Prompt 80: A Life-Affirming Blueprint for Success
Marcus G. Miller on fathers and jubilee
Hi friend,
A few weeks ago, I had the honor of being a guest on The Tim Ferriss Show, one of my favorite podcasts. As I was preparing for the interview, I came across Tim’s list of 17 life-changing questions. I was particularly struck by this one: “What might I put in place to allow me to go off the grid for four to eight weeks?”
Most of us don’t have that luxury, but as someone who struggles to find some semblance of work-life balance, I found it a very useful thought exercise. It even inspired me to take a much-needed mini retreat. I canceled all my meetings earlier this week and stole away to the woods of Vermont, where the cell service is spotty and the deer and bears outnumber the humans. I spent my days taking long walks with my pups and listening to podcasts, reveling in the calm and quiet.
As I was rambling down the dirt road near the cabin, I realized I was taking a page out of my dad’s book. He recently retired, and now he spends his days taking absurdly long walks while listening to the New Yorker Fiction podcast. My dad likes to joke that, with his memory not what it was, he gets to listen to the stories again and again without realizing he has heard them before. He always returns from these walks enlivened by where he’s been, what he’s seen and learned.
I left Vermont at the end of the week to join my family. We had many things to celebrate—my dad’s birthday and retirement party, as well as Father’s Day. Yesterday was also Juneteenth, recently recognized as a national holiday. In celebration of fathers and jubilee, we’re resharing this prompt from my dear friend, the brilliant saxophonist and mathematician Marcus G. Miller—about balancing work and play.
Tired feet & full heart,
Suleika
P.S. Mark your calendars for our Studio Visit with Ashley C. Ford—it’s next Sunday, June 27, at 1pm ET. We also started a discussion thread for her memoir Somebody’s Daughter, which is our Book Club pick for June. Become a paid subscriber to join us!
Prompt 80. Jubilee by Marcus G. Miller
My father once told me that success is the price of admission to the next challenge. He told this to me after having received high praise for leading a successful project at work, and at that moment, I could detect, but could not yet name, several emotional colors blazing out of his eyes. There was the simple crimson pride of a job well done, there was the effervescent azure ebullience induced by the promise of a bright future, there was earthy brown contemplation of a warrior taking a moment's rest, and there was black love.
The love was black because he, in his blackness, was able to claim a level of victory that eluded so many men of his father’s generation, and men of his own. And he could take that lesson, a life-affirming blueprint for managing success, and teach it—from the full weight of the experience—to his black son. The words were clever enough as an aphorism, but what was transmitted to me was the full spectrum of what it meant to him to say those words. It nearly brought me to tears.
And so when considering Juneteenth, that shining golden day in 1865 when General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and proclaimed the freedom of the black women and men who were enslaved there, even though the Emancipation Proclamation had come two and a half years earlier; when considering their joy, and jubilee, and dancing, I hear the words of my father. I see the pink and purple and candied red of their celebration, and I see the long grey road ahead, through history, connecting them to the colorful eyes of my father, connecting them to me.
Let us hold labor and liberation in balance. Let us refuse to work without rest and reward, but also let us not eat, drink, and be merry, believing that tomorrow we will die. Let us mark every accomplishment with its deserved color, then let us not forget to look up at the ominous white snow-capped peaks of the mountains we must yet climb.
Your prompt for today:
How did you learn (or how are you learning) to balance work and play?
A Conversation About Finding Your Voice
We’re excited to host Ashley C. Ford for a Studio Visit next Sunday, June 27, at 1:00pm ET. Ashley is joyful, bold, and a top-notch literary citizen. She has forged her own path, crafting both her life and her career on her own terms by asking for what she wants.
Ashley is constantly reinventing herself in the most inspiring ways‚ hosting podcasts, writing feature stories for major publications, and recently publishing her debut memoir, Somebody’s Daughter.
We can’t wait for this conversation about finding your voice—and what to do with it when you do.