The Haitian Chronicles, Day 5
i'm home. well...almost.
Miami's airport is home, for the next few hours at least, but i am back in the U. S. of A. and so that counts a lot toward the prospect of seeing my own bed tonight, even if it seems i will be on one of the last planes leaving the southeast coast. by the time i'll arrive, today will be becoming tomorrow, and i will go back to awakening in the mornings, taking my children to school, and working on the weaving of dreams that i hope will build walls onto the foundation of faith i have been laboring on for years.
fortunately, i do not have to go it alone. i've been blessed with a partner in this passion, and a group of friends and colleagues who believe, as i do, that we can do all things, but fail. and so we labor on in good spirit, because we have each other to lean on. that's rare, i know. and for this, i am beyond thankful, beyond grateful. i have learned a message that has been handed down to human beings from the moment we began to learn to lean on one another. i think the Hebrew Bible sums it up quite well with the scripture that reminds us all, from any and all faiths, that in life, as in farming, "the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."
throughout the course of the journey of art (and ART) i have been on in my relatively short existence, i've learned that you have to truly pick your friends and associates like you pick your fruit. everyone cannot see the same vision--nor should they! each of us has a dream, and when we share it, there are those who will balk at it; others who may turn up their noses; some who will attempt to be an obstacle; and others who just will never get it. then there are those who can assist us in reaching our dreams, and they don't all fit neatly into packages either. they are as diverse as those who would steer us from the path, each serving their own unique purpose: the ones who say they cannot offer any help, but will step of your way and not be a deterrent or a nay-sayer; the few who will offer to do what they can, as they can, to assist you along the way; the still fewer in number who will see the similarities in their dreams and yours and go with you as far as they can; and the most elite group, smallest in number, but largest in possession of the raw and awesome power to snatch a dream from the mist of the subconscious mind and give it solid shape and form:
the ride or die.
i've got some solid folks in all those categories, especially the last one, and that's why i believe things are manifesting as they have over the last few years like never before in my life. sure, i've been on television since my late teen years, in movies and newspapers and radio signals since my twenties, in national media in my 30s and help to build institutions in my--well, in my current time. but only now have i come to realize that the greatest gift in life has been those few, those magical few, in whose eyes i gaze and find a bottomless, enduring, nurturing source of Possibility. that kind of shared focus, support, and power, can help you tear down walls and build them again anew, anywhere, at anytime, with anything.
a few minutes ago, i was reflecting on my trip to Haiti and the incredible and inspirational souls i encountered young and old. i was talking to my wife about everything we could do to increase our outreach when i got home. the charger on her battery died, and while i was waiting on her to plug and charge, i checked a stack of visual voice mails that had come in on the trusty iphone while i was out of the country and out of cell signal range. there were mostly great messages, well wishes, some business calls. there was only one disturbing one, from a theater vendor i used over a year ago.
it pissed me off. at least, for a minute.
it pissed me off, because of the nature of the business. business my entire staff worked to square away for months to no avail. nothing huge, but something major enough to constitute the headaches of accommodation that come when people don't follow simple instructions, then issue blame, rage, and even defamation toward you for their own lack of follow through. i spare details in matters like these because i, just frankly, don't believe in a whole lot of shit icing on top of bullshit cake. just as i'm honest enough to say that i was highly offended by the threatening tone of the voicemail, i'm also honest enough to say that i almost phoned in a provocative response just to invite the "next level" of engagement, only because of my confidence in my people doing the right thing, as we always strive to do. then i realized something.
this was a distraction. a meaningless distraction.
i've lived long enough to know that whenever meaningless distractions come up in your life, it means that you are on the cusp of something major occurring, a fact i had to remind myself of. and i reflected on where i've been and what i've seen, who i've met and the miracles i've seen happen on a global scale. not to mention the incredible things that live on the horizon of tomorrow. and i decide not to get caught up in the drama and engage the small stuff. i sucked up my normal warrior spirit, took a deep yoga breath, imagined peace as my intention, and wrote an email that should resolve the situation amicably. then turned my attention, briefly, to an even more meaningless distraction.
the NCAA Championship game was on TV.
HALF-TIME/DOUBLE TIME
i was excited for Butler as the half ended and they were totally handling Duke. i'm not a Butler or a Duke fan. i went to Tennessee State and if anything, that's the only team i'd go crazy over in a Basketball tournament. but i was rooting for the underdog, because i know how that is. after being in the airport for going on 7 hours, the game was a welcome distraction. glancing at my cellphone, i noted the time, 10:28. man, time has flown, i thought. soon it'll be time to board and---waitamint! it's TEN twenty-eight, not NINE. my plane leaves at 10:45!! what the...
throwing everything in the backpack, i sprinted down the concourse, in time to be one of the last people on the plane. talk about a beating heart. Lord. as it happened, one of the exit row seats was clear, and i ended up having a valuable commodity for me: leg room! i placed my bag in the overhead compartment, and stretched back for the flight home. the couple behind me called out my name, and i turned and recognized them as the parents of a college buddy. they had been on a cruise out of Miami and were headed home. we caught up about a few things Nashville, and TSU Football, and the arts, before the plane took off.
i unzipped my fleece top, and took a long look down at the picture of the Gradec kids that had been iron-transferred onto my shirt by Yonel and Pastor Wilson, given to us in thanks for supporting them. i reflected on the day: a morning trip to the US Embassy to get information on getting Yonel a Visa to come to college and Pastor Wilson one to visit; bumpy roads to make it to the airport; the swarm of valets attempting to grab our bags for tips; more than a few security checks, the last of which broke a stem on the handmade kite i proudly still had in my possession; the conversations held in the waiting area of the airport with so many different kinds of people who were returning home from helping in the various ways they came to.
for some reason, i could not erase the memory of the kids. i got a Facebook notification on my phone, just as the announcement to shut off all electrical devices came over the PA system, from Yonel (where in the world did that cat find a computer at that time of night??) saying thanks for coming and letting me know that several of the kids were with him and they were all crying because they missed me. i packed away the phone, took a deep breath, and looked out the window as the giant spotlights that lit the runway gave way to the countless symmetrical dots that made up the night scape of Miami from above.
and i wept.
i wept in remembrance of those tiny sweet faces who bombarded me with unsolicited love and adoration. i wept in thanksgiving for the gift i had been given; i wept in praise to a God and Ancestors who blessed me with a working body, a functional mind, and a hopeful spirit. i wept in amazement at the intense happiness i saw in the hearts of children i thought to be poor when i first arrived in Haiti. i wept in the realization that they were, indeed, the wealthy ones, for they possessed within them that which many of us lose in the transition from childhood to adults. it is taken away from us somehow by material pursuits, the imposition of parental failed dreams and expectations imposed upon us for a future defined more by titles and accolades than actual works.
they were rich with joy. pure, unadulterated joy.
i found myself jealous of them, so i made a little promise to myself: to embrace the things that bring me joy even more, and to never hesitate when given the opportunity to share that joy with another person, not by preaching or by postulating, but by serving. that thought gave pause to my tears, and allowed to get myself together enough to write and think about things present and future. seed planted. now it's time to watch it grow.
