Saying Goodbye to 2013...

So here, I sit at my desk at work, dimly aware of life around me (groggy as I am from lack of sleep) and I pause...I am at my desk...on the last day of the year 2013. its over. another year: an eventful, interesting, depressing, joyous, life changing, painful, beautiful year is at its close...I'm awed...as I go through captured moments, a lot come to mind, and many un - captured...but lets attempt a quick photoreview...

FrenchMan's Cove, January 2013

I had the pleasure of beginning the year with fellowship, as some of my closest friends all piled up into a car and we were off, to one of the most pristine beaches on our little Isle of Jamaica...it was lovely, and the memory of that day warms me.

Tenors of JYC (Not pictured: D. Hamilton, P. Dawes and D. Bailey)

Had the first official photo-shoot and concert Season of the Jamaica Youth Chorale, here I am with my fellow tenors. I Love these guys like family, and I am heartened to know they feel the same 

Diocesan Festival Choir Beach Trip (James Bond Beach)

My sister paid me a visit for the summer. It was glorious having her back with me, and sharing the life I had carved for myself in Jamaica with her. Here we are on a choir beach trip, and about to attend a street session with my/our father (lol), and, as usual, It became like we were kids again lyming and skipping, sighting, water war...I miss her much, and as I may not see her for another 2 years, this vacation was immensely memorable

The real glue that keeps this Trio running 

Post performance, Music in the Hills, the Ambrosian Ensemble

I was a Part of an octet for a concert recital of Operatic Choruses and Quartets, Broadway standards and Sacred works...I sang In German, Latin and Italian...Loved every second of the experience, and I hope I am called upon again to sing with these awesomely talented people

My most emotionally charged role to date, I was a dance soloist to spoken word at the year's "Gungo Walk" and "Tallawah" arts festivals. I played Dwayne Jones, A young Gender non-conforming boy who had got beaten to death by a mob of intolerant Jamaicans. I was scared, I was saddened...and I cried. It will be a role and piece that remains with me forever, and I am glad I could do something in tribute to a life cut too short 

Kinesio taped and ordered a month of no activity

 THIS WAS HARD...while dancing, I got a sprained back and slightly dislocated a vertebra, and jarred them. I got my first immensely debilitating injury since mountain- biking as a kid (I biked off a cliff and landed right into a concussion, lol), and it was very eye opening... it hurt...deeply, as it made me aware of just.how.dangerous.dance. is. It was and is a task acclimatising to this weakness, and I hope as I learn to live with it (the effects are somewhat permanent) and to regain strength, I will keep the lesson of safety and moderation forefront in mind. Another effect it had was the revelation that not all is as it seems, and an olive branch can pose as hemlock and vice versa..

Here pushing through pain during a work break

Company Dance Theatre In McDaniel's Reggae piece SESSION. 

I Performed in my fourth season of dance with the Company Dance Theatre, a great task and undertaking with a career - ending injury (that demanded rest that I wasn't willing to take). while it was not a particularly happy time of it, I have grown as a performer, and tested in great discomfort as I sought not to let the experience of the audience be marred by my handicap.




While there are many more eventful photos and experiences, I chose to try and highlight those I was a bit more "comfortable" sharing...for now...
It was great having you 2013, I definitely gained strength; even at the expense of the physical, courage and no shortage of opportunities to glean wisdom. I have, lived, laughed, loved and made bonds that I hope will last a lifetime, and memories that will last until the end of all time.

And I am undone...

In the moonlit expanse of a tiny space

that we make infinite by our need for intimacy

I feel the charge

the sting of it

as...

cold caresses become hot, bold ravishing

engulfing bodies in a flame long kindled.

And I am undone

long before the first kiss, 

long after the last caress

as sunlight touches us

and illuminates my favourite pillow

hard as sculpted marble

yet soft as down-stuffed velvet...

securely encased i lay

And...I...am...Undone

hmm...

Do wounds ever truly heal?

Dark Angel by Joss Arnott (dance)

Needed release...and words I cannot un-write

I have been at myself since Sunday evening (today being Tuesday) to have a listen to Celtic Woman's "The Voice". I had a talk with my best friend, and before I could even explain the compulsion to find this song, he gave the answer I myself was unable to give name to...
I was missing home...
I was missing home...and in agreeing I also added, for it felt I needed to ..."I was missing"...
A lightning bolt was sent searing a hot trail into my brain and shooting into my heart.
I have not been home in over a month, not slept in my own bed, carved lovingly by the hands of my grandfather, not been in my room, the layout decided on and implemented by me to reflect my tastes, my personality, me...I had not gazed at nor updated my arts wall, no new posters adorning my space...I have not sat, ravenous at my aunt's table for Sunday dinner, leaving feeling for all the world like my stomach was stretched to thrice its mass...and then I thought of my aunts, of my family...and I wept, a silent storm of bitter tears in the stillness of night, as the space I held, adjacent yet separated by leagues as you lay thinking me asleep and go about your activity, forfeiting yourself good rest, and by doing so me of the same. I miss moments when the cold of the bed surrounding me was an absence I was accustomed to, when my bed was shared by my Grams on visits and bad days, and by my sister when her mask of invulnerability disappeared before the waxing of the moon; before life became complicated and I hung by my collar, servant to love.
And it is that love that tempers the bile of loss. On good days I accept all; I see where I am happy and make happy, where moments pass of such unbridled bliss...but days like today, a low day, a day when it feels like I need that assurance I'm not a hamster on a treadmill going nowhere, when I need that word, that hug, that gesture...It is, like in others, absent...And it is absent because of my silence, yet my words don't and never have banished it...I am with you to be happy, I am not happy unless you are happy, you are not happy because of instability, I am on this wheel to combat that which would usurp your stability... I only ask that I be made aware I am remembered. Thoughts are unseen, and welcome, but not enough...

"Lonely" by Frozen Stardust

and still, come morrow, I greet the day and smile, and hope that today I am moored to land, not bobbing out to sea so close to harbour...please...

A Venting letter...Part 1 of....

If I were able to...
If I could, I would speak to you about your willfulness, your stubborn nature, your apparent inability to be anything but closed, however, makes this both an exercise in futility and in itself an impossibility

first note: I am an introvert. I will not explode, I will not be one of the loud voices clamouring to be heard. I sit, I hold my corner, and do my duties. In the event that I have something to say, I will say it, and if I am comfortable I may also share bits of myself. your needing an extroverted person who plays introvert so that you can feel superior is not what you have got here...and it is not okay to choose which moment to validate that I am not a loud person.

second: I am educated. I am well read. I am an adult. these things I put into one because quite simply, It is already draining me to express this in a way that is not direct, showing the universe because your universe is not receptive to the reality and relevance of it. I am considered a person of above average command of the English language, so your language needn't be simplified, it does however need to be clearer. repeating nonsense in a slow condescending manner while syllabicating three syllable words is not going to make it make sense. It will, however, offend me. My grandfather IS a carpenter, my father and uncle ARE tailors, my aunts and grandmother sew as well...I know my way around colours, fabric and tools. Do not feel the need to describe it after I have already said "I know what it is." I wouldn't say it if I did not know. I have done this kind of job before, I am proficient in most of these things and what I am not I seek help with. you rarely do this tutelage, and so I calmly posit that you do not try to be rude or mean in your addressing of matters concerning the completion of a task you watched me do to completion after watching me do all the other tasks, as opposed to actually helping with any of the work. you are quality control. this is not my company. you had the client watch me do it the wrong way and waste resources in a task that could not possibly 'teach' me anything if done incorrectly.