Tag: how stella got her groove back

I was talking to one of my favorite soul sisters tonight and she said something that crackled across the phone and smacked me upside the head with a satellite wave whack. It’s time for me to get my groove back, she said, and I understood immediately what she meant because I knew that was my problem, too. I’d lost my groove. Somewhere in the midst of the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say, I’d buried my groove as surely as I’d buried the ashes of my mother in the little Fairview cemetery ten months ago. I hadn’t heard the reference to “getting your groove back” since I watched the movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back a hundred years ago, but I remembered the essentials. Apparently a young sexy shirtless Taye Diggs was the spark plug for a middle-aged Angela Bassett’s recovery of her misplaced spontaneity and optimism for her life. As I recall, Stella (Ms. Bassett) located her groove in less than two hours of screen time and happily rejoined the human race that she had forsaken. Sigh. Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Fixer-upper for lost groove. Quick and easy.

I’m fairly confident a shirtless man won’t be my impetus for getting my groove back and I know with certainty the process will take longer than two hours. Regardless, I do recollect Stella’s outlook became brighter and she seemed more hopeful for her future at the end of the film. I’m beginning to feel a small crack in the tortoise shell of grief that has covered me during the last year. Death and dying are two separate but equal tragedies and both exact a price on those who watch and wait. The tragedies remind me of my own mortality which brings questions of legacy and the life I chose to live. For those of us who tend to be contemplative and who ponder on a regular basis, facing our own mortality is a daunting undertaking. Undertaking. Hah. Get it?

The grieving doesn’t end, but the images I carry from the tragedies dim and dwindle away and I am left with a knowledge of the importance of this moment in this day in this time because I am not promised another breath. I’m thinking that’s my first step toward getting my groove back. Stay tuned.