The Dru Hill Experience at the Historic Howard Theater

If you know anything about me by now, you know that I will use this platform to shamelessly promote products/services/experiences that I have enjoyed. Today’s blog gets the distinction of highlighting two at once, so I’m going attempt to justice to both.

In May, I went for the first time to the historic Howard Theater in the heart of DC, not too far from Howard University. Admittedly, though I’d heard the name Howard Theater as a place in the area, I didn’t know too much about it. A brief look at the website afforded me a quick history lesson. According to the Howard Theatre Restoration Incorporated, the theater was originally built in 1910 as part of DC’s Black Broadway and “featured vaudeville, live theater, talent shows and two performing companies, the Lafayette Players and the Howard University Players.” It fell victim to the race riots in 1968, and though it was placed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the theater closed in 1980. Thanks to HTR, the theater reopened in 2012 and in the midst of the new diversified DC, has flourished as a full-scale restaurant featuring entertainment and artists.

On the May excursion, I happened to find a Goldstar (similar to Living Social and Groupon) offer for a jazz brunch at the Howard Theater, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to treat both my mother-in-law and my husband. I was expecting decent entertainment and average food. Let me be the first to tell you that the culinary experience blew my mind! It’s now September and I can recall with perfect acuity that I ordered French toast with candied pecans, my husband ordered chicken and sweet potato waffles, my mother-in-law, a primavera loaded with veggies, and my younger niece ordered the shrimp and polenta. In addition, my mother-in-law ordered a peach cobbler and my husband and I enjoyed the bottomless mimosas. The jazz trio was terrific as well; though I’d never heard of the groups, they did excellent covers of popular songs, including Brian McKnight and Prince (and if you don’t know by now, I am a huge Prince fan)!

While eating the food and waiting for the show to begin, we were entertained by music wafting from the theater’s speakers and watched the television screens display upcoming performances. I was pleasantly surprised to see future headliners from Shante Moore, Bell Biv Devoe, and none other than Dru Hill. I expressed out loud that I would LOVE to see them, and before we left the theater, my husband had procured them.

Fast forward to last night. Doors opened at 6. We had seats in the VIP section, which was just right in front of the stage. while we were waiting, we went ahead and ordered a couple of small bites--crab artichoke dip and pineapple jerk wings. Each of us had a salad--the classic Caesar for me and the spring mix for my hubby. The salads were HUGE! one quarter was the size of a normal side salad. and we each had a couple of cocktails--named for jazz legends--mine was the Ella Fizz and his the Duke Ellington. As usual, the food was wonderful. The crowning part of the meal? The fresh, in-house-made by the pastry chef, sparkly birthday cake with my name on it!

It came out with one of those huge sparklers used for bottle service in clubs--pretty but terrifying, considering the amount of synthetic hair in places like that.

The show started at 8:30 and they bounced out and bounced around the stage. SisQo came out, trademark blond hair peaking through his black “Blow” baseball cap; Nokio came out vested with a baseball cap, shades, and some of THE baddest silver glittered Nikes I have ever seen, and would systematically strip out of these items during the performance (including the shoes); Jazz, towel in hand, ready to work up a sweat as he crooned; and the “baby” of the group, Tao, who I will admit I’d never heard vocalize. I even had to do some research on the group to find out exactly when he’d joined.

In my research I found out some things I actually didn’t know about the group, like how they’d started off with two other members that left the group before the recruitment of Jazz and that they’d been under a couple of other names before Dru Hill came along. I have always been a huge fan, but not what you would call a steady superfan. I knew the Nokio was the mastermind behind their formation and that they’d done a lot of their singing in a Baltimore Fudge Factory before making it big (the site still boasts about them in its history). I definitely knew all the facts listed in their Howard Theater bio. Sure, I’d purchased their first three albums, SisQo’s solo project and even other albums where they’d been featured, Rush Hour, Soul Food and Soul Food the series, but their second breakup stole my momentum of fandom and I lost track of their new stuff. I didn’t even realize they had a new album.

But you would have never known it from my performance last night. Today I am slightly hoarse from not only singing EVERY song they performed, but from the constant screaming in between. Yes, I am a concert screamer. I am happy and simultaneously disturbed enough to say that we were close enough to have sweat from the performers drip on us, and as hot as those stage lights were and as much as they jumped around, there was a LOT of sweat flying! I sang so many of the songs that one lady actually came up to me and made note that she noticed I knew almost every word to every song. In truth, I was sitting at a table with member of the Dru Love Crew, a heavy fan site that often meets with the members. Already in the presence of minor celebrity, I was happy they’d chosen to sit at our table because that meant that more than half of the night, Dru Hill was standing directly in front of us.

But the ultimate fan highlight had to be when we were allowed to come on stage. The moment came when the group asked if there were any couples in the house. Naturally, there we were and the fan club egged us onto the stage. Next came the challenge from Dru Hill: show the crowd that you love it like you mean it! The reward: $100 to the winning couple. The result: let’s just say, we were the crowd favorite, as the loud cheers dictated and the affirmations of several people even after the show. And oh yeah, got the Benjamin! During our stage dance/performance, Tao even pilfered my phone to take a picture and recording for us! This, plus the fact that he spent his birthday singing for us (did I mention he was a fellow Virgo?), may have put him in my fan favorite file. Not to mention his cover of CeeLo’s “Crazy.”

The entire group did covers as individuals. SisQo did what he said was a song from their influence: Jodeci and throughout the performance had peppered in some songs from his solo album. Nokio went the crazy route and did an outrageous cover of “Darling Nikki” by Prince. Jazz went old school with Marvin Gaye while sitting on the speakers. Toward the end of the show, they rounded out with “5 Steps,” a song I’ve mentioned in my old blog, and took their four-part harmony out into the crowd. Tao stepped down right in front of us (secutity detail keeping a close eye). Nokio had stepped off stage earlier to enjoy the show from the crowd with a drink in his hand.

They have brought me back into their fold. I’ll probably be purchasing InDRUpendence Day soon, especially since I’ve been singing their songs all day and will likely start playing some of their videos as a stroll down memory lane.

An Ode to the Odious

How do I even begin this blog post? It’s a topic I’ve avoided penning for months, not because it’s not a reality that has set in, but because there simply are no words. The best I have is the beginning of the journal/short story that I started back in November, almost a month after it initially happened.

“I remember screaming. The kind of ear-splitting screaming that originates in the center of the chest, the kind that renders the throat raw for days after it’s over. The one the neighbors call the police over. The kind featured prominently in those overacted movies on Lifetime.

I can scarcely believe it was me.

I'm by no means what I would consider an overly emotional or sentimental woman. In fact, most of the time, my tone drifts on the edge of sarcasm; the rest of the time, it dives right in. A standard hug from me usually consists of a clap on the shoulder.

So the dramatic reaction to my older brother's death, while justifiable, is still surreal to me. What's even more surreal?

My brother, dead. At 48.

Even now, months after his rapid return to ashes, I'm still struggling to process that I will no longer exchange the "Hey Bonehead"/"Hey Knucklehead" greetings; that I will no longer roll my eyes when I find myself embroiled in a seemingly endless conversation; that I will no longer get random T.O.Y. (Thinking of You) texts that made me again roll my eyes while smiling at his corniness.

Every day I get small reminders of times that I didn’t think I’d catalogued.”

The rest of the story starts detailing some of those catalogued memories. But today, on what would have been my knuckleheaded brother’s 49th birthday, it doesn’t seem right to talk about those early memories. Instead, I’ll talk a little about who he was, what was said to have happened and try to come up with some explanation. In the end, it still doesn’t explain why he had to leave so damn early, but it….

My brother had three names: the one he was born with as a Junior to my father; the one he was labeled by his family and friends from the country and as his younger self, prefaced with the word “Lil” (pronounced exactly like that); and the one he made for himself in trying to establish himself as his own man: CeJa. Even his self-established name underwent three evolutions: at first it was just the abbreviated versions of his surname and Junior; then it was spelled with four letters and two accent marks; finally, it was pronounced by those he met in latter years like this: “Say Jah.”

For all his evolutions, he still remained Lil Melvin to me, which, when we were in mixed company, annoyed him to no end. he probably preferred Knucklehead to a name I’m pretty sure he felt represented his diminutive childhood. Point taken.

By all accounts, my brother appeared to be pretty fit. Even at 48, he’d only developed a slight middle-aged paunch—literally, his beer belly, since he did like the stuff. He ate relatively healthy; he certainly was fonder of vegetables and seafood than I am. He rode bicycles, went for long extended hikes in the woods, at one time conquering part of Stone Mountain in Georgia. He loved fishing and just being near water. Half of the pictures I found of him had him standing in front of some seashore.

But the truth was, especially in his last year, he was not as healthy as he appeared to be. He was a long-time cigarette smoker, and up until his last year of life, enjoyed the occasional joint. He consumed harder spirits too; I think he was a little more partial to brown liquors than white but like me had tried the gamut. Like me, he was myopic, even though most people would say that they never saw him wear a pair of glasses. I’m not even sure he wore contact lenses. And of the two of us, his respiratory function was worse. While I have all-year-round allergies and wheezed a bit as a kid, he never outgrew his bronchitis, so he was supposed to carry inhalers. On top of all this, he had problems with his blood pressure and his cholesterol. He was the junior of his father in that they both had prescriptions for the same blood pressure and cholesterol regulators. And of course, in saying this, I cannot ignore all the genetic cards stacked against him on both sides: besides bp and cholesterol, there was diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, aneurisms, MS, and whole other range of options including the fact that he carried a Sickle cell trait.

A year before his death, he started having attacks that hospitalized him several times before he died. At first he was diagnosed with pneumonia. After looking at some basic medical websites (WebMD and the Mayo Clinic), it could very well be that my brother was misdiagnosed from the very beginning. Nevertheless, he was being a typical-hardheaded male. Almost as soon as he was released from any medical care, he would resume his normal routine as if he were fine. Our last conversation centered on that very fact. The Wednesday before he passed, we were on the phone. He’d called to tell me that he had once again been hospitalized and that the doctors had drained fluid from his lungs. I remember giving him the reality check that he may have to start thinking about retiring on disability. I also remember telling him that he wasn’t a young man anymore, that he was two years from 50, and that he had to give himself time to recover properly.

Our last conversation was a good conversation. It contained all the elements of our relationship over the years: adoration coupled with disgust, annoyances, and insults. What many people do not know about my relationship with my brother is how much I truly adored him, flaws and all. When I was a little girl, all of my first memories are of him. Dad was physically distant and Mom was emotionally distant, caught in her own delusions. But there he was, teaching me my vital skills, reading to me, making sure my shoes were on the right feet and helping me tie them. Like most typical little sisters, I wanted his attention all the time. So when he became the dreaded preteen, I did what any little sister would do to gain his attention—I hit him, came into his room unwanted and unannounced and just generally did everything I could do. Even if he was yelling at me, he was talking to me. All that ended when he moved away to live with our dad.

I was by turns heartbroken, sad, angry. I moved into his room, co-opted his things. Some of my favorites:

• a red wooden model plane suspended from the ceiling called “The Red Baron” (a Peanuts reference);
• a lamp that he’d made while in woodshop;
• and a record player with 2 LPs: Shalamar’s single “The Second Time Around” and Michael’s Jackson’s Off the Wall.

There was no Skype, no cell phones. Hell, my mother didn’t even have a landline phone. So our contact was relegated to a few phone calls that I would get over my grandma’s house, an occasional card, and a rare visit.

I felt abandoned.

My first cousins became my siblings when I was allowed outside to play (another story altogether).

When I graduated from high school, I thought that we would have a chance to renew our relationship. I still adored him. But by then, I was competing with various girlfriends, hanging buddies, and his own restless search for identity. Within two months of my moving to Maryland, he’d gotten in a car and drove until he found Georgia. There he stayed. There he died.

Of course, he found himself a wife and together they had a child whom I adore as much as I did her father. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that little girl (who will be 21 in a few months) means. For 17 years, she was my closest living legacy until my very own son came along. Watching her grow has been one of the greatest joys of my life, and for her, my brother got forgiven for myriad sins.

One issue of contention that always remained between us was how little he visited our parents. As they got older, the burden of their care often fell to me. And dealing with 2 psychologically unbalanced parents with no support from my older sibling caused me to feel a great deal of resentment at times. He’d been hung up on during phone conversations, fussed at during others, and even given the silent treatment for months on end because he sometimes criticized without helping. In truth, it was my desire of late that he move to live with mom and help her out once my niece graduated. It would have been a mutually beneficial relationship because I believe she would have helped him just as much as he helped her. They could have depended on one another the way Dad and I did, and my worries could have been sliced in half.

But it was never meant to be. Soon after our final convversation, I received a call late Saturday night/early Sunday morning at around 1:30am. The call was from my DBBF, who'd seen a message on Facebook begging someone from CeJa's family to call. She'd apparently put this message as a message from him, and had done it twice, once at 9:30pm, the exact time I was handing off kids that I'd babysat that night.

So here's the timeline: on Friday, my brother had been released from the hospital. Saturday he'd gotten up, told his live-in girlfriend he'd procured a computer for her, then called her later and said he was going to watch a game and have some drinks with the fellas. What he really did was go fishing at Stone Mountain State Park...with another friend. And this is where he met his last moment. 

I'm grateful he was not alone. That park is huge. Had he gone alone, it might have been days before he'd been discovered. The official cause of death, which was processed approximately 2 months later, was heart failure. Something ruptured. According to the friend with him, he was talking, laughing as they sat on the pier together. Then suddenly he fell back and wasn't breathing. In all liklihood, he'd died long before the response teams had gotten to him. Out of courtesy, or perhaps protocol, they did CPR until he got to the hospital. His official time of death was in the 9 o'clock hour. And you know the rest from the disjointed narrative I've lain before you.

So as I sit here tonight, nursing a broken foot (another story for another post), I do the only things I can do to honor his memory: a sip of spiced rum from the bottle I'd saved for him and the holidays and a writing homage from his perpetual student. I don't need to say rest in peace; knowing where he died, I know he was in peace when he left this realm. I don't have to say I loved him because even when he got on my nerves, I always remembered to tell him. More importantly, I told him that last time I spoke to him.

The Success of F&F Franchise

Right now I'm on a bus route to Canada, and the first on board movie that was selected was Fast and Furious 7. For those who don't know, the 7th installment is meant to hearken to classic cinema in terms of Seven Samarai and the American remake, The Magnificent Seven. And a few months ago, Vin Diesel confirmed that there would indeed be an 8th installment in spite of the fact that Paul Walker died before 7 was completed, causing his brothers to be hired as standins.

The question is, what has made the series so successful?

The first answer is obvious. If one goes to see just 7 alone, there can be no doubt that there is non-stop action. Viewing other reactions (mostly mouths agape), this movie qualifies as a bona-fide edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. Even as a spectator, the adrenaline is pumping from the before the credits start.

But there's more to the saga than pulse-pumping action:

• Eye candy: there is something for every one in this movie. Men, there is no shortage of bikini-clad, tattoo-sporting chicks waving flags and just walking. As Tyrese stated in 2 Fast 2 Furious, "It's a ho-asis up in here!" Add to that Jordana Brewster (Mia) and Michelle Rodriguez (Leti), who also happens to be the ride-or-die racer chick and an array of other strong female leads. And ladies, you were not forgotten. If anything, as the franchise grew, so did the penchant for eye candy for the ladies. It started off with just Vin and Paul (and the guy who played Vince and the 4th hottie that was also originally part of the crew but never made it past the first). Then Tyrese and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Cole Hauser (bad guy in 2 Fast), Han. And who can forget about the magic of adding The Rock to the franchise? Then for 7, throw in Jason Statham and Djamon Hansou, and it's an overload of man candy! There are even honorable cameos in several of the series: Michael Ealy anyone?
• The cars: there is a subversive human love for speed. One of the most admired animals in the wild is the cheetah. And it's no different in the Fast franchise, which truly turns the vehicles into characters. I bet anyone can remember at least 5 from any given movie. And they have speaking roles. The hum of the engine as they gear up for a race. The strong leading man of the American muscle car is prominently featured in every film in the series.
• The exotic locales: LA, Tokyo, Brazil, London, the Dominican Republic, Dubai--you name it and F&F has been there. Not only are they in the movies, but like the cars, they become more than sets, but characters. Who can forget the parkour chase on the tin roofs of Brazil? Or the 3-building crash in Dubai?
• The corny one-liners: between Tyrese, Luda, and most classicly The Roc, the one liners, while crazy corny "Woman, I am the back up" (The Rock, F&F7), keep the movie franchise from taking itself too seriously, which is great. The first in the series was probably the heaviest in gravitas, but the subsequent ones brought a sublime mixture of action, adventure, and humor. The characters had undeniable chemistry, regardless of the combination.
• Family: throughout the franchise is that running theme of family not just being blood bonds but those that stay by your side for the ride. Nothing brings this concept of Whiz Khalifa's song that's featured at the end: "how can we not talk about family when family is all we've got." This sense of family was not just apparent in the film, but with the actors in real life. Even before Paul's death, he was brother to Vin, Tyrese, and Ludacris. Vin even named his latest daughter Paula in honor of Paul.

A side note about Paul: besides him being one of my crushes, he and I share the same DoB, so his death was especially shattering for me because of his twin birth. It brings the saga of mortality to a reality. The most that we can hope for is that we die like we live. Here was this personable man who created a foundation when he saw a need in disaster-ravaged areas. And he dies, not as the driver, but the passenger of his own fate. God took his angel back. And his family, both blood and his movie family, will miss him immensely.

2014: The Year in Review

For anyone who’s ever read any of my blogs, it is known that at the beginning of every year I do a reflective journal on the past year and title it. Sadly, it is the beginning of the second month of the new year and I have yet to post my reflections. So before the new year gets too old, here goes.

I usually start reflecting on the world events and then concentrating on my personal sphere. This year, I’m reversing that order. To start off 2014, I had a wretched cold/flu. On top of that, I came into the new year with my menstrual cycle. The old wives’ tale is that whatever is done to ring in the new year will occur all year long. Little did I know that meant that my cycle would come along on every single holiday during the entire year.

On the second day of the new year, my DBBF and I decided to go out to celebrate the new year together. When we went out, it was raining, but by the time we returned, it was doing a heavy wintery mix.

Disaster struck: leaving from the place after a great time, I got into car accident when I lost control of my car, crashing into another vehicle, which totaled both our cars. Turns out that the tread on my tires was so worn that I shouldn’t even have been on the road in the rain. So in January, I was forced to buy my third new vehicle in five years. Though it was a pain in the butt to be without my own vehicle for three weeks, I persevered with the help of rental cars. I ended up with a new Chrysler 200 and an even lower car note.

These two events solidified the precedent for the new year. Couple them with the fact that I was still in mourning over the death of my grandmother and stressing over being caretaker for my father and keeping his affairs straight, and I thought 2014 would be the most miserable of my existence. This would prove to be correct toward the end of the year.

However, the year didn’t seem so horrendous in terms of personal achievement. I joined a gratitude group early in the year and professionally, had joined an emerging leaders cohort. As a result, I ended up being more centered and grounded, which aided me immensely for the challenges that would come ahead. In this program, I learned to better organize myself and my schedule, primarily using Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. The class helped immensely with the way I perceive the world and myself. So where in past years, I’d felt the stress of the different roles I’d been juggling I was strangely calm for the Spring semester and much of the summer. And I was looking forward to the remainder of the year progressing smoothly, and for the most part it did.

I did new travel experiences. My husband and I traveled with my bestie and her live-in lover to Virginia Beach for something called a Bayou Boogaloo, and for Labor Day weekend, I did a girlfriend trip with my cousin to New York City on Labor Day for a celebration of life party of a friend (which will be featured in my third shoutout series). This impressed upon me the need to live every moment, and a test of that need would soon come.

I celebrated the Sweet 16 of my youngest goddaughter. I also watched my oldest goddaughter complete her last high school dance recital, saw her off to her prom, and watched her walk across the stage for high school graduation. In addition, I saw one of my younger cousins (who in truth is like a niece) do the same, and my newest niece by marriage also do the same. On top of that, I was able to go to one of my cousins’ second-time-around wedding. I was elated to be part of all these celebrations. And I was happy that although I couldn’t attend the other cousin’s second-time-around wedding in September, my brother attended in my stead, which would be the last time many of my relatives would see him alive.

This of course leads to the biggest news of 2014: the death of my older brother. I suppose the reason I’ve put off this blog so long was because I knew that I would have to type those words. Even now, after three months of living without him, I had to pause before I get beyond those words. Of course, like the blog about my grandmother, he will get an entire post to himself, but right now…I just can’t.

In other news around the world for 2014, there were several notable deaths of 2014. Here is my attempt at a tribute to them. You’ll find that many of these deaths are in no particular order, but in loose categories:

The Funny

• Sid Caesar, wacky comedian with an impressive resume that spanned decades. I’m actually just realizing he played in Grease!
• Bob Hoskins, of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and who also played Smee in Hook with one of the most devastating names on this list
• Elizabeth Pena, whom I did not even know died. I first remember seeing her in a sitcom that lasted about a year. The sitcom was sort of a pre-cursor to Fran Drescher’s The Nanny. The last I’d seen her was in El Rey Network’s The Matador, but she may have already died by then. What I didn’t know was that she was the voice of the platinum-haired chick in Disney’s Incredibles.
• Harold Ramis, whose defining role was Egon Sgangler in Ghostbusters
• Mickey Rooney, whose movie career is the longest in history, with 89 years under his belt.
• Meshach Taylor, Designing Women and gets an honorable mention for his role in Mannequin
• Eli Wallach, also a star in another favorite movie The Holiday. He had over 50 years of acting experience, having starred in films with at least one other person from this list (Shirley Temple)
• Robin Williams—probably one of the most shocking deaths since Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, Robin Williams’ apparent suicide had me (and probably the whole world) wondering, “How could someone who brought the world such laughter be in so much pain?” His list of credits and accomplishments are too many to name, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a few which have often become some of my favorite weekend watches:
  The top of the list belongs unquestionably to Jumanji, followed by (in no particular order) Hook, about what happens when the boy who never grew up does, Mrs. Doubtfire, the live action Popeye, The Birdcage, and who can forget his role as the Genie in Aladdin.

  The Good:

  • Shirley Temple—yes her name at death was Shirley Temple Black, but she will always be that little girl with the bouncy curls, baby doll dresses and tap heels.
  • Legendary radio host Kasey Casem, who I grew up with as a steady presence on Saturday mornings.
  • Ann B. Davis, Alice from The Brady Bunch
  • Russell Johnson the professor from Gilligan’s Island, who I always thought was so hot.
  • James Rebhorn, awesome character actor in countless movies and television, especially another favorite Independence Day.
  • Ralph Waite, the quintessential American father from The Waltons.

  The Bad:

  • Joan Rivers, the comedienne whose career was bolstered by ripping up people's outfits and dignity, suffered from complications after minor surgery soon after a vitriolic speech.
  • S. Truett Cathy of Chick-Fil-A. Maybe some of his homophobic, racist ideals have been buried with him.

  The Ugly:

  • Fred Phelps, Sr., who picketed funerals, also met his maker.

  The Bold:

  • Author, activist, poetess, actress, Maya Angelou.
  • DC Mayor for Life Marion Barry.
  • Author and activist Amiri Baraka or Leroi Jones
  • Actress and activist, Ruby Dee wife of Ozzie Davis, who passed a few short years before.
  • Geoffrey Holder, who played in the original film version of Annie and was Mr. Uncola for 7-Up.
  • Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Character actor extraordinaire Philip Seymour Hoffman
  • One of my favorite poets Mark Strand.
  • Wrestling legend the Ultimate Warrior, another Saturday morning favorite
  • Bobby Womach, legendary crooner of “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” http://youtu.be/sbbZ_k1Z8gU

  The Beautiful:

• Lauren Bacall: classic Hollywood actress who also had a half-century career and starred with at least one other actor on this list (James Garner)
• Joe Cocker—even though his voice was scratchy and scruffy, he will always be remembered for “With A Little Help from My Friends” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKer6HcI7O0 and “You Are So Beautiful to Me.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvAr9umnZ54
• James Garner, the original Maverick, the Mel Gibson movie Maverick, Rockford Files, and my favorite all-time movie The Notebook.

I close out this entry with the words of Mark Strand and the hopes of talking about my brother sometime in this blog:

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in

to fill the spaces

where my body's been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.”