#18 - Their Eyes Were Watching Each Other

A few weeks back, I sat in the passenger seat of my sister's car. She was driving us to a local farmer's market. We approached an intersection and began to swing left. A pedestrian, an older black man was near the corner and, yes, he was watching us.

Within seconds, my sister had started the turn and within seconds the older man had shouted, you're going the wrong way. My sister quickly righted the car and we went on to the market. I remember saying to her, Black folk be watching each other, and she responding, Thank God.

In Samm-Art Williams' 1979 play HOME, the central character Cephas, finds himself questioning God’s whereabouts, questioning if God was truly watching for him. After his first love deserts the town they grew up in and marries another man, he wants to know whether God is on vacation, in Miami perhaps?

After a harrowing journey north and choosing not to enlist in the Vietnam War, Cephas returns South, to his home, where he worked the land to its glorified bounty. He poured his heart into the land and that is where he meets back up with his first love. His home, his love, his God was never quite far from him. I venture to say that in his questioning of God, he was watching Him; their eyes were watching each other.

The play, which I saw this past Sunday at the Roundabout Theatre in New York City reminded me that through a diligent attention, through an empathic emulation, mimicking even, we can both develop and find our inner selves, we can know our ideals, we can build skill and character.

By keeping our eyes on an inspiring lot of people, places or things, whether that lot be in books, friends, in aunties, uncles or first role models; when we imitate, and mimic we can identify the best in others, and become the best of ourselves.

Who inspires you? Who do you love? If there was something in them that you could copy or mimic, what would it be?