(“Here But I’m Gone”)

(“Can’t Say Nothin’ “)

I was standing near the back of the auditorium and could barely see him. It wasn’t the distance blinding me, it was the nearness of being so moved to my core. So. . . I mean I just stood there in all my big-ass male blackness and damn near cried–indeed, did actually leak tears blurry in my eyes. Curtis in a wheelchair graciously accepted some award and all I could do was silently bawl like, well, like, what they say, just like a lil baby.

(“Oh So Beautiful”)

Sometimes something smothers me. Comes from I don’t know where and before I know it I am thinking about a lot of different things, all at the same time. A flood of memories, a flood of feelings, an embarrassment of life issues rushing through. Uncontrollable. Almost as fresh as the moments when they were born.

(“Tripping Out”)

(“So In Love”)

(“I’m So Proud”)

Vivian and me, city park. Me walking the half a block down the street with a forty-five record in my hands to present to her like a bouquet of flowers, it was my bouquet, a handful of my flowering love. We all been there or wished we had been so in love that at that moment nothing else existed. Her voice. Her smile. Her. She. Standing there, in front of me, so shook, all I could say was “here” and smile. And hope she would return my smile. And she did. And thinking, damn near pledging, I never wanted this bliss to end. And. But of course it did. Life always does. Every life that has a beginning, inevitably has an ending.

(“Hard Times”)

(“I Plan To Stay A Believer”)

So somehow, we don’t really remember how, can never really know how, but nevertheless, somehow we survive and go on, grow on, hopefully to better things, but even when the journey don’t get no better, we turn the corner and stumble away, stumble forward, events push us on, some other sun shines down. Life.

(“Back To The World”)

(“Back To Living Again”)

Up and down the hills in south korea. A soldier walking up a mountain, breathing deeply, past people in the fields, headed to the mountaintop base, singing that mayfield song, keep on pushing. There is so much of me in every step I make, to this day every yesterday lives within me, simply but not simplistically surging, sweeping me up like lifting up a child or a bag of groceries or hugging/helping someone you love to make it another further. They could be down and you literally hold them up. Curtis was always a soundtrack for all of that, all those seldom expressed feelings he could somehow identify and give sound to, could capture and share with us, share in such a way that it was personal to us, our life, all the movements we had ever made, have ever thought about making. Curtis. Curtis Mayfield. My man.

(“Do Do Wap Is Strong In Here”)