Ruminations

Mortality

2010-10-17T11:43:00.001-04:00

As the story goes, faced with two weeks of changing diapers while his wife was away my cousin Duane succeeded in potty training his 2yr old son before his mother returned.

He grasped the idea that he shouldn't go in his diaper before he got a firm hold on the "go to the bathroom" bit; so once early in the training when he really needed to poop, he just squatted in our cousin's back garden and let go. I wasn't there when it happened, but when I was told the story, I cracked up and said "Oh, I can't wait until he's old enough for me to torture with that story."

This morning I was remembering, and wondering what's the right age? At 12 he might have enough of an awareness of himself for me to tell him that story, but he might not truly grasp my reason for telling it - bonding. When my family retells my baby stories - a lot of them for a laugh at my expense - the laughter is only a small price to pay for the sense of well being I get, the gratefulness I have for the people who shared in my childhood, these stories are the evidence of the bond that has traveled with and sustained me since birth. 15 might not be much better, I think the 20's and older are a great time for the retelling of his baby stories, but that's 17 years and a few weeks from here; and I found myself wondering would I be alive then.

I am not terminally ill or had any great epiphany lately, nor do I have any great fear of the abstract idea of death. I've accepted it as an inevitable bridge I'll cross when I get to. I've also accepted that I won't know until my dying moment that I am leaving, and from time to time I stop to affirm that be it days or years upon years that I have left I accept my fate and am grateful for the time I have spent so far.

This morning though, I am hoping that in 17 years and a few weeks I'll be around to do in the retelling of baby stories what my family friends and family friends have done for me throughout the years, and I that I can hang around to keep sniffing that sweet spot on his neck so that when he's twenty he won't forget that I am the one who used to powder him with kisses because that's just what he smelled like.

Dream Animals

2009-11-23T14:48:00.004-05:00

I seem to dream a lot about animals (also ghouls and monsters but I've never posted about that).

I just found a dream I jotted down a few years ago. In this dream there was a hurricane that changed the terrain, and I am caught on a sandbar that used to be Lime Cay waiting for a boat to come and get me.

Many boats come and go, and still mine doesn't show so I decide I'm gonna just jump on the next one that comes in. Instead of taking me back to the mainland I end up picking my way across a craggy landscape. As navigate the sharp rocks dark and shiny with the sea water, in the distance I notice a spray erupting from the surface of the water. At first I think it's oil but suddenly I am with people and one of them says "no that's a fissure, air is escaping from the earth". As we continue across the rocks we see a network of pipes that suggest the fissure is man-made. The instinct to follow the pipes rises, but as I move towards them a boat comes. As I wait to board the boat I am suddenly aware that I have a pin and a needle driven horizontally into my heel, but I cannot get them out because my heel is frozen.

Standing at the side of the boat I ask for a container for the finless tailless fish I have in my pocket. The fish had been terrorizing my mother and I don't want it to die because I want to gift its fate to her. I knew I couldn't put it anywhere near the water at the risk of it escaping, so I'd put it in my pocket and poured some water in. As if it were magic to the fish the water made my pocket larger and gave the fish so much room to move around I was afraid it might escape.

I am aboard the boat and almost ashore when I check my heel; it has thawed and there is only a pin, the edges of which I can see sticking out so I try to catch a hold of it as the boat sways. The driver says to me "doesn't that hurt? Why don't you wait til you get to the shore to take it out? The boat's jostling." I yank it out anyway and say "Nah, it doesn't hurt".

He seems impressed by my bravado, as the boat pulls up the dock I double check that there's nothing else in my heel, check my pocket for Mummy's fish and step onto the sandy shack-lined terrain.

Temperance

2009-11-09T08:04:00.004-05:00

When I decide to accomplish something I have this great drive to do it and do it NOW; but I am figuring out that this great sense of urgency is a shortcoming as much as an excellent tool depending on the task at hand.

In the case of goals that need to be accomplished over the long term; this sense of NOW can be a set up for failure; because if NOW passes and you've got nothing to show, you've failed to achieve your goal. I am trying to learn now how to translate this energy into a long term sense of motivation. I kinda figure what I can do is turn that initial feeling of urgency to plotting the course of my goal, and everyday dedicating that sense of urgency to what I can do for it NOW.

No really does mean no.

2009-10-08T09:56:00.002-04:00

I watched Californications "Land of Rape and Honey" (where Marcy tells Runkle all women have a rape fantasy, and where his boss confirms by detailing hers) and I'd just like to put this out there:

That's the stupidest and most dangerous absolute to put out there. Not all fucking women have a rape fantasy; I don't.

I can't even detail how upset and disgusted I am.

The Skeleton Woman

2009-08-06T08:31:00.002-04:00

As told in "Women Who Run With The Wolves"

"The Skeleton Woman"Sedna, legend tells, was a beautiful girl who lived by the sea. Although many courted her, she would not leave her widowed father, and refused them all. But one day, a raven disguised as a handsome man came to her. He promised her a better life - and best of all, he promised he would also provide for her father. And so, full of hope, Sedna left with him. But he took her instead to a desolate island, where she was cold and hungry. When her father came at last to visit, he grew very angry. Taking Sedna into his kayak, he paddled into the open sea, but Raven caused a terrible storm to arise. And Sedna's terrified father, in desperation, hoping to save his own life, cast his daughter from the boat. Sedna clung to the side of the kayak, and would not let go, until her father cut off her hands with his knife. Then Sedna's hands and fingers fell into the sea, becoming the the fishes, the seals, and the whales. And handless Sedna sank to the bottom of the ocean to become the skeleton woman.

One day a fisherman came fishing, he had drifted far from his homeplace and did not know that local fisherman stayed away from this bay, saying it was haunted. When a heavy pull on the his line drags his kayak to sea, he thinks he has caught the "big one," a fish so large he can eat for weeks, a fish so fat that he will prosper ever after. As he daydreams about his coming ease, what he reels up is Skeleton Woman, a woman flung from a cliff long ago, her fish-eaten carcass left to rot at the bottom of the sea. In terror her flings her from his kayak and paddles with all his might for shore. Skeleton Woman is so snarled in his fishing line that she is dragged behind the fisherman wherever he goes. She is pulled across the water, over the beach, and into his house, where he collapses in the darkness in terror.

Thinking he has lost her, he falls into an exhausted sleep. The fisherman wakes in the morning, and lights his whale oil lamp, and there lies Sedna the skeleton woman. A pile of bones and fishline tangled on his floor. Perhaps it was the softness of the lamplight, or that he had passed the night unharmed by her, but feeling pity for her, slowly disentangles her. Muttering words like a mother to a child he untangles first her toes, then her ankles and so he works through the night gently untangling her. When her bones are in order, he dresses her in furs to keep her warm, and exhausted falls asleep. During the night, Skeleton Woman scratches and crawls her way across the floor, drinks the tears of the dreaming fisherman, and grows anew her flesh and heart and body. Her flesh from his flesh, her heart from his heart, the fisherman wakes to find himself wrapped up with a beautiful woman.

The people who cannot remember how she came to her first ill-fortune now say she and the fisherman went away and were consistently well-fed by the creatures she had known in her life underwater.

Wah eye nuh si heart nuh feel

2009-08-06T06:56:00.000-04:00

"if you can't see it it won't hurt you".

When we were little my sister was so afraid of thunderstorms she would hide from them under my grandmother's bed. Recently laughing at that memory she said "I don't know why I did that... it didn't change anything".

I know why: "wah eye nuh si heart nuh feel" - somehow, being unable to to see the thing that scares us makes us feel safe.

The Melodrama of my youth

2009-06-18T09:09:00.001-04:00

I think Mills&Boon and all the assorted romance junk (I was very particular to the historical stuff) I read as a child ruined my early love life. Gee... is your computer hot from my embarrassment? Aneeeeeway, I didn't grow up with both my parents (hell I barely grew up with one!) so I didn't have a realistic example of relationships in my life so when I got to a boyfriend having age, those relationships were what I modeled mine off - or mebbe I did but Mills&Boon made it so much more exciting to look forward to.

From age 7-ish when I smuggled my first cheesy novel under the covers to about 23-ish when I began to realise my formula wasn't working, the Mills&Boon idea of love is what directed my love life. I thought that love always triumphed, if he offended you you should slap him run away and he'd always follow, that girls always had an orgasm too, you were supposed to pretend not to need him while secretly spending your hours obsessing about him, and that no matter how horrible the stupid fight he'd always come back. I thought everything was supposed to be uberdramatic; and boy did I honour that idea by living my relationships in heightened drama. And in retrospect, when I look at how ridiculous I was, I realise those boys must have loved me extraordinarily much to put up with me - I dare you to try and guess just how many of my shenanigans were straight off the pages of one of those books.

Ultimately though, all that junk didn't work out so well in my favour, and I had a wake up call when I was 18-ish (I'm getting old enough now that I'm forgetting dates and ages) and my 2nd serious boyfriend left me. Left. Me. Rejected me really. I was utterly confused. The men NEVER left their heroines, at least they never stayed away. I'd kept breaking up with him cause that's what the girls in Mills&Boon did! And finally the last time I broke up with him, while I was busy preparing for our passionate make up he was getting to know a girl less obviously nuts, and who his mother actually liked . So after I bitched slapped him (I'm so embarrassed) and had him in such a tangle HE was the one calling me to apologize, he wised up and told me "Listen, I'm tired of this shit. I love you, but you're crazy and you're going to drive ME crazy, SO STOP CALLING ME! I'm gonna go date someone who isn't crazy" After being told that way too many times for a girl as smart as I am I realized that I was the only one following this formula, and um.. it wasn't working. It actually kinda was the opposite of working.

The months after that were one of the saddest times in my life, Sade's "King of Sorrow" album had just come out, and I spent my days behind blacked out windows, crying to the title track on repeat. I'm serious. DAYS on end in a dark room... weeping. I should get some kind of Mills&Boon award for that. "life most screwed up by Mills&Boon" or something like that.

After he kicked my "feisty heroine" wanna be ass to the curb I went to visit with my girlfriends on the other end of the island. I called probably in a last ditch effort to beg him to take me back, of course he said no his exact words might even have been "hell no crazy!" So I slunk into the dark kitchen to sob by myself, but I was so frikkin dramatic it was more like cow bawling that had everybody piling into the kitchen to see what was wrong. I explained everything to my friend Shani, and she put her cup in front of me and said "pour all your sadness into this cup and then throw it away". And me with my dramatic self started wailing and said "All my sadness couldn't hold it this cup." Wail! "All my sadness couldn't hold in this room".

This post is a public service announcement to say "Use my life as a cautionary tale, don't let your kids read that junk"
And since today is thursday, let's just file this one under TMI thursday cause you just might not have needed to know this tidbit about me:
***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, "how many readers can I estrange THIS week??" TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else's!***
p.s. I learned about TMI thursday from Racquel at Smell the Glove

A recurring theme

2009-06-09T09:50:00.009-04:00

I've posted about my Ex here (I was in a relationship with an African guy who turned out to be the granddaddy of all liars) and here (Imagine my horror at the big reveal - he proved to be likely the biggest man-whore in all of Athens county. He had lord only knows how many girls, flings, and fuck buddies all over my campus, his, and quite likely the Internet)before.

I have a difficult time with concrete judgements, which comes from the awareness that there are so many angles from which to view things, and usually many of them are correct within their context; so my reasoning is always framed within the structure of "if...then" - If I am to look at it solely from the context of our relationship, then I should be mad and never forgive him for what he did - and what he did was really very awful.

But, there was never anything to forgive though he did me a terrible wrong. I was extremely wounded, and before I cut him off I took the opportunity to say to him

"I feel like you reached inside me and pulled my motor out. To experience this kind of dishonesty and cruelty is shocking to me; and I wonder if you understand that this affects the rest of my life. That a betrayal like this is a deep psychic wound that I will have to spend so much time trying to heal from."

Inside that paradigm (is that even the right word?) my responsibility to my own well being means I cannot have him in my life. Pardon the self satisfying digression - you'd think it would be obvious, but he had the gall to ask "If you really loved me how could you just cut me off so completely?" I am amused that he thinks I'm the one with a warped view of love.

Ah.. anyway the way he lied to me made me very concerned about how he will navigate and live a fulfilling life, and when I think of him it is always with the hope that he is becoming a better person.

It would be easy for me to think his betrayal was about me, and while I hold that he had, AND hold him to a responsibility to hold my trust and my love with absolute care, I understand that it wasn't entirely about me. I and my pain were a side effect of his struggle to make his way through this life. More amazingly, I am unbelievably grateful for the lessons I took away from my relationship with him, and I always hope that the pain he caused me earned him some valuable lessons as well.

In still another context, he was also a victim of my struggle to navigate my life. While I tried to do right by my choice, I always knew I did him a great disservice in choosing to be in a relationship with him; and in all my reasoning of our actions, it would be unfair of me to hold against him any disservice he did me, while expecting to be absolved of any I did him.

These different views stem from my larger belief that we should be primarily concerned with the execution of our own lives, and a step beyond that we cannot direct the course of any life except our own. To accept this philosophy we have to submit a down payment of forgiveness for any wrongs that will be done us, and accept as our right a certain degree of forgiveness for any we will do. It might seem a dangerous philosophy, but it is mitigated by the fact that despite our best intentions we will always hurt people, and the philosophy requires that we make a reasonable effort not to by first subscribing to the moral theory "do no harm".

By no means is he a proponent of this theory, but because I am I choose to hold him to the same standards I wish for myself. I didn't have to forgive him, there was already room for him to fuck up, but he violated his responsibility to within reason do me no harm. The consequence of that violation is there is no longer room - or desire - for him in my life.

Here's to my hero

2009-06-02T20:16:00.002-04:00

Recently I referenced some random little known fact to my sister and she asked incredulous "how did you know that?" and I said "You told me, don't you know just about 75% of the shit I know comes from you?"

It made me so happy to be able to say that to her because we've come such a long way. T and I did not grow up together. We are the products of an unfortunately typical Jamaican family dynamic. My father is a philanderer (we have an older brother born to another mother, plus a sister born between us - to an additional other mother) and a flake who left us when I was only three months old.

My mother could not afford childcare while she worked, so I was taken to live with my father's sister and her family of three boys and two girls, while my sister went to my grandparents who also housed my aunt and her son. We were both unplanned pregnancies, but completely loved and wanted and I cannot imagine how world wrenching it must have been for my mother to not only be left to care for us alone, but to have to give us up as well.

She got off to a rocky start but Mummy supported the hell out of us, largely unassisted by my father. She put us through high school and college (I did my part to ease the burden by dropping out after one year of college), and even now that we're adults (on paper at least) she still insists on mothering us every chance she gets, and when she can't find any she creates them.

Because of Mummy's financial sitation ---> need to finish her first degree---> scholarship to Germany---> our family didn't live together until I was 11, when I insisted I wanted to move to my grandparents house so I could be with my sister whom I adored even though she HATED my guts. I am nothing if not an optimist and I was convinced if I were around more maybe she would see how awesome I thought she was and then surely she would love me.

That did not work out as planned, I just gave her the opportunity to hate me year round while I cried a lot and whined to anyone who would listen "T hates me!" For the first 4 of my 5 years of high school I tried very hard to make her love me, but eventually my constant pain over our shitty relationship overwhelmed me into indifference to my entire home situation.

In retrospect we all in that house had embattled relationships with each other, but by the time we were both in college I figured out that T didn't love me because she didn't think I loved her. So I decided to wear her down by showing her a ridiculous amount of love and adoration no matter how mean she was... and it worked. Now she is bar none my favourite person in the world, and I'm pretty certain I am hers.

humble pie

2009-06-02T17:49:00.000-04:00

A while ago I had a conversation with my best friends about love without expectations, and whether it was possible. We back and forthed about if for a couple of days, but never did come to a consensus on whether such a thing was possible or existed.

Fast forward and I'm sitting at my computer dizzy with Metric when I suddenly recognise what we were really talking about is "unconditional love", and that it is entirely possible.

For the span of my dating life I have been at some stage or other the butt of jokes among my friends as "the destroyer" or " the inaccessible" because I am a confessed committophobe. My "committophobia" translates into flaws magnified into reasons for leaving, for loving less, reasons it's all wrong or not worth it, and those things translated into relationships left behind.

I've always imagined the only way I could have a successful relationship was by being able to see past the flaws - unconditional love; and much to my 'earth swayed and foundation shook' surprise, entering into another round of "love without expectations" I met someone I thought I could love unconditionally. We were entering the heartache bracing formula of "I know this is gonna end so let's not get too attached and make it complicated. I want you when I want you and vice versa, do what you want, I do what I want.. etc" I'll love you for the sake of loving you, don't expect it will translate into any expectations met - my fellow committphobes know the drill :-), and isn't that the right attitude anyway?

Didn't really work out as relationships go but a beautiful friendship blossomed from my realisation that I could choose to love unconditionally - bunk the flaws and relationship status. Even more, I never desired anything out of it outside of the freedom to love - not even love in return.

I was flying high on the euphoria of having my shit figured out when I had my foundations shaken by something extremely hurtful he said to me. That ish triggered my "I don't give a fuck switch" which is where all relationships end for me, but as I tripped into auto relationship shut down mode and started my preparations to abandon ship I realised I'd come upon the true test of unconditional love.

All along I'd had a single expectation of him, that he understand how I looked at our friendship, and while I thought that was a small thing in exchange for my love, it was a condition he had failed. I recognised I could make the choice to forgive and keep loving despite what I figured was as a horrible transgression.

I ate humble pie and it was exhilarating to realise that I everywhere is a lesson, and I've passed another hump in my evolution.

Dolphin skinned ducks

2009-05-22T08:07:00.005-04:00

I just rose from a dream. My head is still thick with a dispute with my landlord, who in real life is a difficult friend. I was a student and we had a quarter to quarter lease, I was having trouble coming up with my rent for the quarter and explained to him that by the end of the week he would be paid. I went out with friends and returned after a few hours to find that my room looked completely different, devoid of signs I'd ever lived there and was rented to someone else. I had come in out of a downpour and headed straight there to remove my drenched clothes, the new tenant had to lend me somethings to put on before I could go downstairs to confront him.

He had a flat beneath us, the wooden stairs that led from my room ended in a small space which was enclosed by a wall 5 feet in front of me, to the right a passage with a frosted glass paned window looking out onto the street, and to the left was his door. As I came to the end of the staircase I saw him sitting beneath the window on a nest of rugs and pillows with my longtime friend, who was apparently now dating him and had helped him to get rid of my stuff. I thought of my friend "Oh it's just like you to be that opportunistic" but instead addressed him.
"Where is my stuff?!" "How can you do that? Did you throw them away?"
He hesitated just to be difficult, then said slowly uninterested in my pique, "Where is my rent? You promised me I would have it on Tuesday"
"I told you you'd have it this week, how can you do something like that without letting me know?" "I'm not paying you now! Clearly I can't pay you rent for someplace I can't live. Please use my deposit, take what I owe you up to today and let me have the rest back."
"Fine." he said.
I turned to my friend who'd found the walls and whatever activity she should see on the street through the frosted panes riveting and said "You know that's not right, how could you let him do this?"

The dream is a little muddled after that, I learned where my stuff was but could not access it, I tried to steal towels from him to make up for the money he was holding for me, and followed him around to try and steal my money from his wallet. An old family friend, a man I often wished had been my dad came to speak with him about giving me my money back. Our apartment was adjoining a mall, and as we crossed the pathway to the mall to look for him we end up going in circles which lead us to a deeply sloped canal of moss green water that eased silkily between the walls and disappeared under a square tunnel.

There was a competition of two teams sliding down the canal, and we jumped in on the team against him. I slide down a narrowing lip that emerges from the right wall of the canal. I am afraid I might crash into the wall, but I am ok as the lip narrows to deposit me into the larger body of water, then reunites with the wall. We emerge from the canal on the street in front of our building. We have not found him, and somehow I am alone again. I feel as though I have found something of value of his to hold on to and now he is willing to negotiate.

He says, "Ok. You can have your money, how much do you think you should get back. I said "You'd said $40", I was optimistic though I thought he might only owe me $20. He looked at me as though he knew something I didn't. "Add the days of the quarter that have passed and let me know if I really owe you $40." I do the math and realise he owes me nothing.

We were sitting on the stoop capitulating and we looked up to see a glistening flock of mammoth ducks. Someone remarked "it looks like they just came out of the water". Hundreds of feet into the sky, they were featherless with thick skin drawn tight like a dolphins and so large we could see the coat of water that shimmered on their gun metal grey skin. As they powered in flight above us, we could feel feel the weight of them shift the air, and see the compacted muscles flex beneath heir glistening skin. Their back ends starting behind their wings were formed by whorls of skin folding around and around like a danish to form the shape of a turtles head. Their flight seemed to be held back by the brilliance of the sky, and looking up, the whole thing seemed framed in slow motion.

Pro Life V Pro Choice

2009-05-21T09:25:00.003-04:00

In case you underestimated just how much thought I've given the pro-life/pro-choice argument, you ought to know when I got pregnant at 19 I dipped pro-choice real quick. Based on a loose observation of my friends, it seems 3 out of 5 of us have. For some of us it happened with our boyfriends, for some of us it was a result of rape but none of us is "that girl" everyone thinks is the one that has abortions. We are all middle class girls with solid backgrounds and good reputations who were not provided the right tools to prevent this happening.
If you were a friend, or have ever asked, this is something you're likely to know about me, because one of the bones upon which my life is framed is the idea that if I can do it then I ought to be able to talk about it.

When I decided to have an abortion I was numb to the repercussions, and I mistook that for a certainty that some women suffer, but I HAD to do it so I would be ok. Before I would ever talk to a woman considering an abortion about the agony of giving up your child, I would tell her "Listen to me now, if you're allowing the idea that you wont react like other women to influence your decision, don't. This thing hurts like a motherfucker, for some of us it's before, others right when we walk out of that office, and others don't get that broadside till 50 years after the fact. Know this shit hurts like a motherfucker and it will turn your life upside down and drain you off all the substance you are made of and it won't be ok. Not for a long time.

The years after my abortion were a dark period when my dreams were overrun with blood. I floated just under the surface of life unable to look myself in the eye or think about what I'd done without recoiling in shame. My days ran together as litanies of "I'm sorry", and I was frozen by my inability to undo this terrible thing I'd done. I wouldnt allow myself to grieve - I didn't deserve it, and there were too many times I had to be rescued from that battle, pressed into exhausted tears in dirty bathroom stalls all over the city.

It was a dark time when the agony of my choice was pressing the life from me, and if I could have died from the refusal to live, I would have.

One morning as I sat on my third floor balcony looking at another day moving purposefully by me, I recognized I was a cop out. I was sitting on my balcony weeping about what a terrible person as was, refusing to move forward while people everywhere were pulling themselves away from unspeakable tragedies. I was a pussy looking for any excuse to stop living and my child deserved a better fate than a stolen life carrying the blame for my failure to live. I could end my life, or choose to live it in honour of the choice I'd made. I realised that life was about making mistakes, and the important lessons were to be found in how you moved on from them. I had not failed at life because I had an abortion, I had failed at life because I allowed that to make me stop living, and that epiphany shamed me into accepting responsibility for my life.

If I were faced with a woman who's had an abortion I would tell her "It gets better". You never forget, and perhaps you shouldn't. I cannot forget, I will not. I carry my child every day with me in my secret places, and I live to honour the life that had to be sacrificed in order for me to find my way through mine. And fuck it... every choice, every lesson was bought at a high price so it has to be worth it.

the colour of my dream

2009-05-12T07:37:00.007-04:00

This morning I dreamt I had a little boy. A son with copper skin and curly hair whose velvet baby skin felt right against mine.

My story starts among the rumpled white sheets of the bed of my boyfriend who is an ex in waking life - but I am maybe 23 in that dream, still past the time he and I were together. We are lying in his twin bed which is tucked into a 90° angle of the room facing a window. The sun pours across our idle conversation and unrushed intermittent make out sessions when suddenly a flood of memory comes to me. I had been pregnant. "Do you remember me being pregnant?" I ask him. "Did we have a baby?" "Suddenly I am sure sure I was pregnant, but where is my baby?"

Sitting on the out side of the bed, the white wall against my back him against my left side and the sheet resting around my legs, I search my memory and feel a trauma that blocks the release of any details beyond a baby bump noone knew to look for because I hadn't told; being in a yard when my labour pains started. Not knowing what was wrong but trying to get away from my family before an investigation revealed my condition Being asked "What's wrong?" Then "Oh my God she's pregnant!" Then nothing. No story I must have told or the decisions that had been made.

The dream segues to a beach. I am standing in front of a roughly constructed wooden stall that sells beads laid out on a counter, hanging from hooks, and from lengths of cord strung end to end in every available space, about 100 yards to my left I can see the deserted beach. The vendor is rastafarian, his locks are coiled around his head, his dark skin, smooth and shiny from the heat makes me think of an eggplant. He smiles at me from where he is leaning with his arms and legs crossed in the far right corner of the stall, but says nothing as I browse his selection. An SUV pulls up behind me parallel to the stall. I turn to see it is driven by my best friend from high school and inside is her daughter and a little boy who reaches for me and calls me mummy. "This is your son" she says as I reach for him. As soon as he is held against me I am drenched in the certainty he is mine. But where was he all this time? Who is his father? Who knows what happened to me?

I am wearing three strands of beads around my neck that hang almost to my navel and he loves them, my best friend says "He loves beads". He calls them something unusual but fitting (I can't remember.. maybe stacks), so I take him back to the bead stall because I want to make him happy. He looks like me and my family and the bead man says "that's a beautiful baby, is he your son?"

All the beaded jewelery is laid out or hung unclasped, so he doesn't understand that worn a lot of them are shorter than they appear. I shower his cheeks and the top of his curly head with kisses and he scans the beads and selects a short multi stranded women's necklace made of delicate pink translucent beads, I pick it up between kisses and explain while I clasp it "Look sweetie this is not the type you like, it's too short". I also can't afford the $32 it costs so I scan the selection for something he might like better that's also in my price range. Hugging him against my right hip I reach for a necklace of bamboo beads that's hanging on a cord strung from end to end of the stall and ask him... don't you like these much better?

I can't remember if he does, but I walk towards the water with him, and lying beneath us in the sand us are two oversized necklaces with beads as large as my head placed about a foot apart, one coral coloured with each divided by a smaller gold bead, I point to the other made of irregularly shaped jade hued beads and say "See don't you prefer these?"

In the distance I see a black shape gliding on the water, perpendicular to my gaze, it looks like shadow so I raise my gaze to what looks like an oversized black bird large enough to be a small plane flying low to the water. The black material flapping behind it reminds me of the plastic I used to use for making kites as a child. The shape hurtles towards the beach, the wind pulls back the black material to reveal a blue van which lands on its wheels revs a hard left, splashing the waterline down the beach.

I am back in bed with my boyfriend who is trying to make love, he is showering my with kisses that have no effect. I am still on the outside of the bed and he moves to stand facing me so his dick is pointing at my face, then smiles expectantly. "No, I'm sorry, I can't do that" he seems puzzled but gets back into bed and reassures me "You don't have to, it's ok"

He starts to deliver more kisses that have no effect and suddenly I am crying "Do you know what happened to my baby?" "How can I find him?" I look forward, to a life marked by the longing I feel sitting in this bed and repeat "I need to find him. I have to, I cannot live without him". "Where is my son?"

crash of the elements.

2009-05-11T08:05:00.004-04:00

I dreamt this morning that I was dragon boat racing on the ocean. The air was thick with heat and the sun was the kind of blinding that presses your eyes into a squint. Each time the drummer hit, I could see the sound flash outward and shatter the light into millions of diamond shards that scattered to glint across the water on either side of her.

How can I tell of the synchronicity and crash - all twenty paddles smoothly arcing forward in anticipation of the hit, then slicing into the water to send up a spray of trapped light that mingled with the fractured light.

That dream = magic. Mmmm.

Lemme just lay some framework

2009-05-08T09:54:00.004-04:00

Healthy relationships are a defense mechanism. Most of us would be fine living loosely inside our interactions with people, but our tendency to fuck up necessitates some borders to protect us from each other.

We exist on different notches on this spectrum of "healthy" in our relationships, some of us allow all people to be very shitty to us, some of us allow some people to be very shitty to us, and others allow a little shittiness from a lot of people, because healthy notwithstanding we all have to put up with some degree of shit since we really can't always be ramrod. We can't. - anyone who can is also probably alone.

I suspect there are people who think I have an unhealthy relationship with the older of my two sisters T because I would spend every day of the week with her and complain that I miss her when we're apart too long, or go out of my way to make her happy. See the thing is, I accept some degree of bad behaviour from certain people, but membah mi tell yuh, everytime you fuck up yuh name mawk innah di book and that shit has a limit. Except with my sister, all the shitty you don't get to be with me is resting on a platter that girl gets to keep because I trust her, and I am gonna love her no matter what she does. And I don't care what you say about that. She's the one person I am completely dedicated to and yuh cyaa talk to mi bout dat so don't even try. I. Will. Effin. Cut. You. If. You. So. Much. As. Look. At. Her. Sideways. Much less try an seh sup'm.

The good news is, she is great to me. She's the most amazing big sister and everyday I'm so amazed to have been gifted her. Because we trust each other our relationship is that one place forgiving and being forgiven any fuck up is automatic. It's crushing for me to consider disappointing her, but despite all my apprehensions I'm always surprised to find she she loves me no matter what stupid shit I've done this time. She doesn't judge me for being needy, or unfair or hate me for being mean. She's as much as said she doesn't understand me, but doesn't give a shit about my oddities cause she loves her some little sis.

People have said our attachment to each other is cloying, but i'm telling you, they just don't get it. We had a very bitter relationship up until my college years (the first ones), and it has been a long hard struggle to get to where we are now, and we're making up for all that lost time.

In my very roundabout way I'm trying to say my sister is my safe space in this world, regardless of the messups and hard truths I am always certain there is one place I'm ok when it comes down to being loved, and I will do whatever it takes to give her that same certainty... cause oh man I love me some big sis.

Story come to bump.

2009-05-07T15:02:00.003-04:00

I had this friend once, well really this model I met on the set of a music video exchanged info with and spent hours talking to for months - maybe years even - after (it too long ago and too long since we've fallen out of touch to remember) . Anyhow, she was an amazingly talented writer - usually the type I go for - and she turned me on to Bright Eyes.

Her lead up to them included the statement " I love Conor Oberst, I think we're soulmates and I'm going to find him". This was for me very odd, because I thought Jamaican girls were entirely too self possessed to make statements like that. Anyway, *story come to bump, because for weeks The Smiths have been on loop in my head, slicing into a mango just now I realised I kept repeating to myself "I didn't realize, you wrote poetry, I didn't realize you wrote such bloody awful poetry".

I'm beginning to think that this endless loop of The Smiths means something... but what? Why Morrissey have you rented space in my brain to erect a billboard I CANNOT decipher. Stop it. If you've got a message for me can't you come into world of normal and tell me like a regular person would. Plus.. you're freaking me out. Seeing how I talk to dead people and all.

*I'm not sure how to translate that... something along the lines of the story has come to a head.

More of same

2009-05-07T10:38:00.001-04:00

I have given a fair amount of thought to the social conventions to which I find myself subject. Primarily that love and trust are such unsafe actions that we are forced to invest our emotions/vocabulary in words like "moved" and "inspiration", when what we really mean are things like "I like what I see and I would like to look at the pieces you are made of".

I realise from my own experiences of being burnt that it is necessary to guard ourselves in this coded language, but it makes me feel so cheated of the time I spend tempering the headlong rush into discovering whether I like someone/thing or not, or puzzling how to feed my curiousities without misleading anyone into thinking I care more than I do, because even more distressing than this preoccupation with self-preservation is an underlying dedication to the ego that disgusts me into becoming a recluse.

Humility has gone the way of the dinosaurs people; we have fallen to such a preoccupation with self that we think any action directed towards us has no room for motivation that has nothing to do with us. I enjoy interactions with people , but really I don't give much of a rats ass about YOU specifically (in a forest for the trees sort of way), so if you're going to sour the whole thing by blowing my attentions out of proportion I'd rather not bother.

Without putting too much thought into the possible ironies of this post, I suppose my pique may be an example of a raging ego. Unfortunately for us both, at the end of the day, we will find that everything we've done was purposeful, but we spent too much of our time on lessons that should have been easily learned - and for me perhaps that means I should be more forgiving of people who have an overblown sense of importance, but it's difficult, because battling people's ego when I could already have moved on to the next thing leaves a most sour taste in my mouth.

Disclaimer: this post is not directed at any one/incident in particular.
actually, come to think of it, the post is directed at all the casual acquaintances who piss me the hell of by thinking they're that important.

this one time at...

2009-05-07T10:30:00.000-04:00

In my blog surfing someplace I remember seeing a 42/365 challenge - don't quote me on that. What the challenge entails is everyday for 365 days using the number of words that correlates to your birthday (the author was 42) to describe someone who has affected your life.

I'm not up to the challenge of blogging everyday for a year. A. whole. year. As it is I can barely hold down once per week.

All that blah blah notwithstanding it made me think of my friend Shani. We girlfriends were hanging out one weekend at her apartment when I snuck away to sit and sob alone in her darkened kitchen. She heard me - how could she not, as full of drama as I was then - and came in to find out what was wrong. After my half choked half wailed outpouring about my hellacious breakup she placed her red dixie cup on the counter in front of me and said " Pour all your sadness in this cup and then we'll throw it away". It was of course completely wasted on me, because *ah dat deh time mi buss out eenah waa peice ah cow bawlin an seh "All my sadness couldn't hold in this cup" and throwing my arms out to indicate her open living space (kitchen, dining etc) "All my sadness can't even hold in this room".

We were still teeneagers at the time, so as any good teenaged girlfriend should, she also called him up and cussed him out for making me cry - even though the whole thing was mostly my fault. This was maybe 10 yrs ago and I still remember the sweetness. Oh Shani, you're just the best friend a girl could ever hope for.

*that just made my crying more dramatic, and I said

One Word

2009-04-29T01:30:00.003-04:00

I found oneword.com from someone's blog. Neat idea. I have a cyclical obsession with words that on some days finds me exploring one word, scaping its underbelly for any escaped meanings, and testing its shape against all my sentences. I'm not usually conscious of the provocation that causes me to try find places to mark my day with just this one word but:

yesterday's word tumbled from a litany of "I want you". Litany is one of my favourite words, so I discarded oneword.com's "glossy" to write about it instead.

Eschew

2009-04-20T11:11:00.004-04:00

Eschew: to shun, as something injurious.

Some of us have good judgment and others not so much. We should figure out which we are before we eschew perfectly good advice.

The year I turned seventeen I inherited (helped myself to because she had the good sense not to want it) a jumbo silver eye pencil from someone's make up collection. That and a brown lip pencil represented my makeup collection and sadly, acumen at the time - not suggesting I've gotten a much better, but for what it's worth I now have a lot more excuses for making a mess of my face. Because:

At the time my routine consisted of brown lip liner blended into chapstick (I hadn't discovered any of those fancy glosses yet), and a swipe of silver eyeliner blended out to "highlight" my eyes. I thought I was pretty clever, but my boyfriend's mother said to me once "Why do you wear that silver eyeliner? It looks like you have "mattah" in your eyes".

I thought she was just being uncool - she didn't want me dating her son; she didn't like my nose ring, and she'd told me so with HER nose "skin up" (wrinkled) to imply what she was looking at -and smelling - was actually a small speck of shit on my nose; she didn't like my hair; or me for that matter, so her judgement was questionable.

My nose ring and most of the things she criticised about me can be chalked up to our generational gap and me being a "bad influence" on her son, but if I had listened to her about the eye liner I might have avoided going around for a whole year sporting what looked like huge silver clumps of mattah in the corners of my eyes.

*mattah is what we call that stuff that collects in the corners of your eyes while you sleep.

tree hugger

2009-04-16T10:04:00.003-04:00

I'm a tree hugger because they are email servers to the universe and some days I get so euphoric with blessings I just wanna say "hey friend.. thanks"; and they understand love.. really, they do - because do you really think you can hang around that long without getting to understand a few things? And cause we're all made of the same substance but strangers get weird when you run up to em and hug them (it's true, try it for yourself); and trees need love just like I need love, no explanations necessary.

I talk to bugs and birds and bees because I think they know a lot more about the thronging and pulsing and surging of life than they're letting on, and maybe one day I'll remember the language of their secret telling. But if I never do the pauses in my one sided conversations hold a promise and possibility so huge it absorbs me into a world of my own orbit.

Because a life that visits simplicity is like an easter egg hunt- (or an orgy, pick your flavour) there's a treat behind every bush!

Untitled Work in progress(oil pastel, oil, papier mache - sort of, charcoal, on water colour paper)

p.s. The new drawing I mentioned in my last post, is in the garbage, and after adding colour to flower girl I no longer like the look of oil pastel on brown paper.
and,
a new follower and comment, plus a good word from san and slowtumblinglife about my drawing has me bouyant today. Thank You!
and,
i'll be back to code links to san etc.

Here's hoping

2009-04-13T14:49:00.007-04:00

Out my window I can see students returning from school. Knowing nothing about their lives makes me wish my current school situation was as theirs seems, simple as going to class and back.

Unfortunately for that wish today is my last opportunity to register for classes and there is an unjust balance against my account that threatens to change my course. It's difficult to accept that something that seems so simply fixed has so much power over the decisions i'll be making tonight and into tomorrow.

But, I cross into everyday with the faith I am cradled, and that provides the optimism that any resolution will be abidable.

A few posts ago I said I was working on meteor and flower girl. Meteor is now hanging on the bedroom wall of my friend's 7 year old and Flower Girl stalled at a few lines on brown paper.

It hasn't been all idleness for me though, below is an untitled piece I finished today (almost, it needs cleaning up), and when I leave this post I will start applying media to a new drawing.

untitled

media: oil, charcoal, ink, oil pastel on watercolour paper

A life more free and hello hidden follower.

2009-04-12T10:11:00.005-04:00

I picked up a new follower a few weeks ago and I went over and gave his blog "a lick and a promise" of a proper read and a thank you comment. I tried to get to that this morning but he's no longer among my followers. In case you ever come back forgive my poor internet graces and thanks for reading, your subject matter was very interesting despite being a teeensy bit challenging to read.

On my followers page I noticed something else peculiar - it shows only four even though it says "5 followers". I'm somewhat challenged by (lazy about) the technicalities of blogging but I'm guessing I have a hidden follower? I'm not sure what to make of that - aside from it's tantamount to lurking in the bushes outside my house - but that's ok too, so long as you continue to worship from afar and never try to take me home to meet your parents and see your shrine - at least not without tricking me into it by pretending to be normal first, because if you're going to shock me I'd prefer you be gentle about it. But what I really mean to say is thanks for reading and leave a comment sometime so I can visit your blog and secretly follow you in a somewhat odd and internet stalkeristic way. Unless you're the one person I never want to find my blog in which case I already know you're crazy so go away, you're being creepy.

Ohh, and also you're a clever cookie aren't you? None of my other followers have so far managed to get an entire post dedicated to them, but don't get too swoleheaded because it might have more to do with me having nothing to post about than you very cleverly drawing me into millions of suppositions with your mysteriousness. Damn it hidden follower, you're clever. I'm going to go look for scarcely updated blogs and secretly start following them too.

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For the other part of my post; this week I have amassed a collection of fruit peel and other organic kitchen scrap that I can't bring myself to commit to a thousand years of slow decay in garbage mountain. Of course I have to, I have no acre of yard to throw it out to, cows to feed it to, or garden for which to compost it, all of which is what I've been accustomed to. I was reflecting on the contrast between living here and how much more free my rural life was so I was going to write about barefoot summers spent climbing trees and littering the yard with fruit peels and other such careless freedoms I enjoyed at my grandparents house. But I spent all my brain power writing about my secret follower and now I can't be bothered. See what kinds of havoc secretly following wreaks?

Break glass in case of time travel

2009-04-10T13:20:00.003-04:00

Perhaps if I could have offered a 10 year old me the benefit of my now eyes I would have said pay no attention to the rules, you will be labelled a rebel, but still too well trained to stray too far from the lines" pay no attention to the rules or you will make me a good hearted chameleon, with too much work colouring inside each of our boxed personas when you and I together only want to decimate borders for the freedom of escaping colours.

Pay no attention to the rules! You will spend too much time leaning into your whims, feeling triumphant for never floating away until you see there too is a world for the floaters. But you will have stayed too long inside the lines to retain the airiness that outweighs the fear you've gone too far.

I can see where this is going, and if I were you I'd simply pay no attention to the rules.

love bite

2009-04-09T08:56:00.003-04:00

i like it when you put my name to paper or breathe it to air and
the way you never leave me without leaving your mark, because I don't want to forget I am loved.

parasitic egg pods

2009-04-09T07:49:00.004-04:00

I dreamt last night that I went someplace - a field perhaps - and when I left I discovered I was covered in hundreds and hundreds of pods of bugs eggs. Perhaps nothing I'd encounter in real life, each pod was an about .2X.4X.2 mm (wxlxh) rectangular shape that was flat where it ahered to my skin, with each of the four corners rounded, and curved top as though it's contents were stretching for optimum room. The first I discovered on my shoulder as I scratched what felt too hard and too symetrical to be a bump, a run of my fingers revealed my arm was covered and further probing revealed my entire body was covered in a rash of the parasites.

I do not remember who else was in the dream and offered the advice I should let them mature and fall off because to try to pick them off tear away my skin. I was completely panicked and disgusted, and woke as dream me was trying to work one loose from my shoulder.

My dreams are so vivid that when I wake I sometimes have to check my memory for any signs it was only a dream, luckily dreams as extreme as this are easy to dispel, but sometimes the more mundane are question marks that follow me for days. I digress, I forgot everything leading up to leaving the field, but if I could I wonder what interpretation there is for this dream.

Moments to live in

2009-04-03T23:57:00.008-04:00

Tonight everything is fleeting. I started to post about how Tori Amos' "Jupiter" reminds me of a time in my life when I was always running for rescue, then I started reflecting on my recurring fear that even though I don't ask for it any more, perhaps I still need to be rescued.

A few years ago I walked out of an office defined as a girl with a propensity for dangerous situations, self mutilation, and a fairly good chance of taking her own life. It was all true, and I decided I wouldn't behave inside the limits of those paragraphs in DSM-IV-R anymore, and that changed the course of my life. I accepted responsibility for my own choices and reactions, and left every one else to their own.

Frankly, though I have learned to colour inside the lines of normal the fact that I should still want to curl up inside "Jupiter" or any good song and die, and a little thing could set my day on a completely new axis, and mostly that I'm becoming someone different makes me worry that all that really happened after I walked away from my mental health professionals was I learned what not to do, and instead created new symptoms for the DSM-V.

Those quirks of my personality are the perks of knowing me, but for me each one trails the question on which my sanity hinges. How far can you go without being too far away from normal?

A friend once told me "You don't understand what it's like to be me, you walk into a room and everyone looks at you" and I felt sad for her, because that's no place to live. Even though I revelled in being different, after while being the entertainment got tired. If there were a place where there was no "why?" and no consequence I wouldn't give even a tiny shit, but there isn't and really I just want to fit in.

No matter how hard you try who you are always sneaks in (apparently especially in your blog), so I alternate between the 100% and the scaled back me. Which now that I think of it is actually kinda crazy.

the story of the moral is

2009-04-03T15:01:00.003-04:00

There was a man who'd never lived in a house. He knew what they were, but he'd never once thought of living in one even as he came upon them wandering through the forest, joyfully experiencing the things he encountered. After many lifetimes of wandering, he began to wonder why people lived in houses, because it seemed they were all as happy as he.

One day as he was walking he heard singing; a woman's voice more beautiful than anything he'd ever heard. Following the voice he came into a clearing, and in the clearing was a beautiful house that made him suddenly understand why people lived in houses. He knew he was welcome - he had a way of knowing things - so he walked right up to the house and entered. Standing in the middle of the room was the woman whose voice had led him there, and he knew she belonged with him, and he knew he would stay.

He looked around him, the house was perfect. It was a small house made for a small woman, he was not a big man, just a lot bigger than her. But he knew they were one, so it was a house made for him too.

They settled into their life together, and it was a beautiful life in a beautiful house that didn't fit that was made just for him. He still wandered the forest, but he never went very far from the beautiful woman and his beautiful house that didn't fit but was made just for him. As time passed the distance he wandered became shorter, and the times he left became less. One day he tried to leave the house to visit the forest, but he couldn't. Without noticing, he had tried to fit the house, and as time passed he had become more cramped, until his legs no longer knew how to stretch, his arms no longer knew how to reach, and his neck no longer knew how to carry his his head for wandering.

Disregard the rules before visiting, this is not a story at all.

2009-04-03T14:51:00.010-04:00

There was an unfortunate Midas, a little boy whose touch made eveything filthy. He thought if he collected enough beautiful things he could create a fortress in which to keep his secret. His desire drove him to go about touching things and spreading his filth like a disease.

He was sombre of countenance, and always lingered along the edges of company. As he had his goal of building his fortress, so had these beautiful the goal of spreading beauty, and the air of him drew the most beautiful to his touch. In this way of the Defeated Purpose his pulling and seeking created a colony of sadness spreading to meet its limit.

There are different types of beauty, the transient and the fighting and he did not understand that as dictated by the second Law of Balance only those of the first category would fall to him. Beauty of the second was of a heavier substance, meant to practise a deceit that would see him tricked and consumed.

feminist philosophies

2009-03-29T23:38:00.003-04:00

I'm reading Feminist Philosophies" and am currently on the essay "Mother/State/Foetus Conflicts" by Christine Overall "

The cornerstone of foetal rights advocates position is the belief that the foetus has a right to life... and the claim that it is alive and a human being. She agrees that the foetus is alive and a human being, but this is where she loses me:

"Although foetal-rights advocates stress the alleged right to life of the foetus, they say virtually nothing of what I believe is another, but more covert set of assumptions: that the foetus has the right to the use of the pregnant woman's body, that that right should be legally protected, and hence that the woman has an obligation not to abort, and to permit any intervention in her body that is thought medically necessary for the sake of the foetus." *jaw drop*

Her supporting argument is a hypothetical example around the idea that though she has a right to life that doesn't give her the right to hook herself up to your body for days, weeks or months on end in order to cure or alleviate her life threatening illness.

"The reason for this is simple: for me to claim the right to the use of your body would be an assertion of ownership, and we know that slavery is wrong. Hence, even if the foetus does have a right to life, it does not follow that the foetus has the right to the use and occupancy of the pregnant woman's body."

I cannot believe this essay made it to print with the arguments above as the core of her pro-choice stance. She makes it seem as thought the foetus is an encroaching alien that has popped up out of nowhere and is demanding that it be accommodated, and that the poor put-upon pregnant woman played absolutely no part in its sudden existence. I am incensed that at no stage has she addressed the reason the foetus is "squatting" in the woman's body; while there are always exceptions, most women who find themselves pregnant own some of the responsibility.

This is a tough issue and after a LOT of thought I am neither pro-life or pro-choice. I believe a woman absolutely has the right to decide what happens to her body. I also believe in the sanctity of life, and if a woman has consensual sex she gives a foetus the right to her body. Therefore if she finds herself pregnant she has obligated herself to act responsibly.

It's irrelevant what anyone except what the pregnant woman think she should do about an unwanted pregnancy, and irrational arguments like Overall's undermine's the pro-choice stance and a womans right to should she choose to terminate.

jamaican link up

2009-03-29T23:22:00.003-04:00

DEAR sweet lord...isnt there an expiry date on implants?

Yow..de sight of her pap dung *pums and rev out baddy is making me puke...and those dead ass implants just chillin on her mummified carcass..yeeesssh...
..Some people should know when to just pack it in in goddammit...das why I plan to pump iron til the lord tek me!....yikes...

Peace

W (Wayne McGregor)
*yep.. that would be a reference to her saggy vagina.

reality tv me

2009-03-29T09:20:00.003-04:00

I've said to my sister the clutterbunny/I'll wear whatever I want-er "I should Clean House you" and "I'm gonna What Not To Wear you", but ever since I jokingly said to x about her difficult 7 year old "you need Super Nanny or something" I've been wondering if it's really possible to solve all your problems through reality tv.

I'm possibly being extreme in casting that statement since my knowledge of tv's voyeuristic offerings is limited, but it's certainly a sign that with only that limited knowledge, and basic cable I still see so many shows that are about fixing people, AND to boot not being a great follower still find myself speaking in reality - c'mon "I'm going to "clean house" you??

This is the part of this post where I should start thinking of random problems and matching them with a show, but seriously it's 10am, I'm still in bed, and that's just asking too much. So just take my word for it, or if that's a problem... reality tv me.
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On a seperate note, I just joined "twenty something bloggers" this week. I'm soooo interested in a network that helps twenty somethings discover and be discovered, but mostly I'm hitting the 20 something homestretch, and so help me I refuse to relinquish my 20s quietly. Therefore as of 28, I will be taking any excuse to show off my 20something-ness. Ok, ok. here's what really happened: the 20sb handle screamed "naa nah nah nah boo boo... you'd better join now or you'll never be able to!" Mocking laughter and all. I'm telling you.. it really happened. Why don't you care about approaching thirty, mosey on over to the site, read their intro and see what happens to you? Hey, when you get signed up.. look me up as a friend will ya?

garden decimated

2009-03-25T22:52:00.002-04:00

"...still, all I can see is the sweetness of your passing;
like a snail's silvery trail in a garden decimated."
- me

save planet blogger.. recycle a post today!

2009-03-25T22:49:00.002-04:00

My friend Kathy says in her song "i wear my heart on my sleeve, it's gonna be the death of me".

Well Dearest, I've discovered a new phenom. - A generation that wears its life on its screen. I feel anomalous, disoriented, and thrilled.

Hmmmm..... seriously?

2009-03-23T13:58:00.004-04:00

We're all looking for signs that there's a being/force that's got our back, and I for sure found mine in the dancing deadlines of the last two school years: I NEVER missed a deadline despite my very best efforts.

I'm pretty conscientious about my grades and my reputation as a student, but occasionally I didn't get my homework done in time for class, was behind on a project, or wasn't completely prepared for a test, on EVERY single one of those occasions without fail the date for that test/assignment/project would be pushed back (are you getting this? I mean every single time, and without me ever having to ask for extensions - EVER I mean.. EVER).

It's impossible for me to explain how freakish that is. freakishly beautiful of course... can you imagine events shifting in your favour? Everytime? And without solicitation.

Since I no longer have deadlines for my classes, I've been wondering if/how that cloud of serendipity will shift. Fast forward to this morning, My note from the universe said:

Remember the joy you used to feel when you'd find a quarter lying in the street?
And how exciting it was when you got older and found a crumpled $20 bill in the pocket of a pair of jeans you hadn't worn in months?
Well brace yourself, Adaela, because the day isn't far off when in-between taking naps, swimming laps, and doing the routine happy dance, you'll be busy gathering documents for your tax return preparer and suddenly you'll find a statement to a bank account you don't even remember opening, with more than enough money in it to do whatever it is your heart now longs to do.
You do trip us out.

Sure enough,
The Universe

Naturally I scoffed, "TUT, I love your little notes, but you sure have missed the mark today! I won't be gathering documents for a tax preparer, and I'm pretty sure I don't have any money I don't know about!"

Well, here's what happened. Last week I received a notification from my bank issuing me a new PIN with the explanation a clearing house that had processed a payment against my account had been breached, so a new card had been issued. The card had arrived and was languishing among the unsorted mail until I found it just now, so I went to grab what looked like the notification with the PIN, instead it was a piece of mail postmarked March 4, 08 telling me that an investment account I started had matured in March... '08. I'm guessing my sister collected mail for me on a trip to Jamaica and forgot to deliver it, and I missed seeing it on a myriad of opportunities before now.

Freakish... ly beautiful. Sorry TUT.com, you clearly rule and I am just a silly plebe who may never fathom your ways.

I hear ya universe.

Simply Put

2009-03-18T11:12:00.004-04:00

My mom took care of me so well I coasted into my late teens petrified of facing life as an adult. Petrified. As in I could not even think of how I could put one foot ahead of the other, much less figure out who I was and what I wanted to be. It wasn't until I dropped out of college, went back to high school and bombed it, dabbled around in this and that, wished I'd never been born, A LOT, and all in all almost drowned in so much self pity I got carted off to a shrink for some bullshit diagnoses that I took myself firmly in hand, asked the hard questions, and kinda started to get it right. ish.

For a while there when I first started to get the hang of I felt it was such an injustice that noone had ever explained me that the good Life didn't happen to you just cause you were born. Or that if you wanted anything out of it, it meant thinking about things, making choices, and all the stuff required to steer yourself down your chosen path. Or that steering yourself isn't something you can ever take a break from, and that a part of that would be accepting that no matter how hard you try, a lot of it is still beyond your control, but best part; the fact that you can control how you take it on, and what you make of it is completely within your control. And that's the real joy of life. The whole point. Right there.

I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring that out all by myself, but sometimes I forget it. Like today, when I am wishing I could just walk out my front door and into my dream job making a difference in the lives of people who need it. I just want to touch people, somehow help them to step into the reality I know, where there are tools to help you heal, a place where you can embrace who you are, resources that are enough so noone has to starve, skills to take care of selves and families.

And I don't care if I ever earn a dime for it. I just want to everyday go someplace where I can help, and there are so many people out there dying for someone who wants to help.... so how comes I'm sitting on my couch aching with frustation because this didn't turn out to be as easy as googling "volunteer jobs", and how comes doing a "good thing" became so hard?

I know the universe has me covered on this -I mean we totally covered this in the game plan, but it's tough going at the moment, cause I just can't figure out what my next move is.

I stopped moving for a while there because I got scared by all the reasons I can't. But if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go reacquaint myself with all the reasons I can, and see what google has to say about making a difference.

In the meantime, if you know of any organizations that are willing to fund me making a difference -preferably for women and/or children in developing countries.. holla at a girl with some info will you? And if perchance you're an organization looking for such a person... listen up, you've found your girl and I've got the resume and recommendations to prove it.

Ohh, Jeff Buckley.

2009-03-18T06:54:00.005-04:00

I am looking outside and it is very odd to equate 6:55am with the darkness resting on everything. It's been a while since I've sat in its stillness and I am disappointed that morning is spreading lavender behind the neighbouring building.

Sometimes, I am so moved by a moment I wish I could freeze it and live in it for the rest of my life, or at least a little bit longer than its allotted time. Sometimes( read today) wishes are enough; I actually AM eager for the progression of today so that other people can be up and at their jobs where I can call them about things, and so I can continue work on Flower Girl.

Nevertheless, it seems almost barbaric that the bustle of daylight will infect this stillness so I have closed the blinds, can someone please tell me when it's over?

Would you believe this post is not about any of these things? And since I have decided I'd rather sit here in the dark until daylight starts leaking through the blinds... this post isn't about anything at all.

Have a gorgeous day.

Oh.. Jeff Buckley? I love. lavender morning reminded me of lilac wine. and well... i'll use any excuse to talk about Jeff.

let's get intimate...

2009-03-16T09:27:00.008-04:00

I was standing at the sink this morning when I had an epiphany, it's too early yet to say what it is, but it's a'comin, and while we wait I'd like to take this opportunity to coin the phrase "sinkiphany".

I like to start my mornings with a soundtrack, so I started trusty ol' ipo' (I know.. that's an unbelievably clever name for my ipod) at D for Devendra Banhart and grooved into the kitchen to tackle the dishes. As I'm standing there minding my own business and showing burnt cruds and pineapple crumbs who's boss, Ipo' starts to play an african sounding song - there is music on there I'm still learning. At any rate... as soon as that first africanesque note rang out I started feeling all achey.

In case you had not read this - which opens in a new window, I was in a relationship with an african guy who turned out to be the granddaddy of all liars. I've been pragmatic about the whole thing, as the end of the relationship wasn't really a great surprise, its precipitation on the other hand was a great shocker.

Anyhow, clever banter aside, as I stood at the sink exploring this achiness that drenches me everytime I am reminded of him, I had to acknowledge that it doesn't matter that I knew we had a shelf life... when he betrayed my trust something inside me went away.

I don't know what it is, and I'm pretty sure it's coming back.... but it's a motherfucker, this pain. (I wasn't actually going to use that word but Ipo' is now onto: eels "it's a motherfucker"- how serendipitous), (also I really need to stop with the random details). Anyhoo, everytime I acknowledge his betrayal mattered, it's a showdown between that truth and kick ass and take names big girls don't cry and he's soo not worth it attitude in my head that stops me in my tracks to grip whatever is handy. close eyes tightly. and breathe. just breathe past the achiness.

Of course, I know it's a part of the healing process and with every showdown whatever went away regenerates a little. But holy hell... let's talk about growing pains! Kinda like when I take my nose ring out and the hole starts to close, I know I can take it and it will be over in an instant... but once I get to the largest part of the hump getting the sucker back in hurts so bad I can't see how it will ever end, and let me tell you, I'm a girl with a ridiculously high tolerance for pain.

Ok, I'm done with the horrible analogies now. I guess the thing is I'm human, and this pain isn't about him or our sham of a relationship, these are just my own growing pains. So, yeah universe.. this is totally what I signed up for... but can we do something about the degree of pain you snuck into the fine print? Sneaky little bugger you.

In other news.. I've got two drawings marinating. Flower girl and meteor.

Change

2009-03-15T19:21:00.005-04:00

My daily messages from tut.com really do feel like shots from the universe straight to my euphoria bank (go ahead.. click it, it opens in a new window). I rise and smile every time.

3.11.09

Sometimes when you're ready for a change, Adaela, and you kind of know it but won't admit it, when it comes, not only are you surprised, but it hurts.

Yeah, I know that doesn't help much, unless you remember the "ready" part. Because there is simply no change that might ever transpire in time and space that happens before you're fully able to use it for your own growth and glory.

Love watching you create,
The Universe

They all come with a post script:

So hey, Adaela, may as well just act like you had personally requested it, and soar. Because, truthfully, you did, and, honestly, you can

It's all relative.. but is it all right?

2009-03-15T14:49:00.004-04:00

I was standing at the kitchen sink when I wondered if choosing to conceal one of the most me things about me means I think it’s bad… seems I have a lot of epiphanies at the kitchen sink… but that’s besides the point. I don’t think it’s bad. I’m a scholar of “it’s all relative and there is no wrong or right/black and white; it just IS”. But if it’s all relative means it’s not wrong, does that mean it’s right?

I bulletin-ed short bursts of my personality and moods, and occasionally longer posts a few times a day when myspace was my forum. I am disappointed to admit that now that I've gone public, I publish only longer posts because I'm trying to ermm.... conceal that I flit from one lightning burst of feeling/thought to another.

Don't get twisted, I am completely delighted every day by this feature of me, and my friends yo-yo across the spectrum of annoyed:amused depending on the time of day/social situation - I’d like to think mostly amused since they’re still my friends. My reservation about letting that leak into my blog’s personality is the inevitability of the judgements that will be made about me based on my posts; and since I have to choose I would prefer to showcase the more thoughtful side of me than the completely random... plus those amusing/insightful/dramatic/insert more things off the spectrum of adjectives bulletins are mostly pics grabbed from google or random thoughts, and seriously I'd like people to know there's more to me than pirated images and one liners...although I’ve seen blogs of that kind that are deeelightful.

The truth though is, try as you might, and as successfully as you think you're sneaking along you can never really hide who you are. And why would you want to? I've never been a proponent of sameness, and I know it takes all kinds of things to make up a personality… and in turn those bold enough to be firmly who they are mix up things a little bit.

However, let’s all understand that self esteem is of the highest importance to the quality of our survival among our peers. If you’re not one of the (1)“cool” kids, you either need to go someplace where your brand of weird is considered cool; fashion some sort of psychological tourniquet, or watch your bright prospects slink away in response to the inevitable ridicule or at best indifference of the general populace. Against that, I wondered if the argument of relativity was a shield to protect the timid egos of the less cool among us from our different-ness.

(2)Oh, I’m fine with me.. think I’m just perfect the way I am. All my beatific traits plus my annoying habits… OCD tendencies.. knowitallness are an adventure that I look forward to and revel in everyday. But what about the people who have horrendous personalities that wreak absolute havoc on others - I don’t think any examples are required- is it really fair for them to say they cannot be judged as bad, or for me to hide behind the argument of relativity and deny them same?

This could go on to be the argument of relativity that never ends, but the answer is pretty simple, or I guess hugely complicated relative to your process: It really is all relative; it’s also black and white; Or right; Or wrong; it depends on your perspective, since you arrive at your judgement relative to your starting point. So in a quick recap: it really is all relative, and the big question really is… to WHAT?

And since I have you here, would it really be reasonable for us to all dip from a pre-established “good pool” of personality traits, or is it really ok to chalk it up to we can’t all be the same? I think we are all here taking a crack at life in our imperfectness, and whatever your conclusion there has to be room for everyone.

and isn’t cool soo relative?
this is based on MY perspective… my peeps might say different.
bonk the whole thing.. it’s all relative! Otherwise there wouldn’t arguments.. or wars.. or probably anything fun either.
This post will morph over time, because if I didn’t post as the above jumble… you would have been denied that peek of my inner workings.

apostrophe:purple

2009-03-15T11:08:00.009-04:00

Nike. My sister and I say that to each other as a signal of unreserved no holds barred.. don't think about it.. just go ahead and do it dammit encouragement and it's a long running joke between us.

When we were teenagers - she about 17, I; 14-15, she was outside playing sweetheart in the shadow of the camper of my mothers truck; I was playing lookout when she ran inside all smiles and giddiness saying "He wants to kiss me! What should I do? What should I do??"

They had been friends since basic school (PreK) and we had no idea he "liked her liked her", she didn't like him "like that", plus there was a boy at school that she liked and who liked her even though they'd not done anything beyond pine after each other and perhaps flirt. T was both chaste and well chaperoned, and I was the adventure seeking rebel of the litter (of two) who was already getting into shit loads of trouble, that girl should have known better than to ask my advice.

Using a few well placed questions (I was born rational.. really!) - what about what's his face at school? Do you like like boy outside? Do you want to? (of course the answer was yes, no matter how chaste or well chaperoned what teenage girl doesn't want to be kissed?), and knowing that iron grip mummy might never slip and let her have a crack at boy at school, it was agreed that she should toss everything to the wind - or hormones and poor decision making and in my words "Just do it" Just do it" - "Nike" and go kiss boy outside.

A few hours later she came back inside purple lipped and probably smiling until we discovered HUUGE UNHIDABLE dark bruises all over her neck thanks to hoover lips. Seriously, I'm talking about the mothers mothers mother of all hickies that would not budge, and trust me we combed with the desperation of teenagers who knew our lives depended on it. Visualise with me for a moment.. if you knew your life, your future, your chance to see the light of day EVER again depended on being able to banish hickies with a comb.. how hard would you work? Exactly.. we tried damn hard, hell we even took a brush to the damn things!

Needless to say my mom saw them next morning and arrived at the obvious conclusions
a: hickies, and
b: she had obviously not done a good enough job of keeping T away from boy at school.
Mummy was so mad T was banned from any contact with boy at school, and T was so mad she never let hoover lips near her again. She never confessed that it wasn't poor boy at school who'd never even had the courage to try anything like that, because if Mummy knew there was more than one cause for concern she would probably have fashioned a chastity belt immediately of whatever was within reach.. which might have been T's neck, AND never let her see the light of day again. Now if you ask me.. two hours of intense kissing was completely worth it... cause I don't think boy at school would ever have had the balls or the chance to kiss her anyhow.

Not only did I get her into trouble, it was also the piece of bad advice that kept on giving for the better part of ten years because our mother who is like a dog with a bone never let her forget her horrible "transgresson against ironmother". Anyhow, she's never stopped asking my advice, and when it's a situation where it's obvious she should go on ahead and just do it, I always say "Nike" and she laughs and says "I don't know if I should listen to you, when you say that I end up getting into a shit load of trouble." If you ask me, that's a good thing, because it's great to solicit feedback.. but even the most well meaning advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

To be honest though, even though I said so, I really don't think that was bad advice.. hours and hours of kissing... a long running joke that reminds us how happy we are to have each other and how far we've come every single time we giggle about it, plus a great life lesson... I don't think anyone could really dispute how well I did by her - 'cept ironclad mummy, and she doesn't count.

I think I'm at a point in my own life where I need to apply my own advice liberally, but when you're at a crossroads it's tough to ferret out the options.. much less make a decision and "nike". In the meantime... I am so grateful for ironclad mummy, who has mellowed into something a teeny bit more flexible and comfy to lean on, and for T whose existence adds more to my life everday and beyond anything I could have imagined.

Here is apostrophe:purple, which I think is coming along well considering I really hated it at first, but I refused to be defeated by its ugly so I kept plugging away at it... and lemme tell you... there were days I kicked it away or turned it facedown cause I couldn't stand to look at it anymore.
p.s.
I'd also like to add that ironclad mummy had no cause for concern... T brought her virginity tightly clutched into her twenties and gifted it to the man who is now her husband.

Man's best friend

2009-03-02T11:09:00.008-05:00

Prepare yourself for a revelation that will blow even "the secret" out of the water - I think. I haven't actually read "the secret" and so have no clue what it is, but I'm guessing from all the hoopla it's a pretty big deal.

It is a common misconception that Dog is a man's best friend. This is completely incorrect, as I know for a fact, procrastination is man's best friend. I've never had such good times as when I'm hanging out with my pal - the ultimate wingman procrastination is always game and will ride with you through anything.

There's only one problem... procrastination is a fair weather friend. When the pied piper comes knocking for whatever results you'd promised... you'll find that procrastination has found a new friend... and hogged up and ran off with all your time to boot.

Anyhow... I welcome it every time it comes knocking... no matter how many times I'm left holding the bag (sans results). It's always a good time to hang with my ol pal.

Having so said, the ol time stealer was here for a visit; and as is wise to sometimes do I gave it the boot. Before I wised up we had a fun time overeating, hanging at the beach, sharing sangria with the girls... dodging dragon boating practice, and not spreading the blogger love.

If you're not a seasoned blogger you might be wondering what blogger love I'm yapping about. San over at A Life With a View graced me with an award, and strict instructions to pick five bloggers to pass it on to.

The award is:

Being a newcomer I'm gonna start off with the handful of blogs I've read so far and really liked, and as my list grows I'll add more.

The Write for The Remaining Silence
I read this entire blog, but I am hard pressed to describe it. It's a mash up of short stories, and dry every day observations of the writer. Go visit.

Artist Victoria McKenzie over at The Night Shift where she writes about her life as a mother and an artist. I am very particular to the fact that her posts are often against the backdrop of Jamaica, it's an interesting look at how she processes the many facets of our culture.

I'm not sure if I can give it back, but I like Sans blog, so I will award it to her as well: A Life With A View. San writes about her life and her work with a wit and humour that had me reading her entire blog. Plus, she believes in levitation.

Aaaand... here's that piece again: Doesn't seem complete, but look at it as I may, I can't feel anything else to do with it: Also, it has been pushed aside by "Apostrophe:Purple" a drawing that has been nagging to get out all weekend. Ok, I have to be honest, Apostrophe:Purple is what gave procrastination the boot.

The Universe is in the details

2009-02-20T10:39:00.005-05:00

In May '08 I was waiting to begin training for a dream job as a high ropes guide from July to October. A few days after getting the good news, I made one of my very few trips into town where I ran into Tom, the Project Engineer for a building project on my campus. They were looking for a part time project administrator and had asked the school to put out the word in the business department. They'd had only two applicants, so he wanted to know just how much the word had been put out.

I hadn't heard about it, so he gave me a quick rundown and invited me to apply. I'd already got the green light for the job I really wanted, it was full time, the base pay was more, and with tips possibly double what they were offering; but since he had personally invited me to apply I thought it would be impolite not to, plus I had six weeks before my other job started and then once it did maybe I could juggle both.

A few weeks later I went to my courtesy interview, and after 5 minutes with Tom and the Project Coordinator Chris I wanted the job. I explained that I already a campus job, plus was going to be starting another soon, they agreed I could work until my other job started and then at my convenience once it did. July rolled in and I heard nothing from the High Ropes people, and they returned none of my calls/emails. I wasn't really disappointed I lost the opportunity because life rolls on, and I was happy working with Ruscilli; the camaraderie in the office was great, it was close, plus I got to wear a hard hat AND speak Spanish.

My job with them ran from June to November, and the savings from it paid travel and expenses for two trips I had to make, my school fees for this quarter now that my scholarship has ended, AND those savings are still tiding me over while I look for a new job.

I am jobless and living on dwindling savings, but as I stood in our cramped kitchen making a fruit salad and nibbling on the cuttings, I reflected on how great my life is - a chance meeting; a job I did not want or think I needed; and a few minutes invested in the good manners my mom taught me sweep together as a reminder that I am SO cradled.

And in a sweet extra, the drawing I am now working on was inspired by the brown paper I was using to ship closing documents from that office. I'm posting a new pic below.

If you think I am one of the hokey few the universe smiles on, maybe you're thinking about it too hard.

Happy Sandwich

2009-02-18T13:10:00.007-05:00

Add a playlist to your page using iLike

I subscribe to tut.com for the daily newsletter, here is today's message from the universe:

"When you can look beneath their behavior that hurt you, Adaela, and you can see the frightened child - it becomes nearly impossible to be angry and carry a grudge.

And you so can.

ILY,
The Universe"

Above is the music that's keeping me buoyant today, and here is my work in progress:

I'm enjoying the messy freedom of working with oil pastels

Fever

2009-02-17T20:08:00.005-05:00

has set my thoughts to frenzy.

Untitled acrylic on wood. Gifted on a birthday in '07.

"Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before"

2009-02-17T18:27:00.003-05:00

Who recognized my homage to The Smiths?

I forget now what propelled me to tell this story, but here goes.

I was involved in a relationship with a guy who seemed to hold all the promise and blessing of the universe. The thing is, just as apparent as his potential was his mess. He was all sorts of insecure and manipulative, which I chalked up cultural differences (he's from Zimbabwe, I'm from Jamaica) and flaws - which you reasonably ought to expect.

It should be apparent where this story is heading, so let me explain how it got there. I believe we all serve a function in each others lives, and as it became increasingly apparent to me how much of a mess I was in with this guy I became more convinced there was a reason we had crossed paths. I did not believe ours was a story without a moral, and I was not serving the universe justice if I did not sit it out to the big reveal.

Furthermore, even though he was a mess every one deserved to have some one love and believe in them, and perhaps my love and faith in him would make the difference he needed in his life. I didn't have any ideas I could "save" him, I just wanted to make a difference by showing him that he could be loved; and not everyone had selfish motives.

I will not delve into the hell I suffered because he NEVER trusted me, and everything I did was wrong, and every issue we ever had was my fault. He tried very hard to cut me off from the people I cared about or cared about me, because he felt noone liked him and everyone was trying to come between us or undermine him. Even more extreme was the issue of other men, he made a stink about ALL my male friends, and if I so much as attracted the attention of another man I could be sure there would be a scene made about it.

Imagine my horror at the big reveal - he proved to be likely the biggest man-whore in all of Athens county. He had lord only knows how many girls, flings, and fuck buddies all over my campus, his, and quite likely the internet. I am neither a pushover nor a fool, so you will understand that he put on quite the show to fool me. In the whole year plus we dated there were only two small indications that any such thing was happening and both were easily eclipsed by the fact that he did a GREAT job of crafting a solid image of someone not in the least inclined to infidelity - it wasn't in what he said but the things he did and how he carried himself. Kudos to you Langton Mahechani, you are the greatest con artist I have ever met.

Here is the moral of our story.

I was completely shell shocked by my discovery, and way more hurt than I thought possible since our relationship had always hung by a thread. Even now there are days I can barely breathe past the knot of that betrayal. But I don't think I was wrong to believe in him, and I do not regret a minute of our relationship. I do not know that he allowed me to make a difference in his outlook, but he certainly qualified mine. I have lost none of my love for, nor my faith in the goodness of people. But after Langton I recognised that though every one deserves love, chances, forgiveness, acceptance and all that zen shit, it's not automatic they should have MINE, and I need to have filters that help me decide who is and who is not worthy. If someone is a not.... I am going to be very sparing with the energy dedicate to them.

So my new take is to decide what's important to me in my relationships(friendships or otherwise), and stick to it. Nobody is perfect it's true. But I've recognised the need to establish where to draw the line.

The biggest thing I've learned is to stop caring and stop giving so much. I had no idea keeping myself and my shit to myself and allowing people to EARN whatever I give to them was so important, or would make me feel so emotionally healthy.

It might seem odd to those who know many of the details of what happened, but though I am hurt, I am not bitter, because I was cradled the whole time.

And I'm glad he taught me this necessary lesson to pass on to you.

Know you too are cradled.

Deer in the headlights

2009-02-17T16:51:00.005-05:00

The idea I should start a public blog came from the NEED to remain productive now that I no longer have classes. In typical find the answers in the wind fashion I listened to the little voice that said... write, that's the first step.

BUT

I've had bloggers block since starting ruminations - my very first public blog - and which to date consists of recycled posts from my private blog. As of now, I am certain no one is reading, but the idea that a complete stranger may stumble upon my ruminations has made me stop to consider "what would I like a perfect stranger to see of me?".

Now that I've subdued bloggers block and am scratching the hell out of it with my pen, I'm contemplating what I want out of my blogger experience and I've decided I would like to share and find kindred spirits.

In that vein, I've been known to draw a thing or two. I always want to draw, always. My everyday processes are always peppered with images, and questions about what I want to say, and how to say it. I have never found an answer, but the need to draw/paint/create now and again spills into what I refer to as "in the meantime" creations. Artistic accidents that happen when I just HAVE to put pencil to paper, or create a form... arrange words... create SOMETHING or else destroy or self destruct.

The thing about in the meantime is what comes out is never anything I've ever imagined, or ever understand, but it's always right. The movements and lines flow out in a rush of sweet relief, and I am always surprised at what I've created.

I usually end up giving away whatever I create because it's not what I imagined; but the more of these pieces I create I come around to the idea that perhaps I will never think a piece from concept to paper, and I may never be able to explain what the images represent. Maybe MY art will always be what happens when I step to my medium in faith and allow those lines to flow from me.

Here is my most recent endeavour. A few months ago I imagined charcoal against brown paper and ripped a piece off and tacked it to my closet door. Here's the hasty drawing and experiment with media - charcoal, sharpies, and watercolour.
I've applied oil pastels since - a medium I have not worked in in a long time, so it's touch and go how it will turn out. I will post pic of my progress later.

The Pink Room

2009-02-13T21:07:00.002-05:00

This poem has followed me to every blog.

The Pink Room

I am remembering the white-tiled floor,
the rose-pink walls shadowed by dying light,
while we wrapped naked behind closed doors,
as rain murmured to your moans at passion's height.
I think those walls might remember them still:
the things we whispered, lying there entwined,
that the silent louvres, masked by curtains, will
echo secrets we left floating behind.
How true were those glistening beads of sweat,
the careless words we could have left unsaid?
Could there be reason fluttering there yet
to lead us again to that uncommon bed?
The trusting heart bleeds and suffers the pain
of lust in love's guise again and again.

ÃÂ© Princeton Ebanks 2006

subtle is sexy

2009-02-13T11:36:00.001-05:00

It's true what my granma said, easy come easy go.
I like to ponder your parts and piece you together.
a subtle show of desire, of temper, of wit makes me hungry for the rest.
Otherwise, you're just too easy... come... easy go.

the unfortunate fruit juice rant

2009-02-13T10:18:00.002-05:00

I had an epiphany recently. Get comfortable.. is a long and convoluted story - y'know how I do.
So i'm cleaning up the kitchen and I decide I'm thirsty (tussty as we say in Ja), so I mentally run through the list of things in the fridge but none appeal to me. So i'm thinking to myself, I guess I'll drink water like I always do.
But why do I always drink water?

Follow my thought process now... So i'm thinking, must be because I always had water eating out because my mom always told me sodas and sugary fruit drinks aren't good for you and that's a standard offering when you go out to eat. But wait, that's not entirely true, growing up in Jamaica the fruit juice was a big deal and a large feature at most restaurants... - the constant fruit punch, which was orange juice based and then a mix of whatever was seasonal, and then seasonal juices... apple being my favourite - to this day.

Anyhow, these juices were made at and by the restaurant people. And then along came tru juice and wakefield... and den braps... di people dem stop mek juice. When saying so... wakefield and t/j used to be not so shabby. But there is no way sugar, colouring, flavouring and a reasonable amount of fruit concentrate can beat freshly blended juice.

My resentment of wakefield and t/j was so much I had to leave what I was doing to come and blog about it.
Wait.. maybe that's more ADD tendencies than resentment that propelled me over here. Anyway, as I siddung here ah cuss out tru juice and wakefield mi realise they are not the primary reason I drink so so water. Is farrin do that. Go out to eat and all dem have to awfah yuh wid yuh meal is damn iced tea and pepsi... bad man nuh jink dat.
sen' on ah glass of water please tenks!

- note to self... get yourself under control with the damn ellipses, which are also colloquially called "dot dot dot" - really. how clever. But on a different note... I think I need to post a blog about how ellipses are the literary crack. I know I use them in places I could easily use other more appropriate forms of punctuation, but once you start using them, it's hard to believe you don't NEED them everywhere.

"Best of Tuesday Nite Live" was the best

2009-02-12T11:35:00.000-05:00

Last updated: Thursday, February 12, 2009, 11:16 AM EST

'Best Of Tuesday Night Live' was the best

By Darren Khan Observer Entertainment writer
Sunday, December 24, 2006

Katherine sang like an angel, Cezar defied description, the Ray Darwin Band, Cusser & the Storm Band, GasMoney and Rootz Underground absolutely rocked on Tuesday night at the Village Café, Liguanea, St Andrew.

Singer Katherine in previous TNL performance

The event was the 50th weekly staging of Tuesday Night Live, designated the Best Of Tuesday Night Live. Katherine, newly shorn, curled and blonde locks sparkling and guitar in hand, kicked off the event. With Jason Wharton on the flute and Craig 'Phlea' Lee on the drums, she sang Pins'n' Needles, Feel The Burn and Pain Won't Go Away. To say she was stunning would be putting it mildly. Performance poet Ganja put in a cameo with Katherine before soloing and sparkling.

It was a night when everyone was on the top of their game. The GasMoney quintet of Fabian Pinkney on lead vocals, Vernon DaCosta on rhythm guitar, Akiri Cooper on drums, Andre Dennis on bass and guest lead guitarist Hamilton Brown of the band Anthirium rocked through a cover of Incubus' Megalomaniac and three originals: Dead Inside, Drift Away and Wooden Doll. Fabian has a voice many would kill to possess and he used it well, and the other band members played like there was no tomorrow.

Cezar did One Way Love, Beautiful, Take The Fall and Keep On and if the screams from the ladies present was any indication, he closed out the year with a bang. Ray Darwin and his band performed like the stars they are and had everyone screaming for more. Cusser & The Storm Band did their unique - for Jamaica at least - brand of punk rock and had practically everyone pointing their first and fourth fingers to the sky.

Rootz Underground defies description. Clearly on the top of their game, their blend of blues, rock and roots reggae put the audience into a frenzy. Stephen Newland on lead vocals, Jeffrey Moss-Solomon on vocals and rhythm guitar, Colin Young on bass, Paul 'Scooby' Smith on keyboards and Charles Lazarus on lead guitar went through Smile Jamaica, Soul 2 Soul, Riverstone, a cover of The Cure's Love Song, Love Again, Victims, Corners and another cover, Midnite's Late Night Ghetto and they could do no wrong.

Tuesday Night Live (TNL) is the brainchild of Village's Robert Collins and Mystic Urchin's Cherie Dowdie (who is leaving the island to attend school) with inspiration from Bobby Barnes of Cusser & the Storm Band, and its Internet presence can be found at http://www.myspace.com/tuesdaynitelive. Dowdie, who took an active part in TNL for the last time on Tuesday, says "Tuesday Nite Live came from Tuesdays In Stereo, which we were doing last year, it was a great event and we were very proud of it... but because it was an 'event' we couldn't sustain it.

"So we did it for three months and called it quits... I'd always wanted to restart it but I couldn't seem to get anyone behind me. When I was just about to give up Robert (Collins) called us and said 'Hey, let's do Tuesdays In Stereo again' and I said 'But Robert we don't have any support, I don't see how we'll be able to do it'. He said 'Well... you don't need any. Just do it'.
"So we did.

"Now... left to my own devices, I wanted to create a show that was about the music. Not about the hype of where to go this Tuesday night. I wanted to create a platform for musicians who wanted to be heard but weren't getting any airtime in the mainstream, and for people who wanted to hear something different than mainstream music. I feel really great because I think we've actually succeeded in doing that.

"The highest points of TNL for me was at the end of the night when the people who knew I was the one who was pulling it all together would come to me and say, 'I love what you're doing here, or when the band members would say, I'm really happy someone is doing this.' Low points...when we weren't making enough money.and at the end of the night I had to look at an artiste who'd gone through so much effort and expense... and say, 'I'm sorry, I don't have enough money to pay you.'"

Cherie Dowdie's 'duties', as it were, are being taken over by independent marketing consultant Julia Vaz, who has big plans for the future of Tuesday Nite Live. Apart from continuing to provide a platform for those who wish to break into the entertainment business and expose their talent, she says Mystic Urchin and Village Tube - the production/cable television arm of the Village Café involved with Tuesday Nite Live, which will air the performances - want to establish a 'performance space' for artistes and hopefuls.

According to her, ". artistes will have somewhere to rehearse and practice, and in return they could teach. people who want to learn (how to play instruments, sing, various aspects of the entertainment business etc)."

"Ultimately," she continued, "it is our hope to use TNL to bond together the community of musicians and lovers of live music."
There are also other plans which will have to be fleshed out she says, but one is teaching acts how to get by in the business and about the tools they will need, such as ready biographies, sample CDs and the like.

One thing that Julia Vaz says she would like to change is the time the show starts each Tuesday night. Currently, the live performances start at around 11pm - which is when patrons actually start arriving, in keeping with one of the peculiarities of Jamaicans when it comes to entertainment. They would like to start earlier and so appeal to lovers of live music to turn out earlier.

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Danse Macabre

2009-02-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

This is a "Danse Macabre"(trans. "The Dance of Death") etching. Google it folks.

It's a late medieval allegory on the universality and inevitability of death. No matter one's station in life, the dance of death united all. It's thought to have originated in Germany in the form of plays, which spilled over into the art - hence the etchings, there are also of course paintings.

This particular image is "Death and the Maiden" and the point of me having it up is this:

I'm attracted to the truth and finality of the imagery. Usually in these representations, the "victims" of death were depicted as skeletal and resistant. Here, the artist is delivering a bigger message in our own shallow language. She is what most consider the ultimate of life -"young", beautiful, healthy and happy. and he has mated death with this ideal, and she responds as she should - she remains unchanged (consider this against it being said that in youth we hold all the answers to life).

I like the double entendre, you can't tell if she's resisting or inviting with her hand on his. If you really look at the lines and her body language, she's coy.. is she leaning away or into death? I like to think she's inviting him, not because she does not value her life, but precisely because she does. You have no option to decline death, when he visits you, you neither have to "submit" or "fight". You accept that it's a part of life, and you value it like you value all your other life experiences.

I have not properly worded and explained.. i'm coming back to this later.

Strange Universe

2009-02-12T11:06:00.004-05:00

I dreamt the levee broke and as water cascaded over us you clung to my fingers and said "I could never love you in the real world, there you are only shadow."

Dreams have encroached like a potent ink drop in water making my days thick like walking underwater, everything muted and in slow motion.

I am alternately comforted and petrified by my surreal trap.

Lost Treasure

2009-02-12T10:33:00.000-05:00

I unearthed a lil treasure (pun intended) in my myspace surfin.
This girl has a great voice, mellow and welcoming. Her songs are comforting.... makes me think of warm Sunday mornings with coffee on the patio, or a glass of red wine chillin out at a jazz spot with my friends.
When her song "Queen Of Heaven" started playing on her page I thought "Ohh, she's on the Corrinne Bailey Rae bandwagon" but she sounded good so I listened anyway, and found out I was wrong. She does sound a lil like Corrinne, meets Erica Badu, meets the soul of a woman who has a definite sense of what her music is about. Her songs have an element of African music, but styled in such a way it's sounds jazzy while remaining true to it's origin I think.

This is just me trying to put a finger on it. Either way. I was pleased with discovering her and wanted to share. I get the sense she is young to her sound; I think if she finds her footing she will be quite a powerhouse.

I am definitely interested in seeing how she develops

Check her out, and if you appreciate, please support her by passing it along with your opinion included. Just click on the link I included below to go directly to her page.

Tesouro

Little Havana Morning

2009-02-12T10:28:00.000-05:00

Little Havana Morning

little Havana morning
the sun is calling your name
and I'm wasting away in your stories
on this little Havana sunrise

you're something special
detrimental to my rise and shine
and I'm taken over
hoping every day is just like this
I want to stay

-CHR
www.myspace.com/crimsonheartreplica

bouncing back

2009-02-03T16:24:00.000-05:00

Today I am happy because I befriended the universe. How could I ever dwell in tears when I get gifts like the turning of the leaves in SouthEast Ohio, or releasing a grasshopper from a windowless classroom and careless feet.

I have this urge to abandon standing upright, throw my arms back and float into the air, like I do in the sea. Even though I have yet to figure out the physics of feeding that particular desire, I am sated by the deep breaths of my imagination, by the feeling of rising when I think about how beautiful I am, how beautiful my life is. Of how gifted I am with the potential to do the things I desire.

The universe is vigilant, so goodness will always remain no matter how much I am touched by the ugly things in this world.

Today, I am happy because I can't help it!

My relationship with the word no, and the neverending search for balance

2009-02-03T16:11:00.000-05:00

I'm working on my relationship with the word "no". The universe is vast beyond most of our comprehension and I think we hide from it by getting lost in the daily bullshit. None of this is really as necessary as we think; maybe my theories are escapism, but I think all this job and house and money and just material bullshit prevents us from seeing the big picture (life as a true experience). Which is not to say they don't have their place - jobs and careers serve the function of rabbitholes, and help us to discover ourselves - and pay our bills - and if you got that down, then you cool.

Now.. back to no. I realise that the universe is a huge melting pot, if you will, of opportunities or rabbitholes. Whatever. For me, the point of life is experience. never say never, and never say no, but ironically I find I say no a lot. Sometimes I think if I don't say no, I'll be absorbed by the possibilities - literally disappear down a rabbithole - which might not be a bad thing. but I have other things on my agenda that I gotta stay grounded for.

So in the end, no for me, is about balance, because I'm that girl who's always gungho, always ready to make the flex and try something new, so a liberal sprinkling of the word no keeps me balanced, and reminds me that while life's experiences are ripe for the picking, no means standing for something, and if you don't, you're liable to fall for anything. Remembr that little gem?

personal activism = global activism

2009-02-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

Committing our lives, or a large share of our resources is not the only way to make a contribution to improving our environment. Every action has an effect and EACH of us in small ways can make a combined difference.

I am only now beginning to learn the ways in which our world is in need of urgent attention. What I do know is regardless of cause, we each have the power to make a difference.

Take the the fight against deforestation;often people feel that saving a piece of paper the size of the corner of a notebook sheet won't make a difference. It is after all "just a piece of paper" - WRONG. If we look at our actions as part of a collective of time and people, we would see that saving the equivalent of that little piece of paper every single day for our lifespan adds up to a significant amount. And in doing so, we influence others to do the same. And if they encourage more people, imagine the IMPACT that can have?

Every day in a myriad of ways we each can make a difference. This is personal activism. What small activity can you do everyday to make a difference?

waiting in the undercurrent

2009-02-03T15:28:00.003-05:00

I understand the definition of subconscious to be where secondary processes take place, and from which our actions are REALLY driven.

That is a tough concept for me, because I live in the undercurrents of life, that "just beneath" place, which I think is the same wavelength on which the subconscious operates. I am very much AWARE of their exchange so neither my conscious nor subconscious is in subordination of the other, and I am always examining how things originate and are passed to the conscious self for execution.

The examination of the underneath things has a curious side effect. Happiness:

Sometimes I lie really still in the undercurrents (imagine: a fish hovering just under the surface), life flows over my waiting, and gradually I am filled up with a profound gratitude and awe for life. I begin to see the hugeness of our existence, and I feel this swelling inside myself, a fullness with the pure substance of the universe. As I inhale all I can of this magic, I always feel so full and heavy I think maybe my molecules will become full, I will become what the universe is made of, and I will be absorbed.

This is why I loved Annie Dillards "Pilgrim At Tinker Creek" so much. I can relate! Except she found it in flash and pomp, for me it's a gentle, escalating euphoria - which has led me to theorize that if you are searching for a connection with the universe then allow yourself to be truly happy. Or, allow yourself to connect with the universe, and you will be truly happy.

If you never have then you should try it, next time you see something beautiful, put everything else aside and allow it to fill you up.