First Avenue: What’s your name?
Ché.
FA: You’re from here?
C: Yes, born and raised in Minneapolis, South side.
FA: What are your favorite spots in the Cities?
C: My grandpa has had a bunch of pieces put up at the Walker Art Center. It’s one of my favorite places to find peace. It just shows the essence of the arts community and how strong it is here. The culture, especially the musical culture, have shown me who I am, who I can be, and the amount of freedom that there really is… You can live your whole life and not relate to anybody, then you go to a show and you’re standing there for five seconds, someone sings three lines of a song and it’s the most important three lines because it resonates with you so deeply. And the person next to you agrees. And then you’ve met somebody who’s led a life that’s similar to yours in one way or another and you find out that the world is not as big as you think it is… but then at the same time it’s HUGE.
FA: Are you studying art or music?
C: Actually, no. I’m the only person in my family who isn’t. I’m in sociology and women’s studies.
FA: So you’re studying the art of people.
C: Yes. Explaining why we do what we do… I feel like a lot of things we learn now is why we’re different, which is great because we always wonder what separates us, but I feel like now we’re so busy separating each other that there really aren’t commonalities anymore besides, y’know, labels. I find it exciting that I can go to a class or a lesson and realize the world is so much bigger than our world even. There are multiple galaxies, multiple universes and we’re just in this one little place.
FA: It’s like being *right here* is winning the lottery every single time.
C: Exactly! Even if people here don’t want to be linked, we are.
***
Look for Ché each morning on the Washington Avenue bridge, speechless and basking in a sense of place.
