“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.”-Oprah Winfrey

The Facebook interview with Oprah Winfrey could not have come to me at a better time. Today (Sept 9th) markers the 25th anniversary of Oprah becoming the first African-American woman to host a nationally-syndicated talk show. It also comes after my week-long visit to Chicago, my birthplace.  Most importantly, this interview came at one of those times that all people have, creative people especially, where I started to wonder if I was on the right path spiritually, professionally, geographically, etc.

When Oprah said this, it became clear to me: This path is uncharted, and will always be uncertain, because I am the only one who has ever walked it.

As an inspiration junkie, I love scouring the internet for stories, videos, songs, any piece of media that inspires me. However, maybe what I’m really searching for is proof. Proof that someone like me can do this. Become a filmmaker with no formal training. Translate counseling and psychology and an obsession with media into a career that helps other artists. Another black woman from Chicago who made a drastic career change in their late-20s and lived to tell the tale.

I will not find that story. I have to make it.

The story that I am looking for is my story, and it is never-ending. I don’t know if each item on my to-do list will bring me closer to the life I want, but I can try, and I can learn along the way.

I feel better now. While I continue to go down my to-do list and balance planning with action, I will accept that I am creating this path as I go, and the best inspiration I can receive is from those who have done the same.

Happy Friday

Note: If you like this post and want to support, please go to my about.me page (http://about.me/chakkareeves) and vote for my page to appear in a Times Square billboard! Thank you.

Hurricane Irene passed through the East Coast, causing billions of dollars worth of damage and at least 20 deaths. And yet, some people are not impressed.

Many people, primarily in metropolitan areas, question whether the level one hurricane/tropical storm was worth the precautions taken, or if the media over-hyped it.

To which I say: Get a grip.

Part of the ceiling in my apartment came down. My car flooded. Down the street, the wind uprooted a huge tree, slamming it in on to a parked car, destroying it.

But what can you do? After calling Liberty Mutual any way, what can you actually do in situations like this? Accept them.

Natural disasters don’t need your approval or validation. They are reminders in our type-A society that there remain things that we can’t control, and in a way, this applies to most things we think we have control over. Your favorite music festival was cancelled, or your flight to the Caymens was grounded, or you had to wait in line while you and other human beings prepared for days without lights, cooking heat or access to take-out Chinese food.Yes, Irene totally cramped your style. Consider that maybe, Irene, and even last week’s earthquake were reminders that life isn’t about to-do list and “plans,” though it makes us feel good to have them. Ultimately, our lives are uncertain. Accept this fact, and you can still enjoy it in a meaningful way.

Note: If you like this post and want to support, please go to my about.me page (http://about.me/chakkareeves) and vote for my page to appear in a Times Square billboard! Thank you.

UPDATE: One of my readers informed me that the page has been removed. A cache version of it can be found here for a limited time:

I came across the IndieGogo campaign for “Gang of Roses 2″ after reading on an entertainment website that Amber Rose had been added to the cast of the movie. A Google search yielded the IndieGogo page for the project, which can be found here:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Gang-of-Roses-2 (inactive as of 3:18pm EST, 7/28/2011)

A short story:

A friend and I attended an event held by the Philadelphia Film Office last year. We were mingling, laughing and munching on fantastic mini cupcakes, when a man passed me. Without saying a word, he dropped a package into my hands and walked off, without even making eye contact.

I showed the package to my friend. “He is at every film event I go to in Philly” she said, rolling her eyes.

As soon as I got home, my partner and I took the pieces of the package apart. Folded in a piece of paper, we found the following:

*Two recordable discs, with “Movies” written on one and “Music” written on the other, both in black Sharpie pen

*A press release on orange construction paper

* A story about the filmmaker, written for a fake publication

Not long after we hit “play” on the CD marked “Music,” we realized that it was just a play list of songs. Pretty good songs, but not songs from his work like we thought.

Next: The CD marked “Movies.” It was a mix of interviews, clips from some of his films, and heavy use of Word Art and the “flying” transition effect.

After my partner and I stopped laughing, we realized something: Regardless of the filmmaker’s taste level, he was 1) Productive and 2) Getting his message out there, two things that are essential to making a living as a creative professional. It was clear, however, that he had not taken time to develop his craft, cultivate resources, and evolve his taste level. The production value of his work was woefully poor, as were his marketing methods. Sure he got his work into my hands (literally) but he didn’t engage me. I’m not checking for his future projects, other than for more examples of what NOT to do.

This post is the start of a weekly series on Freedomreeves.com called “The Creative Toolbox.” It’s about the balance we must navigate in order to create creative careers that are 1) Fulfilling, 2) Sustaining (financially and creatively) and 3) Productive.

I’m writing this series as someone who is putting my creative toolbox together, and helping others do the same. I will share my methods, reflections and the resources that I’m using. Even though this series will have a “how-to,” vibe, it is coming from a “how-I” place. The most important thing I have learned thus far is there is no “right way” for everyone, just the right way for you.

Stay tuned as I blog about finding my “toolbox.”

Peace,
Freedom

I grew up in a time before gossip blogs blurred the line between the sensational and informational. Because of the history of the written word, people are conditioned to see something in print as having more credibility than, say a talk show or radio show. News shows and publications need experts, statistics, sources, while a blog need only say that they got their information from a “credible source” before the information is spread far and wide.

Especially if the news is about perennial click-draw and rapper girlfriend Amber Rose.

When her graphic photos were leaked on the Internet last week, spellcheck-phobic gossip site Mediatakeout.com attached a story from a so-called credible insider about how Amber had sent the pictures to rumored boyfriend of Nicki Minaj, Safaree Samuels, on the night of her birthday party. How awful! The skank! Once a ho, always a ho and so forth.

While the pictures of Rose were authentic, the story turned out to be pure fabrication. Nicki Minaj even send out a tweet in defense of her friend.

If this were a newspaper, a retraction would have been printed, but Media Take Out is not journalism. We’re talking about a site that is known for pushing the boundaries of good taste, grammar, relevance, and above all, truth.

I know all of this, and I have a context for it. I also know that tabloids news is much older than the Internet. What troubles me is the generation of web-surfing teens and pre-teens that are growing up after me, ones that don’t know the difference between news and gossip, the difference between sources and hear-say. The fact that Huffington Post links to the site further blurs the line.

Regardless of how you feel about celebutantes like Rose, no one deserves to be lied about. The truth is all we have, and that’s what real journalism is about. We also need to be critical of a media culture that thrives on judging those who are deemed less worthy of legitimate celebrity. The people that comment on gossip sites, asking why someone is news-worthy are asking an important, albeit, miss-worded question. The question should be: Why is this person the chosen target for our collective judgement and ridicule this week? Readers: What do you think?

If you want to know more about my thoughts on blogs and media/celebrity culture, check out one of my older posts: The Attention Economy.

I woke up one night choking, wheezing, water streaming from my eyes, down my cheeks.

I scrambled to the bathroom and instinctively placed a wet towel over my face. After 25 minutes, my airways opened up. Two days later, I saw a doctor who told me that my indoor allergies have gotten worse. I took to my room, emptied it, cleaned the carpet, dusted, got an air purifier, but to no avail. For the next few weeks I was unable to sit in my own room without coughing and wheezing. After eliminating other factors, there was one left: Mold. I live in an old house, and a water leak had been forming at the window frame next to my bed. I asked my landlord if he could check and have the mold removed.

He said, in so many words, that he had already spent enough money on our apartment complex, and if my allergies were that bad, I could be let out of my lease (Sidenote: In the great state of PA, property owners are not required to remove mold).

The idea of looking for another apartment made my head spin. In the past three years, I have moved about four times. I can’t, I thought. I can’t move my stuff again. I can’t go on another wild Craigslist chase, looking at apartments with extremely misleading pictures, people renting out overpriced closets, or renting out living rooms as bedrooms. At my core, moving made me feel unstable, transient. I didn’t want to go thought that again.

Then it hit me: What am I blocking? Your landlord is letting you out of your lease with no penalty, and you can find a place that is a better fit for you. Something with more space, something newer and better constructed, and above all, won’t make you sick.
So, I took a deep breath and said,  ”I am allowing my ideal space to come in. I am allowing the best place for me to come in, and I’m allowing the conditions I will need to get this space, to come in.”

“Don’t block your blessings.”

When I’ve heard this phrase in the past, it was said in relation to not seeking revenge for someone who’s wronged you, or doing something unethical to satisfy an immediate need. But there’s another, more pervasive way that we blocked our blessings on a regular basis.

When I started learning about the Law of Attraction, I started reading “Ask and It Is Given” by Abraham-Hicks (Esther and Jerry Hicks). I liked the idea of putting clear intention and focus on your goals, and affirming that those things are in the present. One part of the teachings that I didn’t fully buy, however, was the idea of “allowing.” “Allowing” is the belief that good surrounds us all the time, that our lives are suppose to be rich and joyful, but we block those things from coming into our lives.

Block? I thought. I’m not blocking anything. I have to actively work for everything I want, how can I be metaphysically shutting the door to it at the same time? However, I caught myself doing just that, when I learned that I might have to move again.

I’m still looking, but with a different outlook. Since this started, the landlord removed the source of the leak, I got a bigger air purifier, and I was able to sleep in my room for five hours the other night before I woke up coughing.

The point is, be very mindful when you start saying “I can’t” to yourself. Instead of resisting the change, open up and ask: “What am I allowing at this moment?”

For those of you who follow Freedom Reeves regularly, you may have noticed an irregularity in the number and schedule of updates I put on my page. I started the blog as a hub for my musings on my passions in life: Media, social justice and relationships. When I started this blog, I was fresh out of a Masters program in College Student Personnel, and starting my first full-time job at a private university in Philadelphia. I believe that although my current path looks very different from how it got started, the start is directly related to the middle and what I feel, will be the finish, at least for this point in my life.

Moving to Philadelphia fueled my desire to pursue film and media making as more than a passing interest, or a hobby. I was introduced to people who worked in media, both in education and production. Their lives were what I had thought I could only fit into small moments between the pressures of a “real” job, or the fantasies that I had during the times I zoned out at work, which had become more frequent. I met writers, directors, poets, DJ, musicians, people that balanced between convention and uncertainty, or gave up convention entirely.

At this time of incredible inspiration, my performance at my job plummeted. But this is what I wanted to do, I thought. I went to school for two years in order to become a higher education professional. It was a noble profession, and it allowed me to 1) Be in a community of thinkers and doers, 2) Have access to knowledge and information (I love libraries) and 3) Be in an environment where the inherent worth and value of each person was assumed, and not something that had to be proven.  Besides, I had always associated education with having summers off, as my mom, a teacher for 35+ years had always had.

My first job provided few of these things. There was no “summer” break to recharge and re-focus. The support I crave was not given to me by default, but was something that I had to gain by using strategy. Working at the institution did allow me to take a screenwriting class, as well as fund a lifestyle that did little to soothe the growing emptiness I felt. It also brought me to Philadelphia, a place now dear to my heart, but with whom the beginnings of my relationship started out rocky.

About 10 months into my position, I left work on a sunny Friday afternoon. My only plans for that evening were to go to the ATM, get back my house, get under my bed sheets and watch movies on Netflix Instant Streaming until my eyes shut themselves. At a busy intersection downtown, I looked both ways and took the green light to cross the street. Before I could react, the front of a taxicab careened into the side of my right hip. Amazingly, the slow motion effect that filmmakers use to highlight a disorienting experience is not that far-fetched. In the slow flight that I took vertically in the air, luckily I had the wherewithal to fold my arms across my face on my way down to the ground, keeping my head from hitting the pavement.

My body, however, was not so lucky.

My first emotion was embarrassment.  I was lying in the middle of the street with people staring at me. I heard voices, asking if I was okay, and shouting for me to not get up. My bag was three feet away from my head, and my right shoe, a slipper, was knocked off my foot, leaving it bare against the ground. Like someone who tripped in front of a room full of people, my first instinct was to get up. I lifted my head and the voices that were yelling for me to stay on the ground got louder. So I relented. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the feet of the driver next to the car. My face towards the ground, I could hear him freaking out in West African-tinged English. Before I could lift my head to see him, it hit: The pain. Up until then, I was in shock and felt nothing. Mild soreness at first, pain thumped across my body as the adrenaline drained away.

A woman bended down next to me, and asked me if there’s anyone she could call. The first name I said was “Lisa,” a friend. Between waves of pain and more pain, I hear her say that she just got voicemail. I thought of another name: “Thabo.”

I heard sirens. By the time the ambulance came, I couldn’t have gotten up if I tried. “1, 2, 3” they counted off as two EMT workers rolled me onto the stretcher in unison. The woman who called my friend said that she would meet me at the hospital.

As I was lifted in the back of the ambulance, I realized a few things: 1) I was not going to make it to the bank that day, 2) I may not be at work on Monday and 3) This could have been my last day on earth. And it would have sucked.

I’ll probably write more about that experience, the recovery, and how my life changed after that, but it was transforming, to say the least. Being hit by a car changed me in permanent and profound ways, the most important being that sitting for long periods of time was no longer possible for me to do. With my attention already waning at my desk job, I now had a cervical spine compression that made my current job incompatible for me.

I believe that all things, even the bad, are ultimately for the good. That is what I am dedicating this blog to for now. There will be posts about relationships, media, social justice and identity politics, and anything remarkable and/or ignorance on the Internet that I feel must be shared, but it will also track this journey that I’m on. So welcome, and feel free to comment or email me if you have words you would like to share.

Peace,

Freedom