I grew up shelving books on bookcases built by my father. They stood, floor to ceiling, on either side of the fireplace, which had above it a mantle crafted by the same man: a veteran of two tours in the Vietnam War, working out his demons by sawing, carving, and hammering wood into the shape of his will. Making beauty to escape his psyche's torment. My father bought an encyclopedia set, which filled an entire row on the left of the fireplace. I repeatedly reached for D and H, to learn about breeds of dogs and horses, respectively. M was my gateway into the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The bookcase on the right of the fireplace was filled with paperbacks, including children's chapter books, issues of Readers' Digest, and books for grownups my parents had acquired but that I had never seen them read. Black & White: Stories of American Life, an anthology including works by Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner (Washington Square Press, 1971), and The Woman and the Men: Poems by Nikki Giovanni (William Morrow and Company, 1975), were staples of my childhood -- their tattered spines making up a literal literary background. I grew into a writing-obsessed being -- earning Bachelor's degrees in Spanish and Journalism, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and spending my professional life working in multiple disciplines. My parents a few years ago downsized into a smaller home from the one in which they raised three girls. Black & White: Stories of American Life and The Women and the Men were treasures my mother passed on to me.
When my partner, Dani, and I in 2022 moved into the home she inherited, the house she grew up in, the process of purging relics of generations past was intense. Long, gut-wrenching, and tiring. It was a relief when we moved into the phase of reclaiming the space, shifting the energy from difficult childhood memories and recent experiences with grief into one in which we could thrive and be our best selves. On a random Sunday in 2023, Dani entered the living room where I was working to tell me about a video she was watching about Jon Batiste's and Suleika Jaouad's Brooklyn home. She stopped watching when she got to the part about Jaouad's cancer, and found me so that we could watch together from the beginning. Cancer, which took her mother's life in 2022 after a short fight against an aggressive form of brain cancer.
(Video link: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/jon-batiste-suleika-jaouad-home)
We cried but we also were filled with inspiration and purpose. We were more determined than ever to make our home ours -- to surround ourselves not in relics of other people's lives but with objects that make us feel most alive, inspired, and creative. We immediately removed the plates and figurines and angels from the living room hutch: things her mother had acquired during her lifetime that had been present since Dani's childhood. We spent the afternoon clearing the old and moving into the hutch respective treasures, including the aforementioned books, which are placed on the third shelf. Months later (longer? -- trauma and stress blur memory), Dani encountered Giovanni's work through a 2013 interview with Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC's now shamefully defunct Colorlines. The poet read "Ego Tripping" from her latest release: Chasing Utopia. The host, meanwhile, read an excerpt from "Podcasts for Bicycles":
But I grew up
And learned Trust and love Are crafts we practice Are wheels We balance Our lives on Are BICYCLES We ride Through challenges and changes
The metaphor resonated with Dani -- so deeply that, again, she dropped everything to tell me about it. To report her chance meeting with Giovanni's poem. To express an understanding of what the The Women and the Men -- its pages yellowed by decades -- represents in my life. The hope it gives, by its sheer existence, from one poet to another.
Giovanni's words expressed our experiences in love, our values in relationship to each other. Our commitment to practice as a way of living, not as a path to a fixed end, where practice ceases. "Podcasts for Bicycles" were words to live by, which we already were doing. I pulled out collage materials, and worked as if I was in a trance. My hands busied themselves with paper and glue, paint and wire. A typewriter. My hands did not stop until it was time for the glue and paint to dry on the pieces of this "Podcasts for Bicycles" diorama. Giovanni's words in clouds. The copper bicycle on solid ground, equipped for motion. Comments are closed.
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Copyright © 2025 Tamryn Spruill.