Thought I’d offer some levity from my usual melancholy hot takes… Thoughts are fleeting, however, and the state of the world this past week only amplified my anxiety.

I've been looking for something lighthearted to shield my mind from the election season news cycle. And yeah, it's all bad news. I have no problem with going on record to state that I absolutely do not want the convicted felon to serve another term in the White House.

I want to believe this so much... The second part, about opportunity...

🗳️

I don't think anyone expects the GOP meltdowns to cool off anytime soon, but it would be a pleasant surprise if we were able to move forward into the Democratic National Convention next month and watch as the Presidential race becomes about policy and issues that impact our lives instead of the usual partisan theatrics and personal attacks. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see a shift toward substantive discussions on healthcare, the economy, climate change, and social justice?

Issues that directly affect everyday Americans should take center stage in the political discourse. Focusing on policies and solutions could lead to more informed voting and a healthier democratic process overall. 👀

Back to reality.

#What I'm reading 📖

I did make it a priority to read and write more over the past week.

I found a new favorite app to track my reading progress and keep track of books I’ve read and want to read called The Storygraph (think Goodreads without sending billionaires in the midst of a midlife crisis to space). Hey, I found some levity, albeit brief. Most of the books I want to read are dark or intense. Anyway... It's simple, has a great design, and works the way it's supposed to.

I’m currently halfway through…

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - by James McBride

Not exactly a laugh riot, but more of an enjoyable distraction. Here’s the story description as found on jamesmcbride.com

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

Well... love and community sustaining us sounds like a step in the right direction.

#What I'm writing ✍🏽

As I've spent more time writing, researching, and developing characters for my own WIP, I've been thinking about steps to take to build a community around my writing. (If you've already been here for a while, thank you! If this is your first time visiting... Pull up a chair, bring a glass of your favorite beverage of choice, and if you like what you read, do me a solid and show your support by subscribing... 👇🏽

This week, as I'm working through my WIP / manuscript of "Gospel Storey," I've moved the storyline from the late 1800s into 1920s Chicago. This week's excerpt introduces Gospel's youngest son, Solomon Storey III...

1922

Chicago, Illinois 

”With a plea from hearts long dead, that would reach into our time and beyond. 

Traveling through the futures of our offspring, we can only know your past and your place, now, in our hearts and minds.

Left without feeble hope cobbled on selfish and undecipherable prophecy, the desperate among us look to unanswered salvation.

And we cling to you in pathetic embrace.

Pious, gripped by a controlled madness that pours us into a void.”

Cep’t y’all wouldn’t understand  that now, would ya?”

He stood over the two men with authority often commanded by a Colt M1911 in your face. As if upon a pulpit, the congregation was held captive by his prose.

“I don’t know what you're talking about, mister,” the delivery man replied shakily.

Solomon felt the weight of his pistol and lifted his hand ever so slightly upwards to conclude “Diamond Jack’s” time among the living without further delay.

It was dark in the basement of the hotel, alas crimson blood went unnoticed for the moment on the floor and the walls behind where “Diamond Jack” took his last breath, and on the face and uniform of the delivery man who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Oh God…” he wept.

“Please, I won’t…”

His words interrupted by Solomon’s contempt, “There he is again… God”. A slow blink while his head shook from side to side to chastise the soul that could be no more, lest he give up now and turn himself in. 

“Show me your God!” Voice cracking with anger, pistol in hand raised high. He spun around quickly, glancing to every dark corner as if to search for “God,” and trained the weapon once more at him, then brought it down to rest on his right leg.

“You know what? Maybe I can help you…”

”Yes, please, I promise I didn’t see, nothing…. I won’t…”

“help you to meet your God”

He raised his weapon again and shot him once through the heart, offering a few more seconds to consider his God before he died. A courtesy, he sparred “Diamond Jack” by embedding the slug in his cranium.

He stowed his pistol in the holster under his coat and tugged it at the break before he buttoned it. His boots scraped the dirt and dried cement of the basement floor as he turned towards the open doorway and ascended the stairs, out of sight.

You can read part of the Gospel Storey prologue here...

He knelt, and he wept

And now, he couldn’t pray once more. The silence in his head was deafening. His body leaned forward, and his legs buckled at the knees as if the breeze had ushered him into a station to receive penance. He knelt, and he wept.

🎙️Please allow me to, Clareifi...Euri Giles

Writing about Chicago got me thinking about a poem that Dad had published in an anthology back in the day, and of course, I've got to find a way to work it into the book.

4855 & Other Jive

Came to in a do
crossed and recrossed primary paths
John Farren was the block, but
DuSable wasn’t my destiny.
Corpus Christi around the corner,
death and destruction the Christian way.

Regal was a theater.

47th and Southpark, familiar smells of
popcorn, hotdogs, and lots of sweaty
bodies on a summer day.
Lost in Woolworth’s, lost in the
world.

Corner playground, sanctuary from sin
the “L” at its back carrying
a deafening din.
Street fights, freedom flights,
rabid dogs, a creeping
fog. Gangways and gangwars, playing
hide and seek with tomorrow’s tragedy.
Old men standing in place on a forgotten
corner, pulling the time of their lives
through the neck of a gin bottle.

Set your pace,
run in place
4855 a day of grace,
moved away, what’s
the use, no matter
how hard — can’t shake
that noose.
4855 I lived to sin.
4855 I’d do it agin,
4855 I’ve no regrets
I lived on 4855 Calumet.
— C.R. Giles

🕊️💛