I Want This!

MAC Mattene Lipstick "Night Violet" (MAC has discontinued it. Bring it back. Pretty please.)

thoughts

i.

i love people who write.

Just a random thought. Writers are so introspective and often really quiet. But there are always storms brewing beneath their quiet veneer...always always. And they may not say anything but boy when they write it [whatever /it/ may be] out...when they spell out what they are thinking and feeling inside...you can just get blown away/you just get amazed. It's why they are so loved by me.


ii.
Growth.

This has been the theme of my existence for quite some time. I feel like i've just been so changed, so much more matured and so...chiseled. Yea thats it I feel like the past few months has been a /chiseling away of/ process for me, like shit has just been falling off of me that wasn't sustainable for grown womanhood. Like I've been stepping into myself much more fully, or like I've been a crushed and folded flower that is slowly opening itself up to the sun, expanding into my fullness and it is truly beautiful and I am truly thankful for the universe's many blessings, even the ones that come in full disguise to test my resolve and my...grownness

Like...I think I just felt so lonely/misunderstood for so much of my adolescence...tortured and confused and doubtful and afraid and unwilling and unable to see truth and beauty and love and light...and I'm counting college as part of my adolescence...in fact like I've mentioned before on this blog by some definitions adolescence lasts until about 25 since this is purportedly when the brain fully matures...but I think that I am at the end of that cycle...or maybe I'm at the beginning of the end...but things just look/feel/taste/smell so much different from this point of view

[ 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things]

I've just lately been feeling so much more at peace...or so much more ready to make peace with myself...much more willing to claim the light

[now we're moving from the darkness into the light/this is the defining moments of our life india.arie]

i think it's because i've been


iii.
teaching.

i've been teaching. i've been growing in my teaching. it's been amazing/sacred/artful/consciousness opening and an honor to be entrusted with lives the way i have. i learn something new everyday about myself or the world or human nature. yesterday my heart was warmed when my co-teacher told the kids that i was going to be out on january 20th...and they sighed and said "aww man!"

it was so cute. <3

in teaching i've been blessed to discover and truly contemplate and meditate on the idea that the things that truly matter are the things that are inside of you...your character...your spirit...your intentions...your heart

[you teach who you are]

when i teach my shit is spread wide open for the kids to see and access and influence and be influenced by. i've learned that it doesn't matter if externally my shit is tight/my hair is perfectfully coiffed/my clothing is impeccable/my speech is fluent and filled with empty euphemisms

if inside my shit is not tight/my heart is bleeding/i am at war with any part of myself/i am losing sleep or health or goodness/i am doubtful or mistrusting of my ability [and by extension, of their ability]

because kids deal in spirit and they are not fooled by pretty, empty packages

which causes you to rise to their occassion and step your game up and fix your inside shit so that they can have strong foundations from which to spring forth and blossom and discover

which truly causes you to spiral headfirst into adulthood if you weren't there already [if adulthood may be defined as the point in space time where you are not in denial about the impact of your presence in the universe/about the interconnectedness between all things/and about owning the weight of responsibility for all of your actions, be they small or large, good or bad]

i pray that every single one of my kids grows up to know fully their purpose and shine brightly and spread love and consciousness and healing

i pray that my presence in their lives and the presence of our school in their lives truly serves to buffer and protect them from the negative incantations of a society that says that they can't because they are

too poor
too black
[too brilliant]
[too wonderful]

I went to New Orleans

And I saw the drastic differences between the levees in the French Quarter and the Lower 9th ward.

I went to New Orleans and I cried and laughed and smoked three joints out of loneliness and connectedness and spiritual awakening and exhaustion.

I went to New Orleans and I wondered if I could ever feel so in love with an experience, a place, an entity again?

I went to New Orleans and I sometimes thought that I would die from the weight of the hatred aimed with precision at my people.

I went to New Orleans and learned that alcohol splits spirit from body, and you break tides when the pain threatens to paralyze your capacity to feel.

I went to New Orleans and sipped a daquiri ate a po'boy and held onto the rope of Allah.

I went to New Orleans and poured secret libation to my Nana.

I went to New Orleans and knew that I resurrected Christ everytime I felt hope or broke down a wall.

I went to New Orleans and the word nigger-excuse me, it hurts to repeat-rained down on me, threatening to shatter my glasses and leave me blind and groping.

I went to New Orleans and a voice I didn't know I had overcame me and I sang a chorus until my voice went hoarse, then I rested and sang again.

I went to New Orleans and I couldn't talk.

I went to New Orleans and photographed the edges because the center was something I wanted to submerge myself into completely-camera free-with empty hands and open arms, and it was a relationship I wished to keep between me and my mind's eye.

I went to New Orleans and couldn't understand why I wasn't there earlier.

I went to New Orleans and worshiped trees from a rooftop.

I went to New Orleans and acutely needed physical contact to remind me that I was still a point in space-time, even though I wasn't.

I went to New Orleans and thought about family members I didn't know.

I went to New Orleans and wondered where my sister was?

I went to New Orleans and loved more deeply than before, but there were still barriers to cross.

I went to New Orleans and perspective slapped me high across the face.

I went to New Orleans and thanked God(dess) over and over for my parents, and their parents, and their parents. Cousins aunties and uncles. People long passed and people still waiting to break through into this dimension.

I went to New Orleans and was taller than I was, and bigger than I was perceived.

I went to New Orleans and I gave the force of all my strength, and my femaleness did not matter in the giving, just my heart.

I went to New Orleans and reorganized my life, thought again about what I value and why.

I went to New Orleans knowing full well that one journal entry or song or poem or painting or clay figurine or carving could not possibly hope to contain all that was, all that is, all that will be.

I went to New Orleans and I absorbed. I took in. I expanded. I bore witness. I broke bread. I prayed to mother Africa I opened up to sunlight I made love to air I breathed self into existence god(DESS) said Be and I was.

Then the space-time stand-in for me left New Orleans. Yet having touched ground once I remain forever connected, understanding that spirit will continue to call me back. And I will answer. And I will carry New Orleans with me wherever I go. And I will find New Orleans in every experience I have. And I will live where they would have me die, find sustenance where they would have me starve, and shatter walls they would have me believe would imprison me forever. I will crowbar I will shout I will birth I will resurrect until I find my way.