My speech from the 3rd Annual African-American Family Book Expo organized by Detroit Book City at Northwest Activity Center.
My mother use to work in this very building. Like any other working single mother, she had to figure out the best and most economical way to keep me safe while she worked. What better way than to bring me to a recreation center, Monday-Friday forty hours a week. Right down the hall pass the gym I spent many hours of my young life.
I even went to Schulze Elementary School around the corner from here on Santa Maria. At the end of the school day, my mother would be waiting for me. We would walk back to the building, so she could finish her work day and I could do my homework. I finished quickly so that I would have time to explore the halls for new adventures.
Since I spent so much time here during the week, I always looked forward to the weekend. The thought of not getting out the house early and Saturday morning cartoons got me through the week. After picking as many Crunch Berries out of the Captain Crunch that I could without my mother noticing, I would sit right in front of the television waiting for Batman, X-Men and Super Friends to come liven up my screen.
We only had one television and if I wasn’t interested in what my mother was watching I had to go to my room and entertain myself. When my mother wasn’t watching Star-Trek, she would watch the Hulk and Wonder Woman. That time spent watching those shows sparked my imagination along with the boredom I faced in my room with nothing else to do but read. After the books became predictable I started writing my own. My passion for a good story was satisfied with writing. I use to pretend I was a crime fighting superhero that roamed the streets of Detroit looking for bad guys.
To stop me from jumping off her furniture in the summer when school was out, my mother brought me here for camp. It was just like any other educational camp with reading, crafts and s’mores of course. One day they asked kids to create a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up. They gave us construction paper, glue, ribbon,
everything you could imagine to make these works of art. When it was time to turn in the projects the other students made houses or people in suits; mine had so much stuff on it couldn’t be recognized.
My mother had to set me down to try and decipher this Hodge podge of stuff. She asked, “Trece”, that’s my nickname. “Trece, what do you want to be when you grow up?” In my innocence I blurted out, “I want to write people.” See in my young mind I had come up with the conclusion that I could make up stories for a living and create people. I wanted to bring my imagination to life. The look on her face turned into a twisted question mark. What was wrong with what I just said? In turn for the question mark that is now plainly obvious on my face, she gets real close to me and say, “Baby, you can’t make money from that.”
Essentially what I heard her say was I couldn’t be a superhero. In the matter of one conversation my dreams where crushed. I didn’t have a backup plan. What was I going to do now that I couldn’t make people? I didn’t understand why she would just pop my bright red balloon like that. Didn’t she know how much time and energy I had put into this idea? I think I didn’t talk to her for about an hour until I got hungry and had no choice.
I thought she was being so mean, but now as an adult, I know she meant no harm. She was born in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio in an era where people of color could only be maids and railroad porter, but aspired to be doctors and lawyers. The idea of writing as a profession was unthinkable to her. Plus I know she only wanted me to be able to take care of myself.
So I set out to be normal. Whatever that meant. In between trying to figure out what I wanted my normal to look like I wrote short stories and poetry. Once I created an entire family of musician that would travel the world signing together. They were so good that they won Grammy’s, Soul Train Music Awards and NAACP Awards. My mother wouldn’t let me touch her records or her record player, so I had to use blank cassette tapes and record music off the radio. But it worked out better because I didn’t have to stop the performance to change records.
During the day I was a great student, still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. At night, my characters set my mind on fire. When I asked others for advice most of the time I would get, “to be successful find one thing you’re good at and stick with it. Learn all you can learn about that one subject and apply it.” But what happens when the one thing you want to do most is the very thing you were told not to do?
As an adult I switched from DC comics to Marvel. Yes I still like Wolverine, Storm, Batman, and Superman, face it the Marvel Universe has taken over the world. My favorite super hero is Dr. Strange. It wasn’t until I saw the symbolism in his story that he became my favorite. See at the beginning he’s this arrogant surgeon that ends up in a major car accident that robs him of the use of his hands. His life dramatically changes as he looks for ways to get back to the life he once knew. With nothing but a broken watch and the clothes on his back he discovers he was made for so much more. He discovered that the things he thought were strange or unusual or impossible were not so strange after all.
Life is too short to live in a box. You too are made for so much more than claiming your could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. I decided to revive my old aspirations. I decided it was ok for me be a super hero. To the untrained eye I look like a regular everyday person, but none the less I am a super hero.
We all have a super power. Your super power may be cooking or singing or making people laugh. My super power is writing and telling stories. Everything I do is about telling a story even if it is simply being present for a friend.
See it’s not the ability to do all things well. Your power lies in doing what you were created to do. That thing we consider shortcomings are actually gifts. The things you feel you can’t do well. The things that frighten you. The things that downright scare the crap out of you. Matter of fact, that thing that scares you to death is the very thing that gives you the most power. Standing in front of you right now terrifies me and I agonized over it.
If you don’t remember anything else about this speech please keep in mind that you are a super hero. You may not be wearing a cap, but you are doing things that make other people afraid.
You are a super hero. You have powers that you haven’t even tapped into yet. Yes you have frailty and shortcomings, but all super heroes do. For Superman it was kryptonite. For the Hulk it was his emotions.
I threw out the notion of normal. I could focus on more than one thing and be successful. The very thing I thought I couldn’t do, is the very thing I’m doing today. I love singing, be it off key. I love watching movies and creating art and taking photographs and reading history and discovering new food. I run a newspaper and a magazine. On top of all this, “I write people” for a living.
You are never too old to follow your dreams. There is someone out there waiting for you to do or say the thing that is in your heart. Start today.
TJ Omotayo 