I have so many reading comprehension quirks and grammar fuckedupnesses. I had to get a tutor my first year of college because professors were like, “we know you have something strong to say, but we can’t quite understand it.” Jack would mark my papers so red and read me for filth for all my dash marks. I wouldn’t know where to put commas and semicolons and shit so I’d just put a dash mark everywhere. All this while I just knew deep down I am a writer, I am a writer even if no one understand me. Jack was determined to get me together, which is why you can half way read what I’m writing right now, though I’m sure it’s filled with mistakes. And looking back from notebooks of stories, and endless games of make pretend, and having jazzy read to me by candlelight. From piddling through journalism in high school, and creative writing, and nearly failing AP English because I wanted to write about The Color Purple but I just struggled and struggled with how to take something so epic and synthesize it into small bites. And my teacher would be blown away to know that some day that same student grew up and met Alice Walker and interviewed her and got love from her. I’ve felt home here in this word world even when I didn’t fit in and in some ways still don’t. I know there’s something sacred for me in this space. And I know what stories do to me and for me and for others. I joined a writing group that was very much a support group. I took a class with Toby where we had to read a novel a week and then the next semester a play a week and and write a letter to her each these classes about what we read. I struggled. I’m not great on deadlines. But I lived for this class. It’s why I made it through the semester and why I woke up some mornings. I have pen pals. I write letters to. Some letters I am the Eagles 2022, some letters I am the Eagles 1936. At the same time my comprehension is wavy AF. I see things in texts that are sometimes not there. Or I miss things completely that are obvious. It’s such a contradiction in some ways that I have bookshops because I read very slow and I don’t memorize authors and I categorize in ways that only make sense to me and I have to read some passages over and over and over again for days. My mom, who is the opposite, was irritated with me once because she was like if I have to hear the first chapter of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings again, Jeannine. And mind you I’m listening to Maya Angelou read it while I read along from the book because you have to hear her voice read and then you can hear it forever in your spirit. Again—because I have issues. Sometimes because I just admire the sheer beauty, sometimes because I am getting 3 or 4 different interpretations—sometimes because I have NO idea what’s being said. Like right now I’m reading a book about wool. Yes wool. I am not great with clocks and time. I’ve always had my head in the clouds. I write like a cloud hopping goose flying from thought to thought. If I could, I’d stop the clocks sometimes and just let folks catch up on all the stories we’ve missed out on. I bet it would help. Nomi said I’ll hold your hand until the day you complete this memoir even if it never comes out to the public. Now that’s love. So yea with all that I’m published here and there. Bookshops here and there. Interviewing authors here and there. Walking Baldwin’s footsteps here and there. Invited to libraries and collections here and there. I even gave the graduation speech when I got my MFA one year later than my cohort. So yes, it’s an understatement, but I do know why the caged bird sings—I think.