While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

*****

“Death isn’t the only way to die though it can be argued that it’s the most merciful.”
———Hanif Abdurraqib
——--There’s Always This Year

My father waited like a sniper at the end of the dark hallway in our house, on his knees wearing an Afro wig and a backwards fur coat. What showed up most clearly in the shadows were Dad’s malicious red eyes and the partial plate he’d pushed halfway out of his mouth for fangs. On his knees put him eye level with my baby brother who was about to enter the hall from the opposite end, coming from the sunlit kitchen into the sadistic gloom.

I should have stepped into the hallway to block my baby brother’s view of Dad—our father who enjoyed the sound of his own son screaming for his life.

Because I was a coward, my brother screamed and lost his balance and fell on the floor hard and screamed again, and it kills me that I did not protect my baby brother from our sniper father.

And it kills me.
And it kills me.
And it kills me.

While working on Stumbling toward the Buddha, 10th Anniversary Edition, I listened to music while I wrote. This was a first for me. I usually demanded silence while I worked, even wearing noise-canceling headphones.

My audiologist and my sister brought music into my writing life.

Hearing aids turned me into a spy. I could hear conversations on airplanes flying above my house. I heard an eighteen-wheeler rumble past out house and then realized it was my stomach growling. I eavesdropped on treetop bird chatter until robins dive-bombed me to get some privacy.

When the audiologist told me I would become accustomed to hearing aids, and sounds would start to fade into the background, I was disappointed. I was a junkie for sound. She told me to introduce it in other ways, such as music.

My sister Michelle, a professional gospel star and longtime Bey, turned me on to Beyoncè and Beethoven.
Because you’re supposed to stop writing to refuel the brain with art, I introduced music into my routine. I scheduled afternoon listening sessions, lay on the couch to refuel creativity with acoustic art. Then late one afternoon, there was no time left for both writing and listening. So I tried them simultaneously.

I wrote better (you be the judge of that). I slept better, too.

While I composed the Author Notes for Stumbling, the following albums burrowed into my prose.

• Bach: Unaccompanied Cello Suites (Yo-yo Ma)

There were times, reflecting back from ten years later, that I uncovered aspects of myself I would preferred to have left covered. Dismay spilled over into embarrassment spilled over into confusion spilled over into guilt spilled over into anger spilled over into hatred spilled over into despair spilled over into hopelessness. I couldn’t hold it all. The cello enfolded me. Together, we wept.

• Breaths (Sweet Honey in the Rock)

Rage argued I should incinerate the white male patriarchy for a few pages, but I was supposed to be writing reflections. I was supposed to be vulnerable. I needed to chanel the rage, so I closed the laptop, staged my own protest march around the living room, and belted out “I’m Gon” Stand.”

• Cowboy Carter (Beyoncé)

Many of the author notes considered the subject of identity. When did my Blackness affect an incident? In which situations was it irrelvant? Cowboy Carter demonstrated that every creation from a Black artist is an expression of Blackness. Beyoncé inspired me to be my genuine self.

• Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas (Carmen Piaazzini)

My energy dragged midafternoon as usual, but I felt the urge to write. On a whim, instead of downing a Diet Coke, I streamed Mozart. When caffeinated, I was tense with obsession as in, I will finish this essay, dammit; no matter what. I shoved words onto the page. With the rippling piano runs of Mozart’s allegros, words paraded onto the page of their own free will.

• My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall (Various Black women artists)

I expected twang. But the vibration was kind of church-y. And then something more mournful than me on a bad writing day. And then the spoken word “XXXs And OOOs” made me bounce like I’d listened to hip hop all my life. Country written and sung by Black women. No twang nowhere. Alice Randall exploded my preconceptions. What better gift for a writer?

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

******************

“He smiled but it was all mouth and no eyes.”
———Kalynn Bayron
———The Poison Heart

I posed on a hillside that overlooked Beverly Hills, the summer sun in my eyes, while a photographer snapped my photos. It was creepy, alone out there with a man I didn’t know, but he and his wife had invited my parents for the weekend. The invitation included something about me modeling for the husband.

I was seventeen, doing what I was told to do. Shy to the point of comatose, I’d been sick with intimidation all morning. The two-hour drive down 101 in our beat-up car to visit their rich white friends, the canyon road that wound uphill to their house with a view, the wife hugging me like we we friends.

My hand trembled as I tried to drink the proffered Perrier without spilling on my new sundress, a lime green beauty speckled with white daisies. Princess lines. Empire waist. Built-in bra. Pretty and crisp, it was my Audrey Hepburn dress.

The photographer suggested outdoor shots, so drove the two of us to a clearing overlooking the city. After positioning me, he backed away, holding his camera in front of his face. Every few clicks of the shutter, he gave me instructions, his disembodied voice floating on the breeze.

“One foot forward. That’s nice”

Grass tickled my bare feet.

Click, click, click.

“Turn a little sideways. Good.”

My right arm felt the chill of a shadow.

Click, click, click.

“Look over your shoulder. Lovely.”

Click, click, click.

Sun warmed my face as I looked into the lens.

“Slip your top down.”

The fabric scratched when I squirmed out of Audrey Hepburn.

He moved the camera away from his face and smiled.