Nearly six years ago, I sat on the floor of my old job and looked around at nothing in particular. One of my staff members, whom I didn’t hear either come in or make a sound, took this picture of me. I didn’t know it was taken until they gave it to me about a month afterwards. What was I thinking…
Thinking back, I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking, but I do know that I was in the middle of creating a plan to be my most “creative self” which, depending on the day, I have results that vary from look at this! to what is this? and I’m okay with that.
I was writing just about every day at the time, and it was no surprise that each night I had something new to add to an already growing arsenal of words and thoughts in several journals and notebooks. What didn’t happen, however, was the book that I just KNEW was going to be completed at that time. It would take nearly four more years to get it together, but getting to HERE has been the best part of it all. The book turned into my fourth work entitled “magpie fortune cookies” and since I finished it, I’ve had all types of opportunities to read from it, sell it, and talk about it both off- and online…
As I write and do more creative work, being40something will evolve more along the way… ironically, in this month of Black History, more art, more work, and more cultural light are shining the brightest light on and around me. And I feel good enough to begin this journey of sharing what it looks like even at the darkest time periods; what it tastes like when there isn’t any flavor to boast about; and what it feels and sounds like even when the senses of this plane escape me.
being40something has been beyond a blessing to-date, and moving forward, I’m sure it’ll be something indeed for everyone that comes through these pages.
it always looks the same
sounds the same as callings from
catchphrases that sit still on weekend mornings
without an audience
without choices made the night before
eyes can’t confirm or deny
but remember the
mirror images awakening where
voices catch sight of scaffold-ed images
where it always looks the same
though different
Photographs by H.C. Walker 2017
BEING 40 SOMETHING 