She’s hummingbird, she’s a sprite - She is beauty, she is light!
Thursday April 6, I walked into the lobby of the Millennium Harvest House in my home town of Boulder, Co where Shirley and Arthur were staying after a 15 hour drive from Shreveport Louisiana and my life was forever changed. There is a line that exists now. Everything that came before ——— everything that is to come.
This lifestyle is simultaneously exhilarating and maddening. Sharing a moment with an engaged audience is pure energy- The feeling obtained when writing a song, or performing is nothing short of magical, when in commune with oneself and the intangible the feeling is inexplicable, it’s something like meditation I think. The utter beauty of creating something where once there was nothing… At the same time, the attempt to create something of profound value, to speak truth with originality. The constant work on improving technique, on pushing oneself forever further. Disheartening and entrancing. Frustrating and joyous. Yin and yang.
It is unreal the number of people who have told us how much we look alike. Though I’d love to be as handsome as he, we just don’t see it. People seem to love the idea of siblings sharing the stage and here in Italia family is, well- FAMILY. Though our bond is deep, and I think that’s what people are really responding to, familial resemblance has nothing to do with it. That would be down to our shared childhood. You know how going away to camp as a child draws children together so quickly? How fighting side by side in a war or as a volunteer in the wake of a natural disaster creates a sort of instant bonding? People who go through life altering or traumatic events together develop an impenetrable solidarity.
But what are you going to do? Five minutes after meeting them stress the importance of the extra responsibility these parents must face having adopted a child of color? Encourage them in a few seconds to be vigilant in helping that beautiful baby to know, to really know that she is beautiful? Prevail upon them to celebrate her color and compel them to help her to install a fierce, strong, stable, sense of self? Warn them of the arduous road ahead raising a black girl in a predominately white society???
The myriad occasions that we almost met make me want to believe in fate. I think that’s true of almost every couple, especially when newly in love and thinking of all the events that needed to happen so that your historic meet might take place. The same holds true for bands that are formed organically; it seems such kismet that circumstances conspire to bring together all of the elements that then produce magic.
September's my favorite month. Autumn leaves and freshly sharpened pencils. School supplies and new school clothes. Don’t you find it of lasting merit, the unending quest for growth, for improvement? Ensuring one does not create future regret for today’s mistakes, which is unavoidable only by doing one’s best at all times. Even if one doesn’t get where one thinks one’s supposed to be. What peace in the knowledge that one has done all one can. Like packing as many ones into a paragraph as one can! September in sum, time to learn stuff like why does the impersonal pronoun "one" sound simultaneously pretentious and soothing?? More essentially- how to sustain the enthusiasm that September seems to inspire?
As a black American in her adopted country of Italy where I’ve lived for the last twenty years, I’ll admit to being confounded by the conversation surrounding race here. Baffled, bothered and bewildered, am I.
"Then I’m the one whose shoulders got a chip, uppity black negro bitch
, oughta be happy with what you got.
Don’t deride this country- you chide-
You don’t understand,
those are just our ways, and this is definitely our land." Chip by NoteSpeak
Bestest birthday package ever- Wait for it... Watch the videos ;) .
The Conference on World Affairs, as well as The Independent Music Awards, felt rather a lot like summer camp.
Fast friendships were formed immediately, time elongated; much meaning was packed into a teeny space of time that also seemed eternal. Part 2/3 
"Let's go to the beginning, we're all a part of the same energy, we all come from the same energy flow. The primal rhythm is the heartbeat." Ernie Watts The Conference on World Affairs Part 3/3
The Independent Music Awards, as well as the Conference on World Affairs, felt rather a lot like summer camp.
Fast friendships were formed immediately, time elongated; much meaning was packed into a teeny space of time that also seemed eternal. Part 1/3
Yup, you read that correctly just over six months after the arrival of my birth certificate and I've tracked down my birth mother, five siblings, four aunts; as my birth sister Casandra put it- "Girllllll you have a whole slew of family. I am married with two biological children and two biological grandchildren. I also have children and grandchildren by marriage. You have a total between all of us of 11 biological nieces and nephews and many more by marriages. Not to mention cousins from all the aunties (mom has 4 sisters) children- you wanted it you got it lots and lots of family."
We are delighted and honored to have our NoteSpeak song "Every Generation's War" fan nominated (lifted by the people!!) in the Independent Music Awards- so there's that! The Awards ceremony is on the 31st of March in NYC at the Lincoln Center- may just have to change my ticket...
Oh hurrah we ARE still alive and WWIII has not yet begun. Can we please work hard to keep it so? Also, The Sicilian badass Franca Viola changed the mindset of thousands of women in 1966 when she refused to "save her honor" and marry her rapist, and while I'm here- more regarding the birth parent search.
My dream as a child that Marvin Gaye was my daddy I am aware is just that- a dream. If my birth parents didn’t keep me, it’s clear that there was a compelling reason and none of those that I can imagine are very jolly.