Me with Journey Johnson

This conversation is a bit different from others here on this blog. The difference is that I have never met Journey, face to face anyway. In fact, the first time I heard Journey's rhythmic voice was when we spoke for this blog. So why Journey Johnson?

We met on Facebook. I was very connected to her poetry and her daily posts were much of how I was feeling on the same days. I knew that we would have an interesting conversation so I sent her a message asking her if she would do it. Well, with little, very little, back and forth, she agreed.

We started the conversation talking about the show Hoarders. I had just watched the Hoarders marathon and we talked about the psychology of a hoarder. Poet psychology.

JJ* You know how you go in most people's homes and the livingrooms are clean, but then the closets are messy. Like that's reflecting the mind. What must be going on in the mind of a hoarder?

---I wanted to ask what her closets looked like. I didn't because although the vibe was cool and talking to her felt like I was talking to someone I had known for many years, the fact was, this was still our first conversation. I didn't want her to think I was too weird. As if she couldn't tell that from my own Facebook posts. But oddly, I'm interested in what people's clostes look like.

J* Where are you from?

JJ* Hawaii.

---I wasn't expecting her to say Hawaii because she has such a beautiful texture and pattern to her voice. Like Carribean and something else, I couldn't figure it out.

J* Really? OK. I guess that explains the boogie boarding.

---In one of our back and forths about setting time and date for the conversation, she mentioned that she would be available on a certain day because the only thing she had scheduled was to go boogie boarding with her son.

J* I thought that was so cool that you were boogie boarding with your son.

JJ* (She laughed) Don't give me too much credit. I didn't go that far out.

---Still, that's way cool. We then talked about our children and the shared stories we have of her daughter, my son sitting in green rooms and in audiences of poetry shows.

JJ* My daughter, on the front row, clapping too early.

---Laughter.

J* I like that profile picture of you on Facebook. I love the story it tells. The story I think it tells. Freedom. But freedom by choice. Not because everything is all good but because you just decided "hey, I'm gonna have a good day." Love the story of your feet up, the wine bottle, all of it.

JJ* Yeah, that's the story. I used to smoke. I tried to quit for a long time and I came across a woman who said that if I wanted to quit smoking then I had to quit drinking too.

J* Whoa!!!

JJ* Yep.

J* Did you?

JJ* Yeah. Begrudgingly. And I loved my wine. She saw that picture and edited it and took out the cigeratte and the wine. But I left it in there. I've been many a fucked up person and I've loved every fucked up person I've been. We shouldn't distance ourselves from who we are.

J* Or who we've been.

What do you do now?

JJ* There is a quote from Walter Reedy that says, "I found out the dirt wasn't dirty. Just brown." I was in Texas, outside to see the sun. 'Cause I don't miss the sunset. Anyway, I saw this tree on a flatbed. It was a very big tree. While I was looking at it, I felt like I was looking at a corpse.

Now, I'm planting. I'm giving back to the earth.

---I took a very short break from writing and recording our conversation to be with and be in the conversation deeper. This happended a few times while we talked. I do hope that Journey will consider talking and sharing with me again and letting me post the conversation. Reader, please forgive the breaks. Flow with us please. Flow with us.

JJ* People were giving me credit for things I had done but was no longer doing.

J* Like what?

JJ* I was in Texas and a young man came up to me and said, "You're Journey, right?" I said, "Yes." He told me about a poem I had written and that it changed his life and his writing and how he looked at writing.

For many people, that would make them feel good but for me...it didn't.
I didn't want to live in the past. Many people do that though.

When I was in college I said I was going to be an artist full time for rich or for poor. And I was ready for poor.

I started a paper for artists called, The Village Pulpit. There was no art around.

J* Where was that?

JJ* Texas. There was no art and I wanted to see art. I wanted to read. The paper was a selfish thing. I wanted to read and see art.

Remember that movie, Slam?

J* Yeah.

JJ* After that movie came out, we were sitting around watching it. Spoken word was new to me. Spoken word to me was something done privately and alone. Like prayer.

J* Haaaa! I love it. Like prayer.

JJ* I started doing spoken word to promote the paper. I got a group together called "The hungry poets." We were going to be called "The starving artists," but none of us could paint.

---Another break here to allow for some off the record conversation.

---We got on the subject of perfoming in prisons.

J* I always tripped at how attentive the audiences were there.

JJ* Yeah. I remember once, (she laughs lightly) I was setting up chairs. I'm short. 5'2" and I just put the half in there. Anyway we were there to perform in the prison and I was setting up the chairs when this big girl came up to me. She said, "What do you do? Do you sing?" I said, "No." "Rap?" "No." "Well, what?" "Poetry. I'm a poet." She said, "Aw, shit!"

But I performed this piece. (The theme, as I remember was abuse, and heavy. Note to self here to ask Journey if she still as the poem and if she would send it so that I can post it. Please.)

The people we were performing for appreciated us being there. Later, they put on a show for us. The big girl. The one who didn't even want to hear poetry at first, well, she was inspired by the piece that I wrote and wrote one herself. Telling her story of abuse.

---There was a pause here. For me, the pause was for the young girl's story. Abuse. Sex too soon. Strangers. Hard paths. Tired of hearing this story. So tired of it being our story.

J* I read the poem you posted on Facebook, Siren's cry. Where did that come from?

JJ* All the tears I cry. It comes from a lot of places. Conversations. Being fucked up. I was having a conversation three days prior to writing it about rape. Molestation. The violence of it all.

J* (Shaking my head) I don't know a woman who this hasn't happened to. Damn.

JJ* Yeah. And the men, they go on with their lives.

J* They go on with their lives. (I repeated her statement resisting being triggerd by it. But I am. Kinda. Still there is a part of me that wants to believe that they are affected by it. They have to be if we are. Right?)

JJ* The men go on with their lives. (She repeated the statement and I wondered what she was thinking. I didn't ask though.) Why is that though? Why do they go on with their lives? Why is it that when women are raped the men don't speak up? And the women who speak up are really speaking up for when we didn't speak up for ourselves. Why don't the men speak up? What is this bitch move?

I asked that on Facebook. I sent it to men and I wanted answers. Some people said that they liked the question. Liked the question? It wasn't fucking rhetorical. I did want answers. I got some too. Some interesting ones. I understood from some of them that it wasn't that easy. You know? Some women acusing and false accusing and being on the other end of that and...just not that easy. But...(and I understand the other end of the but. It's never that easy. Nothing worth it ever is.)

And when I look for where this started I go back to back in the day when we first let "bitches" and "hos" and "sluts" on the radio and at first we were like, "it's just entertainment." But no.

J* But no.

---We took a break from bitches and hos and sluts and rape. Just a short one. And went back to art. Sort of.

JJ* Remember the rap songs back in the day that were so materialistic? (She laughed) If you have the fuckin' shoes, wear 'em. Don't stand around talking about your fucking laces. (Funny!)

J* Money don't wear money.

JJ* I read an interview with Sonya Sanchez and she was talkin' about people being in such a rush to put out a book. She was saying to wait and read and develop. Once you put a book out, it's out there. Forever.

I was thinking about this time once, when I was getting dressed to go to this poetry slam on the volcano and... (ok, here, my ears had to play catch up because she just said poetry slam on the volcano like anything happening on a volcano was usual.)

J* Wait, a volcano?

JJ* Yeah.

J* OK.

JJ* I had been away from slam for a long time. I walked in this place and there were all these people. Older people, mostly white. I was a stranger in my own place. I listened to this poem. There were mellow poems, shopping lists, (we cracked up here because we are both familiar with the shopping list poems, not that there's anything wrong with that. Still laughing.) Anyway, I was waiting for the Slam to begin. During the half time or, break, the mc told people to share, talk to people, mingle. I was like, "mingle?" I don't wanna talk! I don't wanna mingle! I got out of there and into my truck so fast. (We laughed again. There was a lot of laughing.)

I'm just tired of poets sounding like every other poet. You know that sound? That...sound?

J* Yeah, I know it!

---I did my rendition of Every Other Poet
(Whisperyelling) Reaching under yellow blue moons and pink purple
skies I see rooooooose petaaaaaaalllls...
Well, I don't know how that translates in print, but...that's the vibe.

JJ* Why would a poet try to sound like anybody else? I mean, your poems are your tears, your sweat, your DNA. When you write the poem, it's yours. So why the fuck does it sound like everybody? Don't be so fuckin' lazy, man! you disrespect your soul.

When I hear that sound I get this internal ucky! (Yes, she said internal ucky and yes, I laughed my ass off.)

J* I know what you mean. I think about how I have evolved as a poet and what I've evolved into. I am just no longer the poet who needs to stand on stage and set herself on fire. These days I'm just much much more into the word. I need a music stand for my words and a place to put my reading glasses when they start making my ears hurt.

JJ* Haaaa haaa. (I didn't know if she was laughing at me or with me. And it didn't matter.) The sugar is the fire (delivery), and the substance is the word. When I was living in New York I lived in Park Slope and I used to go to hear poetry at Ozzy's Cafe. At the time, I was a child used to sugar and they just stood there and read poetry. But then I started to really appreciate it.

Your art is not for the art community. You have to take the time to see the world outside of you. (I love that.)

---Here I stopped taking notes and we talked. More and more. Just what I needed. My dog, Brandy, started barking and we got on the subject of animals and how I don't like cats. Really, I'm just afraid of them.

JJ* Why?

J* Because I'm afraid that they will be casually walking by and then suddenly jump up and scratch me in the face.

JJ* Weeeeell, I can't say that they won't. But I love cats. They're real.

---So I'm a Virgo and I overanalze everything.

J* I think I don't like cats because that's who I am. I'm a cat.

JJ* In what way?

J* I will walk casually by and then suddenly jump up and scratch.

JJ* I don't see that, but when someone tells you who they are...believe them.

---I thought about why I said that about myself and sat with it for a minute. I thought about dreams I've been having lately. Dreams about stress building. Dreams about letting go. Letting it all out. Somehow. Perhaps the statement and the dreams are a warning to me that being casual aint always so cool.

Maybe this isn't the blog for this but when the revelations pop up they pop up. I thought about how I walk around keeping a lid on it, knowing it's there.

I grew up a nice girl. I had to be nice. Sweet. I'm still like that in a lot of ways. Too many ways. I criticize myself for letting it out in slow hisses. Fuck Fuck Fuck. Listening to Journey reminded me too much of myself. Fucking this, fucking that. Fuck is my slow hiss. My reminder to let it, all of the its, out more and more. Somehow, in our conversation, I became less and less afraid of cats. Less and less afraid of myself.

Thank you Journey. For the journey. For your words, wisdom, laughter, poetry, path. Thank you. Until later.