A Night Out- A Separate Sun

Ever felt like you had no one and were under a separate sun than everyone else? I have surely had the feeling that I don't belong anywhere. Tonight I went to see a play by the name of A Separate Sun, written by Joseph P. Blake and directed by Lenny Daniels with music by Bill Jolly.
The play was about an addict and her struggle with her past that she needed to overcome to combat her addiction. A small ensemble of just three actors, I was captivated by the story. The music was a driving force that made you feel every high and every low. And the voice of actress Joilet Harris, kept you glued to the stage.
The play portrayed an important relationship between a woman and her childhood. That special and sometimes tragic connection that we have with our past. Jamara Griffin, just 13-years old took us from the innocence of childhood to the often tragic memories of sexual abuse seamlessly.
But all in all, as director Lenny Daniels put it, it was a story of recovery. This idea sprang to life when Harris broke into "How I Got Over" which had the whole crowd clapping and singing along in triumph.
Even if your battle has not been drugs, I think we have all in one way or another recovered from something or experienced feeling like the cloud was only over your head. With a simplistic, minimal approach, this play tells the story of many of our lives, and if not ours, the lives of people close to us. I think it was an excellent way to spend a Thursday evening and I hope you can get out to the Arts Garage before the play ends on Saturday Sept. 11th!

Our Biggest Fears

The good kid. Growing up, I tried to do everything perfect so that no one would ever have to tell me otherwise. I didn’t want to disappoint. School, is the biggest part of your life for at least 13 years … Yes then there’s college and graduate school and blah blah blah. But school was it for me. I was a great student. Pretty much stayed with straight A’s always the teacher’s star pupil, cried if I got a B. I just wanted to be good. Great. As I sat at my brother’s high school graduation, I was in 8th grade, I saw that there were some students sitting on the stage. They were the ones getting awards. I decided on that day that when I graduated high school I would be on that stage. Four years later I won two awards when I graduated from high school. I’d always remember hearing about graduation honors in college. I decided I wasn’t leaving without at least a cum laude. I graduated magna cum laude from Temple University. I saw someone tweet or facebook or whatever today that “being an over achiever is exhausting”… Well it’s true! After school I was smack dab in the middle of the real world trying to find my place. Where it seems that all the straight A’s, cum laudes, and awards don’t seem to matter all that much.

I thought that if I decided to be a songwriter that would happen for me right away too. I mean I had set precedents here. But it doesn’t, it didn’t and here I am on the proverbial “grind” trying to make it happen for myself. And regardless of how slow I feel it’s going, I am on the right track. I am in the middle of learning patience and appreciation. My biggest fear has always been being ordinary. I realized that all the academic success, and being the “good kid” was so that I would stand out from everyone else. What will I do if my life is not extraordinary? It’s something I try not to think about often because my eyes are so deadest on the goals. I am so fortunate to be where I am, and honestly I’m only 24 years old even though it feels that somehow I missed my prime, I realized I have only begun to even catch a stride. Slow down child … is what I know some older person would tell me. But when I think about making music and doing something that I love everyday and making a living from it I just can’t. I need to get there. The studio is my new stage. Every time I step into one I am hoping something magical comes out and that each day of mine will never be like the last.

What I have started to realize is that there is no one like me. That is what makes me the most unique, the most different, the most extraordinary. And this doesn’t mean I’m not dead set on hitting Billboard within the next year. But I know that I have truly been given a gift. A gift to tell stories, to use words creatively, to hum melodies with my non-singing self. Lol. And with this gift there is no way that I will be kept from sharing it with others and so I’m a success even with the work that is still to be done.