Crowdfunding zen

Seed&Spark campaign got the 'Green Light' yesterday. This means we were able to raise at least 80% of our funds. My producing partner and I are making a final push for the full 100%.

We are overjoyed by the generosity.

Gimme a moment to tell you what this means to me:

When I was younger I'd sometimes tell people that I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up. Fully understanding that this was the right thing to want to be.

Intimately aware that I wanted to be a writer & an actress.

Every time I answered with lawyer it made the adults proud of me; made my immigrant mother proud of me; taught me that there was something wrong with the profession I wanted to pursue. Something unachievable about it.

The whole enterprise was a waste of time.

Because when I think about what it took for my Grandmother to come to the US from #Haiti & the many years it took for my parents, aunts & uncles to build a foundation for themselves--the creative pursuits seemed frivolous & silly. The sliver of non-white representation on TV made the goal seem insurmountable.

People like me couldn't get there.

So I crumpled up the desire not even considering it a possibility.

By observing the lives lived around me, I learned by cautious & loving example that in order to capitalize on the sacrifices of THE ANCESTORS I had to seek a life of stability & security.

Fast forward: I never tried to pursue the lawyer thing. Stuffing away my creative impulses became uncomfortable enough that I HAD to give this acting thing a go. Soon after, the desire to write re-emerged.

Because forward momentum in the arts can't be measured in a way that makes sense to achievement goalposts, I doubted myself & my abilities even in the face of success.

Through #crowdfunding I was gifted this lesson:

When I cling to the idea of security (whatever that means in the moment), I suffer. In my life when I've taken leaps of faith that have felt affirming in some way things have always worked out.

Took me some time to get there, but I'm so glad I did. 🧘🏾‍♀️❤️ Thank you again to everyone who pledged to the campaign; offered an encouraging word; didn't stop following me. :)

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