Saturday, February 13, 2010

Friday, February 12, 2010

do i really have to title it?


I was reading one of my friend’s blogs and at the end she wrote a note to herself, kind of to remind herself to breathe and that the world won’t end if things don’t happen exactly as you imagine they should in order for you to feel good about what you do. At least, I think that’s what it was about. And then after, she asked what a little note to ourselves would look like.
Mine goes like this:


                 Dear me,
                     “Maybe there’s nothing really missing.”
                      
                 Love,
                    me.


This also reminds me of a piece of advice another friend shared with me earlier in the week.
                        “A delay is better than a disaster.”
Deep! Oh, timing. So strange. It’s like, when you don’t have what you want or what you imagine would be awesome you just want it every day and always feel like it’s missing. But, in a perfect and logical world you would be in conscious preparation. It’s easier to do this in some realms of life than in others. 3 examples:
1.      Ever since my sophomore year of high school I knew I wanted to go to Columbia. And, I had always been a good student and had a very different relationship with learning than I do now that I wish I could get back to, but that’s neither here nor there in what I’m trying to talk about… in school, I had always done my best and as the prospect of college got closer I dreamed and I kept trying. I think, even if more on a subconscious level, forgetting to eat because I was so engrossed in homework, setting an alarm for 4 am to finish a paper and ACTUALLY waking up, falling asleep with textbooks in my bed and waking up in the middle of the night to read at least another sentence before my eyelids felt too heavy and I rolled over again… was all in preparation. I knew what I had to do to have a chance in getting to where I wanted to be, my best. And, sometimes my best was to actually let myself sleep. I’m not gone front. But in any case, I had to be focused. Being here has also showed me the meaning of “be careful what you wish for,” but still I’m glad I’m here for a number of reasons, largely opportunities and people that I’ve met but that’s a whole nother post.
2.      I want to be a writer. I want to make a career out of being a writer. I’m still trying to figure out what the preparation for this looks like. So far, I just make sure that I write whenever the spirit moves me, meaning random ideas that come to mind, putting homework to the side to start writing a story or poem, sitting down on random steps, riding the subway with no destination for inspiration, listening to little voices inside of my head, practicing being bold and not giving a damn how weird I may seem, submitting to publications, taking extra writing workshops where available, learning to become comfortable with being different and challenging myself to do things in new ways. Now, professionally and go-getterly and make moneyingly- I still have work to do. And I also think there’s an unconscious level where, sometimes something annoying/strange happens to me and I wanna cuss  something awful but it leads me to writing and I appreciate it. Writing, among many other things, is about living and the insights and voice you are given by living. I’m really trying to remember to make sure I live.
3.      Ugh. Mmhm. Yeah, you already know. I want love. Have, for as long as I remember. And, of course as I get older this means different things and I learn more about what I mean by this. And, that is a part of preparation. The thing about love though is… I have no like “time control” over it. Of course with college, you get there after high school. And writing is more in the middle because you never really know when and if you’ll be recognized but there are deadlines and there are efforts to make with results. However, preparation for love: there are no benchmarks and time-lines, you have to get there by faith and resolve. Or at least that’s what I imagine. I think a big thing for me is patience, and constantly searching and remembering other ways to stay awake in the meantime. And I wonder if every time I write a new poem, story, idea, random list, journal entry etc I’m getting closer. I’m realizing things that if I deal with now, don’t have to create barriers between hearts. And I wonder if every time I wake up thinking it’s just gonna be another day, and instead I find a new artist or listen to something I haven’t heard in a while and listen for HOURS with no regard for time or what “I should be doing” and when I read or meet a stranger, or see something beautiful, or ugly, or intensely ordinary, hear a new voice/artist/music in the subway/on the street just anything to break the monotony and routine I wonder if I’m getting closer, if  I have a new story for you. And I really wonder if you can hear me when I’m in a group of people and my heart just uh keeps on racing and beating and threatening to break out and burst through me and out on to a table or floor every time I feel a pure urge to speak, no matter how simple. Like when I wrote this poem in class yesterday:

List: What Black Women Can’t Do
1)      Be erected in statue like Nike
2)      Attract John Mayer
And read it in a room, largely, full of people who don’t look like me at the risk of being “too black, ornery, divisive” (all of which wouldn’t necessarily be true, but be perceptions).
            I wonder if I’m closer. I wonder if this makes me closer. I wonder if the entries I write to you in my little mini moleskins get me closer. I wonder if that day I really felt everywhere inside me like I was gonna find you because I had finished one of those brown books and got hella angry and down but still started another, different but still earnest, little brown book I still write in now … I wonder if that gets me closer. I just want to be closer and closer. And I wonder if your name is really Jeremiah. Another random thought, maybe from reading a book  in preteenhood with a really sweet black boy named Jeremiah, that reading a chapter of you in the Bible every once and a while gets me closer. Whatever it takes to be closer. And I’m just wondering now, if that means to forget you for a little while. And, if that means to only think about me. About building so much of me for you to see one day, and every day after. If that means challenging myself to find a new author, new song, a new stranger, new brand of Pringles (shout outs to Onion Blossom and Buffalo Wings), new scarf, hat, tee, form of poem, sentence, color, argument, quote, song, corner/ray of sunlight, chair to read in, stance to lounge in, dream to dream I love every time I feel like love is missing I’ll do it for me, but mostly for you.
Because I want to believe that you can love someone that much and it make more sense than anything I’ve ever been taught or latched on to in fear. Because I don’t want to live a life I’m not convinced I’ll really live life until I find someone that can give me that mutual. Who yearns, in however much ignorance and naiveté or wonder or “be careful what you wish for” just like me.  Just because it feels good to dream.

i really like jeffrey mcdaniel

he has four books of poetry, i believe. no, i have not read all of them.. or even one of them completely. so yes, i need to get my life together. haha. BUT, i have heard read/several of his poems and they're soo... great. i really admire the humor present in his work, work that also holds a lot of gravity. it's heavy, but i'll take it. and i also like the way he reads his poems. but i don't want to talk too much, just really wanna post the last couple of videos i watched.

#3 hilarious, so i guess this girl really wanted to record him but without consequence. so, she focused the camera on her scarf... the words are all that matter anyway. and sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.



#2


#1


Also, we had to bring in a poem we admire (as well as one of our own) to my free non credit writing (poetry) class today. I brought Jeffrey McDaniel's "Archipelago of Kisses." I could have brought in a lot of different things, but i guess i was just really feeling him today. And, it's also just beautiful. Click me & Check it out!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

What's SMOOTHER than this?!

"DanceWitMe" by Maxwell
*excuse the tacky picture, just listen to the music ;]

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

because i haven't written anything in a while, i'll say the first things that come to mind.

1. I've been listening to KC & the Sunshine Band more consistently than any other group/artist ever since the post with them and Earth, Wind & Fire live and the Jackson 5 a couple weeks ago. The music makes me really happy/moves me :]
2. The thing that makes me go : /, is that I can count on one hand (and not even count through all my fingers) how many people I know that would enjoy the "all-old-school-music" birthday party I mentioned during that same post. I mean I have a little party in my room every time I play my music, but there's nothing like sharing something you love with others.
3. Sometimes, I feel unusual. I mean we all have our little idiosyncrasies and us-specific thoughts and behaviors but... i don't know. Mine make me feel a little alone sometimes. But, there are also times when I'm like, "well whoever shares this with me will be that much more special/ oooOoh well, this just makes me special."
4. I really like being alone.
5. But, lately (and i'm sure it's happened before) it's been harder for me to get up in the morning because I just roll around in my bed and try to either continue dreams in avoidance of the routine that's coming, or daydream about a different waking-up-in-my-bed scenario. The latter usually involves ...
6. Well, sometimes my back hurts. or has this strange little fatigue. It's like, all on its own, it's lonely.Even if every other part of my body is cool and even mentally I'm not thinking about that, my back is like, "Sure wish I had a chest pressed up against me." And the rest of me is all, "Don't start that now."
7. So after the ellipsis in #5 there'd be someone to wake up to, waking up to being held. Somehow it seems like it would be much more natural than me rolling around to turn off my alarm and back around to close my eyes and pretend I have time for 10 more minutes to find a satisfying dream.
8. You ever have anyone completely shit on something you're searching and dreaming for? I've had it done jokingly a couple of times- not maliciously but unnecessarily. But, I decide not to dwell on what is useless to me. The rest of this just made me think of it.
9. You know what? I'll say it. I'm pretty sure if anyone ever says, "Well, what do you know about love anyway?" to me in some shape or form again I may explode. I will not accept this question from anyone that has not found what they want, are happy & healthy in it and have been and will be forever. Until, you find something lasting... what do you really know?
10. That just made my mind go blank.
11. Anywho... this is a really good song by KC & the Sunshine Band: