YESTERDAY IN OAKLAND was beautiful, and no joke, too. People who know me know I am very spontaneous, dont like to plan a lot of things out, given part of my life is already deeply scheduled with speeches, writing, meetings, etc. Decided only hours before to drive myself from Stanford Univ to Oaklands Lake Merritt to run my 13plus miles there, since I could not make it to Big Sur for the half marathon I had signed up for. The first time I ever visited Oakland, way back in the early 1990s, I sat at Lake Merritt alone for what felt like hours just staring into space. At that time I was a very young poet and journalist, trying to figure out my life. I was in awe of the fact that Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, had lived right near Lake Merritt. People say a lot about Oakland but there is no denying its layers and layers of rich political and cultural history, of working-class and middle-class people making life happen, against all odds. For some reason I was very very very sore after running Lake Merritt loop several times yesterday, and also started sneezing like mad. So I just sat in my car and people watched for a long period. Someone who lives in these parts would remind me later that the Bay Area has many micro climates, meaning while I was running with no problem in Palo Alto, at Stanford, my body was adjusting and reacting to the difference of running in the East Bay, in Oakland. My friend Dave Davey D-Oakland hipped me to his gym right at Lake Merritt and man I sat in that steam room trying my best to get out of my system whatever was making me sneeze so much. I thought a lot, also, about these many months of training for the New York City Marathon, how I could now add Oakland to the many cities in which I have run miles in preparation. Running is hard, and this training has been no joke. I cannot say for sure I am going to continue to be a runner on this scale after the NYC Marathon. I miss riding my bicycle and my skateboard, miss other kinds of exercises I did regularly but had to stop for fear of getting injured before the marathon, like playing basketball. But boy do we runners get injuries regardless. During the course of this year I have hurt my back, and Ive had severely sore calves and achilles and feet. Yoga has been a lifesaver as maintenance to go with all the running, and while here in Cali these next two weeks I am definitely hitting up an acupuncturist and a massage therapist. I have been riding a bicycle since I was a kid, and have put many miles out there on a bike, but nothing compares to what a runner does, because it is just you, your body as the machine, nothing else. I have thought many days back to my high school years when I ran cross country and loved it, of the days we spent in Summer months running in the hot Jersey sun just to get ready for the Fall cross country season. After recovering at Daveys gym I drove to East Oakland, to an historic barbershop called Cuts and Bends Hair Center on Foothill Boulevard, referred to me by another friend, Cheo Tyehimba Taylor. Cheo was right: This space, run by an elder man named Mr. Hogans, is part hair cutting and part African American museum. Cuts and Bends is loaded with books, posters, newspaper clippers, and so much more, on the walls, on the floors, even in every nook of the bathroom. You walk in and you immediately see images of Paul Robeson, Tupac Shakur, Muhammad Ali, Dr. King, Malcolm X. Mr. Hogans said to me Some people say this is junk when I told him how much I loved all he had accumulated and saved. As he gave me a shape-up Mr. Hogans and I talked much about the history of Oakland, a city he has lived in since 1956, about gentrification, about Black leadership and community empowerment, about the importance of knowing ones history. We went back and forth completing each others sentences about various historical facts. Mr. Hogans was especially happy to hear I had gone to Rutgers University, the same college as the great Paul Robeson (please look him up if you do not know who I am referring to). I was especially happy to learn Mr. Hogans had been born in Natchez, Mississippi, the same hometown as one of my favorite writers ever, Richard Wright. When I shared with Mr. Hogans that I was both a writer and an activist he became even more enthusiastic and asked about my books, and my opinions on various topics. I love our elders, love talking with and listening to them, and duly note when they appreciate, with great sincerity, younger people who respect history and culture as they do. I ended my day with with a date with a really brilliant and beautiful woman who lives in Oakland. I rarely go on dates, honestly, and even rarer for me to even mention such on social media. So if a date happens for me that means she really must be amazing on all levels. This woman is. Does not mean anything is going to happen. I have no idea. But I do feel, as a lot of us discussed love last week in response to one of my posts, that love and partnership do not happen if we are not out there trying. Be mad selective and do not just go out on dates with any and everyone—NO WAY—but try if you feel something. Be open to that. Finally, without question, the Bay Area is absolutely my favorite part of America other than New York City, which I will forever be in love with. There are so many sides to the Bay, both good and bad, like anywhere else. But there is also a magic here I have experienced these 20 years or so of coming this way again and again and again. It only makes sense that the Bay has given the rest of the U.S. so much in terms of community, politics, health and wellness, spirituality, art, culture, sports, media, change, resistance to oppression and discrimination and hatred, significant rethinking around environment, education, and on and on. Yes, I will live here one day, I can pretty much guarantee that or, at the least, have a space here to go with my home back in the NY—
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:13:04 +0000
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