Me with Janice

Janice and Therman are leaving today and as much as I know that continuing their journey is important and exciting to them, I don't want them to go.

Janice* My interview won't be a surprise to anybody 'cause I'm always sayin' stuff.

Jaha* They're not interviews. They're conversations.

Janice* They're just gonna say, "I know what she's talking about, herself." They're probably right. I'm gonna write the story of my life one day though.

Jaha* What's next?

Janice* That's a question?

Jaha* Umm hum.

Janice* (Pause) I'm not sure. Really. I'm not sure. This is the most peaceful I've been maybe in my life. At the beginning of the year when I realized I was turning fifty, I decided, "You know what? The next fifty years is not going to be like the first fifty. It has to be better and stronger and brighter. It just has to be." After that I was talking to Therman about the train ride.

Jaha* In January?

Janice* This was before January. About two years before then. But in January, when Therman returned and we stared talking, I said I wanted to just move away and be gone. But I knew in my heart that I wasn't ready for that. But I knew I wanted to be away this summer. I didn't know where. I didn't want to drive 'cause I'm already sick of driving a long way to work. A cruise wasn't gonna do it 'cause the longest you cruise is what, two weeks?

Then I was on the phone with Therman and he mentioned that he was gonna take a train ride with his grandson. Then my mind shouted, that's it! A train! No sooner than I thought that in my head, Therman said, "You should come." I said, "Where to?" And he said, "Wherever, just get on a train and go." I decided I wouldn't take anything related to work. Just books that I wanted to read.

This has been the most liberating that I have felt in my entire life. That's why, when you say, "Whats next?" I don't know. I don't wanna make up anything unless it's what God wants me to do.

I could not have this conversation with you without talking about Landmark.

Jaha* When did you do the Forum?

Janice* The weekend of the 19th.

Jaha* In June?

Janice* Yep. Just before I came out here. I heard from you how much I could get out of it. I knew it was going to be something intense. I was still in that frame of mind like, there has to be a shift in the way I'm living.

I was at home straightening up or something. I was talking to a friend of mine, Tim and he mentioned Landmark and I wondered if that's what you were talking about. Then I said, "I'm gonna do Landmark." This is before the whole train ride talk and everything. Anyway, it was confirmation that it was time to do that.

(We laugh at my friend's dog, Little Mama, trying to fall asleep. I'm never giving her back.)

Anyway, I'm two weeks into my travel and I pushed my train plans back a week because I wanted to do the integrity seminar and you have to be there the first night. It's been transforming. Literally.

Jaha* I wanna talk about the one woman show.

Janice* I said to myself that after I came off of this summers journey, that I would be ready. But rather than worry myself about it, I just think about whatever my mind thinks about and not force anything.

(Pause)

Jaha* What's Deon's daughter's name?

Janice* Daughter? Brooke is the wife, right? I almost wanna say Imani. Is that it?

Jaha* I don't know. I ask because I think about her. Like that's kinda who the blog is for. Our family we may never know.

Janice* Oh, I'm gonna know her. I'm gonna kiss her and hug her.

I know what I wanna do. People might think it's crazy.

Jaha* What?

Janice* I wanna marry myself.

What I wanna do is have a ceremony, October 23, with people standing with me that I know understand and believe in what I'm trying to do, why I'm trying to do it and then after that, have a party. I want to sing and make some commitments to myself out loud and have some people hold me accountable. I keep telling myself that people are gonna say, "What is she doing?" I keep trying to figure out how to tell people.

Jaha* You could say it just like that 'cause people who really understand you...

Janice* Yeah. I don't wanna be concerned about what people think about what I'm doing or not doing anymore. And this didn't start this summer. I've been trying to get to this place since Mama died. That was in '97 and it's 2009 now. The Forum is what God gave me to help me get back to that pure empty place within myself. I feel real good right here.

I wanna clean up facebook. I wanna create a questionnaire and set a deadline and whoever doesn't answer the questions, I'm deleting them. I don't wanna have facebook of a hundred friends...I'm just deleting them.

Two things I know for sure, God saved me and He set me up with this teaching position. It fit! I'm on nine months and off three. But if I could quit working, then my focus would be on holistic medicine. A practitioner of herbs, wholesome foods, exercise. Get into meditation and yoga, which is supposed to be bad.

Jaha* Meditation and yoga?

Janice* Some people feel like you're opening yourself up to...other things. So, not bad, but like...

Jaha* Like Harry Potter.

Janice* Like Harry Potter.

Before, I would not have known how to know someone who was a Buddhist or something else. But I'm done with that. I know what I believe and I am grounded and nothing can take me away from what I believe. No person, no nothing. I am confident in my relationship with Jesus Christ. If I don't have anything, I am confident in that.
Nobody can tell me I can't worship. That's just me and God and I am most comfortable there. I do worship.

Jaha* Like you will make eggs for us and say, "Maybe I didn't put in enough salt." Or sing and wonder about a note, but worship...

Janice* I don't wonder. I know I worship. Whenever I'm out of sinx and feel myself slipping into sadness or depression, I know how to get before God and get my balance back.

You used to tell me, "You don't have to have things to do, just be you." That's what I get. I don't have to have a whole lotta stuff created, cards, website...I just wanna sing. I wanna share me. I wanna do it with acting, or whatever, be it a monologue or whatever. I wanna commit to honor the gifts that God has given me. Thus my blog page. (www.janicelivingoutloud.blogspot.com) I don't wanna be silent about what I wanna do because so and so might not think that's what I should be doing.

I know the more I talk about it out loud, I am more convinced that I have just played this superficial role. I was doing church so much. Playing this role to keep their approval.

Jaha* Been there.

Janice* I'm just not doing that anymore.

Jaha* What's the song for you that gets you in that praise and worship mood?

Janice* I sing all the time. I wake up singing. I don't know that I have a particular song. For me, my worship is singing to God and so I don't know that I have a particular song. I am more about lyrics though. I do much better with songs that I can actually talk if I weren't singing them.

I want that to be a job. But the job that pays the money is what I do first. There's a lot of paperwork that comes in addition to teaching. Like preparing lesson plans. I'm working all the time. If I could create a life for myself, it would be doing holistic health. Even my friend, Danielle, she teaches health, which is what she is about. So it's like second nature to her. I could write music if I had the time to. I could create characters for my one woman show if I had the time to do that. People say, "Man, you see how tight Janet Jackson's body is?" I'm like, yeah, I could have my body that tight too if I had the time to spend eight hours a day in a gym.

At some point in my life, I don't know when it was, but I laid me down and I picked up this life that I thought would be easier or more acceptable. I see myself at St. Mark Baptist Church, in the back, where the ushers sit. I see my self looking toward the pulpit and metaphorically I turn to lay it down on the bench behind me. It's symbolic of this vision that I have. I laid it down. The vision. Acting. Someone must have said something to me about using my gifts for the world. And someone said something that made me lay it down. And it's been hard to get back there. And I don't know if I will. But I do know I'm gonna be the only one dictating.

I sit and watch Janice speak and I think, "Wow, if I had half the talent she has..." To me, Janice is one of those women most women say that about. What I want for the world is for them to hear her voice. It's like water. Clean, fresh. She sounds like an angel. And she does sing all the time. While riding in the car with her and she starts humming you quiet down just to catch it. The hum. Her hum.

Janice and I talk some more about freedom and I listen to her describe "freedom" and to me she is only describing the Janice I've always known. "Janice will say it." "Janice will do it." "Janice would go there."

But these are the limitations of "freedom" that I give to her. And who am I? Who are any of us to declare any other of us anything? So, Janice, GO! Create your world of freedom. YOUR freedom.