I am having an extended moment. I don't know if it is Day 4 of this cleanse or what, but I am feeling really internal and vulnerable today. Time is slowed down and I feel hyper-aware of everything around me. For the past few weeks I had it on my calendar to see the River See Lab Experiment, organized/written/directed by Sharon Bridgforth and held at the historic South Side Community Art Center, the oldest black arts space in the country. I resisted the urge to stay home and decide to "just show up" (Day 4), figuring that this would also meet the performance/self-care practice sent to me by Priscilla. She wrote:
Since it's especially demoralizing to be a person of color (or any marginalized group) in a school like [predominately white Ivy League institution], in a program like SW [social work] I feel like I have to search out things that help me to restore all of the racial hope & pride that is constantly being drained from me- that might be poetry. dance, art, music, food, anything positive involving Black ppl.
It seems like every time I quote Priscilla's self-care practices (e.g. "heart to heart with God") I have to begin by saying, "I love my girl Priscilla." I love my girl Priscilla, but perhaps timing combined with my head space made me unavailable to successfully perform this outing. Don't get me wrong, the River See Lab Experiment was beautiful, as Sharon's work always is. The amount of blackness and beauty in the historic space was a treasure and there was an abundance of creativity and humor in the room. I just wasn't in the space to be fully present and receptive of it all. Hence my being in an "extended moment"; it is sort of a deep witnessing of what's happening around me, an acknowledgment of its beauty, and a deep contemplation of every single particle including my own response to the works/material/space/bodies in the room. This makes me wonder about what kind of presence is required when audiencing at a specifically black/African-Diasporic art event....I think it requires a sense of presentness that is without ego and is instead in tune with what is happening right now. I don't think I could do that tonight.
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