“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

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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.

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 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

The black man in the office is judging you

Whenever people ask the question, “Is the U.S. post-racial yet?”,  I always laugh at the assertion that we could ever be post-racial, even if our President is black. The current generation experiences race differently, but we do experience it. Shows like “The Office” and “30 Rock” not only address race in ways that are humorous, but are nuanced, very much like racism in current times. However, what we should not become is a society that is not talking about race.

A story to illustrate my point:

A few days ago, I was talking with my roommate on the phone in the break area of my job. I was sitting next to some of my co-workers, including an African- American man in his early 50s. My roommate asked if I thought she would get to my cousin’s house for dinner on time, to which I replied “Girl, you know we’re black folks. We’re not going to start on time.”

The co-worker in question mumbled something about how I shouldn’t say things like that about black people. I replied, “I’m not talking about all black people; I’m talking about MY family members, who are black.” He continued to mumble something about how I’m supporting and reinforcing a stereotype. I said “If you took offense to my remark, I apologize.” To which he replied, “ Oh, it won’t happen again.”

What?

One mark of where people are in terms of identity awareness is when they react to one aspect of injustice by perpetuating another. My co-worker, upset with me for (in his opinion) making a statement that encouraged the oppression of blacks, attempted to use his male and (questionable) age privilege to put me “in check.”

One thing I like about the place that I work is that providing constructive, immediate and respectful feedback is a norm that is established from training and mentioned often. Ever since I read the book, “Critical Conversations,” I’ve adopted the belief that the main factor that can erode any working relationship is a lack of respect. Without respect, you don’t have an environment where you can provide information that will help someone improve, as well as receive such information without being threatened.

I asked my co-worker if I could talk with him quickly and privately before I left. Once we were off to the side, I re-iterated that I apologized for offending him with my comment. I told him that while I invite anyone to call me out on anything I do or say that bothers them, I told him that in order for such a confrontation to be productive, I ask that I be engaged and not just reacted to.

Through this serious but calm conversation, we came to the conclusion that what we were dealing with was a generational issue. To him, making a remark about how being black means that my family is unlikely to start dinner on time is the same as, in his words, rappers calling other black people “nigga” in song lyrics. On the other hand, I felt I was acknowledging that time is a cultural construction, and that every culture addresses the importance of time in different ways.

But most importantly, our conflict represented a generational difference in how race should be dealt with in mixed spaces. My co-worker took the most issue with the fact that I had made that comment in front of two of our non-black co-workers. He was from a generation when black people took personal responsibility for how non-black people (mostly white people) viewed us as a racial group. We had to be on our best behavior around them, lest we cause them to view all of use stereotypically.

I personally hope that I never live in a “post-racial” society, but if this is indeed a goal we should aspire to, I want to live in a society where race is not ignored, but put into a proper context. Where each of us is accepted for ourselves, including our cultural selves. Where there is a firm and universal understanding of the difference between “in-group” and “out-group” with regards to comments like the one I made.

Most importantly, I want to live in a society where we don’t have to act in fear of being culturally misunderstood. I am not going to accept the burden of giving someone else permission to be racist, and no one else should either. Antoine Dodson should not have black intellectuals jump down his throat for being himself on television and reacting to his sister’s attempted sexual assault. I understand where my co-worker was coming from, but if the current state of cultural relations should teach us anything, color-blind post-racial “racelessness” should not be a goal. Our President is racially black, culturally multi-heritaged, and, despite his education and experience, should not be judged for not starting dinner on time.

What are you holding in, and how is it getting out?

Last week, I had a canker sore in my mouth, the first one I’ve had in several years. I started getting them when I was a child, and I would get them every now and then, usually when I was stressed. For those who are not familiar, canker sores are not contagious, but they are painful, open sores that find their way inside our mouths.  Looking at the patch of exposed flesh on the inside of my lip, I thought back to what my late grandma use to say about canker sore. Like many elders, my grandma claimed that the cause of a physical ailment was related to a sin or behavior, in this case, lying. She said that canker sores came from not telling the truth.

At the time, I just thought this was my grandma’s way of getting me to confess to something, and I didn’t buy the whole “lie bump” explanation. But when I think of all of the things I have been keeping in lately, I wonder whether their was some truth to this explanation. Maybe canker sores didn’t come from lying, rather, from things not being said.  From withholding all or part of our true feelings.

What do we do when we keep so many things in that they find painful, unattractive ways of coming out? Where are our role models for being authentic and sincere without being drama queens/kings? Part of the reason I have such a hard time letting things out with people is because of all the negative associations I have with doing this. I think back to people like Lena (not her real name) who I went to middle school with, who was known for her emotional meltdowns and her need to tell people who they were and what she thought of them. She called it “keeping it real” but everyone else found it exhausting. Or Cynthia (again, not her real name) the woman who was a part of my trip to Ghana that almost brought the trip to a screeching halt because she needed to let everyone on our trip know that she has a problem with almost all of us. To this day, I don’t know how I escaped her verbal wrath, and we still remain in touch, but this was also not a role model of how to peaceful let people know how we really feel about them.

It’s time for another experiment. I’m going to let it hang out. From this point on, I’m going to let someone on my “sore list” know how I feel.  The plan is to do this until I have addressed everyone on this list. I will use the following guidelines to make sure that these interactions are clear and diplomatic as possible. My goal is not to avoid hurting people’s feelings/egos though, because that’s not something I can control. What I can control is making sure that I am as clear and specific as possible.

Ground rules for the “sore list”

1.    Address people in private; if I can not get one-on-one time with someone, either in person or over the phone, I will wait until I can.
2.    Ask permission. Ask the person if they are in a good place to have an uncomfortable conversation. If they are not, ask them if there is a better time for them.
3.    Identify what my issue with them really is. I may feel annoyed with someone, but I will not confront them for annoying me. I  will confront them about the annoying or hurtful comment or behavior that cause the feelings. If I can’t identify a behavior or comment, then I won’t say anything, because it’s not about the other person.
4.    I will allow them to respond how they want to respond, no matter how uncomfortable it is to me.

After a peroxide rinse, the canker sore went away. I’m still committed to going through my “sore list’ though, because the next physical manifestation of what I’m holding in may not be so small.