Like James Bond James Thompson Senior insisted (even if it wasn’t spoken) on preserving the name James within the family bloodline

James O. Thompson Sr was born in Alabama around 1920

James old Thompson Jr was born in Cleveland in 1951

James Thompson the third was born in 1970 something and James Thompson 4th which is actually Thomas (I think, with James as his middle name) was born sometime in the 90s…my cousin…who I never quite knew…

…that same habit of naming Sons James or

including one’s name

and wanting that to be on the record for Generations

persisted in our family

it also persists in the bonds

family

…there’s evidence in the archives…

Revisiting older texts (contexts) in writing provides so many gifts to the author. Today is no different from others when I go back to old notes to recall why I made certain connections, especially to historical works that are so seemingly unrelated. Then, I get a nugget–something new–that I perhaps hadn’t embraced before that now seems impossible to ignore.

I started going back through The Crisis years ago. Today, I looked at volume 33; it is a 100-year old text and reveals a sentiment that I am feeling as the year approaches its end. This was supposed to be such a celebratory time in the nation but has it ever really been that?

The Crisis, Dec. 1926, 33 (2), p. 65

The pages are their own megaphone and amplifier. They are screaming, don’t forget to check the record. The real record. We want to celebrate. We want to have joy. BUT, perhaps the luxury found in the pursuit of happy-ness is a knowledge of truths concealed in parades, rallies and advertisements. Frederick Douglass describes it so masterfully in 1854:

…guided by wisdom, manned with truth, fidelity and industry, the haven of peace, devoutly wished for by all, may be reached in safety by all…
My joy shall be full, if, on this occasion, I shall be able to give a right direction to any one mind…

There are so many moments of confusing history but of this I am assured. Our joy comes from our knowing. We have been taught to take refuge (or maybe find it) in understanding. The ONLY way to truly understand is to return to something, again and again. It is gainful indeed to revisit a place you have been before. It is not a waste (if you don’t let it be)…it is home.

Grace doesn’t surface when we are overworked!

Sundays are always peculiarly wonderful (and dreadful) for teachers. As we process what the next five days will sound like, what we will wear, how we will do the job of teaching and learning, it often offers us a mirror on what it means to have grace.

Grace, like justice, is a love offering of spiritual and physical magnitude

It develops our sense of belonging, makes us productive and pushes us to thrive.

Oh yes…GRACE is AMAZING…especially on Sundays when we give it to ourselves.

Stay up for the days ahead.

Eighty years ago, a translator–Mary Ryan–wrote about her work as a translator, a communicator whose responsibility it was to be a bridge between two worlds.

Image available at https://archive.org/details/a.d.sertillangestheintellectuallife/1-271%20all%20book%201%20page/page/n19/mode/2up

We are all translators in some way, especially on rainy days. Thinking about how we tell stories and explain the many whys of the moment to our future selves–the generations behind us–as a writer, this is what I think about on rainy days. This passage is arresting as I hear raindrops on the roof dribble down loose gutters.

Do you want to do intellectual work? Begin by creating within you a zone of silence, a habit of recollection, a will to renunciation and detachment which puts you entirely at the disposal of the work; acquire that state of soul unburdened by desire and self-will which is the state of grace of the intellectual worker. Without that you will do nothing,
at least nothing worth while.

Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges, 1863–1948, The Intellectual Life (1948/1960, Translation by Mary Ryan), p. viii

I am getting so close to finishing this manuscript. All the note-taking. All the re-wording. All the resisting that which is artificial. All the truth-finding. On rainy days, writing seems easier until I remember I have other work to do. Sigh…the steady rhythm and harmony of rain is being replaced by bustling on the street…it is time to translate something else as I evaluate papers…the life of a teacher is more than intellectual.

Three generations provide the perfect recipe for balance in families that are a little bit wonky.

Child-parent-grandparent, loving and needing and kneading love into the ball of emotions that overwhelmed creates.

I smile in this moment, watching funny videos of Poppies and Mamas taking care of the little ones two generations away from theirs…owning the sassy and hilarious-to-them, but

they

would

never have put up with that from their own…

Then I smile thinking about my own grandparents, now gone for what feels like an eternity…

I miss them so much.

I saw highway billboards this past week wishing a Happy Day to unknown Boomers.

I choked up remembering the cards we made and letters we used to send to let Granny & Popoo, Grandma & Grandpa know how much we loved them.

A tradition my own progeny has not maintained…

Missing closeness, there is nothing but distance…

Fresh opportunities are on the horizon for them that are alive.

For me, heart-filled contemplation of what was and will always be…

Rest in peace James, Edna, Harry, Mildred, Hattie, Alice.

Love,

joy

“It is our duty to say thank you and pay tribute to them, whether they are here or not.”

Zendaya in How Black Models Broke Through the Glass Ceiling

I like to say “I used to be a dancer” often forgetting that I used to be a model too.

I used to love pretty clothes, hair, heels and makeup.

I used to love imagining myself like Lena Horne and Diana Ross. Then I learned their stories, along with so many people whose lives inspired me.

Now, I love seeing, hearing, and reading their his/tories and her/stories…like crumbs left for us that lead us back home to ourselves.

The pictures and the films show us who we are and have been.

I give thanks for the photos that inspire all the essays (historical, editorial and journalistic). They still teach us (like all models tend to do) how to write as scribes and documentarians for the next generation.

The World in 1963 by The Atlantic is one of my favorite models on which to gaze. I revisit her often when I think about my parents and grandparents…the generations before X that endured pains so we could have joys.

I am grateful for these models as I seek to embrace the one that I am.

Reflections emerging from thoughts about the dark

Something happened when we were forced to be apart

We longed to be…

To be with

Each

Other

Differently and the same

Peering in

To 

Each 

Other’s

Lives

To check in

To make sure

That We were alright…

The poems I write are not really poetic in the traditional sense. Rhyme and meter mean less to me than cadence and pulse. My poems are like dances—some short, some a slow drag…all designed to move me, away from harm and into myself, my thoughts and wonderings…my wanderings…my salvation and my strength. My poems save me because they often provide a way for me to talk about history that I am learning or willing to reveal.

I think I have always written this way…errant and pithy, like the flute I used to play. 

Notes pushed out rather than strung together, staccato-like and sincere.

This poem is about Black joy unfolding like a dance or a choreopoem or a flower.

The outside

A recent movement

To the seed that still passes its DNA through time

Hundreds of years

No mutations

Nothing changed

But the size of the thorn

Right before the pandemic, I got a contract to write a book about Black teachers and their teaching. I was so excited. I would finally share something I loved about the people I loved, including myself.

Every elephant video and documentary spoke to me about the profession–the vocation to protect children in community with others…to remember where food and water was in spite of the long journeys of exploration. Taking the defensive position to encircle until safe the young beyond the threat of earth shaking beneath their feet.

Dealing head-on with the “elephants in the room” is a charge of the Black teacher, done subversively but clearly to the protected.

As I watched well-known authors publish parts of the revelation, I started to pick up my pen less often, taking fewer notes as I turned the pages of others’ books. How do I compete with tenured, R1 professors telling their stories, these histories?

It is time to pick up the pen again…