as I reflect

"Yuh tek drunkard 'tick fi guh lick mawga dawg,

when mawga dawg dead a weh yuh a guh do?"

(You take drunkard's stick to abuse the meagre/malnourished/ailing dog, when the dog dies, what will you do?)

 - Jamaican proverb an folk song lyrics 

This song keeps re-visiting my mind lately, and I suspect the reason needs exorcising. I see so very often people try to obfuscate truth - and truth here in its many forms. People hide the truth of their convictions, the truth of their feelings, the truth of their hopes, their goals, their abilities. for what? Why on earth do we play this game of hide the real self? and then the more baffling aspect that these lines speak to: we highlight the plight and misperceived (often deliberate) weak points and 'villainy' of others. to what end? why do we put each other down? is there some point to this? crabs in a barrel will climb over each other to escape - BUT THE BARREL IS NOT A CRAB'S NATURAL HABITAT! we are not in a barrel...in fact, often we are experiencing pressure in a unique way, and the lessening of that pressure often has very little to do with the person who we drag into our situations.

NOTE: drunkard stick... the song notes that we are not "ourselves" in this moment. we are removed from sensibility and for whatever reason we in that state of weakness - react in outward destruction.

So... when that blame causes the person, the system of support, the group - whatever - to disperse, disappear, no longer function or be a point of escaping scrutiny...What will we/you/he/she/they do? are we even thinking of that time to come?

...Weh we a guh do?

cycle, circle, closed.

"You see dat ting you do? you gwine have to stop it and LISTEN TO YOUR HEAD ... from you little mi a tell you say people a people, and dem not always ready like you fi 'see full picture' - sometimes dem nuh even ready fi more dan one line at a time... and you always know when enuh, you always know when, but you just stubborn. anyway, as usual mi bet yuh tiyad now an' ready fi finally listen. clear out and go again. an' dis time, don't call me when is prayer time (the only woman I know who from 4 am to 7 is prayer time) to ask what you already know. mi love you. take care a yuhself, and God have it - even when yuh nuh feel it."

My Grandmother has a pertinent and present voice in my head, and almost none of our talks are new - for some reason I keep heading to the same spiral.

...maybe the book everyone claims to want to live by is secondary to the egos everyone wants to nurture and I'm behind on truly believing that. well, this rubber duck has left the gyre

Of Memory and Magic...and missing

We have a tradition...
I can't say which of us started it - mostly because for different reasons it is something we'd both do- but it has become an unspoken  and reflexive action. We dress each other as a means of saying goodbye. I say "dress" to describe it, but it feels, as most words feel, inadequate to describe the sentiment and ritual itself... but it does give the idea. We end the rite with the person leaving fully dressed, though sometimes with a rumpled shirt by the time we share parting glances. It begins with a shared shower, but sometimes in the interest of time this is done separately.  Each limb is surreptitiously and reverently washed,  every bit of skin caressed by Lathered loofah and the warmth of soapy palms. There is much holding and embraces, awkward smiles and blushing, as the spray of the shower blurs visibility. We dry each other, with our own towels, lying to ourselves that we do so to the parts that would ordinarily be hard to reach: the middle of a back, nape of a neck. Surprisingly we manoeuvre from bathroom to bedchamber,  a tangle of arms still patting the acreage of each others skin dry. It is often at this point that one of us - invariably the one most likely leaving later or being left behind - falls back into the bed, at turns reconciling ourself to the impending parting, while vainly hoping to pose as inviting enough to tempt the other into forgoing plans. The one with the deadline (and this time it is he), would hurriedly if a bit jerkily get dressed off to the side, often deeply aware of being watched, and yet just as often steeling themself against returning the gaze lest resolve disappears. Having lost this last stand, the other would move out of bed, clothes for their departure or something to accompany the other to the bus stop being picked and laid out before. This round, I was the one standing denuded before him, willing my hands to my sides rather than to subconsciously attempt to shade the bits of my body I am not comfortable with. He'd start with boxers, slowly drawn up my legs, thumbs in the waistline dragging parallel lines up my flesh, the elastics taking the fabric in their trails wake. Just before it settles on my hips, he plants a quick kiss on my thigh, a process is repeated with each article of clothing, caresses topped off with a kiss to an area being covered up. All the while, a look of awe laced with sadness emanates from the twin depths of his eyes. Now clothed, we stand face to face in a tight embrace, which he invariably breaks to look at me quizzically.  Grudgingly I nod, giving the permission which we both know is for me a frightening prospect. He lifts me. What had begun as a taste of own medicine (as I have on numerous occasions lifted others easily), became tentatively Canon to our routine. Holding me aloft, swaying gently with me. Unhooking my legs, the action is reversed, and I hold him while his legs are wrapped around me. Throughout this exchange, soft words of affection are traded, with all the gravity of a jurors verdict. It is a slow uncoupling as we separate,  our hands the last things to become disjoined. We say no actual goodbye,  but a lingering gaze into each others eyes as we express love in our awkward "get there safely" or "I miss you already".

We have a tradition...
I can't say which of us started it...but we live for when it becomes obsolete

Do not profess love for me on Valentine's day

I hate it. not the day, just the sharing on the day of romantic sentiment...hypocritically, I love seeing it in play around me. just...don't bring it here. I have no story I'm willing to share that would make one sit up and say "Oh, that's why. in truth I have just always treated love when directed at me with a measure of...skepticism? disbelief? agonising mistrust? pick your cadence, they have equal validity. this year is no real difference from years I have had the privilege of having a significant other, except that I do not have someone with which to shower my affection while skittering away from theirs. and that's okay. especially this year, where I share the sentiment, but could not on pain of death feel in any way motivated to demonstrate it. and that is a big thing. people who know me know that I write and I do, and if I feel no urge to do either...something is not right

to those in love: love on
to those in hate: may time heal the reason
to those ambivalent: my brethren, how will we cope?

ramblings and bumblings.

Bless

I weep for wand'ring far...alone?

Recently, I had decided to risk taking a break from studies and go back home (Jamaica) for a weekend to attend a funeral, a concert and to see my family and taste 'our' food; to sort of reconnect and refresh myself from a debilitating case of homesickness. I was walking to the Taxi stand to get home, having lost track of time liming at a friend's place catching up on all I had missed with them, while being a student abroad for the past 6 months. The driver who stopped for me, impatient as the light had changed beeped to hurry us along (what transpired after could only be because he had thought he was waiting for two customers not one). I headed into the car and after I said morning, he [driver] proceeded to ask why it was that he [my friend] had to walk me to the bus stop. I responded with "because we were still in a conversation"- or at least I began to, as in true ignorant fashion, he did not allow me to finish before repeating the question twice, coming to a halt at the bus stop below the light, at which point for brevity let's just say he asked me to leave his car, all the while stating his hate for "people like you and him". I left his car, almost responding in kind and closed his door... He was about to and did drive off, before his apparent crony in the front seat convinced him that "is really slam di batty boy slam yuh car door" whereupon he came to a halt yet again, now in the middle of the road, venting his upset at my disrespect of him. When I responded that I did no such thing he came out and around to me, brandishing a sharpened screw driver. He then, while continuing his soliloquy came into my space and hit me in the face, sending my glasses flying to land in the grass behind me. It was open handed, and it did not really hurt, in fact it convinced me that if it were a fair fight I could have trounced him with energy to spare; he was an unhealthy man, whose bulk is more attributable to food and alcohol as opposed to brawn. I'm sure he realised this in the same instant I did; because he again brought attention to his screw driver and his friend, holding the front door, at the ready to jump in. It set my teeth on edge to let it go, but I stood there. I stood there as he shouted to other taxis heading in opposite direction to turn and come down the route, that he had just expelled this "Batty man" from his vehicle and encouraged them to do the same. He then, vindicated in his self-righteousness, swaggered to his seat and drove off. A taxi man behind him, who had stopped to witness the event, and looking at me with the unmistakable stare of pity asked if I was headed on his route. I wasn't, but I put all my gratitude at his quiet support in my decline and thanked him. Shortly after I had got into another cab, and a quarter of the way home I realised my vision was blurred and my eyes stung. I knew I had no urge to cry and checked my face... my glasses were not there! Jolted, I asked the driver if I came in wearing them.  He said no, and I begged him and other passengers to turn back, as I needed them - stressing that they were not style accessories, and it was beginning to hurt. The other travellers, no doubt high from their weekly obeisance of church and likely feeling magnanimous, allowed for the return.  I found my lenses in the low grass, unscathed, a few inches from a steaming pile of animal excrement. Thankful for that small mercy, I took them, cleaning the lenses in my shirt as I returned to my seat to the applause of my fellow passengers who considered it lucky that though I was careless, the Lord made my glasses stay unmolested so I could come back and find it; especially as they "looked so stylish and expensive." I didn't answer, and beyond a hushed 'thank you' when I exited said not another word until I was in my room telling my father good morning

I am tired...and despairing of finding any place in my own mind to retreat to from the lashes of a cruel reality. It is not that my experience caused some immense awakening; I had seen abuses: prevented a few, had to sit through some, and some are so gruesome that they leave a stain on my soul that no amount of prayer has or will be able to exorcise from me - but the question remains... how does one even find strength to breathe anymore?

Word-Soul-Redbones Edition II

OMG!!!!!! *squeals in excite createment*

ok...well, no, I'm not known to be "starstruck" but this was cause for some excitement.
I got to meet The Awesome Ms Tanya Stephens!!!!!

Mario, TANYA, Davell and I after the show

  the second staging of Tribe Sankofa's "Word-Soul-Redbones edition" at the Redbones blues cafe was every bit as entertaining as i'd hoped with the double whammy bonus of seeing Tanya Stephens performing some of the standards I love from her rep, even bussing a piece of Boom Wuk *YESSS!!!* ***(((Pauses here to acknowledge the awesomeness that is Renee Imani McDonald, dancer extraordinare LOVE seeing her perform)))***, and seeing the awesome Michael-Sean Harris Perform -wait for it- Mountain! this song I LOVE! God hearing it live again was awesome, a shame Kevan wasnt there to play the necessary and very sexy kumina rhythm as accompaniment...then there was his singing wining on the table top *goes full retard in privacy of room*...all in all a splendid show, mad props to le bestie Hanief the group's musical director, and Davell Thompson, who is just a bowl of awesomeness...Special praise to Aldane and Javed, hard to believe my younglings from Ardenne are now out in the world *sniff*

...and with No one to say "weep not, child" but the urge of disillusionment for constant company...

Ever just feel like your life took a turn and you've become a textbook example of nihilism? I've found that mine seems to take that turn a little more than every so often...usually carving a deep swathe into my happiness, leaving almost no joy in its wake. I cryptically told my aunt of a major problem that always sends me spiralling into deep depression whenever it comes up; she looked at me and said (translated to English) "You have yet to make the connection  between being nice and caring and taking the persons weight on your own shoulders, whether or not you think it is your fault, you in reality help no one when you yourself respond to it the way you do...look at you at nights sighing into pillow and looking like when  your mother just died, you cant keep doing this to yourself...its not healthy, and it is upsetting." and yet I retreat to same form..I cant deal, I have tried very hard to make amends, tried very hard to not further be a cause of pain or discomfiture to anyone and yet I keep finding myself here...keep finding myself...here...why do I keep going back to this place? why...I am so tired...so very tired...some days I do not even want to move, and this is after more than eight hours of sleep, as opposed to my usual four, after which I would usually be sprightly and awake...I often contemplate the world sans my existence...and in my estimation, if they can survive without my sainted mother...why then would they need me? me the source of pain and a monument to bad memories...

I feel like all I push most times is "down"

The Sharing and Navigating of our "Personal Darknesses"

Today's emotion cannot be processed, user is tired and quite annoyed with the world at the moment, but will explore their feelings...Eventually

       A friend of mine was sharing some difficulty they faced going through a bad breakup...the hardest part for them was not simply that they weren't over the person...it was the spaces that they shared with them...he referred to his personal space as his darkness...heartbroken, he says he now has no peace because he made "my" (his) darkness "our" (their) darkness...and it got me thinking (of course, AFTER we talked and he was comforted while we ate and laughed) of personal space and our own each of us "Darkness", the forms they take and the effect they have on us...as well as the gravity of what happens when we share these things.
     I can relate and I am sure we all can, with the reality of each of us having personal "darkness", whether it take the form of a place, activity, object or an amalgam or several of the former; it is this "thing/group of things" which "centres" us, makes us able to survive the world, to face the madness around us with relative calm and bravery. For me the primary one of my seemingly numerous is the solace of reading alone at home, for you doubtless it will be otherwise. I now imagine how much it takes many of us to share this personal space with someone...here I do not mean "tell" someone about it, though it my take that form as well...but to have them engage in it with you or even be present while you enact this process (be it so) . this is tantamount to letting them have an unfettered view of your essence, often see directly into your soul (hmm, feels like over-romanticism? maybe, maybe not), and this delicate moment is one that can make you or infinitely break you (and to the rare few, it will not phase you, and in that instance, was it really ever that important to you?)...now imagine that person/those persons disregarding the gravity of being "let in" or even worse know the importance and ignore it in a fit of neglect, anger, antipathy or just.plain.stupid.? if you're like me or my friend, your response is unease or despair, a gloominess or heaviness fills you at the thought of the activity/thing now, often so much so that it makes you avoid it altogether. others however, lash out, they make the person (or often everyone-the rest of the world) pay for this crime, this invasion and infringement...I warn us all to not take the communion of  private worlds lightly; yes we are human and there will be times we "mess up" but we should as much as possible be vigilant, because we never know when in our moments of humanity we may damage a soul beyond recognition and often beyond repair