February 19, 2009 @ 6:14am

I've been thinking about writing in this time of increased technology and decrease in book sales. It makes me wonder about the history of writing and writing as a profession or as a mechanism for making a living. I wonder because when I was 6 had my favorite books but when I ask my niece or her friends about books, they barely know what a book is but they can tell me all about Hanna Montana, High School something another and I'm disheartened that they don't read. Mostly I'm sad because they haven't come across literature that depicts or is remotely similar to their lives and I wonder what that means for them in the future. I struggle with the moving images that suggest that all little girls should aim to be a actress, model or something on TV, even if it's reality TV or God forbid a guest on a talk show although I'm not sure how popular those talk shows are these days because I don't watch TV very much.
I'm going to write these stories irregardless of publication because there comes a time when the act of creating literature is greater than any financial rewards or accolades or space on a book shelf. I want my stories to reach the minds of girls like myself who need to know that they are alright the way that they are and that they too will grow up to be something special. I rode the bus home yesterday. My arms were full of books and between the rain and my lopsided umbrella, I jumped on the bus to carry me the short distance but I only did it for the books and not because I'm lazy or so I think. There was a young girl on the bus, brown skinned, short hair, chubby but not fat and she reminded me of myself when I was her age. She was also somewhat angry and that really touched a place deep inside of me. Her backpack was loaded to the brim, her hands looked as if she worked and her weary eyes seemed to have settled into a notion of defeat. What I wanted to do was hug her, love her brown skin, hold her chubby body and stroke the nappy and short tendrils that lay atop her head. Really I just wanted to tell her what she would never believe from me and that is, she was beautiful, intelligent, had a wonderful body and good hair. I wanted her to know that she was somebody, she was worthy of love, she was worthy of appreciation, she was worthy of everything her heart dreamed of. These are the girls I want to reach with my words, girls who struggle with a society so dysfunctional yet tries to make them think they're the the ones with the dysfunction.
With that in mind this is when spirituality has to be the space for which I move and have my being because if I let my mind tell me it's take on the situation, I would not write because there would be nothing in my mind that says these young women would get my books but since I'm close to the divine spirit and we have this intimate relationship, God is my beloved and as I am God's, I know that there is an universal energy that can create the impossible, that can move through the improbable and can bring into existence the unthinkable. For the girls who feel left out, I want them to know that they are okay just the way they are.
I have no idea how my words will get into the hands of girsl like the girl I came across on the bus yesterday but I have to know that the books will get there. I never thought I would read anything as remotely moving as I know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I read yesterday that Maya Angelou almost didn't write the story, it hadn't occurred to her to put them on the page, I find this fascinating and I wonder if she hadn't who would I be today. That book saved my life, allowed me to see myself in a book and it entered my life at a point when I felt like I was ugly as a brown, chubby, eye glass wearing, short nappy hair and lonely young girl. A time when I had no voice, no sense of direction and wondered why God made people like me in the first place but all that changed when I read this book, when I awaken to myself on the page within a story where I could have a fairy tale ending, well not exactly but enough of an ending to know that life could be more than what I was experiencing at the time. There was nothing more powerful than to read a book about a girl with no voice because as much as I talked which wasn't very often, I felt as if my vocal cords had no sound. I knew exactly why the caged bird sang and as a caged bird, I would sing. It would take me a while to learn to sing (figuratively and literally) and today I give myself full permission to sing, to tell my stories in a rhythm of compassion, with a densely loving stacatto and with a beat that mimics the heart, that signifies that I deserve to be alive. A beat that signals that the girl on the bus deserves to be alive too, we all do and that's what being a conduit means, that's what surrendering to the holy spirit entails, this understanding of one's purpose, one's beloved gift from the Divine.
I am perfect and I am whole and I am complete. I LOVE ME!!!