Don’t watch me. Watch my films. Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

“… only bodies died. Spirits wandered. They stayed with their descendants to guide them through life, to comfort them, sometimes to scare them into waking from their fog of unloving, unliving.” — Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

Sanitize your phone. Deep breaths. Wash your makeup brushes. Sweat a little. Send someone you love an affirmation. Drink more water today thank you did yesterday. Eat/read/watch something that satiates the soul… Self care will always re-stabilize your spirit—even temporarily.

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

“Lies are told about the most insignificant aspects of daily life. When many of us are asked basic questions, like How are you today? a lie is substituted for the truth.” bell hooks, All About Love

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

“If I’ve thought of my mother as callous, and many times I have, then it is important to remind myself what a callous is: the hardened tissue that forms over a wound.” Yaa Gyasi / Transcendent Kingdom

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

"The spirit will not transform an anti-black world into some egalitarian landscape. The anti-black world is irredeemable." from Ontological Terror: Blackness, Nihilism and Emancipation by Calvin L. Warren

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

When I understood it was enough to be deeply inspired by my literary heroes without having to fight to adapt their work, often maneuvering whitewashed estates and superfluous red tape, my craft expanded. Thank you, Octavia Butler, for writing us* into brilliantly crafted worlds.

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

Another gift from the brilliant Alice Walker from “Living by the Word”

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

"I am even more certain that to create dangerously is also to create fearlessly, boldly embracing the public and private terrors that would silence us, then bravely moving forward even when it feels as though we are chasing or being chased by ghosts..." --Edwidge Danticat

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

“If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide.” from Gabor Maté’s ‘When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress’ https://t.co/jVvurEk9VE

Don’t watch me. Watch my films.

“Fame, the desire to attain it, the desire to hold on to it, can produce the ‘How am I doing?’ syndrome. This question is not ‘Is the work going well?’ This question is ‘How does it look to them?’” Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way