Prolific

I’m a walking exclamation point. I talk a lot. I text a lot. I work a lot. I mother a lot. Everything I do, I do a lot. I’ve always seen this as a problem.

I’ve spent a lot of time tempering myself. Chopping myself into more manageable pieces for people to digest. Even this blog. I’ve wanted to do something like this for years — even went so far as having a developer create something in 2018 — but in the end I backed away. Because it felt like too much.

After all I already run an expanding small business, raise three kids on my own and live in the pressure cooker that is New York City. It felt excessive.

Then I learned about Duke Ellington. Through the magic of the public school black history month project. My son was assigned him. I’d heard Duke’s name my entire life. One of the names you just know as a black person. You figure they’re significant for a reason, but you don’t bother to find out why. When I heard my son had to do this project I rolled my eyes. I hate that black history month focuses so heavily on musicians. But as soon as I started researching him I was fascinated.

Duke Ellington did alot. He was one of the most prolific composers — of any race, color or culture — in American history. He created more than three thousand pieces of music. When he mastered a technique, he moved on to another. When he started his career jazz compositions were short. They were ‘black music’. Enjoyable, but not necessarily revered in any way. By the time he died he had expanded jazz compositions to off Broadway musicals, operas and movie scores. He never stopped.

I’ve always seen excess in human nature as a bad thing — junkies, capitalism, addiction. But I think excess can be a well that I draw from. DOING refines me. It makes me feel alive. So I won’t resist doing.