Got 4 hours of sleep at Li’s momma’s house in Philly. Woke up with enough time to look around at pictures, and saw that my girl Li is the “model” on the cover of LONGING TO TELL: Black women talk about sexuality and intimacy by Tricia Rose! How on earth does one become a book cover model?! Only Li would know… We wake up to see highlights of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination. Li’s mom is amazed that we – women with social, political, economic, environmental, and spiritual transformation at the heart of what we do – missed what most deem a moment in history. I don’t want to tell her we missed Michelle and Hilary’s speeches. And I dare not tell anyone I didn’t see any part of the Olympics.

There’s no time to shower; a four hour set up ahead of us. I tell Alixa “I am going to be hella skinny by the end of the tour with all the exercise I’m getting from setting up, eating humus and pita, and constant running.” She says, “Yeah, I always lose weight when I’m on tour.” *gasp* (FYI: she’s tiny as all hell, though she likes to boast that she’s a giant next to her people) New diet? Touring with ClimbingPoeTree.

The Rotunda. Lips chapped, mouth dry, and definitely not dressed for “world changing”, I begin greeting guests. Time has slipped by as we set up and doors have officially opened – AAAAHHHHHH! Philly’s organizer for Hurricane Season is the one that tells us another hurricane is coming – straight for New Orleans. It is the three year anniversary, we are performing the first night of the tour, and a hurricane is coming for New Orleans?! We realize we are missing so much of what’s happening in the world by not getting a newspaper, reading anything online, or watching television.

It is my job to greet people as they come in, preparing them for a ritual of a modified form of libation, then to welcome everyone and open the show, then dismiss them to intermission, then greet them upon completion of intermission, and last close out the show and facilitate the solution-cipher. So once the opening sequence begins, and my nervous jitters had just dissipated after welcoming over 100 people, my heart jumps – in approximately 1:30 minutes I’ll be on stage again.

There’s so much in Naima & Alixa’s poetry, and now additionally, their multi-media piece. I’ve seen it 3 times and cry each time. I am inspired each time I hear it. I learn something new each time it hear it. I am excited by the possibility of learning each and every poem by heart and knowing every fact that is revealed in the piece.

We return to Li’s for a good night’s sleep and have to wake up to break down the set the next morning. I felt like I was in “Groundhog Day”, it all felt like I’d done it before. As we break down a set that has taken us 5 hours to do in the past, Lindsay (aka Pippi Longstocking due to her “don’t you worry about me; I always come out on top” attitude) books an appointment to have our brakes fixed. We miss it. We’re still swerving. She’s freaking out.

Off to spend the night with a friend, her husband, and two amazing kids (Phoebe and Morgan), with vegetable oil strapped to the back of Sugarcube (the name of our white tour bus) we speak to folks asking us about our bus and the exposed oil as we bump along the cobble-stoned streets of old Philadelphia. When we finally get to the house, all but Pippi and I go to bed for a nap. When they awake from their slumber we talk of Ted.com, verichipcorp.com, and bean-eating and its implications on cramped tour buses. After they fall asleep I’m up considering how lean I’ll be, having my babies in another country so I can forge “vaccine” documents instead of my kids getting chips implanted in their bodies, thinking how did Li manage to get on the cover of a book, knowing that evidence shows 90% of y’all will peruse my blog, 9% will actually leave something for me at some point, and a measly 1% will actually make sure I know I’m loved and heard… oh well.

Day 3

Kyla (aka Bobby Fischer or Fisch for short) goes out with camera & business cards to talk to community members about what unnatural disasters they are facing. This footage will be used for the documentary of HURRICANE SEASON: hidden messages in water. She comes back to the house, hella excited! While speaking to folks, she meets Matt, a recent evacuee from New Orleans. A sister Fisch interviews tells her that housing is a major problem, that homes have been turned into empty lots and she isn’t sure of what is planned for the now empty land. She said that the police were given more money and a program called Beacon that provided activities for youth, was stripped of funding. What is probable when a society directs more money to policing and incarcerating than educating and stimulating?…

And the ladies of HURRICANE SEASON begin to ask ourselves, are we successfully building community with this huge undertaking? Are we preaching to the choir or are we informing and inspiring the communities most in need of movement building?…

And off we head to Pittsburgh… with a major monkey wrench in the game.

Come back to hear about our adventures at Blue Mountain Travel Center!

It’s 15 years (almost to the day), and I’m off on a new adventure – a national tour with Climbing PoeTree, HURRICANE SEASON: Hidden Messages in Water. It’s been a long time coming. Three and a half months on the road, five women, an extraordinary mission. And I was to pack everything I needed such that it’d fit in 17 x 24 x 15 dimensions… Yeah – RIGHT!

Background…

After leaving Landmark and receiving the best training money can’t buy, I took one year and became a partner in DOPE SWAN, co-founder of The Re:Construction Period, and restarted my children’s clothing company – Phefeni Childrenswear. In this year, after saying yes to going on tour I have finally been able to articulate what I believe I am on the planet to do, and I began taking actions consistent with that.

Fast forward…

In the days leading up to leaving Brooklyn for Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Ann Arbor, Chicago… ahhh you get the picture – I was all over the place! I wanted to see everyone I knew I would miss. I did everything BUT pack and clean my apartment. The thing needing my attention most? Laundry. I’d gone almost 5 months without washing clothes… YES! I have THAT many clothes… plus it’s the summer time, less is more! (oh quit your mental yapping!) The night before I am to leave I still haven’t washed clothes or packed, I … cleaned and organized so that whomever would be subletting would WANT to stay in my apartment. My girl Ashley and my homie Lyshaan stopped by to bid me adieu, to discover I had 8 loads of laundry sitting in the middle of my floor. So they graciously pack me and my 8 garbage bags full of clothes into Lyshaan’s Range. Oh… what a sight to see! Ash begins immediately taking pictures for the Minority Report NYC blog of the pile. Hilarious! Thank god for me it was 3AM and could put all eight loads in at the same time. So I got it all done in the span of one load… pretty dope. Two hours of sleep and I’m back up. Cleaning. Again. Next thing I know my homie Ayinde is over; bringing me a book turned into a three hour “help Sallome” period. In which time, my cabinet above my stove straight threw itself off of the wall in an apparent attempt to somehow prevent me from having anyone over to look at the apartment to sublet it!!! I couldn’t be bothered. I had a bus to catch!

In the time between leaving my apartment for the last time until December 14th (with my 17 x 24 x 15 dimension-ed packing) and meeting the ladies to head to Philly I: A) had my myspace deleted – ON ACCIDENT (with ALL my photos of friends and family I saved in albums no one has seen but me, all gone), B) left my best friend with hella clothes to take to Goodwill, C) realized that I’d only had about 6 hours of sleep in 3 (going on 4) days, D) got stuck in an elevator at W14th for about 8 minutes trying to come above ground from off the train, E) realized I hadn’t eaten a thing in over 48 hours, and F) dawned on me that it was my ex-love’s wedding day.

I nearly cried when I saw Kyla (our resident documentarian for HS) and our beautifully painted tour bus (it’s what used to be a mini school bus, painted white, with gorgeous stenciled birds and spray painted water on the back and sides – oh I’ll get you a picture!). There were Lindsay (our grease mechanic who also aided in converting our former diesel run bus into a vegetable-oil run one), Li, and SummerLee looking all greasy (lol) putting hella vegetable oil in the bus.

Oh but the fun doesn’t end there…! On our way out of New York (over 12 hours late) we discovered we had a steering wheel, tire, and weight issue – swerving to and fro along the interstate. Close to our destination, Lindsay had to pound the break and nearly kill us because a deer gingerly strode across the highway! Somehow we started singing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s theme song, and then Li (known for her outstanding one-liners), in describing how to reach her mom’s home says, “FOLLOW THE YELLOW LIGHTS, AND VEER TO YOUR RIGHT.” Classic. Story of my life.

I intend during the course of this trip to let all my friends and family know how the tour is going, what I’m learning, and what difference I believe I am making for others through this blog. I hope you enjoy the trip as much as I.

Thanks for all the well wishes! oh! and if you have any pics of me/us, please send em… I’m fresh out!