1-ON-1 / I WANT TO PLAY THAT GAME TONIGHT

I want to start God Sent Me, this latest ArtsWave Truth and Innovation grant project, with a few words from Questlove’s book Creative Quest, which focuses on creativity and how creative people determine if they have it and how it works for them. He is, to my mind, truly one of the creative people on the planet, because he is also one of the most curious people around. As a founding member of the hip hop band The Roots, bandleader for the Tonight Show and now an Academy Award-winning documentarian (Summer of Soul…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Questlove is accomplished in a variety of fields, but driven by a desire to understand even more. In the opening paragraph of the introduction, he questions his own creativity, since he spends more time “absorbing the creative work around me than actually creating myself”. 

He and his creative aesthetic embody the notion of digging in the crates – how hip-hop producers travel the world to visit record stores to sift through stacks of albums across genres and ages to find samples to transform into new work – which has inspired my approach to film criticism and critical writing. The exposure and absorption are integral to the work.

I believe it is through the work around me, the books, music, movies and more generally the history of human experience that offers me a glimpse into myself that I can then remix into essays and stories that present a reflection (hopefully useful) for others to catch sight of some piece of themselves.

God Sent Me is…a short collection writing that defies easy description. Are they essays or fiction or who knows what else? I suppose I’m tearing down a barrier between truth and myth by telling my story in the only way that makes sense to me. Is it (and by extension, am I) creative?

I’ll let you be the judge.

[There’s a caveat to consider. These three “pieces” of writing were supposed to be read as one whole, but I’m teasing you, dear reader, with this introduction. It is an interview I conducted with myself. In it, are elements of the beginning, middle and end of my creative journey, and just maybe, another beginning…]

Terrence: You’ve gotten several ArtsWave Black & Brown Artist Grants…

tt: Three total, yes.

Yes, and the first one was titled Critical Reflections. You explored representation, right?

What I realized, during the process, was that I was laying out my origin story as a film and cultural critic…

Your origin story?

Yes, my expressed aim was to use the term ‘critical reflections’ (which I had bandied about for a few years before the landing that first grant) to delve into what made me suited to be ‘critical’ about anything (film or otherwise) while focusing on, what I hoped would be a self-reflective journey into my experiences as a critic, especially a Black critic.

Did you discover a new depth of your ‘superpowers’ as a critic or a Black man?

That’s a great question. Looking back – and it helps to understand that the grant had both a written element (long-form essays) and a podcast, something that I had never done before – I didn’t know what I was doing. It was an instinctual project.

But you had parameters, based on what you included in the application process, right?

I did, and while the parameters didn’t change, the essays, which were about how Black people are represented in film and television (which I suppose we should call ‘streaming’ now), shifted from the very beginning.

How?

I wrote the first essay on January 6, 2021. I was sitting in my bedroom – where I had been doing film and streaming review work five days a week, since the Covid shutdown – contemplating what my first essay was supposed to be, when someone reached out to me via text, imploring me to turn on the news, which I did immediately. MSNBC was broadcasting live, the storming of the Capitol and I sat, watching a sea of white folks rioting and looting one of the ‘sacred’ democratic institutions in DC. As a Black man of a certain age, I scanned the crowd, hoping and praying that none of the people engaged in these activities was Black. I didn’t want us mixed up in this craziness. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve seen how we are pilloried for such behavior and never have the opportunity to live it down. When we march, it’s a riot. When we riot, it’s time for the authorities to put down a rebellion. We get painted with the broadest brush possible, and by ‘we’ I do mean all Black people. Our non-violence is violent. Our violent actions become barbaric and inhuman. Sub-human, in fact. And, yet…

And yet, what?

This was truly unorganized chaos. The guy with the horned helmet. The people beating back Capitol security forces and then running around the building, going into offices and putting their feet up on desks, doing all sorts of unsavory animalistic things. This was sub-human activity, not what should represent civil discourse or even organized protest.

So, you wrote about it…

So, yes, I wrote about it. I wrote about it because I knew, in my bones, that if Black people had done such a thing, the situation would have been nuclear for us. Storming the Capitol and acting a fool…we would still be living under martial law now, if we were allowed to live at all.

I don’t disagree.

But a part of me wished we, at some point (really any point in American history), had done something like this. Given in to rage and engaged in a righteous fight for what we believed was fair. There is a privilege in that. I just said righteous, but that was wrong, in the January 6^th context, because these people were not truly acting from a righteous place. This was petty and childish. I didn’t get my way, so instead of grabbing my toys and going home until the next election, they decided to upend the game, toss the board off the table and step on the pieces. This was a group of sore losers, who had been told repeatedly that the game was as fair as it had always been, but they refused to accept defeat.

And so, there was an attempt to change the game…

Is it weird to say I never thought about changing the game, not like this?

Why not?

Why would I? I had swallowed the lessons, the definition of what it meant to be American.

Are you talking about the Cornel West definition, which you have often referred to in your writing?

No, not that. I have always admired the philosophical purity of his definition. His sense and belief that America was an experiment of improvisation. It was jazz. It was like a game of pick-up basketball. A team of players come together with different talents, work towards a common goal. They win or lose together and then, if they lose, they wait for the chance to play again. The rules don’t change. The game remains the same.

But games and rules evolve all the time…

I remember an essay, back in the 1990s, published in Esquire, one of their special issues – I used to keep them, like a hoarder and I probably still have it in my basement storage unit – about a baseball game where a batter stood in the box and took three strikes, three pitches down the middle of the plate, called by the umpire behind the plate, but he refused to leave the box after the third strike. He remained and as everyone watching waited to see what would happen, his sheer force of will bent everyone around him and the game continued until he got a hit. That was the only way he was going to leave the box. He, of course, was white. It was a random short story and even the outcome was inevitably meaningless. None of the players that followed him reacted in a similar fashion. Only this one player.

That’s different.

Yes, it was. And that’s what I’m talking about. Changing the rules in the middle of the game. We were in the process, on January 6, 2021, of certifying the votes that would confirm the next President of the United States. One person inspired a whole group of people to attempt to bend the will of American voters and the system, as it was doing its work.

What would you do…what situation would compel you to act in such a way?

Now that’s a real question.

You don’t have an answer, do you?

Not now. Let’s see if I figure something out as we go along. Next question.

What happened after that first essay?

I wrote a response to what was going on. It wasn’t Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? or Public Enemy broadcasting the news from the underground. It wasn’t angry, not as angry as it could or should have been. It was halting and uncertain. It was me asking if I had seen what was going on, if others had seen it too. I think I tried, with the podcast, to ask the people I interviewed if they had seen it, but I didn’t do it directly or consistently. I asked people to talk and think about their lives and experiences, what had shaped them. Did such images – whether from the news or the movies and shows they had watched – offer reflections or representations of their own lives?

Well, if this was also your origin story, is that what happened to or for you?

Representation has never been clear cut for me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself onscreen, not directly. Not that I ever expected to.

What did you expect?

Nothing.

I know that’s not true.

You sure about that?

You wanted to be a hero, a subject, a protagonist in some story.

Maybe The Protagonist, like John David Washington in Tenet. One of the most confusing narratives ever. A story where a Black man shifts back and forth through time, fights himself, saves himself, starts a revolutionary outfit that he can’t remember or understand. That’s exactly what I wanted or maybe I’ve been living a version of this reality the whole time.

That’s not a fair example.

How about Killmonger from Black Panther then? Stranded in this country when his uncle (King T’Chaka) kills his father for attempting to seed revolutionaries with the instruments and tools that could build and sustain their ability to fight a fairer fight, who then plugs into the system available to him, learns the tactics and lessons of his enemies, reclaims his place in the world, eager to fight the fight that matters only to die in his homeland. I love so much of his story, but I realize I’m not a revolutionary, not like that. I might want to go back to Africa (the fictional realm of Wakanda), but there is an isolationist part of me that would get there, see the riches and cultural resources, and just decide that I could be happy with that knowledge and life. I would want to protect it and would be willing to do so with my life, but conquering and colonizing the colonizers? I don’t think I could care enough about that.

Why not?

I’m selfish.

No. Don’t forget I know…

…me? Us? You know yourself, or at least some version of yourself that is…

…some part of you. I know you talk to students about film and criticism and share your stories and experiences to inspire others to find the next step on their journeys. That’s not selfish.

I’m the part of you that’s tired. The part that knows he can’t be Jeffrey Beaumont from Blue Velvet, despite Blue Velvet being my favorite film of all time. Jeffrey Beaumont was a white first- or second-year college student who comes home to help take care of his father after he collapses and is hospitalized. What was the most important part of the previous statement? White. Jeffrey stumbles across a severed ear in an abandoned lot one day and takes it to the police, realizes they aren’t doing enough to figure out what’s going on and decides to discover the truth on his own. He wanders blindly into a world beneath the placid suburban façade he’s lived in his whole life. It’s The Matrix over a decade before minus the trippy sci-fi posturing. I wanted to be Jeffrey when I saw that film back in the day. Maybe that’s why I watched it so many times. I kept looking for ways into that world, but I knew a Black kid like me wouldn’t have that adventure, wouldn’t be able to dance with the devil(s) like that and find his way out the other side. There wouldn’t be a good girl waiting for me at the end or an Isabella Rossellini to tease and torture and tame the devil long enough to help me save myself.

What would your story look like instead?

Edmund Perry’s. It’s no movie, like Eminem said, there’s no Kyle MacLachlan. There’s just the true story of a Black kid who graduated from a premier prep school in the mid-1980s, went home the summer before he was supposed to start college at Stanford, but ended up dead in Central Park, killed by an undercover police officer who was taken to the hospital for the treatment of minor injuries while Edmund bled out on the sidewalk. Edmund’s Black life should have mattered more and deserves to be remembered as part of the roll call.

Edmund is us, yes.

Damn right, he is. He’s been me for decades. He was a couple of years older than me. He graduated from Philips Exeter the summer before my junior year of high school. The same year I attended Exeter’s summer program before I entered The McCallie School for Boys in Chattanooga, TN, on the same scholarship program that funded his time at Exeter. The same scholarship that questioned whether they should continue offering scholarships to Black students if they weren’t going to be able to get a return on their investment, like it was somehow the fault in our stars that we weren’t able to make it past 18-25 years old.

What’s the lyric from Sign of the Times – let’s fall in love, get married, have a baby, we’ll call him Nate if it’s a boy?

…hope the little Black boy grows…

What am I to you?

You’re, maybe, the part of me that wants to be seen, whereas I’m the part that knows he’s invisible. I’m the ectoplasm, the part the light gets bent around and somehow remains unseen. I never get to transform my invisibility into something meaningful and possibly even powerful. My invisibility doesn’t even truly protect me.

Then there is no place for you?

Back to the Future, is that what you’re thinking? Why can’t I go back and show Chuck Berry’s cousin how to play Johnny B. Good? Who listens to the ‘me’ from the future? Is it even worth saving myself from simply fading away? Black people going to the past is way to fraught. Didn’t we learn anything from Octavia Butler? Of course, we’re connected to white folks, but why do we have to go back when they are in crisis? Their crisis is our crisis? Black and white are inextricably linked. Yeah, we know, but do white people truly care?

I’m starting to wonder if you care.

About time.

Going back to comics for a second. Wakanda had technology, but the focus was on weapons. What about Krakoa, the mutant homeland explored recently in Marvel Comics?

Mutants have always been stand-ins for marginalized people and this era for them was a natural extension of what I talked about earlier. What if we fought and pushed for a homeland of our own, right here and now. What would that look like? I love the idea of the rules. Kill no human. Bring all mutants to the island, let mutants take care of other mutants, both the good and the bad. Share resources like medicines that help all. But that era shows us how and why there is no happily ever after. Humans fear mutants. They can’t trust the gifts given. They will always want more. If Black people discovered the power of resurrection, white people would go to war to claim it for themselves. We could cure cancer, but it wouldn’t be enough. White people would destroy themselves to eradicate us in the process.

Is there no love? Is that the issue?

AI (Artificial Intelligence), the Spielberg movie breaks it down. White people create AI, robots to serve as surrogates for lost children and/or family. Not just to do the work people don’t want to do anymore, but to love people. Robots can be taught to love, but the question is, can people love the robots in return? It should not be mis-understood that this question comes from the only Black person in the room at the beginning of the film. Have white people ever loved us?

Are you comfortable with the tone and tenor of this exchange?

I’m not sure my comfort matters. We aren’t doing this for me.

What would Edmund think of you now? If he is you (us), then have we lived and represented him as we should/could have?

That’s a tough one. I don’t know that he would be happy with this life. I followed in his footsteps, in a way. I got the Ivy League degree, but squandered it, doing non-profit work rather than seek the material gains and creature comforts from investment banking. I write and talk about film on television and radio, but it’s local, too localized for real dreamers and strivers. Would he have waited as long as I did to marry (well and white) or would he have married at all? I imagine a path, a divergence with infinite opportunities and a myriad of different choices. I think the better question might be, would I have been happier with my sense of his choices and the life built from them, if it had been me that died, instead of him. Was he that much more driven than me?

I’ve never thought about it that way.

I’ve got a question for you. Are you ever angry?

You know the answer to that one.

I do, I guess, but I want to hear how you talk about it.

Am I ever angry…not frequently. I imagine age takes the edge off, except when I hit that spot of pure rage where I’m ready to rage at the machine, I stew in it. I don’t act from that place or speak too quickly from there. But I don’t throw out those marinating juices. I keep them and sometimes, with the right trigger or reminder, I pour them out again and slide in for more stewing, more brewing.

I feel like one of us needs to react from that rageful place. Sometimes. It’s not about easing pent-up tension in a valve. No, you must speak that truth, give it a voice. Righteousness is a call to action, although self-righteousness is petty and feeble. It is what remains when the game has been played, and the winners and losers are long forgotten.

Why can’t it be you? The one to speak those truths from time to time.

I can only do this with you, in this imaginary conversation.

Why is this not real? Self-interrogation is self-awareness.

Yes, but to challenge the world, that takes an anger and rage that goes beyond speaking truths. There’s real action and a willingness to die. I don’t need to die over the things that make me angry. My dying won’t change anything.

That sounds privileged.

Privileged?

Yes, because you get to say it after careful consideration, even if it seems spontaneous. But, in the moment, when your truth-saying puts you in the crosshairs, you don’t get the time to think or process, even for a second. You’re angry, you lash out and bang, it’s over. Who cares what you thought about it?

Or what I thought about anything, right? I like the low stakes I live with. That’s what I’m saying.

Feels like you’re squandering your superpower.

Saving myself, every day. What’s wrong with that? I mentioned The Matrix earlier. How about this? Neo, across the trilogy, is the savior, The One, because his experiences with and love for Trinity helps him to realize who he’s fighting for. Jesus died for all of us. A Neo, maybe one of the earlier versions of him, was more like Jesus. But the one we got to watch in the movies, that Neo fought and died, not for all of us, but for Trinity. I like to think I’m different. I’m the hero because I fight to protect my neck from all the dangers of the world. I don’t do it for somebody else or the whole human collective. I do it for me.

You mentioned Cornel West earlier. I want to return to him, to question what it means to be American. What does that mean to you, especially now? You’ve written and danced around this idea from the very beginning of these grant projects. Where are you, at this moment, with your American-ness?

Of the terms he explored in the introduction to his reader (along with being human and modern), the American notion was the one I enjoyed the most. For years, I facilitated conversations with teenagers during afterschool programming, high-risk teens who most people would have never considered broaching such dialogues with, but I loved engaging them with the ideas. I think that was when and where that philosophical journey began for me. And the American piece, I rarely read the full quote to students. It was academic and jargon-y, but I had underlined elements that spoke to me in a more direct fashion, and I believed it would work as well for them. Clips like “a fragile experiment” and yielding “forms of modern self-making and self-creating unprecedented in human history” offered a combination of all the ideas in one, in this feeling of being American. I’m not a patriotic person in a traditional sense, but I loved the sense that America could allow people the opportunity to create new versions of themselves. I shared with students how I had undergone a metamorphosis of sorts. When I got married, I changed my name, which made it easier for my wife to just take on the new name we created. I cut my dreads. I became a stepfather instantly. I was in my mid-30s when I did all of this. It was freeing. Now, as part of these grants, I take everything a step further. The self-making and self-creating are about understanding the power of mythology. Every person, every family has stories that are shared, histories that are unique to them. Along the way, I’ve come to recognize that not all of those stories are fact-based, but to paraphrase John Edgar Wideman, one of my favorite authors, all stories (that we tell) are true, meaning they contain a powerful and fundamental element that feels, I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say that it feels, right.

You’ve been trying to explain this current project to people, and I know that you’ve stumbled over describing what you’re writing.

I have. The first grant was criticism to a certain degree. Not film or streaming based, although I referenced moving images and storytelling throughout. The second one – Stepping In (To Fatherhood) – was longer essays on fatherhood and health. I wanted to write about my absent, recently deceased father who, through his genes, had passed down a legacy of cancer. While working on those essays, I found small discrepancies in the stories I was incorporating into the work or things that some folks didn’t want shared.

Some folks…

I know that’s not a question. You want me to say that my mother didn’t want some details included.

To be fair, she was concerned about the use of her government name.

Yeah, from her marriage license. It was a small thing, as I said, but it stuck with me. My father was dead, but was there stuff that he might have questioned being included? Everything was part and parcel of my collective story, ultimately, but my stories don’t exist without so many others and what if the other stories I had known about and accepted as true had details that were omitted or simply weren’t factual? So, this time with God Sent Me, I figured why hold myself to a standard that might not be necessary. What if I just told stories?

Not to give anything away about what’s to come, but…

Sneaky. I have a little myth, one that I wrote decades ago, that’s about my mother. I think it might be the best way to sum up what we’ve done here in this interview and set the stage for what’s to come. I started a novel in the 1990s, about meeting my father. I wanted to write about him, based on snippets I had heard over the years. I figured if I could create him on the page, it would get me ready to meet him in-person. I wrote about 10-12 chapters and then, suddenly stopped. I can’t explain why. He lost meaning to me, I guess. I was in my 20s and had lived my entire life without him. I didn’t need him. When I finally did meet him, it was because I knew about the cancer concerns in the family and I wanted to put a face to what I was likely going to carry forward. But in that manuscript, I wrote about my mother, not even a full chapter, just a fever-dream of a story that wasn’t remotely factual, but man, it was true to my sense of her.

Are you ready to share it?

Sure. If this is the end, let’s make this a bit more solemn, recalling my Catholic upbringing.

(clears throat)

A reading from Finding Father, an unfinished fictional manuscript.

The boy stands in front of the house, waiting for his father to return. Mama said he had to stay out there until his father came back and that he had to shoot, shoot to kill. That was the only way she’d let him back in the house. She said if he didn’t do it, he’d just as well crawl up her raised skirt between her legs where he come from. The boy, at eleven, had never seen what was between a woman’s legs like that and it scared him almost as much as the idea of having to kill his father. Somehow, he figured this was a lesson. His father taught him how to shoot, how to kill and his mother must have been teaching him something too. Lessons came all at once or like crumbs off cake. He waited outside a day and a half. It was late summer, so it wasn’t cold. He slept in Pavlovian spurts, the kind he had been raised to take where, when he realized he was asleep, he snapped himself back awake and searched around with his eyes, they were seeking what had been missed while the silence rang in his ears. Mama slid food out the door and he had the well for drinking. While retrieving the pail after a drink and a splashing on his drying face, he caught sight of his father coming up the road. He let the pail drop from its perch and it plummeted without scraping the rock and dirt on the way down. By the time it found bottom, he had the rifle cocked, taking careful aim as he had been taught, but he allowed his father to come closer. There was no doubt, now that the moment was upon him, he would be able to shoot and kill and could do so at any time. He wouldn’t let him get close enough to take the gun away and he wouldn’t simply wound him. The one and only shot would do what he had to do. He would kill him. His father never said a word as he approached. He stared in the boy’s eye, the open one aiming, watching him grow into a man and when he was grown, the shot was fired. Mama emerged from behind the cracked door in a white tattered dress spotted with dirty man-prints along the bottom. He met Mama at the steps. She remained one above him and he lifted her skirt from the bottom, taking care to leave no new prints and climbed inside, disappearing as if he had never been born.

NANA’S BOY

The Simply Sacred Kitchen

I am a walking cliché in that my most vivid memories of my grandmother involve the kitchen, which felt like a sacred space, far beyond a holy obligation, because it was rooted in the only expression that mattered – love. That is where my earliest, then my most sustained, memories of her reside. Even now, as an adult, surprisingly at the age she was when I think of her, I feel nothing but her love.

In the beginning, I was too young to understand everything she was doing in the kitchen, but I ate whatever she made. There was no way for me to become a picky eater, mainly because I watched her, with her hands in every pot on the stove or pan that made its way into the oven, then she joined me at the table, and she thoroughly enjoy the fruits of her labor. I respected and appreciated the effort, without understanding or recognizing the full extent of the work being done.

As I grew older, I ventured in closer to the culinary altar. Always careful to stay a step or two out of reach. She was patient and watchful. She would smile and offer me little handfuls of ingredients to taste. I started building my palate on chopped onion and bell pepper, graduating to a delicious lick of cake batter off the big wooden mixing spoon. I got lost in the magic of those bits of bites, unprepared for the raw to be transformed into the cooked and baked. Sometimes, for fun, she would lightly dust me with flour when prepping biscuits.

I wasn’t afraid of the knife work or the heat from the pots and pans, but there was a healthy respect. Again, always a step away. Not exactly behind her, hiding in her apron. There was no danger or fear (rather than being a mind-killer, what might have inspired fear instead provoked a spirit of wonder and creativity), because I wanted to see and feel and taste.

I remember asking how long it would be before I could help, and it didn’t take long; the asking sped up the process. My early prep work started with onions. I wasn’t old enough to use a knife, but she would cut the ends off, leaving the outer layers for peeling. She taught me how to do that with my hands. I zeroed in on that task, sometimes forgetting she was standing by, watching. I would finish one and wait for another, but I wouldn’t ask because she had already moved on to the next task.

When I was old enough, that first time, to take the knife in my own hands and prep onions for peeling and chopping, she stood over me, not hovering or full of instructions, because she knew I had been paying attention all those years. She guided me with a few choice words and her eyes, to make sure I had a solid grip on the handle and could use it as fluidly as possible. I made my two end cuts, put the knife down and went back to using my fingers for peeling. The chopping – the real test – came next, so I picked the knife up and carefully sliced the onion in half, like I had seen Nana do thousands of times. Looking back now, I realize that Nana didn’t have knife skills like the celebrity chefs I watch on cooking competitions, but what she lacked in speed, she made up in purpose. She got the job done, which I quickly learned was all that mattered. The food doesn’t taste better because it was prepped in record time.

When she made chow chow with her sturdy old hand grinder attached to the edge of a table or counter, it was an all-day job with what felt like bushels of ingredients, but I knew what each element tasted like before the grinding. By the time I dug into the first jar of the batch I helped create, I was lost, searching for the familiar pieces that had somehow been transformed into something brand new.

Biscuit making remains a dreamy figment of my imagination. I wish I had…more time, just one more opportunity to spend with her in the kitchen. I never thought to press her for a recipe, to write down the steps on my own and I haven’t had biscuits like hers since. All that I have left of that experience is her rolling pin, an old model with the main roller and the handles extending out either side for the actual rolling and pressing. Those handles were painted green and my little hands, early on, would barely fit around them. I measured my growth on when I could finally wrap my fingers around the handles and roll the dough out like her.

My wife bears two pieces of my Nana. Her engagement ring was Nana’s (for symmetry, her wedding ring was her grandmother’s) and now, she uses that rolling pin for the baked goods she makes as part of her in-home bakery. Watching her fingers wrapped around those handles keeps Nana’s spirit alive and present.

When I was that young kid watching Nana, the pound cake making process was beyond mysterious, like an old school superpower. She didn’t use a hand mixer; that felt like cheating to her, although as she got older and her hands lost strength, she begrudgingly accepted the mixer my mother bought her. I loved hearing her complain about it, how it made the cake taste different, like she knew it was doing the same job she had been doing all those years.

Hand mixing was as sacred as the kitchen itself. She told me – as she would sit down with that huge bowl of flour, sugar, vanilla extract, butter and milk – the secret was to beat the mixture 300 times. I would sit at her feet and count along, mesmerized and so engaged, like I was doing the heavy work right along with her. As I got older and was far more interested in the resulting cakes than the baking process, I would talk to her during the mixings, teasing her by throwing out random numbers as she did the work, trying to break her rhythm and count. It never worked. She could hold a conversation, bat away my futile games, and stop on a dime as soon as she reached 300.

Long after I moved away from home for school and eventually settled in Philly to work after college, she started making pound cakes and shipping them to me. Every other month for two years, she would alert me when a delivery had been shipped. I lived in a building in Center City without a doorman, but the spot next door had one, so we arranged to have the cakes shipped there. I would stop by on my way home from work to pick up my package and the regular doorman quickly figured out I had something precious and delicious in those boxes. I worked out a deal. I would grab the package, dash next door, cut and wrap him a hunk in foil and drop it off before the end of his shift. In addition to his slice, I had another side arrangement with a friend from college who also had settled in Philly; a guy I played basketball with every weekend. With each delivery, we would set up a lunch after Saturday basketball. He would meet me at my place with a crockpot of oxtail stew. Every other month, we gathered in my small yet functional kitchen, feasted and would call Nana to include her in the meal.

Coffee / Culture

I am writing this portion while traveling by tour bus from Como (Italy) to Lucerne (Switzerland). We stopped briefly in Lugano. My wife Jess and I had coffee at a café across one of the wooden bridges near the lake. This is day six of the trip for us, since we arrived a few days early in Italy and enjoyed time on our own in Como and Milan. Each day, I’ve had coffee in the morning, which is an exercise of sorts for me, since I have never been a coffee drinker.

Nana drank it every morning and I believe she intentionally created my aversion to coffee. As a small child, I asked her about it one morning and she let me have a sip of the black coffee before she added milk and sugar. That strong bitter taste put me off. Even as I got older and noticed how much cream and sugar she added, I would make fun of how it seemed like she was having only a taste of coffee with heavy doses of cream and sugar.

I have spent decades now, as an adult, in coffee shops, reading and writing and drinking tea, never coffee. Yet, on trips outside the United States, in countries known for their coffee culture, I’ve begun to dabble as a means of breaking this seemingly unshakeable habit; like the cake mixing routine. (I always knew she wasn’t magically mixing that batter 300 times.) So far, in Spain, Morocco and now Italy, I have ordered cappuccinos and learned that the foamed milk with a full packet of sugar creates a manageable treat that approximates Nana’s morning brew.

It’s not just the drink though that matters. There is a larger shared community that develops in these spaces. In the States, people tend to work, tapping into the free wi-fi at big chain shops or moments of quiet at smaller spots where they can huddle with associates. But in Europe, everyone claims single spots or gather together, ordering espressos early in the day, sometimes transitioning to spritzes later with pastries and other treats and allow the time to flow by them like gentle yet steady waters. They sit and chat or simply watch the tourists hustle by, taking pictures or listening to their guides via their radio transmitters.

This is the part I love. When Jess and I skip optional tours, we walk a bit, but inevitably find an outdoor spot, just off the beaten path and we settle in. Jess will use the time to put filters on photos that she’s eager to post on social media, while I lounge like the natives. In Lucerne, while watching folks stroll and duck in and around the light rain falling, I caught a snippet of music bouncing along the air from inside. Bilal’s Soul Sista. I couldn’t quite make out the lyrics, but the sexy rubbery beat had me head nodding before I could even fully recognize the song.

And like so many random moments, this led me back to Nana. If she was here with us, I wondered, would she be able to surrender to the lazy peace of her coffee and spell-binding groove? I have a trove of memories of her that were fun and carefree but not shared in public spaces like this. We laughed and enjoyed times around the house together, snacks in-between meals, but rarely, if ever, did we venture out into the world for such excursions.

Without thinking, my internal DJ cued up You Got Me from The Roots, sticking with the Soulquarians vibe, with Questlove’s drumming kicking things up a notch, but I knew what I was fixated on was Black Thought’s story in that one, rapping about meeting an Ethiopian Queen that he probably knew from Philly, but truly connected with after a show in Paris at Elyse Montmartre where he stepped off the stage and took a piece of her heart. The song is from 1999. I was still living in Philly at the time and a huge fan of The Roots, but it speaks to me, obviously even more in 2025, while on a very different tour with Jess and my Nana in tow.

She is with us in ways that I could never have gotten her here otherwise. She would have considered the music foolishness because she would not have truly heard its story amidst the trappings of the live beat and the endlessly mesmerizing rhythm, but I would have loved meeting a younger version of her at this café in Lucerne in some alternative multiverse and watching that Back to the Future Nana get got by the music as she sipped her coffee.

Gatherings

Growing up, our house was a primary fellowship destination, for individual gatherings of Nana’s crew and my mother’s, but also for larger holiday parties and such. And everybody that was part of either group could cook and hosted folks, whether for card games (whist for Nana’s older crowd and bid whist for Mom’s younger upstarts) or the usual celebrations of birthdays and extended family and friends coming in from out of town. Some of my older aunts had specialties – like fish fries at Aunt Eloise’s or the huge pots of beans (usually pinto) with homemade cornbread at Aunt Alberta’s – but you could never count on routine menus. Everybody would make whatever struck their fancy and was seasonal, to a degree, until I hit my teenage years and started spending a bit less time in the fold. That was when some of my aunties would ask me what I might want, in the hope of bribing me to join them. Not that they needed to do much to entice me. I loved them, loved the love I got back from them. Those houses, no matter when or why everyone gathered, were safe spaces, full of love.

That was quite possibly the best lesson a kid could learn. Food and fun bonds folks; deep in our hearts we know that if someone feeds us and makes us laugh, then we should hang around for more. I think it’s an even deeper, richer vibe for Black folks. We might not have ever had a lot, no prime cuts of meat or fancy linen on our tables, but what we had, we stretched and expanded enough to offer our kinfolk and neighbors, and that nourishment sustained our souls.

*

I used to go out to parties / and stand around/ ‘cause I was too nervous/ to really get down / but my body yearned to be free / I got up on the floor and thought / somebody could choose me / No more standin’ there beside the walls / I done got myself together, baby / and now I’m havin’ a ball

I remember being a teenager walking into places, dying to find the people who would let me be me. It was always going to be an effort and a trial, but those family gatherings delivered in a different way on the promise that Marvin Gaye was singing about in Got To Give It Up. The first time I was allowed to play cards after one of those big meals, I was having a ball, just like Marvin said.

Whist, the card game my family played at those gatherings, comes in two forms. The straight version is formal and scores must be kept with either penciled notes on a pad or chips. Unlike a game like spades, there is a rotating trump suit determined on the cut of the deck before the cards are dealt. With the trump settled on, players win hands by the highest card played from the opening suit. If you don’t have a card from that suit, you can cut with a trump, but again, to win the hand requires the highest trump played.

Nana and my older aunties displayed a certain elegance during individual hands and the collective games that could spiral onward into the early morning. Whist lulls you into thinking it is a simple game, but there are multiple levels at work; the understanding not only of the cards in your hand but those of your partner and your opponents as well. You must anticipate how to work together without knowing full-well what cards your partner has and how they will lay them out.

I love thinking about it now, the dinners and those games, because there is a trick to it all that makes it even more fun. You couldn’t trip up and succumb to drowsiness after a good heavy meal. To play, you had to remain sharp and watchful. Long before I ever sat down at one of the tables to play, I already knew I was in my element.

Winning and losing came with breakdowns of hands. Who played what, when and why. And, of course, there was the vigorous card slapping and the biting sting of trash talking. No one wanted to get dragged for a perceived failure at the table. Nana wasn’t a huge trash talker, but her eyes dazzled during winning runs. She could hold it in during the dealing and arranging of her hand, but once play started, if she had a good one, you had to watch out for her eyes. She was a bright killer, piercing opponents with the light of her gaze.

After a good run, maybe two or three wins, she would stand up from the table and head to the kitchen to cut herself a piece of pound cake to celebrate. That was living.

A Traveling Man (I’m Leaving)

Nana wasn’t much of a traveler. I remember trips to New York, Washington DC, and Cincinnati with her during summers when I was a kid, but that was it. I don’t remember ever talking with her about taking a trip beyond those somewhat familiar places. As I got older, one of the biggest arguments I ever had with her was over my decision to leave Asheville to attend a prep school Chattanooga for my final two years of high school. Leading up to my departure, I took a weekend visit to campus and started to lean into the idea of using the school as a steppingstone to better position myself for the chance to get accepted into the college of my choice. I don’t think she believed I would truly leave until the summer before I enrolled. The countdown set off a slowly dawning shock.

At first, anger flared as she wondered why I would want to do such a thing. Why would I leave her like that? Why would I leave my mother alone? It didn’t matter that she knew my mother was fully devoted to having me take this next step. My mother and I were teammates, in sync with this choice. We shared a plan and a vision for my future.

Nana cried a lot, as the hot and humid weeks turned to mere days. She begged me to reconsider. In the end, it was about her, leaving her that hurt the most. Her little man was moving on. I was sorry she felt that way, sorry to cause her pain, but with every heavy tear, I dug in my heels. I was leaving.

She came with my mother to my prep school graduation and again, four years later, when I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, but I’m certain she remained less than pleased with the outcome. The college trip was worse for her, I think, because not only had I gone further away, but my mother had also left her, having remarried and moved to Cincinnati during my junior year in Philly. I watched her shrink and retreat into herself at each of those ceremonies.

We packed two cars and drove to Cincinnati after graduation. I was planning to stay in Philly, but had boxes I wanted to store until I had truly settled in. Once we made it to Cincy, I loaded Nana into my car and took her back home to Asheville. It gave us some time alone, but it was a largely silent return. She knew now that I wasn’t ever coming back until it was time to say a final goodbye.

She travels with me, in spirit, maybe because I know she would never have done this when she was alive. I could have hit the lottery back in my 20s and offered to take her anywhere with me. We could have traveled in style, the best planes, the finest hotels, but she would have said no. That adventurous palate of hers didn’t translate to other aspects of her life.

But I’ve tricked her. Not just my international excursions, but every single trip I’ve gone on since I got married in 2006. When she died in the mid-90s, my mother went down, packed up Nana’s things and brought them Cincinnati. Family photos, recipes, the cast-iron skillet passed down from my great-grandmother to Nana (which my mother graciously handed off to me). The real prized heirloom though was Nana’s wedding ring, which I used to spin around her finger like some simple toy. My mother held onto those things, but told me the ring would be mine, if I wanted it, when I got married. Another dream. Me and that ring.

I met Jess in 2005, via Match.com. She was the fourth (and final) first date I went on as part of a column I wrote about online dating. When I proposed on New Year’s Eve of that same year, I gave her Nana’s ring. In 2006, the date of our wedding was Nana’s birthday.

Sardines in Spain

My first overseas trip with Jess came back in 2022. We went to Portugal and Spain as part of a tour package, but due to travel delays, missed the first two days in Portugal, which was the real impetus of the trip for me.

I’ve had a love affair with the idea of Portugal since randomly picking up a worn paperback copy of the Joyce Carol Oates collection of stories The Poisoned Kiss and Other Stories from the Portuguese, which she wrote yet attributed to an imaginary writer named Fernandes de Briao. At the time, she professed to have only translated the stories, in the voice of this alter ego, and admitted that she had never visited nor had some innate love of the country. The project was a creative exercise, which inspired me to dream of one day journeying to Portugal, meeting a Portuguese woman who spoke no English, marrying and settling there. We would create a big loving family, despite the language and cultural barriers and decades later, our brood would gather for food and games and love. It was all an improbable fantasy (because how could we not learn each other’s languages after all those years together), but I held onto it for decades.

Our trip was my wife’s aim to help me celebrate that dream by bringing it to life in some small way. By the time we arrived, we only had one night in Portugal, but we made the most of it. Our solo time was spent wandering the beautiful cobblestoned streets, venturing into a market dedicated to what felt like an unlimited variety of tinned fish. Talk about realizing dreams.

As a child, I remember that we ate what was affordable and available. One of those things was tinned fish – anything from tuna and salmon to anchovies and sardines. Tuna was a familiar staple for everyone, but I had a particular fondness for sardines, which could be packed in various oils, water, mild or hot tomato sauces or spicy mustard. Once introduced to sardines, I would pester Nana in the tiny, canned fish aisle at the grocery store, begging her to let me choose one of those special options for an upcoming treat.

I loved the basic oil or water varieties because it was easiest to drain either after opening the can, dump the fish into a bowl and add my own condiments and spices. Some salt, pepper and a dollop of mayonnaise mixed with the mashed sardines formed a tasty patè for crackers or toasted bread which felt fancy. After graduating from college and living on my own, I still spent untold hours lingering in front of canned fish at the grocery store or specialty markets, splurging without worrying about having an occasion to celebrate.

In Portugal at that shop, I was lost in nostalgia and a powerful hunger, despite having a full belly from dinner with our tour manager and another late-arriving couple. Jess humored me, allowing me to wander from section to section, featuring too many varieties of fish to recall. I settled on a couple of tins to purchase that I knew I would savor back home. In my head, I was deep in conversation with Nana about which cans to buy. If I was the adventurous eater I imagined myself to be, I got that from her, so I wanted to make selections that neither of us had ever dreamed of.

Later, during the Spanish portion of our tour, my wife and I ended up at an overwhelming market, packed with stalls of fresh fish and vegetables, quaint yet vibrant little eateries stocked with dishes sourced from neighboring stalls. Our wanderings up and down these aisles resulted in impossible choices. Eating at one spot meant missing out on something else, which bothered my wife far more than me. I am less likely to worry about making a rash decision. I will make a circuit through the entire market to get a sense of what’s available, then zero in on whatever speaks loudest to me in the moment. With the chosen meal in hand, I focus on what’s in front of me. No Black Sheep games of this or that, the choice was made, and it was mine, all mine.

Our last night led us to sit down at a market restaurant that boasted of having a little of everything we had been enjoying throughout the trip at once. We ordered wine. Jess sought to pick her way through her more limited options, while I swiftly recognized I only had eyes for the grilled sardines.

While not the tinned fish I was used to, I immediately recognized the dish as something familiar that Nana and I would likely love. The sardines were twice the size of the canned variety and completely whole. Jess was disgusted by the choice, but as soon as it arrived, I let my fork sink into the grill-branded skin with the moist meat ready to flake off the bone and I was in heaven, digging in with a mixture of mouth-watering eagerness and awed respect.

Our waiter came by, at one point, noticing the remaining heads and bones pushed to the side of the dish, and informed me that Spaniards ate everything, head to tail, including the bones. I was more than halfway through the serving and enjoying it my way, but I took stock of his recommendation. I told myself that next time – and I hope and believe there will be another visit – Nana and I will eat all those sardines whole.

Camel in Morocco

A road-side rest-stop seemingly in the middle of nowhere offered a recommended alternative selection of a known favorite. Tagine, which is both a clay covered roasting pot and the name of the dish itself, was an alluring treat for us. Jess and I – a Jewish New Yorker and a Southern Black man, respectively – have a love rooted in shared communal food experiences. For almost two decades, family gatherings and trips have centered around enjoying the current spread on the given table and wistful discussions about the meal on the horizon. We plan travel around where we might be able to sample dishes from James Beard nominees and winners and/or celebrity chefs. Thanks to consuming far too many episodes of food and travel shows, I have a near-boundless interest in trying exotic dishes that natives eat on the regular.

Back to that road-side spot in Morocco. Our tour manager asked early on if anyone was willing and interested in a tagine made with camel and I couldn’t raise my hand fast enough, which seemed odd, since we were a few days away from a Sahara excursion. Would it be strange to eat camel before expecting one to carry me across the desert? Our guide nodded and whispered that he would alert me when we arrived at the desired spot for this treat.

And there we were, stepping off for a refueling of both the bus and our tired bodies. Again, he gave me a knowing glance and said, this was it. I asked, more with my eyes than my voice, and got an assertive nod, nothing more.

I placed my order without even looking at the menu. Jess was anxious and excited, while I patiently waited, caught up in a chat with Nana.

Would you try this, I asked.

Terry, I don’t know. How do they cook it?

We have a tagine cooking class coming up in a few days, I’ll know more then.

I might have to leave that to you.

How about I taste it first, then you?

She pushed her glasses up her nose and nodded.

The camel was succulent and the perfect mix of sweet (thanks to the raisins) and savory thanks to the vegetables. Tagine cooking is such a unique and consistent technique, which Jess and I learned during the optional cooking class we took days later. The prep work for the lesson was another reminder of my childhood kitchen days. To stand side-by-side with Jess at our workstation and flow through our tight dance of knives and ingredients, I marveled at how Jess replaced Nana like a pro.

Back at the road-side lunch, the camel meat surrendered to my fork and that first bite – the one for me to test it – with couscous and a light sample of tomato and onion, was less about trying to compare it to something else – is it like beef or lamb – instead, why not experience the camel for what it is. A completely foreign bite that I will likely never have again. It tastes like camel and to understand what that means, you have to go to Morocco and try it for yourself.

My closed-eyed smile spoke to Jess and Nana, and they both wanted to hear from me.

You have to try it, I said, not to Jess, who refuses to eat most common meats. Try it.

With my eyes still shut tight, Nana accepts the fork from me and gently sinks it into the meat, which gratefully leaves the bone. It is obviously impressive how tender and juicy the meat is, so that serves as enticement enough for her. She barely needs to close her mouth around the fork before the camel slides off.

Her eyes, they close too and don’t open again. Just her smile remains.

Italian Exhibition

My final (and possibly funniest) memory from Como didn’t involve food.

Jess and I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the alleyways behind our hotel, which faced the lake. After securing a map and some simple instructions from hotel staff, we strolled the quaint mazes of shops, bars and restaurants, stopping when and where the mood struck us.

Signage for a gallery pulled me into a space, which at one time had been a church. The converted entryway still had vestiges of the sacred, but had been replaced with beautiful art. Closer inspection revealed two separate and distinct styles on display. Jess and I diverged, drawn down our own paths. There was a quiet in the roaming that felt reverential.

After studying the curated pieces, I made my way to an information desk by the door, manned by a stern-faced Italian woman. Whispering, I asked if she spoke English. She nodded. With a bit more prodding, she shared the history of the building and mentioned the names of the two artists on display. There was a no-nonsense attitude that reminded me of my mother. I appreciated the clarity and concision of her responses and knew immediately when our exchange was over. I thanked her and walked away, joining Jess outside.

As we picked up our journey away, I paused and turned by to the gallery, eager to see if I could find a promotional post card to carry as a reminder. When I popped back into the gallery, the woman looked up with her stereotypically handsome blank face, but dark, piercing eyes. I reached out for a card on the counter in front of her, but before I could touch the card, she spoke.

No.

Her voice didn’t breach the quiet at all, but I recoiled.

She, in turn, put her hand on a page printed in English.

That is for you, she followed up, and again I knew our conversation was over.

I took the double-sided sheet and walked out, chastised, but without sore feelings. She had given me what I needed and was done.

That was exactly how my mother would have handled the situation, but not Nana.

Never Nana.

SOLOMON’S GAZE

Stepping In

Like I’m refocusing after a daydream, I see him, partially outside the frame, here next to me. I see him, staring through me, but somehow also searching for a feature to grasp and gain a measure of hold on the world. He reaches out to grab my arm and when he squeezes, I sense that he doesn’t trust what he feels.

Gertude, I say. Gertrude and Marvin.

I knew both of them. Marvin, my Uncle Bubba, much more so than Gert, my Nana’s mother. Gertrude and Marvin were his children. Gert by birth and Marvin by informal adoption after his mother abandoned him. Was his adoption legal? I don’t know. I know he had Solomon’s last name, Evans. Nothing else matters, I suppose.

I say their names again and his grip locks in, becoming firm and resolute. There’s some sense of solid foundation underneath him now.

Edmonia, I whisper. His uncertainty transfers, it seems, to me for a moment. I can’t remember the last time I used the name most of my older aunties called Nana. I figure this name will ground him even more.

Louise

Of course, that’s how he knows her. The name Gert gave her. That was his grandbaby. My Nana.

He mouths all three names. No sound escapes from his body, not even faint breath, but I recognize what he’s doing, how he’s settling himself, and I nod as each name falls from his lips. I think of them.

Gert, so small and frail, like an antique doll, barely bigger than I was at three, when Nana or my mother laid me down next to her at the nursing home during those Sunday visits after church. In my Sunday best, I nestled into her body, innately careful not to break her.

Uncle Bubba, a name, along with Marvin, I remember flowing onto pages of letters over the years from Nana to her uncle and his wife Julia in New York City. My first letters were to Uncle Bubba, back when Nana had me write to him, before we met in-person. I had talked to him on the phone. Nana would call him every other week, and I would listen to them. She loved him. I heard it all the time when she talked about him, but on the phone, the love was animated and alive; in how she listened to him, waiting and hanging on his every word. I waited too and when I was finally old enough, she would pass the phone to me, and I would get my chance to nurture that precious seedling. I think I probably copied Nana, loving him on faith, not based on lived memories, but her love. That was more than enough for me.

His voice was soft, not like a whisper, nor was it that deep. It was more like the voice in your head, your conscience or the voice that narrates your own private stories. It was, his voice, more of a feeling, that had nothing to do with the words he spoke. He hugged me, that’s what I felt and I loved that touch.

Did he pick that up from Solomon? I wonder about that now, especially since I said his name – Marvin – for the first time in ages. You would think Solomon might prioritize his own flesh and blood – his daughter or his granddaughter – over the boy he chose, but he chose Marvin and that choosing made them, bound them together.

The summer after Uncle Bubba and Aunt Julia came to visit us in North Carolina – I was maybe five or six years old – Nana and I took the bus to New York. That was when New York City was the New York City of legend, the mid-to-late 70s. Overcrowded and gritty, full of mean streets and taxi drivers. I should have been frightened and overwhelmed by it all and maybe I was when we got off the bus and scrambled to get our luggage, but everything melted away when Uncle Bubba caught up with us and reached out to shake my hand. His hand was, dare I say it again, soft, except better because this was a pure, real touch. Not the sensation of his voice. If his hand felt like a glove, it was a catcher’s mitt, big and worn in, made to protect you from the pop-pop popping fastball specials and harsh curves the world was bound to throw your way. Nothing hard or calloused in that touch, just velvet-lined safety.

Did I feel that when Solomon grabbed my arm? Maybe that’s what he wanted from me, a little security.

I have carried his picture as the home screen on my phone for some time now. The picture of just him staring back in his suit, the suit he’s wearing now, and the starched collar with the tie. I’ve pulled my phone out often, to show that picture to people and tell them stories about him. The first freedman in our family. The man I heard stories about from Nana who loved him more than Uncle Bubba.

Solomon has been a literal link for me, the only one I can trace, not from legal documents (which might not even exist), but from the stories passed down. From Nana. From Uncle Bubba. But also, in the ties to Nana and Gertrude who held me or warmed me with their bodies and love. And my mother who, like me, has no memories connecting her directly to him, but sometimes in her voice, that deep and authoritative rumble that is so unlike Nana’s higher tender quivering tone. My mother’s voice is what I imagine Solomon would sound like. It would make sense. She inherited that voice, skipping a couple of generations, from him.

Through Solomon, I define my identity and birthright as an American. Not because he fought to preserve America’s foundational rights and values. Not because he might have defined himself as an American in a patriotic or reverential way. No, I am American because Solomon was here as a free person, the first of unknown generations of folks who were not free and not in a place that they could imagine would become home. Some white people trace their lineage back to the Mayflower or one of the Founding Fathers. The storied, legendary lines, the sons and daughters of the revolution. Mine starts with Solomon. He is America to me.

So, after I blink a few times to reset myself, he remains here, next to me in this new frame. We stand completely side by side now, looking at each other through the reflection of my bathroom mirror. He is here. I think I might have just said that out loud, but then he looks at me, more directly, as if in response to my comment.

You are here, I correct myself. Studying him carefully.

Is he more than I expected? More what? More than the face I’ve seen in old photos. I could never conjure him up, not before, no matter how many times Nana talked about him or how many more times I stared at those same photos by myself. I used to sneak into the living room and rummage through the storage space beneath Nana’s sofa. It wouldn’t take long to find the pictures of Solomon, either alone or with Gert, Marvin and Nana as a child. Deeper in that collection were wedding photos of my parents that I would sometimes peruse as well.   

Is he like my father, a face I will never see in the flesh? That’s what I thought as a child, but then again, I met my father once too, before he died. Just once. It allowed me to put a face to a genetic cancer marker I’m carrying. Once was enough for that. I didn’t struggle to hold onto trace elements of him that I could later graft onto myself. I didn’t want anything else from him.

But, Solomon, my great-great grandfather. I know that I want something from him. I don’t know what, not yet, but as I stare at him now, I know it will come to me.

I don’t turn to face him; I’m not ready for that. I see him just fine, just like I always have, but he has expanded beyond the known dimensions into the space beside me. Every time I visit my mother, I sneak a moment to stand before the picture of him. He’s alone, wearing exactly what he’s wearing now. His pressed suit with the high starched collar. He wore that suit as if it were his everyday attire and it must be so, because every family photo I’ve ever seen, there he is, dressed to the nines.

It made me envious, when I was younger, seeing him, always dressed like that, because I paid attention to the older men and women Nana would introduce me to, when we were downtown together, on our way to the houses she would clean. Each and every one of them, all retired Black folks or Black women on their way, like Nana, to work, but the ones not on their way to the houses of their white employers, they would be dressed like Solomon, the one next to me now.

I think I was envious because I knew, one day, when I was grown, I probably wouldn’t dress like that. I wouldn’t have to put myself together like that to be put together. I would be able to dress exactly as I am right now, in jeans and a dark t-shirt (Only Hip Hop Can Save Us embossed in white on my chest). I will slip into a lightweight black blazer and slide into black adidas sneakers with thick scrubbed-white soles. When it’s cooler outside, I throw on a hoodie with a film or streaming series logo and maybe lace up my winterized adidas high tops. That is dressed to me.

What am I doing? I’ve forgotten what’s going on in my life, my life beyond this moment next to Solomon. I have to go to work, right? Is it that kind of day for me, one where I need to attend meetings and smile and chit chat, maybe think about how to support someone’s work in and around the city.

No, that’s not what’s on the schedule for today. There is just the work of being in the world, going to a coffee shop to sit and tap into their endless supply of wi-fi, maybe talk to someone about new movies, after they’ve come over to ask me what to check out. That is part of my vocation. How can (or should) I explain that to Solomon? What will he think of me, while watching whatever it is that I do?

Jess has already left for her morning workout, so we are here alone, and I don’t feel like I need to talk to fill the quiet with Solomon.

I wonder what he would make of my wife. Our marriage would not have been possible during his lifetime. I step back from the mirror and look away from him finally, considering the idea that maybe he wouldn’t even be able to see Jess at all. I imagine, for a moment, that he might be experiencing the opposite of what Ralph Ellison defines in Invisible Man. Maybe he can’t see white folks. They might be nothing more than pale specters keeping to themselves while drifting through the world, giving way to hustling Black people charging ahead with their own sense of some great purpose (like staying alive, staying alive). What if it was never about them being unable to see us, what if we couldn’t recognize them as being of sound body, substantial living bodies? When whatever set us free, whenever it happened, it gave us the right to exercise a certain blindness, but by us, in this case, I mean Solomon here with me now.

Let’s go, I say more through motion, body language than actual words. And just like I said I would, I slip on my blazer, slide into my adidas and open the front door of our unit. Solomon walks through and into the hallway. I thumb the lock into place and let the door close. My backpack, complete with my writing laptop and a couple of books by writers I’m checking out for inspiration, swings into place fluidly and I head for the elevator.

As he joins me, I pause to consider the rest of his look more closely. Patent leather shoes, clean and his suit pants just whispering curtains over the tops of his shoes. It is a tailored fit, but what catches my eye next is his height. He’s shorter than I assumed, but able to project a larger and quite imposing impression.

I remember the summer when I was a teenager and went away for a six-week study program. When I got back home, I opened my arms wide to hug my mother at the airport and suddenly, I was taller than her. There had been years of waiting for this moment, since she always felt Amazonian to me. I was sizing her up and she recognized it immediately. I was taller now, but she was always going to be my mythic strong woman of a mother, so that healthy bit of fear I had would never go away.

I smile to myself, thinking about how I feel knowing that I’m taller than him, and he clocks the smile. He’s staring at me, squinting a little, and I see my mother from all those years ago.

The door opens and then there’s a quick ride from the third floor to street level. Should I play Negro tour guide and narrate each loaded step along the way? I don’t know what’s important to him, what matters in this moment. This isn’t Asheville, the home he knew. Or the time.

Down there, I would take him back to East End – that revered part of the city where our people were from – and even with the intervening decades, he might still be able to sketch out familiar spaces and places on his own blank canvas and fill in the shades. His internal map of home exists beneath the surface of new streets and roundabouts. He might be able to dig into the present to upend it and find what is gone but not forgotten. I do that myself when Jess and I go back for our annual visits, but East End wasn’t what I knew, where I grew up. It was the fabled land of my mother and Nana. My home, down there, was another part that is also slowly disappearing in a flood of change during my lifetime. I’ve stopped sharing all of the details with her, the memories that only matter to me.

But he knows nothing of this place, my home in the Queen City. He instinctively follows me, although I spy him looking up and around. It is altogether open and seemingly endless, but also tight and confined. The sky has a lid that we, those of us living today, recognize to some unspoken degree. I sit on our rooftop and admire the scene. The ability to look across the space, into Northern Kentucky, another state just a hop, a skip and a pedestrian bridge away. I can also watch planes ascending and descending the airspace around the greater regional airport (strolling along with the bluegrass between your toes).

He knows nothing about that, so I start mapping out a plan for us, maybe not a fully realized itinerary, but synaptic sparks that will populate the unfolding scenes of the day. To absorb some of the culture shock, I walk him to the intersection from our building where we can cross the street without jaywalking and avoid the morning rush hour traffic. I wait, something I rarely do when I’m on my own, and watch him. He’s studying what must feel like the artificial, the superficial without heading straight for some dismissal of this reality. That’s dynamite for a brain and sensibilities displaced.

I think about how, for years, as a film fan and much later as a working critic, I’ve always hated the idea of Back to the Future. Like anyone who saw the movie when it debuted in the mid-80s, I’ve seen it too many times and probably the very first time, I entertained the notion of experiencing time travel like Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox). The thrill of pushing a souped-up DeLorean to the point where the known continuum frays and branches off into an interstate highway of what ifs. But, for real, that’s nonsensical thinking capable of deferring dreams. A young Black man going back in time is revolutionary. Going back and killing baby Hitler kind of revolutionary. Any effort to change outcomes is a big middle finger, but also maybe more than a little suicidal. Truth be told, we’re more likely to die in the past than now and I’ve given up on aging out of getting killed by the cops now. Dead Black time travelers would be a dime a dozen or comparable to those lost in the Middle Passages, lost on the way back to the future.

Is that why Solomon is here? Did he jump ship, leaving his past for a chance to see what was coming, to determine if it was worth the effort of living when and how he did? Maybe this is his dream?  

With no answers to these questions, I lead Solomon across the street, and we stay on the sidewalk all the way into the casino parking lot. I unlock the door with my fob, which triggers the lights. I’m opening the passenger door before I realize Solomon wasn’t next to me. He stopped two or three cars away and stood still, just staring across the expanse of the lot before returning to me and my little black Fiat. I held the door until he finally made his way over. He squeezed himself into the seat and I carefully closed the door. When I got settled on the driver’s side, I reached over to grab his seatbelt. He sat still as I maneuvered to secure him and then I belted myself.

Is silence really quiet? I mean the wordless gulf between the two of us. I know what it might seem like, but in truth, it’s not a thing at all. He’s busy, taking it all in and I don’t want to intrude. His mind is working overtime, chopping up what he’s seeing into smaller, elemental components that he can process and understand. Cars, cars, so many cars and bodies walking around, dressed and undressed, in various styles, states and degrees, he’s picking up the patterns of today.

Coffee, Black

Black Coffee is a communal spot that plays on and with blackness. Coffee and ownership, in equal measure. I order a black coffee for Solomon, not knowing if that’s right. Nana loved lots of cream. I stay away from the stuff, except when I’m traveling abroad; there’s something about a strong brew in a foreign land. I am a new and better version of myself on the global road, one that can handle a drink like that.

I bring the coffee to the table where Solomon settled down and with it, I slide over a small glass urn of whole milk. I went for herbal tea, no sugar. He skips the milk, instead warming his hands over the steaming cup. He’s looking out the windows when someone walks up to our table, someone I know from the local arts community. I stand quickly, causing my chair to stumble backward. We shake hands and begin chatting about how long it’s been since we last ran into one another.

Solomon turns to face us for a moment, then spins his head back to the scene outside. There’s nothing going on, just life, but it’s becoming familiar, I imagine. Necessary. I try to think what it’s like to see someone walking and talking with no one else around. Do you notice the earphones – what are earphones? Just walking and talking to no one is okay. Is he figuring out whether a change has come or not? What does he see in these streets that might remind him of the memories of what he once knew?

The person leaves after the brief exchange, full of promises to connect that have been repeated since we first met. I gather the chair behind my knees and shuffle back into place across from him. Solomon’s still outside, reminding me of my stepfather when he would visit me in Philly. Pops would spend a week of vacation time in Center City, hanging out while I was at work. Sometimes walking around the neighborhood, but often, just sitting in one of my director’s chairs on the sidewalk in front of my building, right by the door. He would greet me there when I got home from work.

Days after his return home to my mother, folks from the neighborhood would come up to me, asking about Pops. He, in that short time, would make more of an impression than I had after years of living on the block. Everyone knew him and slowly, they got to know me too. The difference though was I could continue to sit at cafes by myself with my laptop and drinks or during solo dinners before walking over to catch a movie on a weekend night and no one would approach me. I kept to myself.

Solomon looked more like me from back then, keeping the world at bay, despite being out in the thick of things. I watched, but always refused to make eye contact, always shifting my focus, down and away from the action, although fleetingly darting up long enough to scan the nearby passing faces.

There’s a level of intensity in his gaze, impossibly steady, yet willing and able to transition from one person or scene to the next, following whatever grabs his attention before latching onto the next. Pops – generations older, but younger than Solomon – adapted faster to the changing social dynamics of his days, where I held on, I suppose, to the older ways. And Solomon was picking up on the current cues, eager to enjoy the newfound freedom to explore, if only with his eyes.

The door to the shop opens and it is another familiar face, an artist and a new kindred spirit, one that waves and mouths a ‘hello’ as they step up to the counter to order. My responsive wave draws Solomon back inside, back to me at the table. He swivels his head to pick up the new presence.

Seemingly before he can adjust, the person is looming over our table. Again, I stand, a bit more carefully this time and we clasp hands and hug each other. It is such a common greeting and Solomon smiles, first with his eyes before allowing it to land on his lips, as we separate. This time, since he is here, he stands too, and I introduce him by name only. What more could I say about him that would make sense? I watch him quickly mimic the shake without saying a word.

This person, a new acquaintance, is someone I’ve known for years from the scene – the quick greetings at an endless parage of events – but somehow, in the last year, we’ve graduated from that phase to meeting for coffees and to talk about our work projects. He’s visual, like a camera shifting and reconfiguring images from his eyes to canvasses. I’m digging and rearranging words on screens and pages. He’s unearthing long-buried family relations and memories, much like I try to. I want to do what he does with words as symbols.

I spy him locking onto Solomon, searching for connection, a link between us, something I haven’t told him about. Or maybe he just sees Solomon as a subject, like his own father – they connected before he passed – which allowed him to transform his father’s face with broad strong white stokes, creating a mask, while he sat in a barber’s chair planted in the middle of a river. Sounds like a dream, right? Every time I look at Solomon’s face, it’s like the first time.

The Barbershop

When I get off my routine, my first Tuesday of the month, an 8am trek to Walnut Hills for a cut, it can take me weeks to circle back to my barber. Four weeks becomes six in a heartbeat, which is weird, since all I need to do is make a quick call, find out if there’s a free morning to roll in. I like being not just the first in the chair, but the first in the shop.

I don’t follow the call procedure today; I’m a week overdue, but with Solomon riding shotgun, we head away from OTR, up Gilbert to the spot. It’s well-past eight, which is fine. I haven’t taken the time to sit in the queue for a cut since before Covid, but the shop is open for waiting again. I usher Solomon in, lean into the thermometer by the door to log my temperature and sneak a hand under the dispenser for some bacterial hand wash. Solomon doesn’t follow suit. He waits as my barber and I go back and forth over availability. Both of us can jump in next, after the head in the chair.

Solomon doesn’t blink. He walks over, settles into the first empty spot across from the chair and I join him. We’re the only ones in line, but two other chairs are occupied. Hushed conversations linger but remain private. The two televisions, high on the walls across from each other, play. The one with sound presents morning show chatter about some new book, a debut novel from an author on the rise, sitting a little stiff on the couch between the carefully curated collection of hosts, riffing as if they read the galleys ages ago, rather than some intern’s notes last night or earlier today over too early morning coffee.  

The discussion draws Solomon in. More than likely, it was the television with its active bottom scroll, imparting sports and entertainment news, possibly a shockingly banal clip of breaking political news. Not quite as overwhelming as one of the sports channels that blocks the frame even tighter with not just a bottom scroll but a sidebar, complete with upcoming topics.

How many times must you blink to avoid feeling overloaded?

He’s not lost, at least not obviously so. I watch him close his eyes, furrow his brow and almost see his ears perk up, sharpening his listening to the point where everything else is excluded.

I do that sometimes, attempting to determine where sound dances around me, a voice in monologue, a foot metronomically tapping out time for somebody’s sweetly grooving suite, or here, one of the conversations between another barber and the occupant of their chair. Now, I’m following Solomon’s lead, intent on the author’s story, not the novel but their history and the writing process. How long it took to get from the precious and fragile seed to the blooming onion of a book. How excited they are about the prospect of a producer’s deal to adapt the work into a streaming series.

It’s a unicorn – me and the novel – the author says.

I want to believe that, knowing its every writer’s pitch, as I sit here next to Nana’s grandfather. Will I, somewhere down the road, find myself saying something similar about this story, this day in my life when Solomon and I shared a moment in the barbershop?

My barber breaks through my reverie. My eyes snap open as the newly trimmed head exits the chair and slides folded bills into my barber’s palm. They slap hands after the cash slides into a denim apron pocket and I gaze down at Solomon who immediately returns to the present and his quiet study.

I saunter up to the chair, sit and wait for my fade to begin. We talk as he whips the cloth around my neck, snaps it tight. I ask about his health, his family and where they’re headed for their next trip. It is what we know and what we do each month. It is usually enough to keep us busy until the fade emerges.  

Stories inside the shop. Political conspiracies from the elder barber with a puffed-up conservatism in his chest that will one day break his heart wide open, likely on his deathbed. Is that what happens when long-held beliefs let you down, piece by piece over time, until you are forced to admit it, if only to yourself, because there’s no one else around to hear?

Solomon watches and listens, picking up cues in the demeanor of the others in the shop. He is more present now than at any point before.

The barbershop is the home of the now. There were years, for me, first when I shaved my own head and the after when I grew dreds, when I never entered a shop. I forgot what I was missing; I forgot my earliest days as a child when my mother took me to my first shop and held my hand as the ever-styling and profiling Mr. Wells took great care as he trimmed my tight soft curls. And then, as I aged and started going on my own, on Saturday mornings to sit for hours sometimes, where I waited and listened to the banter of men, Black men dropping knowledge, with flow and tempo, calling and responding to the gospel of the here and now, which was the summation of everything that had ever come before.

And just like that…my fade is complete. Clean and crisp enough for my almost grayed-out ruggedly un-uniformed peaks to cover my dark caramel brown head and face. Only a whisper of black remains up top; there’s more snowfall by the minute, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Give him what he needs, I say to my barber as I stand up and motion for Solomon to come over. Solomon slides effortlessly out of his suit jacket and whips it over my outstretched arm which was waiting for the set-up as if it were a well-rehearsed bit between us. I’ve never seen my barber do an old-fashioned shave, but after Solomon motions across his bearded face, there is a turn towards the altar-like workstation, and my man shifts to his right for his non-electric instruments.

The start of this work, this mesmerizing dance reminds me of Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter, his lyrically tragic take on the life of proto-jazzman Buddy Bolden who cut hair during the days before making hellaciously bluesy music once the sun left the day’s stage. There was a moment, near the beginning, when Bolden is in his shop with a man leaned-back in his chair getting a shave. Bolden wraps the white long hot towel over the face with just a small volcanic opening over the nose for breathing.

I see it now with Solomon in the chair, disappearing and I think of the pictures of Bolden, a man from a time not far from Solomon’s. They could have been peers, if Solomon had been further South. He has the look of a musician. I watch his fingers though, on both hands, tapping out a rhythm on the armrests. Was it a song from his day, a melody from the music of his mind? I know that feeling, sometimes catching myself whistling a broken strand of notes that exist beyond the songs that so easily get stuck in my own head from the radio or stored on my phone. It is mine and will waft away from me, never to return, because I have no way or inclination to lock it down.

When Solomon finally emerges from the chair, his face is as fresh as I’ve somehow always imagined it was. I never recognized the clearly defined moustache and beard present in all those framed moments. I see him anew, for the first time and marvel at how youthful he is. He does not have one of those old faces, weathered by hard living and cultural decay, but his eyes betray him every time. They are ancient and dark. What has he seen? I wonder if, somewhere down the line of my life, someone will question the look in my eyes the same way.

The Bid Whist Game

The day blurs and whirls on, so I instinctively head towards my mother’s early afternoon card game. As a quasi-retired woman, she has found a group of peers and far-more seasoned retirees who get together each week, passing one weekday and one weekend afternoon with spirited games of bid whist. I’ve heard many tales of the thumpings she and her regular partner have given others. The myths and legends of these games are similar to the weekly lunchtime basketball games I continue to play with guys that are, in some cases, decades younger than me. Yet, the trash talking from my basketball crew pales in comparison to the bid whist crowd.

It makes sense to bring Solomon here, to share the gift of his presence for however long with my mother, but as soon as I arrive at the gathering room at the retirement home, her partner reminds me that she’s unavailable today. Rather than racing around to track her down, he convinces me to stay and join the games with Solomon. My relatively few appearances count enough for me to feel at home amongst the players, many of whom are several decades older than me, but generations younger than Solomon.

I introduce him around to folks, like my mother did with me when I first came around, although I continue to remain vague about who and what he is to me. Some of them seem to recognize something about him, some clue that he is beyond them. Game recognizes game, I suppose.

The room fills up gradually with more attendees and soon there are multiple tables of games going at once. Bid whist is fast and loose, with quick shuffles and bidding for the six-card kitty. You play your hand but must watch carefully how your partner lays theirs down to complement them and earn books. The overall goal in a game is to win all the books, which is called a “boston” and teams fearing they are on the verge of losing all the books will do whatever it takes to prevent their opponents from that win. It triggers an explosion of smack talk that will follow the losers from table to table until the next “boston.”

The games, once play starts, move quickly and sometimes after a hand, losers are unseated, allowing a new pair of waiting partners to settle in to challenge the winners. There is one table, by the entrance that is the prime spot; the first game of the day starts there, and its winners maintain unspoken bragging rights throughout. You want to hold court at that spot.

The first time I joined my mother to play, I enjoyed the relaxed vibe, the funny old school jive talking at some of the tables contrasting with the seriousness at others, the nomadic wandering and waiting of teams eager to sit down as challengers at a new table. I recognized songs streaming from a wireless speaker. Teddy Pendergrass, some funky Stevie, a welcome dash of Al Green. Tunes I remember from my mother’s albums. I used to study the album jackets as a kid, marveling at Al’s letter jackets or his carefully tended afro.

Food, of course, was laid out on a large table across from the games. Varieties of chips and dip (everything on the spicy side), sometimes a homemade cake or pie, and crockpots full of hidden nourishment to satisfy the gaming souls scattered throughout the room. Lots of water and sodas, but there was also a stash of alcohol for the real drinkers who could tap into the mixers available or go straight with no chasers.

This was a typical spread day and Solomon followed me to the food table for a look. Without waiting, he picked up a paper plate and found a few familiar items. I gave him the space to move and operate on his own, wanting him to feel as at home as possible in the moment. I grabbed a bottle of water and settled down to wait for an opening.

By the time a team of losers were ushered from a table, Solomon was finished with his snack, and we sat down across from each other. Our first table featured players on the more serious side, so after quick greetings, there was little chit chat of the friendly chatter before the proverbial hammer of the game began.

I wasn’t sure if Solomon knew how to play, but in his watchfulness was a sense of understanding. It felt right because I knew how much my mother and Nana enjoyed playing. I figured Nana learned the games from someone, so why not him? I dealt the first hand, and he started conservatively, as I had the first time here too, intent on getting a feel for the play. We got a few hands in before losing, nothing to be ashamed of for the initial game, and I wasn’t sure about Solomon, but my competitive juices certainly began to flow.

At our second table, we ousted the winners without much fanfare and were quickly unseated by the next team. That was when Solomon took off his jacket again, gracefully laying it over a chair off to the side. We got called over to the first table and by the time he sat down, his sleeves were unbuttoned and rolled up. It was time to get down to business.

We shared a smile during his shuffle and dealing, but I was lost in the groove from the speaker. Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give It Up, somewhere in the middle of the tune and I couldn’t quite make out the lyrics, but it didn’t matter. There was raucous banter picking up at each of the tables – about five going strong – matching the party spirit of the song. I was bouncing along to the beat and yet surprisingly locked in with Solomon.

I made my first bold bid to claim the kitty and got all the cards I needed to make a solid run. You never want to talk big if you can’t back it up, so I adopted Solomon’s demeanor, and we grooved our way to a boston. A few books before the finish, our opponents knew what was coming and started speaking on it. With the last cards dropped, their exasperation led to cheers that spread throughout the room.

Solomon never said a word, but his eyes brightened and widened. He was living his best life, full of Black joy. I caught a flash of Nana in that look. She would react the same way when I was a kid watching her play straight whist at house parties. I didn’t want that feeling to end. We had a nice run, several more wins at the prime table, but no more bostons. When we were finally unseated, I knew it was time to go, and I believe Solomon was with me.

Reveling

Driving away, with the afternoon transitioning to evening, I wanted to celebrate. Solomon and I had a buzzy warmth between us complemented by the LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out playing on satellite radio. I was rapping along, mimicking the panther-like championship growl of LL. We had knocked out a day together.

I headed for the urban winery in my neighborhood, one of the spots I take guests from out of town. Jess and I know the owners well; they’re more than friends and the spot is a fun at-home getaway.

What has Solomon become to me over the course of this day? With each experience, the thread binding us has strengthened and simultaneously unwoven. Is he slipping free from me, living more on his own, for himself? How much time, I wonder, does he have left? Not in this moment with me, but this moment in his life. I don’t remember Nana saying how old he was when he died. He seems ageless, but I know that likely his time is short, and I wish I could give him more right now, to completely break free in the now.

Before we can even walk in, the windows are open, and the café tables are out. There is a free spot in one of the windows, so I point it out and Solomon claims it, while I enter to order drinks. I don’t know if he ever drank alcohol – Nana didn’t and my mother doesn’t – but since he is with me, he will now. I talk with the bartender on duty. It is a place where everybody knows everyone, down to favorite drinks, but today, I settle for glasses of wine rather than cocktails.

Back at the window table, Solomon has been joined by a close friend of mine, a local filmmaker and musician originally from Africa. I slide Solomon’s glass before him and hug my buddy, offering the same vague introduction to Solomon.

I laugh because my friend already recognized a connection between me and Solomon, our kinship, without knowing the true depth of it. And Solomon sees something in him too. Who, in his past, reminds him of my friend, I wonder. Without hesitating, I dash back in to order another drink, not fearing leaving him alone with Solomon, knowing they will get along together.

Inside, another playlist, different than the one we just left at whist, more of a fusion, hip hop, R&B and jazz, full of ache and longing, drowning in hurt, but holding on for love. I can’t escape my feelings about Solomon now, wanting to hold him here forever. And then, the song transitions to a more sultry place, the horns and a more defined beat buries the pain.

I wanna tell you what you mean to me

I haven’t missed much between them, at least I don’t think so. My friend asks about my wife and kids. I realize Solomon still has no idea about them, so I pull out my phone and there he is on the home screen. He zeroes in on the picture but doesn’t stop me as I unlock the phone and start sifting through my photos.

I land on a shot of the four of us. Pointing and naming each one of them. It is easy to see that the kids are not mine by birth, but when I speak of them, the years of love and connection take form and shape in the space among us. I spend an extra moment on my daughter, a bit of a soulmate in that they are competitive, like me and now I understand, Solomon too. They would have loved the games and this celebration after.

I go back to thinking about Solomon and my friend. How close is he to my friend, to Africa? How close is close? Has he somehow gone back, been back to the source before this, before his time with me?

I don’t want to hurt Solomon, which is a foolish thing to say. But the hurt I’m talking about is meaningful, at least in my mind. I don’t want him to see his life and the generations before him who survived in this place as the culmination leading up to my small blip of a moment here. It will, as a line, end with me. I have no biological heirs to pass along the DNA strand. It is over. Am I a better outcome over the many lines that terminated in the ocean during the Middle Passages?

My heart is full of love, for this chance, this never-ending for us. The desire pumps and fills me with both an agonizing weight and a sublime lightness. It is unbearable, because it drives me to wonder what I can do for him. This morning, he stepped out of the frame and took a piece of my heart.

What I want, more than anything, is for him to come back to me, years from now, when I am even older, after another lifetime for him, one rooted and gifted from that piece of me, and I want him to tell me what more he has seen and done. I want to hear these new stories and memories of his and then, maybe I can leave with him, together.

I see you

GOD SENT ME is supported by the generosity of tens of thousands of contributors to the annual ArtsWave Campaign, the region’s primary source for arts funding.