Do your best and leave the rest. I want you to stand up in these streets, resist the forces that will taint this beautiful world, and immerse yourself in the experience, and sing the fuck out of that song in your heart. Be good to your body and your mind. If you need therapy, get it. If appropriately prescribed medication will help you, get the damn medication. Rest when you are tired, eat when you are hungry. Go into everything with an open heart while being smart with how and with whom you share yourself. Above all, remember that we are all human. We will all grow old, we will all feel pain, and hopefully get laid. Gotcha!!
When I started writing this book, I told my editor, Tracy Sherrod, that if after I’m dead and gone, a little boy or girl is walking through some war-torn country and sees a tattered copy of my book on the side of the road, picks it up, and finds even one sentence that makes it possible to take one more step because of something I said, my life will not have been lived in vain. (Just hope they don’t read the “Dick Diva” chapter first!)
Composing the The Mother of Black Hollywood was two years of blood, sweat, and tears—so many fucking tears—reliving all that drama and so many deaths. There’s no foolproof recipe, y’all. You gotta live you. Make your own choices, build your own house, and set your own goals. I hope you find some tools in my honesty that will help you on your way. Don’t let me have bared my soul for nothing! Ain’t nobody got time for that in these streets!
Now, go get ’em, tiger.
Love,
Jenifer