Work to Do - How Mavis Staples Healed My Soul

From her very first growl

I have been wearing my Mavis Staples t-shirt for three days straight. I have recreated the 13-song setlist from her Friday performance at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Orange County.

I have spent three days trying to find the words to describe how she made me feel - how she washed six years of pain out of me in one performance. How she cleansed my soul by carrying me to a celestial shore. How she healed with me words of love and told me to rock the boat - punctuated by guttural growls and howls born of that blues town, Chicago.

Each time I attempt to put fingertips to keys, the words keep coming out soggy… splish splosh.

Then I hear her voice, “got no time for crying, no time for tears, we got work to do.”

And then I start misting up again. This war has broken me.

I want to ask this 83-year-old badass to be my mother.

We’ve got work to do. We are both soldiers in the army of love - hate is our enemy, we fight it day and night.

Every single lyric is directed at love and healing and unity and helping others and where can we do more to help those less fortunate.

She slays fascists with her uplift. She is Ultra Mavis. She told the Supreme Court to stay out of her business. She’s been doing this a long time. She knows how to march. Her voice moves mountains. She is a national treasure.

“Are you with me?” she asks.

Yes, Mavis, I am with you.

We got work to do.

Yes Mavis.

No time for tears.

No time for tears.

No time for tears.

We’ve got work to do.

****

Dedicated to my friend Maz.