I Have Been Changed For Good

     Hello, my name is Daniel Jenkins, and a book changed my life. Now, I know this sounds just like any old self help seminar where I’m about to share with the world the marvelous effects of a particular weight loss solution that “really works,” however, that’s definitely not the case here. Sharon Bridgforth’s book loveconjure/blues is an entrancing piece of performance poetry that follows love, loss, and in the dramatic moment I’ll be highlighting for everyone’s reading pleasure, change. It’s through this episode in the text involving change that I learned how to live life to the fullest, and while it may not “really work” for everyone, I can say it sure as well could come close.

     Before we get to the meat and potatoes of this book and its relationship with me, let’s start with a little background about my life. Now, I’ve always seen fliers ever since I was little that read the infamous top-of-classroom-banner text in neon font, “You never know what you can do until you try.” My teachers, classmates, and parents encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and try something new without being scared of fault, and while I did conquer a few daredevil obstacles like doing a somersault on the trampoline and learning how to ride a bicycle in 4th grade, I don’t think I ever took any big risks. To tell the truth, I never wanted anything to really “change” dramatically. I wanted everything to just stay the way it was. Change was some kind of monster, maliciously bent on ruining my life if I ever tried to step into its dark, foreboding lair. I suppose this fear of change led to my compulsions that have followed me throughout my college career, aiming on a fear that if I don’t wear the right clothes or do the right things in the right order, my day will change for the worse, and I will be very sorry. My love life has been affected by this fear as well, inhibiting my fear of making first moves, because what if I did aspire to make that change in the relationship and move forward, and what if it went wrong? I couldn’t handle this sort of pressure, so I just let it drop and my sought after loves dropped right along with it. However, that’s whenever Gay and Lesbian Literature Class and this book came in.

  I already thought taking the class was a huge risk on its own, as I never visited the queer groups on campus because I was scared of all the judgment I might be faced with, being a relatively scrawny gay man myself. However, the class became welcoming and everyone met each other with smiles and warmth that I never experienced before, and my mood lightened. Soon after reading many books of “lovely” despair and loneliness, we get to a text called loveconjure/blues, a performance piece of poetry written in vernacular that’s all about love and living life, two things I wished I’d desperately had been experiencing. And me, being more than eager to crack open the spine of the book, dove head first into its pages, and a buxom beauty ready to dominate my life was waiting there for me.

  This beauty, coincidentally named “Change,” was the one woman that is responsible for helping me actually learn the true nature of "change."  The woman “Change” is described as being a “grey-eyed gap tooth thick lipped cookie black woman with tight lightbrown curls rumbling all the way down to a bounce on her behind,” so, obviously a pretty fierce looking woman (Bridgforth 63). This is exactly how I pictured change was in my life, fierce and entrancing, something that demands attention wherever it goes. Now in the story, change waltzes into a bar during some relationship troubles between two of the main characters of the story, named Lushy and Bettye. Lushy and Bettye already had some troubles going on between them, but still had feelings for each other and didn’t know how to change for the better, and that’s when Change walks in (Bridgforth 63). As Change enters, some people get up and leave, secure with the lives they are living and not wanting to change, which I immediately identified with. For the people that stayed, including Bettye and Lushy, Change grabbed a microphone and wailed a huge note at the top of her range with enormous strength, shaking the whole bar and me, the reader, as well. After her note faded, our character Bettye fled the bar after almost killing Change and Lushy followed Bettye out. Outside the bar, Lushy apologized for every wrong she’s ever committed to Bettye in a tear-jerking conclusion to their relationship which showed how vastly important this buxom beauty was in Lushy’s development as a person.

  After reading this, my head almost exploded because of the enormity of the epiphany I had. I had been running from change. Every time she sauntered into my life I pushed her away and ran like those people in the bar, scared of the true power “change” could bring to my life. However, this book was telling me that change wasn’t always bad. Change could be good as well. Running away from change isn’t what was best for my well-being  and only accepting change and letting her sing her sweet note would bring me that utter happiness I was looking for in one way or the other. And in a weird twist of what I like to call “Change-ception,” I changed as a person by opening myself up to change in my life. I became aware that change is something I had to let happen, because running from it would halt my development and I’d never be at the point Bettye and Lushy were in loveconjure/blues.

     Recently, I can tell the world I have in fact changed. I’ve been reaching outside of my comfort zone, “trying” new things I never would have before, and opening myself up to new experiences that might in fact teach me harsh lessons or might just help me live a happier life. Now, I’m not sure if I convinced everyone that reading this book “really works,” but consider my own work my experience with my own buxom beauty named Change, and while I can't say that I've changed for the better, I can say I've "been changed for good."

Works Cited:

Bridgforth, Sharon. loveconjure/blues. Washington DC: RedBone Press, 2004. 63-67.

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