Ms Marcie Avis Walker you have been on fire with hopeful posts for months and the fountain just keeps coming! I am I see of a thousand different facets of it you have brought to the light, new and different ones tumble forth each day in satisfying complexity. I can't help but agree with the spelndor as I read each one. This is helping me recover the joy of learning that filled my world with the magic of the natural worlds wonders as a child. Somehow religion in the hands of well meaning competitors and champions has managed to smash all of the natural wonder out of hope and define it narrowly and exclusively as though it were being branded or required a lack of grounding or disavowal of other institutions. I really appreciate the road you are walking with this as each page unfolds powerfully. That's my commentary and review that I haven't been able to say for a while. There's one other thing I wanted to say about hope of I may. And I'm sorry despite the joy I feel about it, it's going to sound as dry as a piece of toast with no butter or broth. But I first started getting into music a little bit from my father's radio and record player as a third grade boy. My mom had an Aretha Franklin record "Through the Storm" as well as this collaboration of musicians, actors and comedians edited by Phil Donahue's wife Marlo Thomas called Free to be a Family. Then, Back to the Future part 1 soundtrack introduced me to Chuck Berry's Johnny B Good. And even though it was around 1989 or 1990, I remember listening to motown on the radio. I can say all these things brought me joy and hope as a small child, though I didn't know why. Even as a 40 year old adult it remains difficult to talk about what hope has been given to me through parts of worlds of black music and culture that came into my life at different times and that I experienced as hope. It should not be such a hard thing to talk about as a white man and I thank you for allowing me some space here to practice gratitude but also returning to a time of wonder where in midst of life pains as well hope came and as children we marveled.
Around the time between. kindergarten and 3rd grade, my mother who was a wonderfully talented visual artist had been developing a fear that she was being stalked and persecuted by men in the community who hates her for her brilliance. I know there is no such thing as a normal family or completely safe world, but those years were a relatively comfortable childhood of wonder and discovery took on a bizarre and threatening quality. Very concerning times for me. Emotional safety always had a hint of danger to it because of my mom's belief about herself and it made me really curious about what really was going on in the world of relationships out there. In contrast to my childhood experience of my mother's mental illness and distress, hearing Motown artists through my dad's old record player and radio sang about a hope that was really comforting and encouraging to me that I really had a strong interest in finding. I didn't question it, I just was really helped a great deal.
So even though my personal family tragedies don't add much nuance to the larger historical contexts of the times or the music, it's just a reminder to me that a lot of us are given hope daily in a lot of ways and your posts helped return me to the wonder of just recieving a grace during a time of need and speaking on it and being comforted.
Of course an illness in the family doesn't resolve overnight or sometimes ever, but John's Hopkins University has a model that they developed and when I read about it last year it was such a comfort, for a person who has a mental illness that is really beautiful. First they look at the diagnosis itself, which can get very damning, clinical or pathologizing based on the model medicine uses. But then they look at that person's life story and life experiences of which everyone has different. Then their daily behaviors. Finally the personality of that person is considered, their temperament. I find that a very human and divergent thinking way to thread together my experiences of someone as important to a person as their mother that could alternately be comforting or upsetting depending on the limitations that the illness brought, but also not making excuses for difficult parts that were her authentic character and way too. Just because my mom felt or believed for some reason that she was a very important person who was being targeted by men who were jealous of her, did not mean I did not experience wonderful things too and learn great things. But it left some pain and confusion often and Motown records and oldies stations soothed that pain and offered a hopefulness about relationships and joy that I really credit today in a deep way. The embarassment and shame about family mental illnesses makes it difficult to mention, but it's my goal one day to be able to tell my story on the basis of what children go through and what as adults we have privilege and access to find answers too. I'll be forty this year and progress towards developing a voice seems slow going and some stories seem best shared in piecemeal in conversation, so I hope you do not mind my taking up space here. I'm thankful for how black artists helped me greatly as a child and I recieved that help at the time from the little world I found coming out the speakers of my father's stereo system record player and radio.
Wow no I had no idea and did not know! Much respect to you and your childhood experience as well and thanks tremendously for the support and space in sharing mine here too. I hear you that music played a big role for resilience for you too. I realized about the time and place in my life when I started recieving hope from different places outside of my family. Thanks for being kind and understanding with the burdens I tried to lay down a little here.
Ms Marcie Avis Walker you have been on fire with hopeful posts for months and the fountain just keeps coming! I am I see of a thousand different facets of it you have brought to the light, new and different ones tumble forth each day in satisfying complexity. I can't help but agree with the spelndor as I read each one. This is helping me recover the joy of learning that filled my world with the magic of the natural worlds wonders as a child. Somehow religion in the hands of well meaning competitors and champions has managed to smash all of the natural wonder out of hope and define it narrowly and exclusively as though it were being branded or required a lack of grounding or disavowal of other institutions. I really appreciate the road you are walking with this as each page unfolds powerfully. That's my commentary and review that I haven't been able to say for a while. There's one other thing I wanted to say about hope of I may. And I'm sorry despite the joy I feel about it, it's going to sound as dry as a piece of toast with no butter or broth. But I first started getting into music a little bit from my father's radio and record player as a third grade boy. My mom had an Aretha Franklin record "Through the Storm" as well as this collaboration of musicians, actors and comedians edited by Phil Donahue's wife Marlo Thomas called Free to be a Family. Then, Back to the Future part 1 soundtrack introduced me to Chuck Berry's Johnny B Good. And even though it was around 1989 or 1990, I remember listening to motown on the radio. I can say all these things brought me joy and hope as a small child, though I didn't know why. Even as a 40 year old adult it remains difficult to talk about what hope has been given to me through parts of worlds of black music and culture that came into my life at different times and that I experienced as hope. It should not be such a hard thing to talk about as a white man and I thank you for allowing me some space here to practice gratitude but also returning to a time of wonder where in midst of life pains as well hope came and as children we marveled.
Around the time between. kindergarten and 3rd grade, my mother who was a wonderfully talented visual artist had been developing a fear that she was being stalked and persecuted by men in the community who hates her for her brilliance. I know there is no such thing as a normal family or completely safe world, but those years were a relatively comfortable childhood of wonder and discovery took on a bizarre and threatening quality. Very concerning times for me. Emotional safety always had a hint of danger to it because of my mom's belief about herself and it made me really curious about what really was going on in the world of relationships out there. In contrast to my childhood experience of my mother's mental illness and distress, hearing Motown artists through my dad's old record player and radio sang about a hope that was really comforting and encouraging to me that I really had a strong interest in finding. I didn't question it, I just was really helped a great deal.
So even though my personal family tragedies don't add much nuance to the larger historical contexts of the times or the music, it's just a reminder to me that a lot of us are given hope daily in a lot of ways and your posts helped return me to the wonder of just recieving a grace during a time of need and speaking on it and being comforted.
Of course an illness in the family doesn't resolve overnight or sometimes ever, but John's Hopkins University has a model that they developed and when I read about it last year it was such a comfort, for a person who has a mental illness that is really beautiful. First they look at the diagnosis itself, which can get very damning, clinical or pathologizing based on the model medicine uses. But then they look at that person's life story and life experiences of which everyone has different. Then their daily behaviors. Finally the personality of that person is considered, their temperament. I find that a very human and divergent thinking way to thread together my experiences of someone as important to a person as their mother that could alternately be comforting or upsetting depending on the limitations that the illness brought, but also not making excuses for difficult parts that were her authentic character and way too. Just because my mom felt or believed for some reason that she was a very important person who was being targeted by men who were jealous of her, did not mean I did not experience wonderful things too and learn great things. But it left some pain and confusion often and Motown records and oldies stations soothed that pain and offered a hopefulness about relationships and joy that I really credit today in a deep way. The embarassment and shame about family mental illnesses makes it difficult to mention, but it's my goal one day to be able to tell my story on the basis of what children go through and what as adults we have privilege and access to find answers too. I'll be forty this year and progress towards developing a voice seems slow going and some stories seem best shared in piecemeal in conversation, so I hope you do not mind my taking up space here. I'm thankful for how black artists helped me greatly as a child and I recieved that help at the time from the little world I found coming out the speakers of my father's stereo system record player and radio.
Matthew, I don’t know that you knew this, but I grew up in a home with a mom who had a mental illness too. Music was our survival.
Wow no I had no idea and did not know! Much respect to you and your childhood experience as well and thanks tremendously for the support and space in sharing mine here too. I hear you that music played a big role for resilience for you too. I realized about the time and place in my life when I started recieving hope from different places outside of my family. Thanks for being kind and understanding with the burdens I tried to lay down a little here.
✌🏾