This is a journal entry from a year ago... I find it fascinating in hindsight. Its a memory of my mother and her vibrant spirit, as well as my own struggles in grappling with the memory.
August 9th. 2009
I was listening to this Steve Winwood album that I bought the other day. Back in the high life. It was the album that my mom loved to listen to in fall of 86. This song... The finer things... I loved that song.
Upon listening to this beautiful vinyl pressing, all these memories came flaming anew.
I associate that song with a morning in Alaska in late October 86.
Maybe early November before my birthday. It was a typical grey morning with a partial remnant of a snow fall. Mom and me were going out to run an errand. I remember that she had asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said the Night raven, which was a GI JOE SR 71 replica for Cobra.
A beautiful toy that I had been dreaming about in all of its compartments and possibilities. I had an idea that we were going to sears to pick it up, and she was going to have to hide the fact that she was picking it up. I had some associations with the vehicle having some piece to my dream of finding freedom from the tyranny of my father and the inevitable fate of my moms battle with cancer. I had a savior complex. I thought I would be some hybrid of Luke Skywalker and Mad Max and I would find a way to save my mother from death and my fathers alcoholism. As well as save my father like Luke did Darth Vader.
So we get in her Subaru and the music starts. The song starts with this synth sound scape that in my mind fit the morning perfectly.
And the lyrics are all about hope and dreams and going out and living life while there is time. Time.
I just wanted to find a way to be free with my mother. I was just happy to be spending time with her and enjoying some music. she would share her dreams with me. About how she wanted to have a little girl. I knew this probably wouldn't happen. But the dream is enough. Hope. This song, the finer things keep shinning through, the way my soul gets lost in you... exemplified my love for my mother. How this woman was the light of my life and unbeknownst to my self she was dying. And in two months she would be dead.
Yet in this moment she was alive. Humorous, and full of joy. She loved that album. so did my uncle tom. And listening to this song alone with my mother on an open stretch of Alaskan road made me feel the hope and possibility that lives in imagination. How a song can take you out of your circumstances and lift you to another place. Transportation of consciousness.
Hearing this song now made me cry bitter tears.
I couldn't save her.
I am 30 years old.
I have done so much in life, yet I feel like no matter what I do, doors of success slam in my face.
I auditioned for regular on a TV show the other day. one of my friends is a writer on the show. I had a great audition. No fear. I know I am good enough. I haven't heard anything. (I didn't get it... It went to a "name.")
I watched a segment on Shawnne Merriman and how he survived 3 home fires as a child and how he now gives back to causes that relates to.
Fire.
Fuck.
I have fought so hard just to survive. I am good enough to play these parts. I have so much to give. It just hurts. To be judged. To be counted out of the fight before I am even given the opportunity to throw a punch.
Listening to that song , I just felt, how the hell can I keep going on. Life has been so damn hard, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier.
I want to be in the financial position to be able to help out the kids I have been working with over the years. Luthando in South Africa. Lungiswa, Siabonga,...every one of them.
All of them lost their parents. Fuck!
I feel that my tanks are getting low. it has taken so much energy just to get here, I just feel burned out, and my hopes are dying a slow death, as I am told, I am too old, or not good enough, or not scary enough or not hansom enough, or not Latin enough, or not white enough...or what ever.
Please fate be kind.
I have gone down this path believing it was the one I was destined for. Only to be lead to a brick wall with barbed wire and machine gun turrets. Fuck I want to break that mother fucker down.
and my more fortunate friends from Juilliard are led through the gates without a struggle. (What the fuck do I know! Every ones struggles are different)
and I am only getting older. ( I wouldn't give a fuck except that this business I am in loves neophyte metro sexual Anglo looking men. All of which I am not. )
Does my story even matter?
My fathers? Does it even matter?
Do I have enough in me to keep going?
-This was written about a year ago... I Don't know how much I have changed... except that I recognize the realities of my business a little bit better and see that griping about the perceived injustices does nothing...
The only thing that matters is to keep running,
To keep punching,
Not for anyone else... or comparing myself to any one else...
But to just keep moving forward for the sake of doing it.
One step at a time. One punch at a time.
Just keep swinging away, with beautiful defiance, and tribute to the ancestors firing the jabs.
And this last year... I have been fortunate enough to go from theater job to theater job. Just no film and TV.
I am a fortunate man this year.
-Odysseus and the Muse Bytes
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