Chapter Nine: My Kind of People

Artist: SHE’REE Art - Pamela SHE’REE Jackson

Artwork: Midnight Bloom

Medium: Acrylic with Texture

I’ve lived in different states, visited different places, traveled, and even run across people on cruises who were from my neck of the woods.

There’s almost an automatic kinship when that happens.

Maybe it’s the accent. Maybe they instinctively understand what I’m describing without my having to explain every little thing. Or maybe it’s simply because we share a connection of sorts.

When that happens, it can pull you in like a magnet. You want to get to know that person better.

But what I find just as interesting are the people I’ve met from completely different places.

Different states. Different countries. Different cultures.

I’ve met people who were warm and inviting and had a completely different kind of pull.

Maybe it was their accent. Maybe I wanted to know more about their culture or the place they called home. Sometimes we exchanged contact information, and I may or may not ever see them again.

Still, there’s something delightful about keeping up with someone you happened to meet along the way.

A photograph appears on social media years later, and you remember where you met. You see their family grow, where they’ve traveled, or some ordinary piece of their life. Somehow this person who once was a complete stranger has a little place in your world.

That is where the thought behind My Kind of People becomes bigger to me.

My kind of people don’t necessarily have to come from my kind of place.

Sometimes it’s familiarity that connects us.

Sometimes it’s our differences.

And sometimes I don’t think we can explain it at all.

There’s just something there.

I think connections can be a little like seeds. Some never get beyond that first meeting. Others take hold.

And every now and then, one busts through the ground and becomes something alive — green, earthy and human at the same time.

That’s part of what I wanted to capture when I wrote My Kind of People.

ART BEHIND THE STORY

Midnight Bloom
Original artwork by SHE’REE

Maybe that’s why Midnight Bloom belongs with this story. A garden doesn’t need everything in it to look the same. Different colors, shapes and stages of growth can share the same ground and somehow belong together.

Writing gives me one way to tell a story. Music gives me another. Through my artwork, I find myself telling stories without words at all.

That’s what The SHE’REE Journal brings together — my artwork, songs and writing in one place.

So wherever you may be, leave a little room for the unexpected.

Who knows what might grow in your garden?

A lifelong friend. A romance. Someone you meet once and remember for years. Or someone you never expected to become...

My Kind of People.

MUSIC BEHIND THE STORY

MY KIND OF PEOPLE

Performed by SHE’REE Country