Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

And I see it.

For maybe the first time I really see the resemblance, the sameness nature stamped into our DNA. The very sameness that saved my life.

That saved our sisterhood.

I don’t even try to check the tears as they skate over my cheeks and into the corners of my mouth. I lay my head on Canon’s shoulder, turning into him and letting the quiet sobs shake me. He cups my head, kisses my hair and strokes the ink scrawled on my thumb, the message from a play that has remained with me since I was eighteen years old, Our Town.

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?

Saints and poets maybe.

And that’s what I’d like to call this documentary when it’s done. It’s the lesson of seizing this existence with both hands; of not letting anything stand in your way; of living with as few regrets as possible. Of loving even when it might hurt because loss is as much a part of life as what we gain. The beautiful man sitting beside me in this darkened theater is proof of that. This poignant art testifies that he’s taken as much care telling my story as he took telling Remy’s. It’s a labor of love.

“I thought maybe once we finish it,” Canon says after I’ve cried all my tears. “We could screen it at Cannes next year.”

I lift my head to stare at him, dumbfounded by the idea. Delighted.

“Oh, my God!” I laugh, swiping at my wet cheeks. “That would be . . .seriously?”

“And we could take the whole family. Get your mom on somebody’s private jet. Take Terry and Quianna.” He smirks. “Even Brandon could come.”

“That would be . . .wow.”

“I know we said you’d start with Paris, but maybe we can do Cannes first.”

Cannes, with its curving coastline, the beaches sanded like grains of sugar, the azure waters and boulevards dotted with palm trees, the palatial villas.

I want to see the world.

Dessi’s words, delivered to Tilda with the fearlessness of youth, drift back to my mind on a warm Mediterranean breeze.

How will that view, the French Riviera, have changed since she stood there, surveying its lush landscape, Cal at her side, her first love behind her. Did she ever regret leaving Harlem? From what we gathered, she never returned. Did she ever wonder how different her life would have been had she never struck out in search of stardom? Or did she ever sit on her little porch in Alabama after she returned home to take care of her dying mother, wondering how vast her life, her legacy could have grown had she stayed in Europe? What bends her road could have taken had she remained, brushing up against the greatness of luminaries like Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis? They all fled racism in America and sought their fortunes, their fame in Paris, in a country and among a people who appreciated their genius before looking at their skin. Despite her modest ending, I don’t think Dessi wallowed in could-have-beens.

Canon once asked if I ever regretted doing the movie, since the stress of it probably caused the flare-up that sent me into a darker phase of this disease. I understood his question and the guilt behind it, but I reassured him immediately that I didn’t. Have never. I can’t live like that. Life is indiscriminately seasoned, usually not sweet without some bitter. Usually not sun without some rain. I’m in a support group, and one lady’s lupus was triggered while she carried her first child. Does she regret her baby, a miracle who brings her joy because her body paid the toll? She says unequivocally no. And I can’t resent the movie that gave me Canon, the love of my life. Can’t regret the role that gave me Dessi, because even once the movie wraps, I will carry a part of her always.

As crazy as it sounds, I think she carried me. And Canon and Monk and Verity and all the storytellers, musicians, and artists who benefit from the path she forged. From the way she and so many others made for us during untenable circumstances, in adversity and against impossible odds. She carried me and I carry her, and somehow, we are knitted together in a way that reaches across generations, across years, binding our hearts.

“It’s nowhere near done, yet,” Canon says, a rare uncertainty in my confident man’s voice. “I just started putting some stuff together, but we can look at it. You like it so far?”

“I love it so far.”

I feel his heart in the look he gives me. Ours is a love so much richer and deeper than anything I could have dreamt or imagined, girded with trust and burning with passion. That forever kind of love that doesn’t waver when times get tough and things go bad. That come what may kind of love, and every time he looks at me, I see it.