Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Hanif Abdurraqib is a 'genius.' His friends aren't impressed

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Hanif Abdurraqib's writing has earned him a MacArthur "genius" grant. His most recent book, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, landed a spot on Barack Obama's summer reading list. But those accolades don't matter to him as much as being a good friend and neighbor. Abdurraqib talks to Rachel about a youth spent unhoused and incarcerated, and the zen of making mixtapes.To listen sponsor-free, access bonus episodes and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

What have you learned to appreciate about your hometown over time? There's something about being unhoused in a place that you love where I remember just walking the streets at night and feeling like the city belonged to me and only me because you're at your most invisible then. I'm Rachel Martin and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest chooses questions at random from a deck of cards. Pick a card one through three. Questions about the memories, insights, and beliefs that have shaped them. On the horizon, there is an excitement that I have not yet touched, and I just know that the fastest way to get there is to run to it.

My guest this week is writer Hanif Abduriki. In the process of running to it, I will stumble over some excitements that I perhaps also did not know existed to me. I think a lot about appreciation. I teach my kids that treating gratefulness like a daily practice can help them build meaningful lives. I've actually got sort of an evolution of appreciation in my mind. The first step is observation, right? Pay attention to the thing. The next step, appreciate the thing.

Then find meaning in it. But the highest form of appreciation is reverence. Reverence is bigger and deeper than appreciation. It's divine. Reverence reminds us of our small place in the universe. Holding something or someone with reverence is an act of optimism, I think. It's a way to acknowledge that there are miracles in this world that make living not just tolerable but beautiful. Writer Hanif Abdu Rakib is really good at reverence.

Maybe it's because he's written about some of the hardest parts of living. He's been incarcerated. He's lived on the streets. He has lost people, including his mom when he was just 13 years old. When I talked to him last year, he told me something I'll never forget that he tries to be a good steward to his grief. Because it lives inside him and it's not going away. And maybe understanding grief helps him understand reverence. And that's what differentiates him and his work, to me anyway.

How we can write about an Aretha Franklin song and make it a prayer. Or a sports arena and make it a church. And as he does in his most recent book, there's always this year. He can write about watching the rise of LeBron James in Ohio and make it feel like witnessing a miracle. His writing always makes me feel hopeful and alive. And it is my pleasure to welcome Hanif Abdurakib to Wildcard. Hi.

Hi, thank you for having me. It's good to talk to you again. Oh, I'm so happy to talk to you again. So are you up for this? I'm very excited. I love a game. I don't get a chance to play games as much as I like to these days. I feel like that makes me sad for you, Hanif.

I feel like you... I know. I'm on the road too much. I can't. And when I do play games, it's just like video games in my house, which is thrilling. But I do miss a game night. I miss like a, you know, a raucous game night with friends. I will hold up.

three cards at a time, and you will pick one at random. Okay? And then you answer the question on that card. Oh. But I won't see the questions, right? That's right. You will not. Okay. No, it's random. You've got two tools at your disposal. You get one skip. Okay. Okay. You get one flip. So you can ask me to answer the question before you do. This is great. This is great. Initially, I thought this would be horrible for my anxiety. But having those two options, having those two options. Is it help? Yeah, that helps in a massive way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are escape patches. We're breaking it up into three rounds, a few questions in each round, and we'll get deeper as we go. Ooh, okay.

Okay. Let's do it. You're going to be great. All right, round one. Three cards in my hand. Pick one, two, or three. Two. Two.

Where would you go to feel safe as a kid? You know, I'm the youngest of four, and I lived in a little. a very loving household with a household where everyone had their things and being the youngest of four. You know, I spent a lot of time alone. But the good news is this was during the era. This is in the 90s. It was a really robust era of college radio and radio in general. And so where I went to feel safe was kind of inside of the world afforded to me by headphones.

I would put headphones on and I would record songs off of the radio onto cassette tapes. I would be making mixed tapes in real time off of the radio, which required a lot of precision. It required a lot of attentiveness. And, you know, you didn't hit stop on the tape when you're recording because that would be like a hard stop. Oh, no, you had to have the pause. Depress. Oh, yeah. No, I remember.

And so, you know, it required precision and thoughtfulness and attention. And it was a way that I felt extremely in control. I was saying, I can't control what is coming next on the radio, but I can control what comes next on this tape. And to wait by a radio all day. and hear the DJ announced a song that is your song, that feels miraculous. I miss that feeling. I wish I could bottle that feeling,

feeling like something is being delivered just for you in a world where, as the youngest, I felt like so few things were just specifically for me. I got a lot of hand-me-downs. I got a lot of second-hand things. I got a lot of things that had been loved by others. And, you know, to say, I've been waiting on this song all day,

and here it is, it's mine. That's the thing that's hard to communicate to the youngs, the ephemeral magic of that happening. Right? And like being there to capture it and it made it all the more special. It's like getting a gift just that, even though the sound quality wasn't great, even though sometimes the DJ talks over the end or over the beginning, it's still yours. And for me, when I was a kid, I was so hard. often felt like I was not in control of anything.

Not even in a harsh way or a violent way. I just think being the youngest, I had to wait on people to drive me places, or I had to wait on people to finish with clothes so I could wear the clothes, or I had to wait on all of these things and to say, I have enough money to buy a blank 90-minute cassette tape, and I have a time on an afternoon that is just my time where I can sit with headphones on by the radio and wait for a DJ to tell me, hey, I've got something just for you.

That's special. Oh, I love that memory. Thank you. Okay, we got three more cards. Okay. Three more cards. Pick one, two, or three. Three.

Oh, it was like a gimmie for you. What have you learned to appreciate about your hometown over time? Oh, gosh. You're like, where do I begin? Yeah. You know, one story I like telling not because, because I like reminding people that I've got to MacArthur, but because it's funny, is that the day that the MacArthur Genius Awards, by the way, for those who don't know.

The day it was announced, I had dinner plans with a friend, and these plans were, you know, like, set in stone for a while. And the day that that gets announced is a hectic day. It's like, it's a wild day. Like, you have to do a million different things. And so I was, I was running behind. And this dinner was, you know, this friend had a, plan after. I had a plan after we were going to a concert, all this stuff. And so I was running behind. And I texted her and I was like, you know, I'm running late, but I'll pull up. And I pulled up like, you know, 15 minutes late to dinner. And she put her hand on my shoulder and said, I'm very proud of you. You may be a genius, but you really messed up my dinner plans. And I love that story, not because it's so reflective of this thing in Columbus where people are proud of me and we are proud

to live amongst each other, but no one's impressed, you know. I think it's really wonderful for me to to live in a place where people are maybe happy that I'm there as I am happy they are there and there is work that they connect to and feel proud to have representing their place and proud of me perhaps for creating it. But there's no overwhelming feeling of we are so impressed that we are placing you on a pedestal above us. And I would, I don't want, you know, I have lived in this place my whole life. There are people here who knew me when I was a kid. There are people here who knew me when I was getting arrested. There are people here who knew me when I was sleeping on the streets.

And it is a place that really dismantles that good, bad binary. So often, in so much of the narrative of people who read the book and read about my time unhoused or jailed or these things, this idea of you were bad and now you're good. That's so flawed and kind of ridiculous because when I'm in my hometown, when I'm in Columbus, I'm reminded that, you know, I don't know if I was bad then. I don't know if I'm good now. I think that in both instances, in all instances, through my living, I am doing my best to survive with the resources afforded to me. So, you know, there's a thing about Columbus that I love because people don't look at my life and career with a shrug.

There's certainly a lot of affection. But the greater question that is always asked of me and the question I have to rise to is, what kind of community member do you want to be? Yeah. What kind of neighbor do you want to be? What kind of person in the world do you want to be? Which is a better and more useful question to me than what kind of artist do you want to be. And if I answer all those other questions, well, the question of what kind of artist I want to be answers itself. Was there any part of, I mean, I'm talking to you when you're in New York right now.

You know, New York is where the writers go. And L.A. is where the writers go. I mean, people can go anywhere now, but there are other places you could have lived and thrived and written. what was important to you about staying there? I don't really know how well I know myself anywhere else, and at this point I don't want to find out. There's something about being unhoused in a place that you love where I remember just walking the streets at night

and feeling like the city belonged to me and only me because you're at your most invisible then. I think to be unhoused in a place is to be either invisible or a nuisance, right? Either you're invisible or someone is hassling you you are presented as some kind of troublesome figure to a geography or a population. But being invisible made you feel ownership over the city in a different time? I think so. At night, you know, like I remember walking a street and being aware that I had nowhere to sleep,

but also being aware that that meant I had everywhere to sleep, you know, that gives you some kind of false sense of ownership, but you also see a city for what it is. you see through the kind of lies that a city might dress itself up in in order to make itself marketable. So Columbus, for example, is now trying to market itself as like a tech city or food city, all of these things that don't actually serve the population that is living and breathing and actively there. But to be among that population and to be among a version of that population in my case where I was extremely at a margin meant that I got to see the city's. most honest face behind all of its false masks. And to me that I got to see that and say,

you know what, I actually think I still love it. I still love this city as its most honest self because I know what that most honest self is and I can cut to the heart of it. I don't want to have to learn that about any other place. And I don't have the time or energy, I think, to learn how to love a place at its most honest, which I require.

I require that. I mean, that's the purest love, right? It's like seeing a person, a place for everything that it is and still choosing to love it. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That was beautiful. We got three more in this round.

One, two, three. I feel like I've done two and three, but I'm not going to go one right away. I'm going to go back to two. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I'm interested in going back to two. Okay. What do you admire about your teenage self?

Oh, what a great question. I think if I trace it back, my relationship and my comfort with loneliness or being alone or isolation or whatever we want to call it was really fostered as a teenager. I had, again, the youngest of four, and I have a brother who's very close to me in age, and he was so much, I mean, like, startlingly cooler than me. Still is, I think. Still is much cooler than me. But back then, I mean, he was way better looking, like, just immensely better looking. You said it twice, so it really much was really. Extremely better looking.

Literal football star, like high school football star, had a cool car. Like, just was cool. And I wasn't that. And we went to separate high schools. And the reason we went to separate high schools is like, we're one grade apart. I was like, I cannot live. But it didn't matter. Like the legend of him like bled into my high school, you know.

And so I could not escape being, you know, so often I think people begin to, we all, I had not we all, but many people pathologized their place in a birth order. Yeah. And I think so many people that I know ascribe being the youngest to all these burdensome things. But I've lately been thinking about how grateful I was to be the youngest sibling that I got. to witness people that I just ostensibly and inherently admired and just kind of copy bits of them. But my teenage years, I really embraced not fitting in and not in a way that was really rebellious. This was also kind of at the dawn of the internet as the internet as it became capital I internet, like message board era, blog era. And I would be on these message boards,

these music message boards, where I would, like, lie about my age so that people would take me seriously, you know, because I knew so much about songs and records. So I'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm like a 40-year-old record collector, you know. And that was just how I was, which is, you know, I would not recommend that to people now, perhaps. But that is, that's how I found community because I'd be on there talking about, like, Kate Bush production techniques. You know what I mean? As a 15, 16-year-old, but these older, these older people, largely men, you know, they thought I was like, one of them. They thought I was their peer. Because if I was like, you know, I'm just a teenager in high school and I don't have a lot of friends. And like the reason I know all this is because I don't

have a ton of, while all the guys my age are out having fun, I'm just in my dad's house listening in the records, you know. But that was okay. That was great for me. You were, you were, you were able to appreciate what your brother had going on. Yeah. I'm not going to be him. I'm going to be this other thing. It comes, you know, everyone now, I don't read about myself often, which is I would recommend that for everyone who gets written about to any degree. But I do know that one thing I gets talked about is a quote-unquote encyclopedic knowledge of music in songs. And that's true, sure. It comes at a cost, though, I think.

Not a cost that I'm ashamed of. Or not a cost that I feel. But, yeah, I mean, so many formative years of social activity and socialization for me were spent inside listening to records because I got so comfortable with my own. self, which is a blessing. You know, like I'm so grateful for my teenage self for, yes, enduring the ache of loneliness from time to time, but saying, gosh, I mean, it's much like me when I was a little kid and escaping into the world of making mixtapes, right? I was saying, there was a world where in this record that I love was made, and I want to know

everything about that world. Yeah. And I can sink into that world, and it's not this one. For a little while, it's not this one. And I get to be an audience to that world. that created within me, I think, a real curiosity. Nothing makes me happier than kind of continually knocking on the door of someone's history and saying, what else can you show me?

Tell me the coolest thing. Tell me the funniest thing. Tell me about your mother's favorite thing. I get it. Yeah. This is your whole thing, right? This is your whole thing. And I wouldn't have had that if I were, I think, this isn't to say that my brother is not cool and curious.

Again, he's still much cooler than me. But the depth with which I pursue, I think, curiosity. is because when I was a teenager, I had to say, well, I'm not going to be that. Like, I'm not going to be the, yeah, I played sports. I mean, I did the things, but I knew I wouldn't be that. And, you know, I didn't have a lot of girlfriends. I didn't have, you know, but I learned to be kind of deeply intuitive. And I learned how to escape in a way that wasn't detrimental, but that honed a real kind of

just hunger for wanting to know. Everything I can about everyone I love. When we come back, Hanif explains how running makes him optimistic about getting older. There has to be, well, what's next. In that curiosity of, well, what's next is enough to push me another mile and maybe another mile. Before we get to round two, this is the part of the show where I ask you what you're working on. And what you're working on, as far as I know, is a very cool thing that is happening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, right? Yes.

Tell me. I have like a week-long poetry festival called, I guess it was my destiny to live so long, which is a line from a poem by June Jordan. And it is happening November 4th through the 9th. Every night will be a different night of programming except election night that Tuesday were taking off. But then all the other nights are going to be a night of programming. And that is going to involve film, concerts, poetry readings. We're going to have Jamila Woods, McKinley Dixon, and the musician Tasha. All three of the musicians are going to play some music that nods to writers that they admire. And this is the first of three years.

BAMs made a three-year commitment to let me do this, which is... They gave you a fancy title. Don't you have like a curator-chief or something? It's a title that is on a little like banner that I never look at. But it is a fancy title. Love to have a fancy title. That's right. MacArthur Genius.

But yeah, I mean, you know, if you're like, I don't really know about poems, there's something for you. There'll be something for you this week. Well, next week, everyone will need a little escape. Everyone will need something. We're moving to round two. Three new cards. Deeper as we go.

One, two, or three. I'm going to go one this time. Yeah, finally one. What have you learned to take less seriously? You know, I've learned to take aging less seriously, I think. I'm a runner, so I'm running a total of like around 45 to 50 miles a week. That's a lot of mileage. And I am, you know, like I am now.

Now, 41, you know, and I know that 41 is not knocking on the door of death or what have you. But, you know, for me, there's this mantra that I have because running for me, the first 10 minutes, no matter how much I do it, the first 10 to 12 minutes are not fun. Yeah. Not fun at all. My body is doing something that my brain, my body and brain aren't aligned. And so there's this thing that I tell myself, even after those 12 minutes, it's still challenging. it's too long to stop too far to go back, which means, you know,

I've been doing this too long to stop and I'm too far away from my house to go back. Of course, that's a false thing. I mean, I can always stop. I can always turn around. But to tell myself that suggests that there has to be a, well, what's next. In that curiosity of, well, what's next

is enough to push me another mile and maybe another mile. And that is really what running. That's, you know, and I think, honestly, there's an excitement I feel around aging that is like how can I get to the point where I've learned enough and understood enough and I just want to sprint towards whatever keeps me excited about the next moment

and I feel like the possibilities for that don't decrease as I get older. I thought they would. I was always like, there's only so many things I can be excited about and surely they're not infinite and I will run up against a wall, and then I will live the rest of my days with a kind of a buffet of familiar excitements. Yeah. But gosh, you know, like I, because I don't take aging seriously and because I get to say, I'm still here so I'm not finished, I'm still here so I'm not finished, I'm still here so I'm not finished.

That means that I am on the horizon. There is an excitement that I have not yet touched, and I just know that the fastest way to get there is to run to it. And in the process of running to it, I will stumble over some excitements that I perhaps also, did not know existed to me. But I guess to define seriously. I mean, it sounds like you are taking it seriously because you're just, you're like, you're not getting paralyzed by it. No, I'm rigorous.

I think I'm rigorous about my seeking. You know, I'm like seeking. With intention. It's real intention. Yeah. It's real like intentional looking. I don't want to stumble over anything and discard it without knowing that it'll potentially bring me pleasure.

While working on my book, I thought of this all the time. A real tragedy to me, a real emotional crisis that I momentarily found myself in, is realizing that it is impossible. It will be impossible for me and for all of us to meet or know every single person in the world capable of loving us well. It's just impossible. It's to me people in the world. So many of them don't care that we exist or know that we exist or have a, you know, and vice versa, those people also. And that's just impossible.

We're never going to live a life. There is someone perhaps in a country I don't know and will never go to who could be capable of loving me in a way that would unlock something for me. And that in some ways is tragic, but it also means for me that I get to, with whatever time I have left, turn towards the people who are directly in front of me, who have already showed a capacity and eagerness to love me well and say, here's what I've learned about myself as I age, and here's how that might help you love me better. And I'm curious about what you've learned as you've accrued tenure on this earth and tell me how to love you well today, which might not be the way I can love you well tomorrow or in a year or when we're 50 or 60.

But like let's just build a foundation now because we're here and through our time, just through like pure tenure, we are acquiring a new language, I think, for our needs, for our desires, for what it takes to love us in a way that carries us. In those ways accumulate, in those ways make aging something to get excited for me, to get excited about, to know that the version of myself that I am today is a fraction of the version I can become in even a year or might become in two years. And that there are ways that the people who are touchable and directly in front of me will aid me in that, will effectively push me and say it's time to sprint. That's what I need. And so I suppose that is taking it seriously in a way, but I don't take it seriously in a way where I'm haunted by it. Oh my God. And you brought it back around to running? Yeah.

What are you? Like a professional or something? Okay. Three new cards. Three new cards. New different cards. One, two, or three. Let's do three.

Three. Well, now this is interesting because this feels a little bit like what you just said, but you picked it. So what's an expression of love you're trying to get better at? Oh, I would love to answer this, but can I have you answer it? Oh! Yes, you can. Why, yes, you can, honey. Okay, so you're flipping this.

Yeah. What's an expression of love? So I guess I'm going to brag a little bit on myself. I think I'm pretty good at telling people. Sure. I'm actually good with words, right? Like, that's my thing. So I have no problem articulating to people what they mean to me.

I do it a lot. I make people uncomfortable probably because I'll just say it a lot. I think I am more selfish with my time. Yeah. So I think when I, an expression of love I'm trying to get better at is sometimes it's really easy to tell a person what they mean to you. That's easy for me. That's not hard. Sometimes it can be hard to get on a plane when you know someone isn't necessarily in crisis, but they could use you sitting on a couch with them. or someone down the street. You know, I've got a busy day, but I know that there's one of my neighbors who could maybe use a little cheering up. And I make all kinds of excuses about why my life is real busy. And I can just text them or I can just call them.

And, you know, words are easy. So I think showing up. Showing up is, yeah. Yeah, I, you know, in the winter, both my. self and one of my neighbors, we really just, depending on how our moods, I mean, we struggle with depression. We live with depression, both of us. And if it snows, this has been the case, I moved in this house in 2020, this has been the case at least one C here. If it snows real heavy and one of us notices that the other hasn't shoveled the sidewalk, we just do it. And we don't talk. Like,

we really, like, we nod to each other when we see each other, but we don't like, we don't talk about it. We don't make a thing about it. It's not like a one-to-one exchange. We just do it because the sidewalk needs to be shoveled and it's hard to get out of bed, you know? So that those things, yeah, I All right, I guess it's my turn. I will say two quick things. Well, hopefully they're quick. One is, like, what I've tried to be more specific

when telling people that something reminded me of them. But the other thing that's more important is apologizing. I really want to be good at apologizing. And I think, too, I mean, like, I'm going to be real. I mean, coming up, I did have a good relationship with kind of unlearning some of the traps of masculinity as they're traditionally presented, but still, you know, being taught or, and I think this is, I mean, we're gosh, we're a culture of just robust cruelty. And cruelty is really our, I believe, societally our first language, you know. And so to apologize feels like you are both failing and seeding ground.

But like, I want to seed ground to the people I love. I want to say, how can I do better by you the next time? And I also want to set a blueprint for how I honor just this idea that I require grace. I want to offer grace to people because I know I require it myself. But if I hold on, if I hold tightly to an apology, that is not a graceful practice for anyone. And so one, I'm trying to really work on, you know, I think I'm okay at it. I'm continually trying to work on the language of apology, immediate apology too. The moment I realize I've done wrong, I don't want a large distance between that moment

and the moment where I articulate that I've done wrong and that I'm so eager to do better because I think on the other side of that doing better, there's a whole new language in architecture for how we can love each other better and more robustly. In a moment, the final round. If I have lived the life where what is most remembered about me is that I wrote some books in won some awards, that's a really failed life. Last round. The cards are red. Oh, gosh.

I don't know. Red is not supposed to be. Right. Why? I think it's an inviting red. I think it's, I think it's some orange. I think it's a warm, inviting. Yeah.

It's not red. I'm going to stop calling it. Okay. Three new cards. One, two, or three. Two. Are you comfortable with being forgotten? Yeah.

Well, you know, I'm in Columbus. I'm a community with elders, like really older folks, significantly older folks than me. You know, when I was in and out of jail, I got arrested one last time. And my record was such that it was, you know, the judge was like, man, we've used up all your probation. You've been in and out of jail for several, you know. And he was like, either I'll give you two. Two options. Last chance. Either you go volunteer at this senior center or you do six months in jail. And me in my 20s like then, I was like, just give me the six months, man.

Like I, you know, I'm not going to serve them all anyway. And thankfully I had a lawyer who was like, no, no, no, he'll take the senior. And I was like, volunteer at the senior center for a year. That's fine. And I did it for a year and I just haven't left since. And so I'm in this really rich community of elders. Of course, they've all, you know, some of them moved on. Some of them passed. It's been years. But I don't think, I say this. this to say, some of them have no one. Like, some of them really have outlived, had no kids, they've outlived all the people they love. And they are the last to go, right? And there's a real loneliness in that one. But I've begun to ask myself the question of, what purpose do I get to serve in the life of someone who, in their own language, of course, has no one, quote unquote,

No one. And I think the answer is I get to be the person who doesn't forget them when they go. If that's it. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I sit with them, play cards with them. We chop it up. We talk. But the major function is, I think, someone saying, I have no one else.

I would love to not be forgotten. I would love to be remembered in some way. I am comfortable myself. I'm comfortable with being forgotten. I'm not interested. I mean, it won't be in my, I'll be dead, so it won't be into my business. Right. I would love to be remembered.

by the people who love me, by the people who are in community with me, but even that's not promised. And I think you have to earn that. You have to earn a life that allows you to not be forgotten. If I have lived the life where what is most remembered about me is that I wrote some books and won some awards, that's a really failed life for me.

I would love to live a life that is so far beyond what I produce that maybe people, particularly in Columbus, where I live in love, say, well, the books were fine, but, you know, the books were good, but he was also like a good. Yeah, he's really good a bridge. Yeah, yeah. Last question. Last set of cards. One, two or three. Let's do two. I started with two. Let's do two again. What's your best defense against despair? You know, I live with depression and anxiety, and occasionally I'll have a real moment of crisis, like a real moment, week long, can't get out of the bed kind of thing. And I remember, This happened a few years back where I, you know, and I have, I just have such a great emergency support system in this case, in Columbus especially.

And there's a friend who has a key to my house who, like, she knows if it goes like two or three days where she doesn't hear from me, you know, it's time to check in. And she, I'll never forget this. She did this thing where she came and just sat by my bedroom door was closed and I was in bed for days. And she came and she just sat by my door. and every now and then she would tap on the door just to let me know she was there and she would at times while I slept like she could tell I was sleeping

she would slide some food in the door and every few hours she would just tap on the door and she wouldn't talk and it was just her way of communicating I'm here and I'm not going to leave like I'm not going to leave until you leave you know you open the door I'll go home we don't have to talk but

as long as you're behind the closed door I will be on the other side of the closed door. And I think that I, you know, that defines the kind of person I would like to be, I think, which operates against, I am sometimes a person in bed, but I also want to have the capacity to be the other person behind on the other side of a closed door. And I think that the best way that I operate against despair is feeling like I have a responsibility for that. the way that I hope to love and the way I hope to carry myself is to be the kind of friend who says,

I am willing, if not eager, to be on the other side of whatever door you're on. And to know that means that, it doesn't mean that I have to become, quote, unquote, better. You know, it doesn't mean that's not going to be like my anxiety and depression's cured because I want to be a good friend. That's not what, that doesn't happen. Sorry to deliver the news to anyone. that's not going to happen. But what that does do for me is it says, okay, if I am well enough,

how can I actually create a functioning ecosystem of care within every circle I'm in that says we look out for each other? And that, to me, moves me beyond despair, saying that I want to always have the capacity in care that allows me to be the person on the other side of the door tapping lightly. The other thing I will say that pulls me out of despair is so many of my friends now have kids.

You know, I don't have kids, but I, you know, I don't remember at what point I realized that kids liked me. Kids really like me, you know, and I don't, and I think that I've, I've always been like kids are fine. Like, kids are cool. But, you know, the past like five years, all my friends having kids and all of them kind of like gravitating towards me. Now I'm like, kids are the greatest. You know, I feel like I'm a, I jokingly call my. myself like a freelance uncle where I get to, you know, and it's, it has changed me. It's like rewired me. Like being witness, and I know that this is just how DNA and genetics sometimes work,

but the fact that like one of my friends who I love more than anything has a child who looks exactly like her makes me predisposed to loving that child more than anything, even though I already would. The fact that I can look at the child's face and see her face mapped onto it, it makes me say I would do anything for you right now. You don't even know I exist yet. You know, you're like eight months old. You don't even know I'm a real person yet, but I would do anything for you. And I want to be here to do anything for you. I want to live in a way that keeps me here for as long as possible so that if you ever need anything, I can be there. Despair is inevitable for me. I think that despair hovers and I don't find ways. to stop its hovering. And I'm actually fine with that because I think that keeps me in tune

with the realities of the world that need addressing. And it keeps me in tune with what I need to fight back against. And it keeps me in tune with a real rage that propels me towards love. But also,

I want to be the kind of uncle-type figure who gets called when a date doesn't go well, or when someone's parents don't understand them and they want to talk to me, or when someone's putting on a prom outfit and they don't like the way they look in it, or when someone's, you know, needs a little money to go on a date, I want to live long enough to be that because I feel like all of my friends who I love have carried new people into the world

who are waiting for me to love them, and they are hopefully waiting to love me. And that means that I get to echo the love I already had for one person into a whole other generation of people. And that is enough to make me say, I just think I want to stick around. If I can help it, I want to stick around. Okay, Neef, I'd like to do six more rounds with you,

but we made it to the end. So we always finish this the same way. with a trip in our memory time machine. Oh, great. You get to revisit one moment from your past. This is a moment you would not change anything about. It is just a moment that you would like to linger in a little longer. Which moment do you choose?

My mother wrote, my mother wrote on a typewriter. She wasn't like a quote unquote professional writer, as some would say. She worked two jobs. and she would sometimes come home and write and she would write on weekends on a very loud old typewriter she would write a novel and I remember

one Sunday I was grounded I had done who knows what but I couldn't go outside and play and it was a nice Sunday I just want to remind people that your mom died when you were pretty young yes my mom died when I was 13

and so this happened when I was maybe 11 that was prime grounding age for me because I was always in some nonsense and I remember I was supposed to stay in my room. That was the punishment. But I remembered that was the time where I was like distinctly, I had become distinctly aware of my mother as a writer.

Because I, you know, when I was younger, I was like, she's just messing around on that typewriter up there. She's just messing around on that machine up there. I didn't even know it was a typewriter. She also sewed at that desk. So it was like sometimes the sewing machine sounded like typewriter, you know. Making noise. Make a noise.

And I remember being so curious. It was only me and her in the house, I think. And I remember I snuck up the stairs really quietly. They were carpeted stairs. So you could kind of sneak up and pretty quiet. You couldn't step. I remember you had to kind of crawl because if you stepped, the weight of your full body would make them creak. But if you kind of crawled, you could kind of sneak up.

And I remember sneaking up the stairs and peeking in the room and just watching her type. And my mother usually wore head covering. It's a Muslim woman wore head covering. But she didn't have one on her whole afro. was drinking in the sunlight, and she was kind of humming and just typing. And I just remember sitting and watching, and I wasn't supposed to be there. I was supposed to be grounded in my room. And I remember sitting and watching for so long.

We felt like hours, but it certainly wasn't hours. And as I got older, I was like, I have to think she knew I was there. Parents are, I mean, parents are, like, so intuitive. Right. And there's something really thoughtful, I think, about me as an 11-year-old looking, over her shoulder in a way while she toiled at this book, and I think that she returns that favor, you know, like I think she returns that favor for me. I think she's never not present when I am kind of turned away from the world and head down and putting words on the page.

And so I feel like not only would I relive that memory, but I think that memory is being relived through her. I feel like we have created an exchange where we are eternally looking over each other's shoulders as we make something. Hanif Abdul Rakeb, writer, poet, author, he'll have a new series you can catch at the Brooklyn Academy of Music starting on November 4th. Hanif, thank you so much. Thank you. So good to talk to you again.

It was so good to talk to you. If you liked this episode, you should check out my conversation with the poet Nikki Giovanni. Hanif's thoughts about being forgotten reminded me of how Nikki thinks about her legacy, or rather how she doesn't think about it. Next week on Wildcard, we talked to Sterlin Harjo, the creator of The Amazing Show Reservation Dogs, which is nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. Is there anything in your life that has felt predestined?

Yes, all of it. This episode was produced by Lee Hale, with help from Romel Wood and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was fact-checked by Sarah Knight and mastered by Co. Takasugi Chernovin. Wildcard's executive producer is Beth Donovan. our theme music is by Romteen Arablewey. You can reach out to us at wildcard at npr.org. We love when you do. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week.

See you then.