Rest in Purple

People have been sending me condolences all day. I didn’t realize how much I talk about Prince, but I must. I must talk about him all the time. 

This morning, late to work as I am every Thursday, I didn’t have time to look at my phone. And instead of putting it face down as I usually do (it is always on silent) I had it face up as I typed furiously, attempting to catch up on the mountain of work that awaited me. 

The face lit up. Once. Twice. Five times. The flashing light caught my peripheral vision and piqued my curiosity. I never get that many messages.

A single swipe of my index finger and life is different. A single swipe and the world is forever changed. 

I remember where I was when news of Tupac’s death reached me, and I can see myself, more voyeur than participant, as people melted down around me when Michael Jackson died. But I never really understood. It never felt personal. It never felt like my loss, rather a thing that happened, a thing that happens. 

But this feels like I am missing something…or will be missing something. This feels like a slight. I flirt with the idea of full on temper-tantruming to show my dismay that there will be no next time to see or hear the genius that was and remains, Prince.

A Prince biography finally showed up in my library cue and, stuck on a cross-country flight last week, I eagerly cracked it open with Prince blasting through my earphones to properly set the mood. Mostly unimpressed with the book, it gifted me the inspiration to listen to more than the familiar songs on the 15 Prince albums I have on my phone. 

I’ve been listening ever since. 

Hanging out with my high school best friend in DC, driving in my car, plowing through research at work. Prince accompanied me through the week’s routines.

He sings to me with lyrics so familiar they could be my own name, and with undiscovered gems I didn’t know I would love.

And then he died. 

Just like that.

Last month I was screaming into the din of Oracle arena with 20,000 other purple lovers and today…today we collectively mourn the man who crafted the soundtrack to generations. 

A friend who I share a tacit agreement that if I ever had the opportunity to touch prince (or possibly pick him up, put him in my pocket, and run) that she would bail me out of jail no questions asked (except maybe, “what was it like to touch him?”) and who, after the Piano and a Microphone performance agreed to join me in Minneapolis this summer to go to one of his Paisley Park parties, wasn’t mourning with me today. Her eyes are firmly trained on what remains.

“He left so many gifts,” I could hear her smiling through the phone, “he gave us so much.”

I know she’s right. I know. But greedy I am…I want more.

I want the opportunity to sit in a crowd screaming so loud for him to return for an encore that the noise actually begins to sound like silence, like it did when I saw him at the American Airlines center 14 years ago. I want to wait (screaming and) patiently as he exits the stage for what feels like 5, 10, forever minutes before returning to regale me with encore after encore, like he did in Curacao at the North Sea Jazz festival. I want to watch him flirt with 20,000 people and forget that he isn’t actually flirting with me as he throws back his head, kicks over the piano bench, and marries random songs as if they were destined lovers because music is his language.

Music is his language.

He communicated love with his music…and prayer. He delivered the freak and the god in me. My soul weeps that I will never again stand among strangers pulled together by a purple thread of music beckoning us to go crazy under a cherry moon even as I am thankful that I once did.

Bookish Resolutions

Last year, much like this year, I didn’t make an resolutions. Not really. I thought about a few things. I mentioned them in passing. But at no point did I state to myself and others that I wanted to do X. instead I noncommittally rattled through the year with thoughts that never materialized action.

The thing is, when I put my mind to something, I make things happen. It isn’t always the success I envisioned but it is generally some kind of forward movement. And when it is something that is wholly in my control, well that is when I really kick things up a notch.

In 2014 I resolved to read at least two books a month. It was meant to be a reckoning between my “abroad” self and my “stateside” self. More and more I realize how differently I live when I’m in the comfortable familiarity of the United States versus the unknown (and sometimes uncomfortable) reality of another country.

Abroad me explores more, goes home to tea or dinner with strangers, takes local trips, befriends (and is befriended) by strangers. Abroad me also reads. A lot.

Part of my voracious literary appetite stems from me spending substantial amounts of my “abroad” time in more rural locales with limited electricity and the things that run on electricity. New Zealand was an exception to that rule, and I read far less there then I did in South Africa or Liberia.

Places with more electronic distractions, or places to go after dark, divert my attention. New Zealand offered city life and city life after dark options, Uganda offered the internet and bootleg movies on the cheap. I read less, easily distracted by flickering lights of all kinds.

In South Africa and Liberia I was insatiable. I read anything I could get my eyes on. Liberia served up three of the four Twilight books and Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff (one of my favorite random reads). South Africa inspired me to read Anna Karenina and Doctor Zhivago one after the other in a single week, leaving me to meld those stories into my head as one big depressing story about snow and sadness. Both places gave me lots of free time to dedicate to the written word.

Oakland is flashier than rural South Africa but I still have time on my hand. Rather than be constantly entertained by Netflix, for 2014 I resolved to read more, to bring at least a piece of my traveling self home.

More than the reading itself, settling on books was the most difficult piece. Once I learned that I could check books out of the library onto my Kindle my whole world changed. Of course, the downside to living in the hyper literate Bay Area is that everyone wants to check out library books on their kindle. Add to that the difficulty in settling on at least 24 books I wanted to read.

I spent a lot of time asking people what they were reading, what they loved. I checked “best of” lists and blogs. I read things that interested me and things that I finished almost entirely because I was dedicated to my goal.

Ultimately I was successful. I read 35 book in 2014, averaging almost three a month. Of course some were shorter than others and most of them weren’t literary masterpieces. Still, it was an amazing feeling in December when I looked back over the list and realized I’d done exactly what I’d set myself up to do.

It’s a good way through 2016 and my only resolution is to finish the book I’m working on. I’m hoping for the same kind of success 2014 reminded me was possible.

My 2014 Reading List- the “*” indicate books I loved and the months are indicated on the books I could remember:

1.         The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (August)

2.         The Fault in Our Stars*

3.         The Giver

4.         Truth and beauty (March)*

5.         Snacks and seduction

6.         Never Let Me Go

7.         Run (August)

8.         The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian (August)

9.         And the Mountains Echoed (July)

10.       The Westing House (July)

11.       As Nature Made Him (July)*

12.       Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (July)

13.       The Great typo Hunt (June)

14.       The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (May)

15.       Americanah (April)*

16.       Girl in Translation (May)

17.       A Dirty Job (May)

18.       Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (May)

19.       Mountains Beyond Mountains (March)

20.       Redefining Realness

21.       The Language of Flowers (February)

22.       The Idealist (February)*

23.       The Gathering Blue

24.       The Miseducation of Cameron Post

25.       The Interestings

26.       World War Z (September)*

27.       The Circle (October)

28.       Before I Fall (October)

29.       Lucky Us (October)

30.       Leftovers (November)

31.       Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls (November)

32.       I See You Made an Effort (December)

33.       Boy (December)

34.       Dear Committee Members (December)

35.       The Age of Miracles (December)

Obsessed

I’m obsessed. 

I own it. 

I’m obsessed with Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. 

Doing high school in Texas, I’ve always had an affinity for football because in Texas God may rule most days of the week  but on Friday nights prayers are for high school football.

That said, I’ve gone to sleep each night for some embarrassing number of nights, watching highlights and interviews of the Warriors. I find it cathartic. I find the hustle and flow of the game relaxing. I find the antics of the team humorous. I can watch it all over and over again. And I do. 

Steph and his family are endearing and relatable…not the insanely rich and famous part but definitely the closeness part. Listening to Steph’s father talk about his mother reminds me of my dad talking about my mom. I smile when I see his parents at his games, holding Riley and jumping up and down like the crazy fans parents should always be for their children. It reminds me of a more animated version of my dad, dressed in a three-piece suit, shoes off, sitting in the stands of my middle school basketball games cheering me on during a small break in his day before heading back to work. 

None of that has anything to do with how he plays the game but it is part of the reason I enjoy watching him so much. I don’t know Steph Curry, I only know his persona. But given how few people are able to cultivate and maintain a likeable persona in this age of 24/7 coverage on every medium possible, even if he and his family aren’t as endearing as they seem, they get kudos for putting on one hell of  a front. Truth be told though…I believe they are who they seem to be.

Steph being a nice guy is only a part of it. Steph is amazing because Steph gonna Steph…and he’s been Stephing all over this season so far. Only 20 games in, people are making incredible predictions about him and the Warriors squad, about what they will or should accomplish this year. As much as I enjoy contemplating the possibilities, what I love more is watching them. I love watching the whole team.

I like to watch Steph launch 3s from so far beyond the 3-point line that it seems insane, until he makes it, and then it seems like that was the only thing he could have done. I love watching Draymond Green fight for every ball as if the game depends on it; it makes it so natural for him when the game does depend on it (go to 8:50 if you want to see what I’m talking about). I love when Klay Thompson finds a rhythm and sets fire to the net with deep 3s (yes this is last season but WOW!). 

I love Andre Iguodala, Festus Ezeli, and Shaun Livingston stepping up always. I love that our bench is deep, that on any given day we have heroes emerge seemingly from nowhere…like Ian Clark and Brandon Rush.

Today a friend called me a bandwagon fan. She said I’m only into basketball right now because of Steph. The truth is that the Warriors have made basketball fun again. I remember feeling this way about basketball way back when Warriors Coach, Steve Kerr, played for the Bulls. Of course, then, like now, everyone was a fan of the Bulls. How could you not be? Their bench was deep their talent varied, their superstar subject to set the net on fire.

And no, I’m not trying to compare Steph to Michael Jordan. I don’t see the point in all of these comparisons and declarations about who is the best now or in all time. I only bring up Mike because like Steph, he didn’t shine at the expense of his team, they all shined the brighter. Everyone was the better.

 And they were fun.

The Warriors are fun. Presumed niceness aside, I am awed and wowed and giddy with joy when I watch these guys. I love the teamwork. I love the unselfish approach to the game. I love that even when they are flawed they can rally. I love Curry. I love them all. 

Bandwagoner or connoisseur of basketball joy, whatever my label call me Dub Nation!