More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Dedicated to the stars who shone brightest when it was dark
“If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.” Zora Neale Hurston,
“Every day that ends with me still breathing has ended well.”
“Boy, we all gonna die. Question is, how did you live? Did you live or just wait for death to come? Not me. I ain’t waiting for nothing.”
“We always want more for our children than we had.”
“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”
“Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life.”
I believe in economy of words. Talking too much usually means saying things I didn’t want to or shouldn’t have.
“The past is shit. The future is uncertain. All you have is now.”
Theater has the power to transform, to transport. For every person waiting for curtains to rise, this story is the vehicle to escape the mundane, the grind, the pressures life imposes on us. I know because I feel those same pressures.
That’s the alchemy of this actress. She reaches you. With an audience this large, she makes it personal. In a story that is pretend, she makes it feel true.
And in a moment when I wasn’t looking, I’ve found exactly what I was looking for.
These are the moments a lifetime in the making. We toil in the shadows of our dreams. In the alleys of preparation and hard work where it’s dark and nothing’s promised. For years, we cling by a thread of hope and imagination, dedicating our lives to a pursuit with no guarantees. But tonight, if only for tonight, it’s all worth it.
She’s the first in a long line of girls, all shapes and colors and ages, saying what it meant to see me onstage. Mothers whispering how impactful it was for their Black and Brown daughters to be in the audience tonight. The impact is on me; what could feel like a weight or burden or responsibility feels like a warm embrace. Feels like strong arms encircling me. Supporting me. The first time I saw someone who looked like me onstage, it planted a seed inside me. It whispered a dream. That could be you.
A man would ransom his soul for those eyes, for those secrets.
“Black artists getting their due is personal for me. All my life I’ve seen their talents mined and appropriated, even while being told they weren’t as good. They paved the way for me to be sitting in this office arguing with my bullheaded privileged business partner.”
“I’m interested in the stories lost in the crevices of history, yeah.”
“Winston Churchill said history is written by the victors, but I would amend that to say it’s often written by liars. History is fact. You can’t change what happened, but you can edit it. People lie and leave out the truth, bend it to suit their needs. I like to tell stories that excavate the facts and expose the truth.”
It’s like stumbling into a pharaoh’s tomb, the walls lined with riches and treasures. It’s mundane and magnificent. Worthless. Priceless. So many things I need to know about the woman I’m to portray. I’m eager, but also feel like a Peeping Tom, glimpsing another woman’s nakedness through the window of her past.
“Sometimes it’s easier to be good with people you don’t know than the ones you do. Than the ones who know you.”
“Things happen like they should, I guess.” I’m not sure I’ve believed that in a long time. The things that hurt you most—it’s sometimes hard to accept that those are the result of fate or a deity’s deliberation. Much easier to believe the universe means us good, and good will prevail.
When you lose your natural family by blood, the family you choose is that much dearer,
There are lingering traces of a Southern accent in her voice, like honey sprinkled into something savory.
I’m transported into Dessi’s world: a city struggling to drag itself from the Great Depression. Black people, striving to live and love and laugh and sing in a world that sometimes made all those things harder to do. But they carved out a vibrant, spectacular community in Harlem. A time of excellence and style and art. Of fur-trimmed coats and pomade-slicked hair and satin gloves. A place populated with dancers and dreamers and thinkers and agitators and writers and folks just living. Making do and making history in the trench of everyday life.
We are artists,’” she quotes softly, her eyes set on mine. “‘When there is no joy to be found, we have the power in our hands, the will of our souls, to make it.’”
“History is so picked over, by the time you get to the tree, there’s barely any fruit left.”
She said, to survive, don’t use your gift for shit you hate. Work in a grocery store, pump gas, pick up trash to get by before you corrupt your art.”
The vastness of her spirit and the urgency of her passion. I taste this night in the sweet recesses of her mouth, the dessert and the daring.
When we happen, she will burn me inside out, and I can’t wait.
I was right. An apology does feel better than an excuse. The healing property of those two simple words salves my heart, broken and dented by the ones who should have loved me enough.
My life is a turntable in constant motion, and I can’t remember the last time I slowed down this way.
I don’t regret it. I don’t regret kissing her on Thanksgiving. I don’t regret our time away in Santa Barbara. I don’t regret starting a relationship with her, because it’s like nothing I’ve had before. I hate the chaos Camille’s interview could potentially create, but Neevah is the best thing to happen to me in a long time. Today, when faced with the consequences of our actions, I had to admit that to myself. In spite of all the trouble this could cause, I can’t regret her.
YAAAAASSSSSS!!!!!!
A storm in repose. Genius at rest. Canon asleep in my bed.
“I don’t get stronger when you shield me from things, but I can draw strength from you if you walk with me through them.
The way you came into the meeting today and claimed us; not acting like it was something to be ashamed of, or I was something to hide; how you showed them you were fine if they know we’re together? That made me feel like I wasn’t in this alone.”
Hurt people holler, Mama used to say. When something hurts, you scream.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.” I could have said it—sincerely said it—when we broke up, but maybe I didn’t understand the power of acknowledging someone else’s pain.
There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to apologize at all. Of course, there is. She hurt me, too. Tried to publicly embarrass me. Tried to damage my reputation. She was in the wrong. At this point, though, I’m more concerned about making things right than I am about being right.
The opening strains float from the piano as we start the song again. It’s lush and heartbreaking and haunting. A song about a love betrayed, a lover abandoned.
“Now that’s a song,” Trey says, leaning his elbows on the top of the piano. “You wrote that specifically for the movie, Monk?” “I did.” Monk’s fingers skate across the keys in a brighter-sounding flourish. “I used the script to write some of the original songs. I won’t score the film until after I see the final cut.” “It’s a fantastic script,” Livvie says. “Thank you.” That comes from the ballroom entrance where Verity stands, watching us all, but her eyes invariably returning to Monk. His eyes always invariably return to her.
I need their story as saome sort of sequel book or something because clearly there is still something between monk and verity and i want it explored. even if it triggers me lol
He calls me his girlfriend. He seeks me out in front of everyone. He holds my hand. I’m not starstruck by Canon anymore. That’s not where this surreal feeling comes from. You don’t really know a person when you’re starstruck. You’re awed by the idea of them and your idea of them is filtered through a public lens. What has me tripping is that Canon is so much more, so much better in private, when we’re alone. And he’s so guarded that most of the people at this table are still a little in awe of his talent and his reputation. Starstruck.
Me? I’ve kissed the star. I’ve felt its burn and held it close.
She thought the darkness, the stars, were almost as beautiful as the sunset. You know what an aspect ratio is, I assume. The ratio of an image’s width to its height. Well, she used to look up at the sky and say aspect ratio infinity: immeasurable.”
Zero gravity. Celestial. Astral. Infinity: immeasurable.
I don’t know what those test results will tell us, but I do know what it’s like to walk a hard road with someone you love. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.
My man! My man! My man!
“There’s no one better prepared to walk through this with her than you.”
If there’s one thing my mother taught me, it’s how to love through hard times.
I honestly don’t know what will be left when all these protective layers fall away, but whatever is left, it’s hers.
Old habits die hard, but I need to try.
I’ve been holding it together. Going through the motions of my life. Distracting myself with the work I’ve always dreamt of doing, but as soon as it all stops, the life-altering reality comes crashing back in on me. I’m racing against the clock in some ways, but will manage this condition in some shape, form, or fashion, forever.
