A pupil’s pain in the performer’s platform for the preacher’s pulpit in the professor’s podium. An arrival.

In order to arrive at what you are not

You must go through the way in which you are not.

And what you do not know is the only thing you know

And what you own is what you do not own

And where you are is where you are not. - T.S. Eliot

I remember a time where I spent most of my time in a living room, entertaining doped out family members and friends. I was about 5. So. Shit, I wasn’t in a position to make better life choices. I remember a time where I heard Nas say he “carried the cross”. I remember it, because right after that, A brother, a foster father, and a friend  were killed, died on the operating table, and murdered in the same year, respectively. I remember saying to myself, “Nah bro, I can’t carry such a thing. But, I’m sure as hell glad there are brothers around me, who experienced similar pains and losses. Maybe ‘rap’ shall be a kind of salvation for me”. I remember a time where I was behind a desk, ‘teaching to the test’, prepping folk for state licenseure exams in nursing, strength and conditioning, medical school entry, and physical therapy. I remember being behind a pulpit, reciting the books of the four gospels, referencing the torah, bewildered by Moses, whiled concomitantly being converted and released from my sins by the bigger sins of the Apostle Paul. I remember being just south of 35 years old, wondering why I was the one teaching folk two to three times my age how to live as Jesus did. I remember a time where I was in love with being a scientist - a physiologist. And I remember a time where I had to work twice as hard in the lab to get the same reward and the same terminal degree. I remember a time where I was at the firing range, reloading an M-4 for the first time, surrounded by folk with fatigue on, confined by 4 black walls, wondering “How. The fuck. Did I get here?”

How did I get here? Why did I get here?

These are questions I no longer ask. I no longer ask, because don’t have as much control as I thought I did.

And no, this is not a ‘come to zen’ moment, or a new meditative state moment. It’s more like an arrival. With all the ‘rememberances’, the common thread among them, for me, was thinking I dictated the outcome. And in each of them, I didn’t. Life did. And that’s ok. I don’t understand life. I don’t understand God. I don’t understand military politics. I don’t understand the suffrage of black folk. Of myself. And I don’t understand suffering (though Victor Frankl clearly did).

And that is just fine. Because - I don’t intend to fight against it anymore.

And that’s just fine.