Andre Royal Sr.

Listen to artist, chef, children's book author, and founder of nonprofit Suddenly Sleepy , Andre Royal, Sr . as he talks about his journey to Eugene, and to advocacy work in Lane County, Oregon. His interview partner for the evening is in the next episode, and they were meeting for the very first time at Oakshire Brewing Company.

You can read more about the project, about Wordcrafters in Eugene, about our sponsors and community partners, and send in your own Lane County, Oregon stories at StoryHelix.Wordcrafters.Org.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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 You're listening to StoryHelix: intertwining
 stories past, present, and not yet
 
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 imagined in Lane County, Oregon.
 What's up earth things? I'm Leah Velez
 
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 and I'll be your host.
 The story we're about to hear was recorded
 
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 at Oakshire Brewing Company in the Whiteaker
 neighborhood of Eugene, Oregon, in early
 
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 2022. Let's  open up our ear nuggets and give it
  a listen.

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 I came to live
 in Oregon by way of necessity. My
 
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 wife and the mother of my youngest
 child, she wanted to be around her
 
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 family and she decided to go where home was, and home happened to be
 
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 here and I came in tow and
 I had my own reasons for coming, in
 
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 addition too. Mainly to keep family together
 as best as I could. And so
 
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 I came out of necessity and I
 stayed out of necessity. So yeah.
 
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 I've really appreciated the journey
 here, even though it was a little
 
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 more prompted. The opportunities here really, I think, 
benefited some endeavors and
 
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 things that I've tried to do that
 honestly, I don't know if I'd be
 
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 able to do in my own hometown.
 I think there's opportunity here amidst the struggle.
 
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 So as far as opportunities to go, I think some things are really
 
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 low barrier. Like you can still
 do certain things with a handshake and access
 
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 people. There's sometimes not the same
 type of gatekeepers. They have their
 
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 own but like, at least here, in some ways, 
it's kind of good
 
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 and bad. People are still fairly
 cordial. So it's good in
 
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 that sense that people are cordial,
 but it's also a challenge too, navigating those
 
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 different areas. Where, you 
 just might not know where you stand because
 
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 people just might be a more accustomed
 to being the polite. Like, I
 
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 like a lot of things here,
 but I really appreciate the DMV. You
 
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 don't have to take a day off
 work. There's no taco trucks outside,
 
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 you know, no line zig-zagging
 and three to four digit letters with the
 
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 number. You don't have to take
 a day off work. You just go
 
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 in and they apologize to you for
 from the wait of five minutes being so
 
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 long. So I appreciate the accessibility
 and some of the elements of a small
 
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 town. Yeah, so pretty much
 since my youngest was born I've been here
 
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 on and off for about ten years
 and I've been trying to call Eugene home.
 
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 It's hard because, you know,
 most of my family's in California and
 
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 most most of my wife's families here.
 So that's been the challenge. Moving
 
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 here, not knowing anyone here,
 having to network and get engaged in the
 
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 community, to immerse myself in
 it has been, it's been a challenge,
 
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 but it's also created a lot of
 opportunities and opened doors that I don't think
 
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 ...if I weren't in that situation,
 I don't think I would have doggedly pursued
 
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 them. A lot of the work
 that I do stems from advocacy work that
 
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 I got from a little bit of
 popularity for some social media posts and things
 
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 I was doing, involving food and
 some fancy plating and it aroused a lot of
 
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 people's curiosity and they're like, 
"Oh, where is this guy from?" 
 
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 I wanted to take that curiosity and
 turn it into advocacy. Take some
 
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 of that following that I started developing
 for something as small as cooking a really
 
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 pretty meal and taking that and turning
 it into something a little bit more meaningful.
 
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 Not to say that cooking a beautiful
 meal isn't meaningful. But it
 
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 had more meaning to me because I
 had to basically teach myself how to cook
 
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 again, and so the plating and
 the fancy stuff was pretty much borne out
 
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 of at home rehabilitating myself, learning
 how to cook again and an expression of
 
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 gratitude. And so it meant a
 lot to me how it was presented,
 
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 because I had to start over.
 So when I moved here, I got
 
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 encouraged to join some online groups where people were cooking these amazing, gourmet-looking meals
 
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 and they weren't in a fancy restaurant. It was just people at home,
 
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 housewives and homemakers and just random people. 
 
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 You know, it was like "what, this is accessible?" Like,
 I mean most of what I saw,
 
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 I mean some of it looked like
 it should have been in magazines and things
 
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 like that. So it really inspired
 me to do more and made it feel
 
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 more accessible and I wanted to share
 that with other people. So I had
 
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 some health issues that required some emergency
 treatment and procedures and surgery, and
 
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 that was another reason
 why I moved here during that time was
 
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 to be cared for. I had
 achalasia,  it's swallowing disorder where
 
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 the muscles stop coordinating in your throat
 to pull the food down, and so
 
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 I was a starving artist.  And it
 was really difficult to eat and drink,
 
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 sometimes even water, and so that
 was a struggle I came up here with
 
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 and then I got diagnosed with another
 rare condition called narcolepsy, and so it
 
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 was like "Oh, man."
 Like just something else on my plate
 
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 that I had to deal with. I
 had to get used to food again because,
 
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 you know, it was an arduous
 effort to even swallow sometimes. Every
 
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 bite was like apprehensive because I didn't
 know if it was going to get stuck
 
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 or lodged in my throat, you
 know, and even every drink. You
 
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 know, it was a challenge.
 I had to kind of learn how to
 
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 cook again because with a sleeping disorder,
 I was having a hard time staying
 
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 awake and so it was like well, 
what's going to keep me awake?
 
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 What can I do? It can't
 be too easy, can't be too hard.
 
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 You know, I had to find
 that balance and really get some
 
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 of that muscle memory back and find
 out what was going to work for me.
 
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 It was a rough time, but
 once I had the one surgery to
 
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 help with the eating and drinking,
 that helped, overall, the other elements. 
 
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 And so it was like okay, now I could function
 a little bit more normally without the constraints
 
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 of basically starving to death. So
 that period of time where I was rehabilitating
 
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 myself, it was from the surgery
 and if... I told myself, I said,
 
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 if I get some semblance of my
 health back, I would do advocacy
 
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 and give back to the community,
 just kind of an expression and gratitude.
 
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 So that's where a lot of my
 external effort comes from, is just trying
 
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 to give back as a way of
 saying thank you to this town for basically
 
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 saving my life. I started out
 doing a bunch of volunteer work, but
 
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 I was really inspired... some of
 that inspiration came when I was catering for
 
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 like the Rotary Club. I would
 listen to their pitches, that the groups
 
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 that would come in, a lot
 of nonprofits, and I felt like,
 
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 you know, this is really inspiring. I think I should create a
 
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 nonprofit of my own instead of just
 volunteering places. Maybe I can create something
 
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 where I have a little bit of
 creative licensing and can give back in my
 
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 own way and support some causes that
 are near and dear to me. And
 
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 so I decided to start a nonprofit.
 Suddenly Sleepy. It started out, I was
 
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 curious of what it would take to put
 on a 5k race. Since this is
 
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 Track Town USA, I figured people
 like racing, it'd be a good way to
 
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 raise awareness around a cause and,
 you know, inspired by like Susan G
 
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 Komen and things like that,
 
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 and so I said, well, I'd create my own race, and so
 it was a sleepwalk. Suddenly Sleepy Sleep Walk.
 
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 That was my contribution to
 the city. That, I mean a lot
 
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 of people like running, so I
 hoped that it would fit and that people
 
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 would embrace it. And you know, now it's we're going into year five
 
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 and people seem to be coming along. A lot of it's about togetherness,
 
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 you know, you got to create
 interest. We advocate for a rare condition,
 
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 so there just isn't a lot of
 people. So we have to make
 
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 it about sleep overall, the
 importance of sleep to the community as a
 
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 whole, not just a small,
 narrow focus of a small part of the
 
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 community. And by doing so, then
 we can highlight a smaller part of the
 
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 community and get people to care,
 essentially because it impacts and affects them too,
 
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 in ways that they might not realize.
 And that hopefully they can empathize and
 
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 relate. So people can learn what resources
 are in the community, without having to be
 
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 in crisis to do it. My
 favorite part is the challenges each year and
 
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 the adrenaline rush of like, oh
 my gosh,  how am I going to
 
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 pull this off, what's going to
 happen this year? What kind of barriers
 
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 am I going to face? What's...
 The first year we had immaculate weather.
 
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 It was great and beautiful. The
 second year, there was a freak snowstorm.
 
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 Third Year, Covid. Fourth year,
 Covid. Fifth year, still maybe some Covid.
 
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 We had our event on Sunday, and
 the whole world shut down on Monday.
 
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 And so I wasn't, you know, I wasn't really aware of what
 
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 was actually going on, because I was
 in event planning mode. So there was
 
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 a lot of unknowns and to get
 back to reality on Monday, coming down
 
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 from that high of, "Wow, we
 pulled off another successful year, and bringing all
 
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 these people together," to all the disconnectedness
 that was starting to take place and all
 
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 the fear. It was really challenging. A lot, a lot to process.
 
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 Everything was kind of traumatizing, you
 know, so trying to find a
 
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 reason to laugh. When we did
 the Stand-Up 
 
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 bars were just starting to open back up, and we were
 trying to help businesses get a little bit
 
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 more foot traffic and you know, help people
 get a little bit more of a return
 
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 to normalcy. And even the comedians
 were rusty. I won't say names--
 
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 a family member-- was like, "What?
 What are you trying to do? Like
 
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 you're doing too much." And I said, you know what, I'm going to
 
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 put on an actual show, because
 it started out, I was doing some open mic
 
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 nights, and it wasn't just sleep themed
 or anything like that, It was just funny
 
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 stories. You know, a lot
 of it was just based around funny things
 
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 I could remember that people laughed at, that just happened to be my life.
 
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 Laughter's the best medicine, they
 say, so we were all just kind of healing together. 
 
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Thanks for listening. You can find us wherever 
you listen to your podcasts. If you've
 
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  got your own Lane County story to tell,
 we'd love to hear it, at StoryHelix.Wordcrafters.org.