Been wondering how young Nat was getting on and his struggles don’t keep a good man down y’all!
Nat say:
"I been learning to trust my past self, because your past self is often looking out for your future self. Like how the weather was last year, you seem to forget it. Days like these, forgetting seems like a privilege most of us can’t afford. I been learning to not avoid discomfort, and that you have to move towards pain sometimes to discover the good in there too.
It took a long time for me to not wake up thinking I was some forlorn hope, a long time to convince myself I ain’t a dead man walking. I still walk in those shoes at times. The blues help carry me through.
Early in the morn, before the crack of dawn, in a time of war, with my fingernails cracked and brittle from chemo, writing a ditty that got nothing to do with the heaviness of the world somehow speaks my anguish for all of it. In Winesburg, Ohio, Anderson writes that at times we have to shut our ears to the roaring of the voices.
As for me, I can’t help but hear em, watching the race continue with or without me. I had a conversation about a dream someone had: when facing an obstacle, you can go over or under; for me, I go under, I keep low to the ground, below the belt, trusting my gut. Take it from me only way thru a shut time is thru, and even now there is rejoicing even as the barn of the world continues to burn.
But I ain’t no sage, I’m first to admit I’m half a fool, tripping without falling, headed backwards but stepping forward anyway. Anybody who skated knows there’s a right and wrong way to fall; the one that breaks you, the other that gets you back up for the next try.
So get back up, and try again.
This one’s done like a busted Blind Blake or Buddy Moss joint"
Cool as and as stubborn as mule, I reckon!
