At first I didn’t think I was going to be able to embed this, and so I thought: it’s 20 minutes, and if I send people away from this I’ll wait…but it’s not likely anyone will see this and actually come back to read what trivial things I have to say about it.
Thank goodness I figured out how to embed this. Now you have to read what trivial things I have to say about it.
For starters, it’s amazing that this woman is able to speak as quickly and as eloquently as she does. Given, she’s a spoken word poet and that’s the whole point of what she does, or her core competency, or what have you. But that’s beside point.
The beginning of the talk, the poem about her daughter, is the single most impressive thing I’ve ever heard in support of “the best way” to raise a child should I ever be lucky (or unlucky) enough to have one. The unwavering sureness of what she’s saying, the way she is so unfathomably ready to raise a child she doesn’t and may never have, is incomprehensible…but somehow, it resonates. It makes sense.
She goes on to talk about how she was inspired by things, such unimpressive things in the grand scale of things…people who told her that they heard and felt what she said and propelled her to keep saying more. How she somehow found a way to be heard, as a young person, and turned that into something more than just influence.
Then she goes on to talk (in that same unwavering and unbroken eloquence) about how she fosters young people to express themselves regardless of how interesting they find themselves to be because, in someone’s eyes, everyone is interesting. Even me…at least, to those of you who are still reading. (Thanks.)
She goes even further as to recite another poem about how as a child she understood very little about the world. How she understood so little but was unafraid to attempt to affect so much regardless of the outcome. It’s unsurprising that she has a sense of how she wants to raise her daughter if she ever has one.
I’ve never had a moment in my life where I felt so sure of something as she appears to feel during this talk. It’s almost as if nothing I’ve ever strived for or imagined to be true has ever been as important. It probably hasn’t. But what’s also true is that after hearing this I imagine that someday, something I strive for will be this important. Something I accomplish will be this powerful to me and to the people who see it, feel it. Something I do will affect someone this deeply and when it does, I’ll know it.
I’ll know it.
That will be my daughter. Whenever she comes around.
March 21, 2011
