Nandi

D-dawg,

I am eating Sicilian rice and humming “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as I watch a violinist at work in the square of the city Patti. I’d wish you were here, but there are more important things to wish for, like a pet mouse named Margherita who can fit under the bathroom cupboard and rescue my mascara. Really, it has been three days of me without mascara, and my eyelashes look like they have lost weight. Anyway.

These days are better than before. Faith—that’s all it is. Although I wake up with uncertainty, not knowing the outcome of my day/week/life or whether I will retrieve my mascara, I wake up anyway. This violinist is one of the most talented musicians I have ever heard, yet here he is, playing in a square, probably for the income more than the recognition. I don’t know, but if this is his way of making a living, then he is one AWAKE mofo. He’s doing what he does to the best of his ability for a euro or two. “Stay woke” is the mantra of one of my friends. Stay woke, Nandi. ♦