting out of Girls HIgh, one of the better inner-city schools in Philadelphia, because of racism and unfair treatment.

I didn’t have that. It’s such a privilege that for most of my life, I had people in my corner who encouraged me with every creative endeavor I tried. That support, I believe has been invaluable to the small amount of success I’ve been able to see in my creative life up to this point. 

I felt validated when I entered a speech writing contest in eighth grade and won the opportunity to speak at graduation although I was not a class officer. Much more so when I won an award for my creative writing at my high school graduation and my principal, Dr. Pavel (shout out to 263) beamed with so much pride when I walked across the stage. In a sold-out venue space when I released my first self-published book, Dear Love.

Writing was always something I was told that I was good at. I guess the disconnect was that although I felt encouraged, I didn’t see anyone actually pursuing a career like that in my immediate circles. Most went to jobs with bi-weekly paychecks, pensions, and security for the future. So, although you can acknowledge your talent in something, there will still be moments when you have absolutely no idea how to connect the dots to get there. 

We have literally had to make our own blueprints to build the futures or the careers that we’ve imagined. And just like the lack of encouragement that some face, the lack of representation can have similar effects on one’s ability to reach their full potential. 

This is why it’s so imperative that we show up as our truest and most authentic creative selves in this world. 

I was interviewing an author the other day and she talked about speaking to children in detention centers and the awe they were in over the fact that there was a young Black writer from the same neighborhood they were from, wearing the same sneakers they liked and speaking the same slang. In telling her stories, she is constantly giving those kids permission to tell their own. 

Seeing ourselves is invaluable to what we believe we can become. And when we feel silly or incapable of pursuing our creative careers at the highest level, it’s so important to reel it in and think about how much bigger the picture is. That is not just about us, but the little girl sitting in the crowd. The young man hoping to win his first story competition. We must be the people that our younger selves needed to see to be able to fully imagine what was possible. 

I never thought people would pay me to write things. And yet by grace, here I am.