Speaking on Our Thoughts...

i woke up this morning, later than i had planned.

i spent last night in good conversation, some meditation, and some unclassifiable communication. i probably should have spent more time sleeping, as i had just conquered the jet-lag thing from my Kemet trip. i woke up a little tired, reflecting on what time i should have gone to bed. i woke up remembering that i have to go track down a lot of paperwork today that could have been done by now if i had taken my butt to bed. i woke up remembering that i needed to check some email for an important message (don't we all these days). i skimmed through the computer (yeah, sometime i'm guilty of sleeping with the laptop)and was closing out some windows. one of them was iphoto. as i was groggily looking over some of the images, i saw one that took me back several days: little Nubian boys in the middle of the churning Nile river, paddling around Faluca Boats and Cruise ships in homemade wooden boats or on doors, singing songs in several languages, hoping for alms from tourists to help feed themselves and their families. seeing those pictures made me realize something:

i woke up this morning.

that, in itself is a blessing. i woke up in a comfortable bed. that, too, is a blessing, because i remember the days when i, in this same room, once slept in a lawn chair because i didn't have any furniture. the daily back pain i struggled to hide in front of my friends and colleagues is no longer there. i have a wonderful life and career and all i have to do to keep it going is get up and out and create. push papers and pens and meet and greet. share and speak and learn and teach.

yeah, sure, there is other work. sweat, blood, the accompanying struggles of literally trying to build a theater by hand. coordinating those who volunteer, and volunteering to do the work of those who cannot be coordinated. i'm not afraid of hard work, because i came from a line of people who nodded their heads forward in fatigue at the dinner table after 12 and 18 hour workdays--hard labor days. from farms to cleaning facilities, to suburban white folks' homes; whatever was necessary to feed the family.

but i haven't had to get in one of the largest rivers in the world and sing for money. now, i've sung for supper, sure. and i've sung on a boat before. but swinging an air-conditioned crowd with your jazz trio and linen suit on as a grown man is a little different from being 8 years old and maneuvering between sometimes massive ships to get pennies.

i have a new respect for the things we take for granted.

these little Nubian boys, who looked like my own cousins, met the Sunrise at the river, and swarmed around the boats carrying our group. when we encountered them, they asked us what country we were from. why? because they spoke French, Dutch, English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and a couple of other languages.

and these young brothers don't go to school every day.

i had to marvel, because many of our kids can't focus for 5 minutes without a playstation in their hands. but here are these tiny kids, braving this massive body of water with only pieces of cardboard for oars, doing whatever they have to do, learning whatever they have to learn, to "make ends" as we say here.

i was humbled by that then, and i'm humbled by that now, as i get up outta this bed and go about the incredibly hard business of coordinating some personnel today. and although i may pitch a fit about what it takes to pull off a play or build an institution, i'll reflect upon the song of the Nile Boys and remember that if they could attack their watery world with reckless abandon and no fear, i can do the same with mine.

Labels: jeff obafemi carr, kemet