This month I feel like I’m truly in graduate school. Half-sleep, my body always remains posed to wake suddenly and wildly in order to write a paper or to complete a class reading. I’m multi-tasking in the bathroom, in the kitchen, on the way to class and field placement trying to get it all accomplished. I cannot remember an action or an idea that I have had that was not informed, influenced, or inhibited by the social work curriculum. Hallelujah when winter break arrives and I can finally relax and make buckwheat pancakes and watch Anime.

I remember times like these when everything seems due and coming undone: the papers, the tests, the bills, and the engine in the car. I missed the Common concert here in B-more and have yet to fully pursue my artistic endeavors. Life feels crowded and teetering on the edge of things, posed for a flight or a fall. It was during these moments when we felt our lives were not our own, when my friend (waz-up Adia) and I would ride our frustrations, our tiredness, our hunger out in my red Kia. We would travel the city, picking-up all the forgotten, fragmented, and forlorn parts of ourselves. We would bob our heads—singing a bit, dancing a bit—to words like: “Keep on moving. Don’t stop like the hands of time…find your own way to stay…the time will come one day” (Soul2Soul, 1989). Indeed, we would keep going towards our dreams, towards our future selves—smiling, laughing and rising almost off the ground.

As I find my own way through the Ides of October, through midterms, research proposals and psychosocial assessments, I’m moving to these words by Prince:
“Lady cab driver—can u take me 4 a ride?
Trouble winds r blowin’, I’m growin’ cold.
Get me outta here—I feel I’m gonna die” (1982).

If you find yourself stressed out, needing to rise almost off the ground, then join me: “...just put your foot on the gas--let's drive
Let’s go everywhere.
Help me I’m drownin’, mass confusion in my head.
Will u accept my tears 2 pay the fare?
Lady cabdriver, roll up your window fast.
Lately trouble winds r blowin’ hard, and I don’t know if I can last” (1982).