lemon
Lili Tina Lopez and I, Sincerely Tommy
I get to pleasure in things that I love : exploration, culture and coffee. Coffee dates are so important to me. They are a time for me to be brilliantly distracted by a lot of stimuli competing for my attention at one time. Ask @lilitinalooez, she saw me focused on her; my breakfast tacos, the mixtape music playing above us, the women sitting in the front window, including the one with the Chucks, the guy who walked in and leaned on the counter like it was a prop for an editorial shoot to the woman getting the grain bowl and reading the Sunday Times.
She saw me attempt to multitask how late I could be and still be engaged in our moment: which after a month of planning I was happy to be in it while eating, hearing, documenting and most of all feeling. She asked me when do I put my phone down. Lili you’re funny! If you ask one of my sisters, ‘she’d say never.”
I’m laughing. But the funny thing is even if the phone is down my mind isn’t. It’s always up, always hearing, watching, recording. And, to get the moments, to listen to the culture, document it as it is, it has to be. I gotta’ stay ready because..I never know when a fraction of time will call me for a place in history surpassing it.
“So you basically turned your life into your work?”
Yes. I guess I did. But, I couldn’t rightly call a coffee date work. Or could I? But then again, recalling this entire moment from memory – your words included, while drinking a coffee that felt like I was jumping in one plush play pen, with it tasting like a marshmallow yet to be toasted with chocolate shavings, makes me know that maybe I can.