12/18/2020
I feel a spark.
I’ve thumbed through my notes and reread some of my old Batu writing a few times since my last entry here, hoping to find inspiration to pick it back up. But this morning I woke up with images of Alena and Joyul being swarmed by a cloud of butterflies while bathing in the river, and the spark of interest was reignited.
Then I thought about Diallo and how real he feels to me as a character, and how I could almost hear his voice calling out in the darkness. Lost, and crying out to be saved. To be born. He’s calling for me, don’t let him die alone in the dark. His life and his spirit is worth saving. Worth the effort it would cost me to find him and bring him back to life.
In the end it won’t be my vanity, ego, my need for legacy, or desire for immortality as an artist that will compel me to bring my Batu work into fruition. It won’t be for any imagined future audience or some vague hope to give something back to the world. It will be for the sake of the work itself, for Diallo and Alena, and the tribe and its culture. Nothing else really matters beyond that.
Present-Day Reflection
9/16/2026
Sometimes it only takes a spark, but in this case it just wasn’t enough. My life at the time of this entry was too full of its own drama to allow room for me to explore the Diallo’s or Alena’s drama. They would continue to haunt me, but only in the background. I simply had no space for them, my roommate and the circumstances of my life at the time taking up all my time and energy.
